To TARTARUS, and those thrice happy fields, Those fields with ether pure and purple light Ever invested, scenes by him portrayed 287 Who here was wont to wander, here invoke The sacred Muses, here receive, record What they revealed, and on the western shore Sleeps in a silent grove, o'erlooking thee, Beloved PARTHENOPE! Yet here, methinks, Truth wants no ornament, in her own shape And soberest meditation. Here the vines By many a voice yet sweeter than their own, Its hopes and fears and feignings, till the youth But here the mighty Monarch underneath, He in his palace of fire, diffuses round A dazzling splendor. Here, unseen, unheard, Opening another Eden in the wild, His gifts he scatters; save, when issuing forth In thunder, he blots out the sun, the sky, And, mingling all things earthly as in scorn, The sleep of ages — till a plough, a spade, Glares coldly on the streets, the skeletons; Let us go round; And let the sail be slack, the course be slow, Built in the sea; and now the boatman steers Nothing now heard ashore, so great the change, Hoots in the temple. What the mountainous isle 200 Seen in the south? 'Tis where a monster dwelt, 201 Hurling his victims from the topmost cliff; Then and then only merciful, so slow, So subtle, were the tortures they endured. Fearing and feared he lived, cursing and cursed; 292 And still the dungeons in the rock breathe out Darkness, distemper. Strange, that one so vile Should from his den strike terror through the world; Should, where withdrawn in his decrepitude, Say to the noblest, be they where they might, "Go from the earth!" and from the earth they went Yet such things were and will be, when mankind. Losing all virtue, lose all energy; Let us turn the prow, And in the track of him who went to die 293 Traverse this valley of waters, landing where 294 Once did I linger there alone till day Just where the three ways meet, I stood and looked The name of every dweller, and his craft; Mark, where within, as though the embers lived, Of shows ere long to be) a sculptor wrought, But, lo engraven on the threshold-stone, As through the courts and chambers we advance, And columns clustering in patrician splendor. And now a harp-string as struck carelessly, And now I cannot err, a filling as of baths! -Ah, no! 't is but a mockery of the sense, THE BAG OF GOLD. I DINE very often with the good old Cardinal **, and, I should add, with his cats; for they always sit at his table, and are much the gravest of the company. His beaming countenance makes us forget his age; 296 nor did I ever see it clouded till yesterday, when, as we were contemplating the sunset from his terrace, he happened, in the course of our conversation, to allude to an affecting circumstance in his early life. He had just left the University of PALERMO, and was entering the army, when he became acquainted with a young lady of great beauty and merit, a Sicilian of a family as illustrious as his own. Living near each other, they were often together; and, at an age like theirs, friendship soon turns to love But his father, for what reason I forget, refused his consent to their union; till, alarmed at the declining health of his son, he promised to oppose it no longer, if, after a separation of three years, they continued as much in love as ever. Relying on that promise, he said, I set out on a long journey; but in my absence the usual arts were resorted to. Our letters were intercepted; and false rumors were spread -- first of my indifference, then of my inconstancy, then of |