LX.
What is her pyramid of precious stones ? (31)
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues,
Of geni and marble, to encrust the bones
of merchaut-dukes? the momentary dews,
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse
Freshness in the

green turf that wraps the dead,
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse,
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.

LXI.
There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
lu Aruo's doine of Art's most princely shrine,
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ;
There be more marvels yet but not for mine;
For I have been accustomed to entwine
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields,
Than Art in galleries; though a work divine

Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields

LXII.
Is of another temper, and I roam
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles
Fatal to Roinan rashness, more at home;
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
The host between the mountains and the shore,
Where Courage falls in her despairing files,

And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore
Reek through the sultry plain, with legion's scatter'd o'er

LXIII.
Like to a forest fellid by mountain winds;
And such the storm of battle on this day,
And such the phrenzy, whose convulsion blinds
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away! (32)
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay

Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet;
Such is the absorbing hate when warriug nations meet!

LXIV. The Earth to them was as a rolling bark Which bore them to Eternity; they saw The Ocean round, but had no time to mark The motions of their vessel; Nature's law, Jo them suspended, reck'd not of the awe Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw

From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no

LXV.

[words. Far other scene is Thrasimene now; Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough; Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'enA little rill of scanty stream and bedA name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;

And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red:

LXVI.
But thou, Clitumous ! in thy sweetest wave (33)
Of the most living crystal that was e'er
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters !
And most serene of aspect, and most clear;

Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters !

LXVII.
And on thy happy shore a temple still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild declivity of hill,
Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;

While, chance, some scatter'd water lily saila [talegi Dowo where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling

LXVIII.
Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
If through the air a zephyr more serene
Win to the brow, 'tis his, and if ye trace
Along his margin a more eloquent green,
If on the heart the freshness of the scene
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
Of weary life a moment lave it clean

With Nature's baptism,-'tis to him ye must
Pay orisons for his suspension of disgust.

LXIX.
The roar of waters ! from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.
And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
Iş an eternal April to the ground,
Making it all one emerald :-how profound
The gulf! and the giant element
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows More like the fountain of an infant sea Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale ;-- Look back! Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, -a matchless cataract: (34)

LXXII.
Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, (35)
Like Hope upon death-bed, and, unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn

Resembling, 'mıd the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Appennine, The infant Alps, which had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar (36) The thundering lauwine-might be worshipp'd more; But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau roar Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar

Glaciers of bleak Mont-Blanc both far and near,
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,

LXXIV.
Th’ Acroceraunian mountains of old name ;
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly
Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
For still they soared unutterably high :
I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye ;
Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made
These hills seem things of lesser dignity,

All, save the lone Soracte's height displayed
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

LXXV,
For our remembrance, and from out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to brcak,
And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain
May he, who will, his recollections rake
And quote in classic raptures, and awake
The hill with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,

The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word.(37) In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record

LXXVI.
Aught that recals the daily drudge which turn'd
My sickening memory; and though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wronght
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought

If free to choose, I cannot pow restore
Its health : but what it then detested, still abhor.

LXXVII.
Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand,

not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse,
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe bis art,
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce

Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart,
Yet fare thee well-upon Soracte's ridge we part.

LXXVIII.
Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and controul
In their shut breast their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!

Whose agonies are evils of a day
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

LXXIX.
The Niobe of nations there she stande,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woes;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose boly dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now (38)
The very sepulchres lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou fow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress !