And whence the talisman by which she rose Towering? 'T was found there in the barren sea. Want led to Enterprise; and, far or near, Who met not the Venetian? now in Cairo ; Ere yet the Califa came, listening to hear Its bells approaching from the Red Sea coast; Now on the Euxine, on the Sea of Azoph, In converse with the Persian, with the Russ, The Tartar; on his lowly deck receiving Pearls from the gulf of Ormus, gems from Bagdad, Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round, When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed, Treasures from unknown climes, away he went, And, travelling slowly upward, drew erelong From the well-head supplying all below; Making the Imperial City of the East Herself his tributary.

Thus did Venice rise, Thus flourish, till the unwelcome tidings came, That in the Tagus had arrived a fleet From India, from the region of the Sun, Fragrant with spices, - that a way was found, A channel opened, and the golden stream Turned to enrich another. Then she felt Her strength departing, and at last she fell, Fell in an instant, blotted out and razed; She who had stood yet longer than the longest Of the Four Kingdoms, — who, as in an Ark, Had floated down amid a thousand wrecks, Uninjured, from the Old World to the New.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

ROME.

I AM in Rome! Oft as the morning ray
Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry,
Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen
me?

And from within a thrilling voice replies,
Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;
And I spring up as girt to run a race!

Thou art in Rome! the City that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;
The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (what but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side ? )
Grew into everything; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandise,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
But hand to hand and foot to foot through hosts,
Through nations numberless in battle array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them all.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

THE GRECIAN TEMPLES AT PÆSTUM.

IN Pæstum's ancient fanes I trod,
And mused on those strange men of old,
Whose dark religion could infold
So many gods, and yet no God!

Did they to human feelings own,
And had they human souls indeed,
Or did the sternness of their creed
Frown their faint spirits into stone?

The southern breezes fan my face;
I hear the hum of bees arise,
And lizards dart, with mystic eyes,
That shrine the secret of the place!

These silent columns speak of dread,
Of lovely worship without love;
And yet the warm, deep heaven above
Whispers a softer tale instead!

ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.

COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT.

FROM "MANFRED."

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. - Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness

I learned the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,
upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Caesars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot, where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battle-
ments,

And twines its roots with the imperial hearths.
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;-
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries,
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old !—
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.

BYRON.

ARCHES on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored, but still exhaustless, mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,

Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because

Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure. Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms, on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

We look on the dreamy Campagna, All glowing with setting day,

All melting in bands of purple,

In swathings and foldings of gold, In ribbons of azure and lilac,

Like a princely banner unrolled.

And the smoke of each distant cottage, And the flash of each villa white, Shines out with an opal glimmer,

Like gems in a casket of light.

And the dome of old St. Peter's

With a strange translucence glows,
Like a mighty bubble of amethyst
Floating in waves of rose.

In a trance of dreamy vagueness,
We, gazing and yearning, behold
That city beheld by the prophet,
Whose walls were transparent gold.

And, dropping all solemn and slowly,
To hallow the softening spell,
There falls on the dying twilight
The Ave Maria bell.

With a mournful, motherly softness,
With a weird and weary care,
That strange and ancient city

Seems calling the nations to prayer.
And the words that of old the angel
To the mother of Jesus brought
Rise like a new evangel,

To hallow the trance of our thought. With the smoke of the evening incense Our thoughts are ascending, then,

To Mary, the mother of Jesus,

To Jesus, the Master of men.

O city of prophets and martyrs !

O shrines of the sainted dead!
When, when shall the living day-spring
Once more on your towers be spread?

When He who is meek and lowly

Shall rule in those lordly halls,
And shall stand and feed as a shepherd
The flock which his mercy calls,

O, then to those noble churches,

To picture and statue and gem,
To the pageant of solemn worship,
Shall the meaning come back again.
And this strange and ancient city,

In that reign of his truth and love,
Shall be what it seems in the twilight,
The type of that City above.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

NAPLES.

THIS region, surely, is not of the earth. Was it not dropt from heaven? Not a grove, Citron, or pine, or cedar, not a grot Sea-worn and mantled with the gadding vine, But breathes enchantment. Not a cliff but flings On the clear wave some image of delight, Some cabin-roof glowing with crimson flowers, Some ruined temple or fallen monument, To muse on as the bark is gliding by, And be it mine to muse there, mine to glide, From daybreak, when the mountain pales his fire Yet more and more, and from the mountain-top, Till then invisible, a smoke ascends, Solemn and slow, as erst from Ararat, When he, the Patriarch, who escaped the Flood, Was with his household sacrificing there, From daybreak to that hour, the last and best, When, one by one, the fishing-boats come forth, Each with its glimmering lantern at the prow, And, when the nets are thrown, the evening hymn Steals o'er the trembling waters.

Everywhere

Fable and Truth have shed, in rivalry,
Each her peculiar influence. Fable came,
And laughed and sung, arraying Truth in flowers,
Like a young child her grandam. Fable came;
Earth, sea and sky reflecting, as she flew,
A thousand, thousand colors not their own:
And at her bidding, lo! a dark descent
To Tartarus, and those thrice happy fields,
Those fields with ether pure and purple light
Ever invested, scenes by him described
Who here was wont to wander, 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
Filling the mind by turns with awe and love,
By turns inclining to wild ecstasy
And soberest meditation.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

GREAT BRITAIN.

FROM "THE TRAVELLER."

My genius spreads her wing,

And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide;
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind!
Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,

When at the altar of the temple stood

The holy priest of God. The incense-lamp
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant
Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof,
Like an articulate wail, and there, alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.
The echoes of the melancholy strain

Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up, Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head

Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off
His costly raiment for the leper's garb,
And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still,
Waiting to hear his doom :—

"Depart! depart, O child

Of Israel, from the temple of thy God,
For he has smote thee with his chastening rod,
And to the desert wild

From all thou lov'st away thy feet must flee,
That from thy plague his people may be free.

"Depart! and come not near
The busy mart, the crowded city, more;
Nor set thy foot a human threshold o'er ;
And stay thou not to hear