Pray let me show it you. It is among the sculpture in the Museum. A. I shall be delighted to go with you. Andiamo! you see I am beginning to talk Italian. B. Andiamo! Naples, April, 1844. THE CONTRAST, OR THE FOSTER- CON the yellow sands of Naples bay, UPON One morn of delicate Italian spring, I saw two girls of six years old at play, Coursing about in many a frolic ring. In infancy they drained one mother's breast: One was of gentle English parents, born Beneath the fervent sheen of southern skies; Like the intelligence of earliest morn The azure opened in her laughing eyes. Around her neck white coral beads were strung, O'er which her tendril curls in light profusion hung. The other was a contadina's girl, And peaked Ischia was her native isle; In Ischia not alone do summer heats Shoot downwards with intolerable ire, But rocks and stones o'er which the cool wave beats, Are half calcined with subterranean fire: And the young Ischiote's every gest and feature Shewed her of blood that shared that climate's fiery nature. Freedom was in her action and her look; Her wandering hair as jet was dark and bright, And matched her eyes, that when she turned or spoke, Brimmed o'er their lids with floods of living light; Her head was bare; her robe, in hue carnation, Seemed loose, though held by clasps of gold, in Grecian fashion. Methought, in after womanhood the one Or, fallen on evil days, that she would prove Would cry, "or be existence proudly lost!" Would never listen to a sober plea: F Would never stoop to reckon up the cost Her sailor-boy would follow o'er the brine, No more. They were a contrast; yet they drank Of natural happiness. O, I could rank Of children with the intercourse of love Angel with Angel holds, singing in realms above! Naples, April, 1844. THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE AT PÆSTUM. A FRAGMENT. Ν IN this, the noblest of these far-famed three, Whose attributes are mystery and grandeur, They, who the veil of ages drew aside, First saw the rents the thunder-stroke had made; For such things have been: haply, with the blast When universal Nature pants, nor man Nor beast goes forth; and the horizontal air, * The Mosquito. |