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.

ROME.

FROM "ITALY."

SAMUEL ROGERS.

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,

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 Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song

And trembled; that from nothing, from the Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

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 traveler 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.

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 leveled 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 sceptered sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.

THE COLISEUM.

FROM "CHILDE HAROLD."

LORD 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

The sullen surf of the mist devours
That mountain-range upon either hand,
Eaten away from its outline grand.
And over the dumb campagna-sea
Where the ship of the Church heaves on to wreck,

Alone and silent as God must be

The Christ walks!- Ay, but Peter's neck
Is stiff to turn on the foundering deck.
Peter, Peter, if such be thy name,

Now leave the ship for another to steer,
And proving thy faith evermore the same
Come forth, tread out through the dark and drear,

Since He who walks on the sea is here!

Peter, Peter! he does not speak, ·

He is not as rash as in old Galilee.

Safer a ship, though it toss and leak,

Than a reeling foot on a rolling sea!

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

- And he's got to be round in the girth, thinks Ever invested, scenes by him described

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,

Who here was wont to wander and 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.

HOLLAND.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

FROM "THE TRAVELER."

To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

Thus while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here displayed.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.