Thy sands we paced in sunlight and soft gloom; From Tasso’s birthplace roamed to Virgil’s tomb. Baia! thy haunts we trod, and glowing caves Whose ambushed ardours pant o’er vine-decked waves. Thy cliffs we coasted, loitered in thy creeks, O shaggy island[6] with the five gray peaks! Explored thy grotto, scaled thy fortress, where Thy dark-eyed maids trip down the rocky stair, With glance cast backward, laugh of playful scorn, And cheek carnationed with the lights of morn. The hills Lactarean lodged us in their breast: Shadowy Sorrento to her spicy rest Called us from far with gales embalmed, yet pure; Her orange brakes we pierced, and ranged her rifts obscure. Breathless along Pompeii’s streets we strayed By songless fount, mosaic undecayed, Voluptuous tomb, still forum, painted hall, Where wreathed Bacchantes float on every wall; Where Ariadne, by the purple deep, Hears not those panting sails, but smiles in sleep; Where yet Silenus grasps the woodland cup, And buried Pleasure from its grave looks up. Lastly, the great Vesuvian steep we clomb; Then, Naples! made once more with thee our home. We leave thee now—but first, with just review, We cast the account, and strike the balance true— And thus, as forth we move, we take our last adieu. III. From her whom genius never yet inspired, Or virtue raised, or pulse heroic fired; From her who, in the grand historic page, Maintains one barren blank from age to age; From her, with insect life and insect buz, Who, evermore unresting, nothing does; From her who, with the future and the past No commerce holds, no structure rears to last: From streets where priests and jesters, side by side, Range the rank markets, and their gains divide; Where faith in art, and art in sense is lost, And toys and gewgaws form a nation’s boast; Where Passion, from Affection’s bond cut loose, Revels in orgies of its own abuse; And appetite, from Passion’s portals thrust, Creeps on its belly to its grave of dust; Where Vice her mask disdains, where Fraud is loud, And naught but Wisdom dumb and Justice cowed;— Lastly, from her who planted here unawed, ’Mid heaven-topped hills, and waters bright and broad, Lacks heart to gather, and lacks strength to bear, From these, one impulse of the free and fair; And, girt not less with ruin, lives to show That worse than wasted weal is wasted woe,— We part; forth issuing through her closing gate, With unreverting faces, not ingrate. BARBARIAN RAMBLES.[7]