Classic Poem

Midway betwixt the present and the past—
Naples and Pæstum—look! Sorrento lies:
Ulysses built it, and the Sirens cast
Their spell upon the shore, the sea, the skies.

If thou hast dreamed, in any dream of thine,
How Paradise appears, or those Elysian
Immortal meadows which the gods assign
Unto the pure of heart,—behold thy vision!

These waters, they are blue beyond belief,
And England's emerald meads are matched by these;
The sun—'t is Italy's; here winter's brief
And gentle visit hardly chills the breeze.

Here Tasso dwelt, and here inhaled with spring
The breath of passion and the soul of song.
Here young Boccaccio plumed his early wing,
Thenceforth to soar above the vulgar throng.

All charms of contrast, every nameless grace
That lives in outline, harmony, or hue,
So heighten all the romance of the place,
That the rapt artist maddens at the view,

And then despairs, and throws his pencil by,
And sits all day and looks upon the shore
And the calm ocean with a languid eye,
As though to labor were a law no more.

Voluptuous coast! no wonder that the proud
Imperial Roman found in yonder isle
Some sunshine still to gild Fate's gathering cloud
And lull the storm of conscience for a while.

What new Tiberius, tired of lust and life,
May rest him here to give the world a truce,—
A little truce from perjury and strife,
Justice adulterate and power's misuse?

Might the gross Bourbon—he that sleeps in spite
Of red Vesuvius ever in his eye,
Yet, if he wake, should tremble at its light,
As 't were Heaven's vengeance, promised from on high—

Might he, or any of Oppression's band,
Sit here and learn the lesson of the scene,
Peace might return to many a bleeding land,
And men grow just again, and life serene.