Ode to Naples

EPODE 1a.

I stood within the City disinterred;And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfallsOf spirits passing through the streets; and heardThe Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals5Thrill through those roofless halls;The oracular thunder penetrating shookThe listening soul in my suspended blood;I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke--I felt, but heard not:--through white columns glowed10The isle-sustaining ocean-flood,A plane of light between two heavens of azure!Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchreOf whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasureWere to spare Death, had never made erasure;15But every living lineament was clearAs in the sculptor's thought; and thereThe wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine,Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,Seemed only not to move and grow20Because the crystal silence of the airWeighed on their life; even as the Power divineWhich then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.

EPODE 2a.

Then gentle winds arose25With many a mingled closeOf wild Aeolian sound, and mountain-odours keen;And where the Baian oceanWelters with airlike motion,Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,30Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves,Even as the ever stormless atmosphereFloats o'er the Elysian realm,It bore me, like an Angel, o'er the wavesOf sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air35No storm can overwhelm.I sailed, where ever flowsUnder the calm SereneA spirit of deep emotionFrom the unknown graves40Of the dead Kings of Melody.Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helmThe horizontal aether; Heaven stripped bareIts depth over Elysium, where the prowMade the invisible water white as snow;45From that Typhaean mount, Inarime,There streamed a sunbright vapour, like the standardOf some aethereal host;Whilst from all the coast,Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered50Over the oracular woods and divine seaProphesyings which grew articulate--They seize me--I must speak them!--be they fate!

STROPHE 1.

Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest55Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!Elysian City, which to calm enchantestThe mutinous air and sea! they round thee, evenAs sleep round Love, are driven!Metropolis of a ruined Paradise60Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained!Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrificeWhich armed Victory offers up unstainedTo Love, the flower-enchained!Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,65Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,--Hail, hail, all hail!

STROPHE 2.

Thou youngest giant birth70Which from the groaning earthLeap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!Last of the Intercessors!Who 'gainst the Crowned TransgressorsPleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail,75Wave thy lightning lance in mirthNor let thy high heart fail,Though from their hundred gates the leagued OppressorsWith hurried legions move!Hail, hail, all hail!80

ANTISTROPHE 1a.

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blasphemeFreedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirrorTo make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleamTo turn his hungry sword upon the wearer;85A new Actaeon's errorShall theirs have been--devoured by their own hounds!Be thou like the imperial BasiliskKilling thy foe with unapparent wounds!Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk90Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk:Fear not, but gaze--for freemen mightier grow,And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:--If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,Thou shalt be great--All hail!95

ANTISTROPHE 2a.

From Freedom's form divine,From Nature's inmost shrine,Strip every impious gawd, rendError veil by veil;100O'er Ruin desolate,O'er Falsehood's fallen state,Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!And equal laws be thine,And winged words let sail,105Freighted with truth even from the throne of God:That wealth, surviving fate,Be thine.--All hail!

ANTISTROPHE 1b.

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean110From land to land re-echoed solemnly,Till silence became music? From the AeaeanTo the cold Alps, eternal ItalyStarts to hear thine! The SeaWhich paves the desert streets of Venice laughs115In light, and music; widowed Genoa wanBy moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,Murmuring, 'Where is Doria?' fair Milan,Within whose veins long ranThe viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel120To bruise his head. The signal and the seal(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail)Art thou of all these hopes.--O hail!

ANTISTROPHE 2b.

Florence! beneath the sun,125Of cities fairest one,Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation:From eyes of quenchless hopeRome tears the priestly cope,As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,--130An athlete stripped to runFrom a remoter stationFor the high prize lost on Philippi's shore:--As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail,So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail!135

EPODE 1b.

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born FormsArrayed against the ever-living Gods?The crash and darkness of a thousand stormsBursting their inaccessible abodes140Of crags and thunder-clouds?See ye the banners blazoned to the day,Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride?Dissonant threats kill Silence far away,The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide145With iron light is dyed;The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legionsLike Chaos o'er creation, uncreating;An hundred tribes nourished on strange religionsAnd lawless slaveries,--down the aereal regions150Of the white Alps, desolating,Famished wolves that bide no waiting,Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory,Trampling our columned cities into dust,Their dull and savage lust155On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating--They come! The fields they tread look black and hoaryWith fire--from their red feet the streams run gory!

EPODE 2b.

Great Spirit, deepest Love!160Which rulest and dost moveAll things which live and are, within the Italian shore;Who spreadest Heaven around it,Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it;Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor;165Spirit of beauty! at whose soft commandThe sunbeams and the showers distil its foisonFrom the Earth's bosom chill;Oh, bid those beams be each a blinding brandOf lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison!170Bid the Earth's plenty kill!Bid thy bright Heaven above,Whilst light and darkness bound it,Be their tomb who plannedTo make it ours and thine!175Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fillAnd raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizonThy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire--Be man's high hope and unextinct desireThe instrument to work thy will divine!180Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards,And frowns and fears from thee,Would not more swiftly fleeThan Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.--Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine185Thou yieldest or withholdest, oh, let beThis city of thy worship ever free!