There are bright scenes beneath Italian skies,
Where glowing suns their purest light diffuse,
Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise,
And nature lavishes her warmest hues;
But trust thou not her smiles, her balmy breath,
Away! her charms are but the pomp of death!
He in the vine-clad bowers unseen is dwelling,
Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throws;
His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling,
With gentlest whisper lures thee to repose;
And the soft sounds that through the foliage sigh,
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.
Mysterious danger lurks, a Syren, there,—
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,—
But stealing o'er thee in the scented air,
And veiled in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb:
How may we deem, amidst their bright array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?
Sunshine and bloom, and verdure! can it be,
That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature! if in thee
Danger is masked in beauty—death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,
Where she, the Sun's bright daughter, dwelt of yore!
There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds;—
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain,
O'er fairy towers, and palaces of state,
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.
And pillared halls, whose airy colonnades
Were formed to echo music's choral tones,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shades*[1],
Peopled by sculpture's graceful forms alone;—
And fountains dash, unheard, by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples, and forsaken groves.
And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,
Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise,
By wave or grot, might Fancy linger, dreaming
Of old Arcadia's woodland deities.
Wild visions!—there no sylvan powers convene,—
Death reigns the genius of the Elysian scene.
Ye too, illustrious hills of Rome, that bear
Traces of mightier beings on your brow,
O'er you that subtle spirit of the air
Extends the desert of his empire now:—
Broods o'er the wrecks of altar, fane, and dome,
And makes the Caesars' halls his ruined home.
Youth, valour, beauty, oft have felt his power,
His crowned and chosen victims—o'er their lot
Hath fond affection wept—each blighted flower
In turn was loved and mourned, and is forgot.
- ↑
* See Madame de Staël's fine description, in her 'Corinne,' of the Villa Borghese, deserted on account of the malaria.
