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Till, sickening with the elements, the heart
Of man fails him for fear, and sinks in crime.
Or, haply, 'twas the winter, and the sea
Grew dark, then whitened o'er beneath the gale,
When the bolt fell; and the low racking cloud
Passed sullenly away, and muttering thunder,
Held converse with the echos of the hills.

Naples, April, 1844.

THE ZIZA OR EMIR'S PALACE.

HOME hither, day-dreamer,

COMER

And wander alone

In the courts of the Emir:

His glory is gone:
Midst the silence so fearful

Of the rich stuccoed hall,

The dropping mosaic

Peels down from the wall;
And you hear the rat gnawing,
And the bat's tiny cry,
Instead of steeds pawing,
And loud chivalry.

You may seek the spiced garden,

But its bowers are no more;

Its girdle is barren

As the barren sea-shore.

You

may mount the high terrace,

But the breezes are laid

That erst floated the signal

Of golden brocade

Of the dark girl impatient

Her true love to greet; Her true love that came not

Though his horses were fleet.

The spider has wrought

O'er the lattice so fine

A dusky gray tissue

With line upon line: The fresco is mouldered;

The shudder of ruin

The perishing marbles

With slime is bedewing;

And the fountain that tinkled

To the listening air,

Is choking with dust,

And the green maiden-hair.

Palermo, April, 1844.

SEGESTUM.

T was an April morning of the South.

IT

In the carubba and the cork-tree strove
All birds of song; sweetest the nightingale.
The upgathered snake that in the mule-path lay
Basking, at our approach unwound itself,

And slipped beneath the cactus, then with buds,
With bright-eyed buds of yellow, edging round

Its tough green leaves; strange leaves, that from no

stems,

But each from the other grow; themselves half wood,
With prickles armed: the aloe's tardier spring

Put forth not yet her lofty thyrse of flowers.
So we rode onward in the morning sun:
Till on a sudden turn among the hills,
Segestum, thy sole relic rose before us,5
On mountain precipices throned: but still
The way was long, or long it seemed: for they
Who journey in these regions, now lose sight
Of that they fain would reach; now with a glimpse
Are comforted; and wade, and creep, and climb.

But O, the wildness and the majesty

When, the last rugged slope surpassed, you stand
Within the Temple! Wide the pavement 'spreads,

And clear of all obstruction. 'Tis a joy
Not single, but made up of many joys,
To pace in meditation to and fro,

Athwart the parallel bands of sun and shade;
And make long vistas with the Doric shafts
Meeting by turns, and opening, till far heights
On which the lonely goatherd hangs, gleam through.
Scarce twenty paces off the hill sinks down

In an abrupt ravine; the torrent's roar
Comes up with a sustained low ruthless sound.
Formal and dark by contrast, overhead

The cornice cuts the azure sky, relieved
Not seldom by the soaring eagle's flight,
In circles urged, projected on the sky,
Traced and retraced, how grandly!—I have talked
With those who hold this Temple knew no touch
Of craftsmen's finishing hands; and urge in proof
The nodules, short projections, holds of vantage,
We see left on the stones, by aid of which

The blocks were from the quarry raised, and slung
Into their places; and the grooves that clip
The columns round; grooves destined to receive
The torus and astragalus of bronze,

Of Grecian workmanship :-I cannot tell

How these things may have been. The Temple now
Is Nature's, and hers only. Who shall say
In what consists completeness? Viewless powers

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