Out of the rocky dust of the wayside The lamps of the aloes burn'd themselves

aloft,

Immortal; and the prickly cactus-knots
In the hot sunshine overleant the walls,
The lizards darting in and out of them;
But in the shadier side the maidenhair
Sprung thick from every crevice. Passing
these,

He issued on to the Piazza, where

The wonder of the world, the Fountain streams

From height to height of marble, dashing down

White waves forever over whitest limbs, That shine in multitudes amid the spray And sound of silver waters without end, Rolling and rising and showering suddenly.

There standing where the fig-trees made a shade

Close in the angle, he beheld the streets Stretch fourways to the beautiful great

In wavering color'd lines of light and shade.

And downwards, from the greatest of the gates,

Porta Felice, swept the orange-groves;
And avenues of coral-trees led down
In all their hanging splendors to the
shore ;

And out beyond them, sleeping in the light,
The islands, and the azure of the sea.
And upwards, through a labyrinth of
spires,

And turrets, and steep alabaster walls,
The city rose, and broke itself away
Amidst the forests of the hills, and reach'd
The heights of Monreale, crown'd with all
Its pinnacles and all its jewell'd fronts
Shining to seaward; - but the tolling bells
Out of the gilded minarets smote the

ear:

Until at last, through miles of shadowy air, The blue and violet mountains shut the

sky.

I lie on the earth, and to thee look up,
Into thy image will grow my cup,

Till a sunbeam dissolve it into the same.