CONTENTS. Pausilipo; its beautiful localities-influence on Virgil. Lake Avernus : : Tasso and his Sister-their meeting at Sorrento: Twilight: Ode on CANTO VI. I. SPIRIT of Beauty! holiest emanation From the All-Perfect-it is here thou art No Form ideal: no fabulous creation Born from the visions of the o'erflowing heart; Even as Athena into life did start, So art thou bodied from the Almighty Mind! Thy entering inspirations are a part Of our own being, to thy rule resigned, Thou, who pervading all, with Nature's self art joined. U II. Thine eyes are yonder azure, and thy breath Oh, who that looks upon that Ocean-foam, Nor feels while, cloud-like, thou o'er earth dost roam, Here is thy chosen shrine, thy resting-place, thy home? III. The Presence, the pervading Beautiful, Felt in the answering soul: whose haloing ray Circles the earth as with a Coronal : 'Tis we, brief breathing triflers, who decay, Must be forgotten: such be not the fate Who would an immortality create Even with the Spirit here, which none might sepa rate. IV. And oh, if Nature, robed in hues of heaven, Only to meeting, answering bosoms given: Here would she her high Oracles bestow, Where Maro blest thee once with loving eye, Softener of griefs, divine Pausilipo! Here, where he felt the inspiration high, That poured the ardent song whose strains were pro phecy. V. Onward we pass, and lo, Avernus lying Buried in depths with crag and vineyard crowned: Hast thou not still an Oracle replying To him descending there, which Maro found Thy solemn solitudes inspiring round? Or he, who, flying from his Grecian clime, Sought thee in thy Cimmerian gloom profound; Here, where the prophet in that night of time, Proved man's immortal soul, first, holiest faith sublime! |