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CANTO VI.

CONTENTS.

Pausilipo; its beautiful localities-influence on Virgil. Lake Avernus :
Creations of the Poets: Elysian fields. Bridge of Puzzuoli, and passage
of Caligula. Nero in the Amphitheatre. Baie and its amenities-illustri-
ous Romans who resided there. Messalina-her despair; Agrippina: her
character and death. Changes in Baiæ: Ruin of the Temple of Venus:
Cuma fertility within it. Thoughts among the ruins. Moral fable
of Dædalus: Scipio at Liternum. Cape Misenum. Capri; Tiberius
-his character: portrait of the man: his remorse. Sorrento-convul-
sions of Nature. Sirens' Isles: Homer-Circe and Ulysses.

:

Tasso and his Sister-their meeting at Sorrento: Twilight: Ode on
the Promontory of Minerva-Night: Reflections, Amalfi-its magnifi-
cent appearance from the Sea. Solitudes of La Cava: Salerno-the
Wastes. Pæstum-appearance and locality. Thoughts on the Present,
and the Past. Augustus Cæsar at Pæstum. The Setting Sun on the
Temples: Apostrophe to the Sea :-Conclusion.

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
Fills the live air; descending from the sky,
Thy Shadow fills thy chosen land beneath :
Thy Voice is in the Waters when they sigh
Away their strength to thee in melody!

Oh, who that looks upon that Ocean-foam,
Nor sees thee rising to his raptured eye?

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,
Who, be our moments here or grave or gay,

Must be forgotten: such be not the fate
Of him who pours his worship in this lay;

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,
Could, prophet-like, herself inspire that glow

Only to meeting, answering bosoms given:
Which only spirits who have felt can know,

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!

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