The hundred-gated Cities then, The Towers and Temples named of men The courtly bowers of love and ease, Where still the Bird of Pleasure sings:Ask ye the destiny of them? Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem ! Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roil, 'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurl'd; The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world. Oh! who shall then survive? Oh! who shall stand and live? When all that hath been is no more: When for the round earth hung in air, In the sky's azure canopy; When for the breathing Earth, and sparkling Sea, Lord of all power, when thou art there alone That in its high meridian noon Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon: When thou art there in thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom; When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round thee wait: And when the tribes of wickedness are strown Like forest-leaves in th' autumn of thine ire: Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own! The Saints shall dwell within th' unharming fire, Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm. Even safe as we by this still fountain's side, So shall the Church, thy bright and mystic Bride, Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm. Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines; We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem. LEIGH HUNT. AN ITALIAN GARDEN. A NOBLE range it was, of many a rood, A winding stream about it, clear and glad, Pure lavender, to lay in bridal gown, : The daisy, lovely on both sides,—in short, All the sweet cups to which the bees rescrt, With plots of grass, and perfumed walks between Of sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and jessamine, With orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit, And look as if they shade a golden fruit; And 'midst the flowers, turf'd round beneath a shade Of circling pines, a babbling fountain play'd, Which through the darksome tops glimmer'd with showering light. So now you walk'd beside an odorous bed Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk; And now pursued the stream, and as you trod And all about, the birds kept leafy house, And all about, a lovely sky of blue Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laugh'd through; And here and there, in every part, were seats, Some in the open walks, some in retreats |