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ARE WE ALMOST THERE?

237

ARE WE ALMOST THERE?

RE we almost there are we almost there?
Said a dying girl as she drew near home ;
"Are those our poplar trees which rear

Their forms so high 'gainst the heaven's blue dome?"

Then she talked of her flowers, and thought of the well Where the cool water splashed o'er the large, white stone; And she thought it would soothe like a fairy spell,

Could she drink from that fount when the fever crept on.

While yet so young, and her bloom grew less,

They had borne her away to a kindlier clime,

For she would not tell 'twas only distress

Which had gathered life's rose in its sweet spring-time.

And she had looked where they bade her to look,

At many a ruin and many a shrine

At the sculptured niche, and the pictured nook,
And, viewed from high places the sun's decline.

But in secret she sighed for a quiet spot,

Where she oft had played in childhood's hour; Though shrub or floweret marked it not,

'Twas dearer to her than the gayest bower.

And oft did she ask, "Are we almost there?"

But her voice grew faint and her flushed cheek pale ;

And they strove to soothe her with useless care,
As her sighs escaped on the evening gale.

238

THE VALE OF BAIAE.

Then swiftly, more swiftly, they hurried her on ;

But anxious hearts felt a chill despair;

For when the light of that eye was gone,

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And the quick pulse stopped, she was almost there."

ANON.

THE BAY OF BAIAE.

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SES! I have gazed from high Misenum's steep,
O'er the blue waters of the Tyrrhene deep;
Have seen outspread before my dazzled eyes
That glowing rivalry of seas and skies:

The shore, the classic shore, around me lay,

Each vine-clad precipice, each silvery bay;
There rose fair Pozzuoli's patrician bowers,

Baiae's rent fanes, and Cumae's ruined towers;

Green waved the copse, where lone Avernus slept ;
Sparkling to shore Fusaro's ripples crept ;

Capri's steep rock, and Ischia's sloping height,

Traced their dark outline in the vivid light,

While o'er the scene's whole calm, yet bright repose,

With softened terrors far Vesuvius rose.

Each spot of haunted earth here breathed its tale,

Of the rapt Sybil; of the fated sail

That wafted to this strand the Phrygian throng;

Of Scipio's exile, and of Virgil's song.

Here, too, the purple masters of mankind,

The gorgeous cares of empire, pleased, resigned,

TO THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL ITALIAN GIRL.

And sought beneath Campania's azure sky

A charm the world's dominion could not buy ;
While Rome's degenerate nobles, feared no more,
On Zama's plain, or Actium's beetling shore,
Forgot to sigh, 'mid Baiae's golden bay,

For honour lost, or freedom cast away.

LORD MORPETH.

239

TO THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL ITALIAN GIRL.

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ART thou some vision of the olden time,

Some glowing type of beauty, faded long;
A radiant daughter of that radiant clime,
Renowned for sunshine, chivalry, and song?

Was it for thee that Tasso woke in vain

The love-lorn plainings of his matchess lyre?
Was thine the frown that chilled him with disdain,
Crushed his wild hopes, and quenched his minstrel fire?

Or art thou she for whom young Guido pined;
Whom Raffaelle saw in his impassioned dream,

The ray that flashed, in slumber, on his mind,
And o'er his canvas shed so bright a beam?

No, no; a masquer in its gay attire,

A breathing mockery of Ausonia's grace,
Thine is a charm as fitted to inspire,

With more than all their sweetness in thy face.

240

TO THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL ITALIAN GIRL.

I see thee stand, in beauty's richest bloom,

In youth's first budding spring, before me now,
A shade of tenderest sadness, not of gloom,

Tempering the brightness of thy jewelled brow.

Thy dark hair clustering round thy pensive face,
Like shadowy clouds above a summer moon;
Thy fair hands folded with a queenly grace;
Thy cheek soft blushing like a rose in June.

Thine eyelid gently drooping o'er an eye

Whose chastened light bespeaks the soul within ;
Lips full of sweetness; maiden modesty
That awes the bosoms it hath deigned to win.

There stand for aye; defying time or care

To make thee seem less beautiful than now!
Years cannot thin that darkly flowing hair;

Nor grief indent that pure and polished brow.

Whilst unto her from whom those lines had birth,
A briefer span but brighter doom is given;
To wane and wither like a thing of earth,

And only know immortal bloom in heaven.

ALARIC. A WATTS.

DIED ABROAD.

241

JUNE.

7ELCOME bright June, and all its smiling hours,
With song of birds, and stir of leaves and wings,
And run of rills, and bubble of cool springs,
And hourly burst of pretty buds to flowers;

And buzz of happy bees in violet bowers;

And gushing lay of the loud lark who sings
High in the silent sky, and sleeks his wings
In frequent sheddings of soft falling showers
With plunge of struggling sheep in plashy floods,
And timid bleat of shorn and shivering lamb,
Answered in fondest yearnings by its dam;
And cuckoo's call from solitary woods,

And hum of many sounds making one voice,

That fills the summer air with most melodious noise.

CORNELIUS WEBBE.

DIED ABROAD.

EEP not, O friends, weep not that she has faded;
One tender flower beneath a burning sky;
Weep not that death her loveliness has shaded;
Perchance she found it easier to die

Than to live on in a strange alien land,
A tender link snapped from her household band.

Perchance her loving heart, in that far dwelling,

Drooped for the gentle sunshine of her home;

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