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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=542178" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Day At Tivoli - Prologue</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fair blows the breeze—depart—depart—<br>And tread with me th' Italian shore;<br>And feed thy soul with glorious art;<br>And drink again of classic lore.<br>Nor sometime shalt thou deem it wrong,<br>When not in mood too gravely wise,<br>At idle length to lie along,<br>And quaff a bliss from bluest skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or, pleased more pensive joy to woo,<br>At twilight eve, by ruin grey,<br>Muse o'er the generations, who<br>Have passed, as we must pass, away.<br>Or mark o'er olive tree and vine<br>Steep towns uphung; to win from them<br>Some thought of Southern Palestine;<br>Some dream of old Jerusalem.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, Pilgrim-Friend! At last our sun outbreaks,<br>And chases, one by one, dawn's lingering flakes.<br>Come, Pilgrim-Friend! and downward let us rove<br>(Thy long-vow'd vow) this old Tiburtian grove.<br>See where, beneath, the jocund runnels play,<br>All cheerly brighten'd in the brightening day.<br>E'en in the far-off years when Flaccus wrote,<br>('Tis here, I ween, no pedantry to quote,)<br>Thus led, they gurgled thro' those orchard-bowers<br>To feed the herb—the fruitage—and the flowers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, then, and snatch Occasion; transient boon!<br>And sliding into Future all too soon.<br>That Future's self possession just as brief,<br>And stolen, soon as given, by Time—the Thief.<br>Well! if such filching knave we needs must meet,<br>Let us, as best we may, the Cheater cheat;<br>And, since the Then, the Now, will flit so fast,<br>Look back, and lengthen life into the Past.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That Past is here; where old Tiburtus found<br>Mere mountain-brow, and fenc'd with walls around;<br>And for his wearied Argives reared a home<br>Long ere yon seven proud hills had dream'd of Rome.<br>'Tis here, amid these patriarch olive trees,<br>Which Flaccus saw, or ancestry of these;<br>Oft musing, as he slowly strayed him past,<br>How here his quiet age should close at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here behold them, still! Like ancient seers<br>They stand; the dwellers of a thousand years.<br>Deep-furrow'd, strangely crook'd, and ashy-grey,<br>As ghost might gleam beneath the touch of day.<br>All strangely perforate too; with rounded eyes, <br>That ever scan the traveller as he hies:<br>Fit guardians of the spot they seem to be,<br>With centuries seen, and centuries yet to see.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who treads this pallid grove, by moonlight pale,<br>Might half believe the peasant's spectre tale<br>Of Latian heroes old, that come to glide<br>Along these silent paths at even-tide;<br>Or Sibyl, wan with ghastly prophecy,<br>From her near fane, as whilom, wandering by.<br>But Morning, now, and sunny vines are here,<br>From tree to tree gay-gadding without fear;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or else in verdant rope their fibres string,<br>As if to tempt the little Loves to swing;<br>Or, tricking silvery head and wrinkled stem<br>With tendril-curl, or leafy diadem;<br>A sportive war of graceful contrast wage,<br>The Grave and Gay—green Youth and hoary Age.<br>Hence we may feel Resounding Anio's shock,<br>As his full river thunders from his rock.<br>Yet mark! meanwhile adown its own small dell<br>How falls or winds each little cascatelle. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With no rude sound—with no impetuous rush;<br>But blandly—fondly—or by bank or bush.<br>Or floats in air; as when mild mermaid frees<br>(Or so they feign) her tresses to the breeze;<br>And careless, for a while, of coral bower,<br>Basks on the sunny sands till noontide's scorching hour.<br>How sweet! to have such gentle waters near;<br>Just soothing, ne'er disturbing eye nor ear.<br>Nor deem I those unblest, whom choice—or fate—<br>Leads to prefer the Lesser to the Great.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Repose, thou better privilege than fame.'—<br>So felt, we know, the great historic name,<br>Mecænas; he who owned those villa-halls,<br>All stately once, tho' now but rifted walls.<br>And hither, wisely truant, oft would come,<br>Forth from the smokes, the toils, the strifes of Rome.<br>For, tho' defaced, discolour'd, broken, bow'd,<br>Yet were they then of gold and ivory proud.<br>Or far beyond what proudest wealth might do,<br>From thoughtful art a nobler triumph drew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There, dark-hued urns, with mythic picture fraught,<br>Time's treasures! stood, from old Etruria brought;<br>Which even then had claim'd uncounted date,<br>When you great Rome was yet a struggling state.<br>Or marble vases there, in white array,<br>Beam'd back an added lustre to the day.<br>Or, better, when the gladly-welcom'd guest<br>Came to the banquet, rich with every zest,<br>From lamp of chisell'd bronze, adjusted light<br>Threw out some Phidian marvel on the night;<br>Evoking, heightening thus, in form or face,<br>Each subtler beauty or diviner grace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor yet, when hours of feast had found their close,<br>Or jaded statesman sighed for short repose,<br>Was wanting, there, some well-befitting room,<br>Nor all-too bright, nor quite subdued to gloom,<br>Whose odoriferous cedar-shelves along<br>Fair scrolls were ranged; philosophy or song.<br>There, all our Lost might be. All Livy told,<br>(Where now?) and all Menander limned of old,<br>Fresh from the life; with sweet Simonides;<br>And glorious Sappho, —greater yet than These.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then, perchance, you small and sinuous rill,<br>In open day now glittering down the hill,<br>Slid underground its tube-directed path,<br>To feed or sculptured fount or perfumed bath.<br>Their graceful rites, their gorgeous prides are gone;<br>Their proudest monument a crumbled stone!<br>Yet if the marble and the bronze decay,<br>Their storied memories fade not thus away;<br>But cluster still, tho' dying centuries toll,<br>Beadrolls for thought, and relics for the soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hence here have bowed, thro' farthest tracts of time,<br>Genius and Lore, from every cultured clime.<br>And hence, no less, thro' many a countless year,<br>Like us, shall unborn pilgrims worship here.<br>And how may pilgrim stand on spot like this,<br>Nor feel what flitting wayfarer he is?<br>Here, where the joys, the griefs, the hopes, the fears,<br>The busy doings of three thousand years,<br>Since first Tiburtus made these hills his hold,<br>Have dreamed their dream, and mingle with the mould.<br>Men pass like cloud, or wave, or morning dew:<br>A thought nor very deep, nor very new.<br>Yet who, as here, shall find him, face to face,<br>In presence of that Mighty Commonplace,<br>And not imbibe the moral of the spot,<br>Accept the general doom—and murmur not? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet, if All die, there are who die not All;<br>(So Flaccus hoped), and half escape the pall.<br>The Sacred Few! whom love of glory binds,<br>'That last infirmity of noble minds,<br>'To scorn delights, and live laborious days,'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And win thro' lofty toil undying praise.<br>What if for These, now verging to the tomb,<br>As yet, nor laurels spread nor myrtles bloom;<br>Proud mortgagees they stand of Fame's estate,<br>And for the brave reversion bear to wait.<br>Nay, what tho' never from th' ungrateful soil<br>Green chaplets spring, for guerdon of the toil;<br>In calm content their avarice sublime<br>May well forego those unpaid debts of Time;<br>Who, e'en while clutching at the generous pelf,<br>Priz'd ever, most, the virtue for itself. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So go we musing on. But, as we go,<br>Just glimpse yon lizard frisking to and fro.<br>Now here—now there—now straightly fixed he lies;<br>Then turns him sudden in a mock surprise.<br>Give him this southern wall, this sprightly sun,<br>And Past and Future are to him as One.<br>Tell him of either, (for he loves to talk<br>With loiterer, pausing on his easy walk,)<br>Tell him of either, and, with eyes that glisten,<br>And head aslant, awhile he seems to listen,<br>Then jerks him merry off, as if to say,<br>'Good Sirs! for me sufficient is the day.'<br>So, should grave memories ever come to press<br>Life's present hour with thought of past distress;<br>Or future years o'erhang us, vague or dim,<br>Why, we may come and take a hint from him.<br>And who not thus delights him, who or what,<br>In such a clime, or animate or not?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These hill-side vines; this wide expanding plain;<br>These fields—of pasture, here; and there, of grain;<br>These twisted chesnuts, with their cheery green;<br>Yon darker cypress, spired above them seen;<br>Which, many a century, land-mark, there, hath stood,<br>Self-lifted obelisk, immortal wood;<br>Those aloes, that with sworded panoply<br>Still warn the pilgrim, who would dare too nigh;<br>Yon steeply climbing town; that rocky height;<br>Seem they not living in the living light?<br>For each grey flake hath faded from the view,<br>And all around is one Ausonian Blue.<br>Not the fresh dawn, not evening's tenderest hour,<br>Speak to the spirit with a deeper power.<br>As eye and heart strain up that azure air,<br>What light—what love—what fixedness is there!<br>Transient—we know—Eternal—let it seem! <br>With such blue sky we only ask to dream. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">E'en he, (behold! him in that shaggy coat)—<br>Yon goat-herd, with his only browsing goat,<br>On the hill-slope; beside that humming stream;<br>This heaven above; how can he help but dream!<br>He ne'er was train'd in thronging city vast,<br>For some huge deck to shape the mighty mast;<br>To face, in ship, the deadly Afran breeze; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or drop the anchor deep in Arctic seas,<br>Like our stern sons. Yet not for this despise,<br>Albeit in seeming vacancy he lies.<br>Not idle they the most, who idlest seem;<br>Nor lost are all the hours in which we dream.<br>In trade's dim workshops all unused to moil,<br>Small share is his of luxuries won by toil.<br>But luxuries he hath not unrefin'd,<br>That please, perchance, yet more his southern mind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mere idlesse pleases; as supine he lies,<br>And gazing upward thro' the blazing skies,<br>Wins shifting colours to his dazzl'd eyes;<br>Or red or azure. And delights to see<br>The brilliant mockeries as they come and flee;<br>And wonders, why? Or makes of each a gem,<br>Such as might grace a pontiff's diadem;<br>Ruby or sapphire. Strange to me—or you;<br>But, here, All love this dreamy 'Nought-to-do.'<br>Or by tradition's tongue, or ruin old,<br>Of his own land's great deeds hath he been told;<br>And asks himself, erewhile, with wishful pain,<br>Why may not those brave days return again?<br>And tho' still mingling in confusion quaint<br>Profane and Sacred; Warrior and Saint;<br>Yet each in turn hath taught him, if need were,<br>Like This, to suffer—or, like That, to dare.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Think too that These were they, whose flags, unfurl'd<br>Beneath Rome's eagle crest, once shook the world.<br>Yon peasant-girl, —you mark'd her where she stood,<br>In her just pride of conscious womanhood—<br>(Against yon column now she leans awhile,<br>Graceful, you'll own, as milkmaid by a stile.)<br>Behold her in her country's old costume;<br>Is lady statelier in a palace room?<br>Too poor, we know; perchance, too inly great,<br>The town's last mode to wish to imitate.<br>Barefooted—but with no submissive mien;<br>In beauty's regal right—a lawful queen.<br>Such type to Michael's chisel had given a law;<br>And Raphael's self but painted what he saw.<br>In region, where not oft the Dryad charms<br>Town-loving Signor to his woods and farms;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And palaces, within proud city shut,<br>But rarely neighbour on the peasant's hut;<br>(He'privileg'd—or doom'd—by lot of birth<br>To see, but seldom, these the Lords of earth<br>'Mid equals rear'd, what other should he be<br>But equal too—a freeman 'mid the free?<br>Our nobler civil rights to him unknown,<br>Yet all his social freedom—all his own.<br>But where wealth's stringent or out-doling hand<br>From point to point wide stretches o'er a land;<br>In power or bounty ever seen or felt,<br>Like lictor's fasces or an almsman's belt;<br>Tho' order hence, with all its blessings, flow, —<br>As fertilizing waters guided go—<br>Yet as, henceforth, we lose the stream that played<br>Thro' its own runnels, free and not afraid;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So there, by wealth or purchased or controlled,<br>Word—gesture—look—in native frankness bold—<br>Are quelled, like sprite, beneath the Wand of Gold.<br>Again—(prolix beyond the thing I ought,<br>You kindly bear, and let me speak my thought)<br>In land—where from the plough men rushed to arms,<br>Just saved a state, and then re-sought their farms—<br>I love these breathings free; these heads erect;<br>I love, in look and speech, this brave neglect.<br>With ancient memories they better suit<br>Than balanced phrases or observance mute.<br>Nay, for a spot like this seem least unmeet,<br>As in high natures Grand and Simple greet.<br>Is this the race down-dwindled to a weed?<br>A rotted trunk? or but a buried seed?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which, if the storm should rise and floods up-tear<br>The shrouding soil, and give it back to air,<br>Shall sprout again; no longer matter brute;<br>But gladden'd with green leaves and its own glorious fruit.<br>Oh Italy! if fallen (as some delight<br>To say thou art), yet fallen from what vast height;<br>Oh Italy! thou land of memories dear,<br>Yet not for these alone we prize thee here;<br>But gladly take thee, with acceptive heart,<br>Not for thy 'hast been,' but for what thou art.<br>For who that knows thy seas of brightest wave,<br>Their shelving shores or rocky steeps that lave;<br>Thy lakes, 'mid mountains laid, in soft blue length,<br>Like Beauty guarded at the feet of Strength;<br>Thy landscape, seen at morn or evening hour,<br>Town—village—cresting chapel—arch or tower;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rich art—rich nature—each on each that press,<br>Till the sense aches with very loveliness;<br>Thy corn with fruitage mixed; thy realms of vine,<br>For ever beauteous—if they droop, or twine;<br>Thy balmiest clime, which daily tasks can leaven<br>With bliss, from out the common air of heaven;<br>Man's natural bearing; woman's easy grace;<br>From very rags—in gesture and in face;<br>Thy dark-eyed childhood's ever-ready smile<br>Of playful innocence or playful wile;<br>Or knows thy human nature's better part,<br>Swift thought, swift feeling, and the kindly heart;<br>And knows, beside, what thousand pulses beat<br>To win thy glories back, with generous heat;<br>Who but for thee must fervent vows forecast,<br>And hope thy Future, while he dreams thy Past?<br>But now 'tis Mid-day! and the deep retreat<br>Of Anio's grot must shield us from the heat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas in such deep recess Salvator's touch<br>Won its dark truth, and Gaspar fed on such.<br>Lo! the rapt river along its channel'd ledge<br>Precipitous hurrying to that dizzy edge.<br>Now, for one breathless moment, high uphung,<br>Like curled sea-wave; then—forth, as foamy, flung.<br>Here—in long lance-like flakes—straight down; while, there—<br>As if were all uncoiled Medusa's hair,<br>The serpent-waters twirl and hiss in air.<br>Or else, in black and rocky cauldron bound,<br>For ever eddy round and round and round;<br>Wakening the thought, or sadden'd or sublime,<br>Of endless toil, or never-ending time.<br>All types from clashing waters—all are here;<br>All types and all emotions; sound and fear;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pent agonies, that struggle for relief;<br>Free gushing tears; dishevelled locks of grief;<br>Mad angers; sullen pause; re-bursting ire;<br>With flood still swifter than pursuing fire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet beauty too. But such as poets shed<br>Round the great vision of that snake-tress'd head,<br>Perplexing beauty—beauty wreathed with dread.<br>'Tis a great scene! Yet, not by it opprest,<br>We feel its greatness in a buoyant breast.<br>For (not as when some wild Helvetian flood<br>Dives down its sombre depth of piny wood)<br>Here, all around, hath Gladness flung her braid<br>Of green festoons, and scattered light and shade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or rather—if the word were fitlier won—<br>Not shade, but shadow—playmate of the sun.<br>Gloom glorified! as suits a southern clime;<br>And (bear the phrase) a Cheerfuller Sublime.<br>E'en far within the grot Light sports with Dark;<br>Here—a long arrowy streak; and there—a spark.<br>If disappearing, soon to re-illume;<br>Like festive fire-fly, glancing thro' the gloom;<br>Or old Venetian masquer, richly dight,<br>Who, 'neath his waxen torches' orange light,<br>With gems and spangles glitters on the night.<br>Who, Anio! that hath come, or soon or late,<br>To this thy shrine, but deems the day—a date;<br>Whence to recal at will, his whole life's length,<br>Thy voice—thy speed—thy beauty and thy strength?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whether thou tinklest from some mountain-rest,—<br>Thy birth-place—where the eagle builds his nest;<br>Or cruel bandit plants him; thence to strain </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His greedy vision o'er the cowering plain;<br>Or whether, wandered from thy native hills,<br>(As strong and stronger grown from clustering rills)<br>Thou pausest for a while in silent lake, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where that she-wolf her passing thirst might slake,<br>Who (prowled to Tiber down and destined thus)<br>Suckled great Rome in infant Romulus;<br>Or holdest on by feudal tower, or hall<br>From Cæsars named, or nameless ruined wall;<br>Or by quaint villa; such as after days<br>For Este's princely line made pride to raise;<br>Where, many a time, thy rushing wave would roll<br>Intenser power o'er Ariosto's soul;<br>Brightening, thro' secret sympathies, the lay,<br>Which here he loved to weave (or so they say); </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And which for aye—like thee—shall flow along<br>As wild—as smooth—as playful and as strong;<br>Whether thou speak of simple Sabine farms,<br>Or call, as now, to song—or art—or arms;<br>Be welcome every dream thou waftest down,<br>And every tale; but most of old renown.<br>Tell us of statesman—warrior—bard—or sage—<br>Wonder or love of many a famous age—<br>What time, by seas shut in and rocky strand,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all-undreaming of the Roman brand,<br>Our Britain lay, a yet unhistoried land.<br>Hail and Farewell! Resounding Anio!<br>And now, Fair Stream! with milder current flow<br>On 'mid thy vines and pasture; till thou come<br>'Neath the proud walls of twice Imperial Rome.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thence, with old Tiber, soon to sport thee free<br>'Mid the blue waters of the Tyrrhene sea.<br>Thou, Pilgrim-Friend! (we know) wert never one,<br>Mere idle praiser of the days foregone;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor striving still to shroud with poor pretence<br>Of classic feeling gap of week-day sense;<br>But ever, in thy wisdom, taking heed<br>That worthy life is made of daily deed.<br>And tho' (by shrewd Saint Stephen stolen, of late,<br>From converse of thy friends—to serve the state)<br>It thee befits to pay thy studious vow<br>To Hansard rather than to Livy—now;<br>Yet hence, methinks, 'tis joyance doubly sweet<br>In this, the dream-land of our youth to meet;<br>Together turn again the classic page,<br>And win us back our boyhood's loftier age;<br>And church and state for some brief weeks eschew;<br>And make again this Ancient World our New.<br>But, here, far back the scroll must be unroll'd;<br>Here, where ten centuries do not make the Old. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where old they deem in antiquarian thought<br>Some work by Ancus or by Tarquin wrought.<br>That tunnel huge, or prison Mammertine;<br>Or old may grant the Fabian—Julian—line;<br>But half a Modern make our Constantine;<br>And, as they pass his structures, on their way,<br>Scarce note them—as but things of yesterday.<br>Small matter! Old or new, we'll list the while,<br>As Ciceroni teach us—or beguile. <br>And, if some tales for question seem to call,<br>In sifting Niebuhr's spite, accept them all.<br>Where Curtius leapt, believe the very spot;<br>Or muse with Numa in th' Egerian grot.<br>Yea—sweet for him, by parent doomed to court—<br>Unwilling suitor—ancient law-report;<br>Awhile to snatch him from the hated thrall<br>Of pleader's desk, or point-contesting hall;<br>And sweet, not less, for thee, who legislate,<br>To 'scape committee-room and dull debate;<br>Corn question—currency—and funded debt;<br>French marriage—and the treaty of Utretcht;<br>And leaving—not too long—our own dear land,<br>To hail—as we of late—the Belgic strand;<br>Thence, o'er their ill-laid rail, right glad to roll,—<br>Tho' shaken sore—to this Ausonian Goal.<br>Not stately Bruges might detain us, now,<br>Nor Meuse, soft-gliding 'neath her fortress'd brow;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">More pleased some while to thrust from off the scene<br>Battles and sieges, Marlborough and Eugene.<br>Nay, prizing thee, old Legendary Rhine!<br>Less for thy legends than thy climbing vine.<br>Nor yet in famed Helvetia tarrying long,<br>Tho' there green vales and glittering mountains throng;<br>And We aye pleased to feel the bosom swell,<br>By Uris rock, at thought of William Tell.<br>But onward still our purposed way we take<br>O'er tall Gothard and by Locarno's lake;<br>Or climbing slow, or if in full career,<br>With Rome! Rome! Rome! in heart and eye and ear. <br>Still thirsting; till at last we came to stand,<br>Glad Exodites! in it—our Promised Land. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And what our Pisgah view? Crushed piles of state<br>The walls within; and dun and desolate<br>Campagna round; with bridge and tower destruct<br>By age or war; and ruined aqueduct<br>Athwart the fading twilight. And is this<br>A Forum? or a vast Necropolis?<br>Temples—for tombs; a nation's dust beneath;<br>With silence round, that fears almost to breathe;<br>And city-solitude, so strangely drear,<br>The Living seem to have no business—here.<br>If in some vineyard ground our step be stayed,<br>Awhile, beside the peasant's delving spade;<br>(Now—vineyard; once—Patrician's client court,<br>When that near Forum was a world's resort)<br>As up and up the rank black mould is cast,<br>The very earth seems odorous of the Past. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Each after each, behold in turn out-thrown<br>Tile—faded stucco—scrap of sculptured stone.<br>Anon—some shattered urn, or broken frieze;<br>Power—turned to skeleton! His fragments—These.<br>Ruins and fragments! Is it these that Ye<br>From your own thriving land come forth to see?<br>We answer, 'Yea;' these are the things that We<br>From our own thriving land come forth to see.<br>We come to see how ancient power may die,<br>And ponder on a realm's mortality.<br>Yet, seeing how survive the Good—the Just;<br>In goodness and in justice learn to trust.<br>We come, as in fond youth, to sympathize,<br>Thro' backward ages, with the Great and Wise;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And feel—as then—some throb thro' inner heart,<br>Where life's low interests claim no smallest part.<br>We come from restless plan and restless deed,<br>Ambition's instrument, or habit's need,<br>To find the Calm which generous leisures give,<br>And less in act than meditation live.<br>We come from wit's and jest's enlivening strife,<br>And all the dearer bliss of household life,<br>To feed on pensive thoughts; yet not the less<br>To win a pleasure from our pensiveness.<br>And if those grave and pensive thoughts (and such<br>Our case may be) should press the heart too much;<br>'Twere not so very far to find our way<br>Mid glorious art, that tells of no decay.<br>Where beams each high conception just the same<br>As when from Grecian chisel first it came.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tho' mortal-born, of beauty that might mate<br>With archetype celestial increate.<br>Nay, beauteous more than in their glittering prime,<br>Tinged softly by the sun-set hues of Time.<br>Then, if some friend should come, with best intent,<br>To warn of hours all uselessly misspent;<br>He too may learn (nor is the lore abstruse)<br>That uselessness, like this, is noblest use.<br>That while the busy serfs of wealth and power<br>Fawn only on the Present's sordid hour,<br>(No lofty thought or back—or forward—cast)<br>We pluck our nobler Present from the Past.<br>Nor pause we there, but, starting forth anew,<br>From thence shape out a nobler Future too.<br>This long discourse hath led us far away<br>'Mid other themes from our Tiburtian day,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now again, with renovated grace,<br>We bow before the Genius of the Place,<br>Full of the scene around; and all-intent,<br>As slow we travel up this steep ascent,<br>To win the passing pictures, as they rise<br>From present hour, or ancient memories.<br>For here, glance where eye may, or footstep fall,<br>Or new or old, 'tis picture—picture—All.<br>This structure near, mere peasant's dwelling-place, <br>Is not itself without some claim of grace.<br>Its terraced roof, square tower, and arching gate<br>To Art, long since, thro' picture consecrate.<br>For Creed of Art hath not alone to do<br>With reason'd faith, but with tradition too;<br>And Beauty's self we hold for most divine,<br>When Memory stands Priestess at her shrine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold! its sunward wall. How all-ablaze<br>With one full glow of ripest, yellowest maize; <br>Whose rich-ribbed cylinders, in order strung,<br>Seem tassels, for some festal rite uphung.<br>Or each might be fit cresting ornament<br>For regal canopy, or warrior-tent.<br>No brighter hues hath Ceres in her horn;<br>No cheerier ever broke from saffron morn.<br>More golden—ne'er from furnace-fires were rolled<br>Than these, sun-wrought in vegetable gold.<br>Which almost might requite his absent ray,<br>Themselves a sun-shine for each clouded day.<br>While yon ripe gourds, that strew the court-yard floor,<br>Beam upward, each a mass of glittering ore.<br>But now, with these our rural splendours done,<br>And we, like them, full-saturate with sun; <br>How fresh it is, as, step by step, we mount,<br>To watch the gushings of that marble fount.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Its cistern—some antique sarcophagus; <br>(Here, Old and New for ever mingle—thus)<br>While its raised cup, whenceforth the Naiads toss<br>O'erbrimming wave, is fringed with greenest moss.<br>(For, in these lands comes oft from mere neglect,<br>What art long while might ponder to effect.)<br>Each pendent tuft, with sparkling spray bedript,<br>Seems it not emerald, with diamond tipt?<br>And then those female forms, with braided hair,<br>And heads erect, that classic urns up-bear;<br>(From forth whose shapely rims dewed vine-leaves drop;— <br>Thrust partly in, escaping lymph to stop.)<br>These, as around the cistern's edge they throng,<br>Say, might not These to Grecian Art belong?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whoe'er from life's mere prose awhile would flee,<br>Should roam with us this land of reverie.<br>Where museful fancy needeth not the aid<br>Of cloister dim, or silent colonnade,<br>Or solitary shore, or moonlight glen,<br>But meets her visions 'mid the haunts of men;<br>And feels in broadest sun-light round her stream<br>From every waking fact some answering dream.<br>And how that lofty Past exalts the Now!<br>That churl—a Cincinnatus at the plough!<br>Yon kite, slow circling up the Blue—afar—<br>An augury! or be it peace or war.<br>Those very geese, out clamouring, one and all,<br>The Sacred Birds that saved the Capitol!<br>And lo! thro' yonder arch those oxen twain;<br>On slowly swaying that grape-loaded wain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Right goodly creatures, beautiful to view!<br>Dark-hoofed—dark-maned—the rest of creamy hue;<br>With large soft eyes. All soft as Here's were,<br>('Tis Homer's simile, so we may dare)— <br>When their pride slept, and love alone was there.<br>Now, thro' the spacious court behold they go; <br>Now, pause beside the pillared portico.<br>With foliage drest, and that rich ruby freight,<br>Nay—draw they not, in sacrificial state,<br>A Bacchic offering to some temple's gate?<br>Mark the broad wheels—but two! That yoking bar,<br>Just as of old! No wain—but ancient car!<br>And they, above the piled up grapes who ride,<br>Their naked limbs with purpling vintage dyed,<br>The Fauns! And here, ere long, the rest shall be:<br>Look with poetic eyes and thou shalt see</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bacchante lithe; and jesting Satyr near;<br>With broad Silenus, staggering in the rear,<br>Tho' doubly propped; while gay goat-footed Pan<br>'Mid pipe and cymbal triumphs in the van.<br>Then that old Crone, with lifted tambourine, <br>Which still she smites; and some strange rhythm between,<br>Or, rather, mixed; while to the double sound<br>A dark-tress'd girl is dancing round and round,<br>That Crone, with hair unkempt, yet scarce uncouth,<br>(So well it suits) and that fore-thrusting tooth,<br>Keen—almost prescient—tooth of prophetess;<br>(A flitting fancy, which I may not press)<br>That Crone shall be our Sibyl! And that Girl,<br>Still hurried round and round in dizzier whirl;<br>With her wild eye almost to frenzy fired,<br>(Such look in Delphi had been held inspired)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And flashing locks, and every flashing limb,<br>She shall be Priestess! and that Song—the Hymn!<br>And wherefore, 'No?' Why may not this be chaunt<br>From Pythian tripod or Dodona's haunt?<br>For, as some stream, by ancient fragments hid,<br>From earthquake—flung; or mighty hill—down slid;<br>(That cumber, many a league, the valleys round </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With huge grey rock or grass-grown earthy mound<br>Still holds its silent way 'neath all that hides,<br>Then at some far-off point once more outglides,<br>Another stream; another, yet the same;<br>E'en those, who quaff, may guess not whence it came;<br>No otherwise this mystic rhythm may flow,<br>Far winding on, from ages long ago;<br>Some Grecian chaunt, its secret course unknown,<br>And heard, at last, in region not its own. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Old customs die not, but sprout forth again;<br>The names distorted, while the things remain.<br>Fane, 'Church' baptized, sees new-named votaries vow,<br>And old Chief Augur is Prime Pontiff, now.<br>E'en Jove himself, Great Jove Capitoline, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rules in strange semblance o'er a later shrine.<br>His twice-fused bronze transformed, by pious feint,<br>From Pagan Deity to Christian Saint.<br>At this you smile; and who would smile refuse?<br>But when the smile is o'er, 'twere well to muse.<br>Olympian Zeus, upon his golden throne;<br>Calm Pallas, glorious in her Parthenon;<br>Or rudest Sibyl, from her rocky cave,<br>Mid spiky aloes, issued forth to rave;<br>Or curling smokes, o'er Judah wont to rise<br>From bull or goat, in barbarous sacrifice;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These, for rank falsehoods, while the most eschew,<br>In stern contempt for Gentile and for Jew;<br>These, for imperfect truths, let us accept;<br>Instalments of the universal debt;<br>Acknowledgment, we know, far off and dim;<br>Yet, not the less, acknowledgment of Him,<br>'In every age, in every clime adored;<br>(So sang the bard,) Jehovah—Jove—or Lord.'<br>This preachment o'er, (which yet you mildly bear,<br>Of preachments all-impatient as you are),<br>Yon church, whence now intones the holy mass,<br>If so you please, we'll enter as we pass.<br>For churches here (with reverence be it said)<br>Are not too holy held for week-day tread.<br>But each, at will and unrebuked for wrong,<br>May come and muse their column'd aisles along:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And some high influence win, or grave delight<br>From picture, incense, or the chaunted rite;<br>Or find fit hour, as every passing day<br>Its joy or sorrow brings—to praise or pray.<br>But now with festal silks the shafts are bound,<br>And glittering fringes edge the arches round.<br>Of granites red, or cippolino grey,<br>Or carvings quaint, small sight for us—to-day.<br>We quarrel not. There are, we know, who hate,<br>Or half unchristian deem such pious fête.<br>Yet silvered Saints, and Virgin fancy-drest<br>For peasant-worshipper may be the best.<br>Rare entrance his, or none, thro' palace gate;<br>Be this his palace hall—his room of state.<br>Or let him bring his humble sorrows here,<br>Secure, at least, of one Great Listener's ear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These types, so falsified, from earliest youth<br>Have been to him the very types of truth;<br>And his own toil hath helped the monthly dole<br>That gilds the shrine, and bids the organ roll.<br>Worships—like tastes—have each their power and tone;<br>Church ne'er was meant for Dilletant' alone.<br>And Christians, such as would all rites confine<br>To their own forms, are Christians none of mine.<br>Then spare him, Critic! as he kneels in this<br>His ill-drest fane, and loves for God's—and his.<br>'Of all the ills unhappy mortals know,<br>A life of wandering is the greatest woe.' <br>So thought Ulysses; but we think not so.<br>And blest it is, with pilgrim-staff in hand,<br>At our own will to roam each ancient land,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(Of which in school-boy volume first we read,<br>Yet never dared to hope our feet should tread)<br>And test with manhood's sense the dreams of youth,<br>Nor lose the vision, and yet win the truth.<br>If nature-led; to track with pleasant pains<br>Their mountain-wilds and cultivated plains.<br>If student; in some shy monastic crypt,<br>To try old text by new found manuscript.<br>If vowed to art; its each attempt explore,<br>From primal Ægypt, or the Xanthian shore,<br>To where in Greece it triumphed; deified<br>And deifying; then like mortal died.<br>In this bright land again to spring to life,<br>And strive again; scarce conquered in the strife.<br>But he who to the land, that sent him forth,<br>Brings back but this, brings product little worth.<br>Huge virtuoso—true! But driveller blind</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beside the larger soul—the deeper mind—<br>Which, learning man, hath learnt to love mankind.<br>Our hostel hold us now; not undistrest<br>By pleasant toil; for pleasures must have rest.<br>Here, sit—or sleep—or scrawl the pane—your fill;<br>Or rhyme—like me, (against Minerva's will!)<br>Who for sublimer flight nor bold nor strong,<br>May just achieve to journalize in song.<br>Yet for brief space. For now, it seems, we dine:<br>Lo! here, wild boar—and, here, Falernian wine;<br>With figs—ripe grapes—and rarest wheaten bread.<br>And who may tell but here the board was spread<br>For genial Flaccus and for Maro—thus—<br>Two thousand years ago, as now for us?<br>Just fancy! when they sat, as here we sit,<br>The frolic—and the wisdom—and the wit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here came he, the blood of ancient kings,<br>To find the joyance equal converse brings.<br>With them gay chatting, as the whim might be,<br>Of one's arch Phillis, one's sweet Lalage.<br>Or last year's visit to Bandusia's fount;<br>Or journey planned to yon Soractes' mount.<br>Or laughing back, with still-recurring glee,<br>Those sparkling days from Rome to Brindisi.<br>Here too the Cæsar might consort with them;—<br>His Purple laid aside and Diadem—<br>Well-pleased, amid their talk and easy cheer,<br>To glimpse his own great Rome—yet feel it not too near.<br>What glimpse (had glimpse been given) of years to come!<br>The conquering Goth; and that twice pillaged Rome.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gone! eagles—banners—lances—lictors' rods;<br>The temples crumbling o'er their crumbled Gods.<br>All steadfast as they seemed, his ancient stock<br>Uprooted from their Capitolian rock.<br>The far-off realms, they swayed but with the sword,<br>Crouched at a swordless pontiff's slightest word.<br>Their mighty palace (of each glory reft,<br>Nor marble frieze, nor porphyry pillar left;<br>Nor floor, as once, with rich mosaic spread;<br>Nor hues cerulean arching overhead)<br>Roofless and void; and only, now, renowned<br>As larger ruin 'mid the ruins round.<br>The baths with rubbish choked; the fountains dry;<br>The green acanthus, as in mockery,<br>(And wild, as when by chance in wicker sown,<br>It gave, of old, its graceful hint to stone) <br>Wandering, at will, amid those very halls,<br>Where once 'twas carved for golden capitals.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some lingering terrace but a loftier spot,<br>Whence to discern that his own Rome was not.<br>Thee, Flaccus! the self-promised not to die,<br>A kindlier star hath sped thy prophecy.<br>Or song itself fulfils its own desire;<br>Realms fade away, and dynasties expire;<br>Yet on from age to age sounds thine—with Maro's lyre.<br>But here, by rightful and peculiar lot,<br>Ye hover most, the Genii of the spot.<br>Of memory—vision—feeling—thought—a part;<br>Heard from each lip, or borne in every heart.<br>Brave bliss! What braver may to bard belong?<br>Save its own joy from self-requiting song.<br>Diverse the strains. Yet would we figure how<br>Together oft ye trod this favorite brow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not now in jocund converse, as of late,<br>But each his inner theme to meditate.<br>Thou, it might be, some polished lyric verse;<br>Now, fondly dallying; now, brightly terse.<br>Or precept, each with its own wisdom rife,<br>That models—here—a poem; there—a life.<br>Or else wouldst hie thee to the busy street,<br>To sketch some silly pride or grave conceit.<br>Then round to us the playful picture turn,<br>And bid us in that glass ourselves re-learn.<br>Meanwhile (so dream we on) the Mantuan Bard<br>To yon tall peak hath paced the silent sward.<br>Thenceforth to scan, in prospect calm and free,<br>The various plain, from hill to circling sea. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pale region, now; with culture ill be-sped;<br>Then, one wide Georgic, bright beneath him spread. <br>Or, not unprompted by that far sea-line,<br>Would ponder o'er th' Eneian tale divine;<br>Till clear before him, and in perfect plan,<br>The Heroic Vision stood — 'Arms and the Man.'<br>Once more I move you (our third flask is done,<br>And lo! the shadows lengthen in the sun)<br>To view yon time-hued fane, at this soft hour,<br>When eye and spirit best may feel its power.<br>Laud we the Gods! No connoisseur is near,<br>With his clipp'd talk our frank delight to sear.<br>Who, while a thousand admirations crave,<br>Still harps and harps on arch and architrave;<br>And, vowed to his five orders, fain would school<br>Our kindling spirits with his three-foot rule. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scarce more, if we might choose our time and place,<br>Here would we wish that nobler critic race,<br>Esthetical; who stand on tiptoe still,<br>And see far less with eyesight than with will.<br>Would-be discoverers, on vague voyage bent;<br>Interpreters 'of meanings never meant;' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of the true creed, but whose ecstatic faith<br>O'erpasseth ever what the Gospel saith;<br>These, while the smaller critics tease or vex,<br>With their dim dreams disturb us—or perplex;<br>Or, if such comment sound not civil quite,<br>Daze out our clearness with their too much light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Digressive thus, ere passing thoughts be gone,<br>I crave your leave, and idly ramble on,<br>(You still indulging) till I bring you near<br>Our famous temple—and behold it!—here.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Amid these varying tales of ruin old,—<br>Some, scantly gathered up; some, falsely told—<br>Sibyl's or Vesta's we may hardly tell:<br>But he, who first devised, devised it well,<br>Here, where it stands, with circling columns bound,<br>And placed—how calm! above the gulf profound,<br>To tame these rugged rocks—this torrent's stress—<br>With power of Beauty and of Gentleness.<br>So might we feign, some fair high-lineaged queen<br>Rules o'er a raging crowd with look serene.<br>So too, when some great Master hath designed<br>To paint in human form th' Eternal Mind;<br>And humbly dares essay that lofty brow,<br>Which holds the Past—the Future—and the Now;<br>Awhile we pause before his art severe;<br>Then, reverent bend; yet less in love than fear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when, ere long, around those awful brows<br>In graceful curve his cherub-group he throws;<br>Each with its little arms—beneath—above—<br>Outstretch'd to clasp, and childhood's look of love;<br>Behold! those awful brows no longer lower,<br>But Sense of Love hath soothed the Sense of Power.<br>So—Pilgrim-Friend! our pleasant day is sped: <br>'To-morrow, to fresh woods;' to-night, to bed.<br>Yet from these heights throw one more glance abroad,<br>And some few moments dream with dreamy Claude.<br>Beneath—are field and stream and lake and wood,<br>And site, where ancient city stands—or stood.<br>Around—the hills. That—here—in bay recede,<br>As if for nestling culture taking heed;<br>Or boldly—there—indent the level plain,<br>Like promontory pronged into the main.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As parts for other clime th' unwilling day,<br>See! how that far Campagna sinks away.<br>A sea of purpled land, now, seems to be;<br>Now, scarce distinguished from the purple sea.<br>E'en while we gaze, how vanish on the view<br>Each bright—each fair—each fading—faded—hue!<br>A pensive light, while aught of light remains;<br>Then—pensive veil for these Deserted Plains!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Kenyon">John Kenyon</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=542178" data-title="A Day At Tivoli - Prologue de John Kenyon" data-description="Fair blows the breeze—depart—depart—
And tread with me th' Italian shore;
And feed thy soul with glorious art;
And drink again of classic lore.
Nor sometime shalt thou deem it wrong,
When not in mood too gravely wise,
At idle length to lie a..."></div>
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