Classic Poem

Before Pompeii's coast in skies of amber,
A ship, of build majestic, rides the bay;
Up mast and shroud the busy sailors clamber,
And man the yards, the anchor soon to weigh.

Once on the Mississippi's banks did glisten,
In living green, those naked spars that float,
Pictured on blue Tyrrhenian waves; — yet listen!
Still from their peak the gay bird pours his note.

Outside, above the stern, see, sculptured, shining,
As patron saint, a Roman Hero stand,
A golden laurel wreath his head entwining,
Blue-bells and poppies clustered in his hand.

Gay, on his left, a shock of sheaves is lying,
The rod-bound axe gleams grimly on his right;
While shines below, the likeness certifying,
The name of C INCINNATUS , golden-bright.

Above, the sky-blue ensign mildly hovers,
Pierced through with four and twenty stars of gold;
Like a late glory, floating down, it covers
With starry sheen the hero-form of old.

A son of thine, America! stands, folding
His arms in silence, leaning 'gainst the mast;
With swelling heart the bay's wide coast beholding,
He breathes farewell, and greets the mighty past:

" Italia, Europe's hand, extends its blessing
High o'er the sparkling sea that smiles beneath,
And lays on Neptune's brow, with fond caressing,
The gulf of Naples as a worthy wreath.

" Too full, it burst! No more, the livelong hours,
Misenum's and Minerva's capes embrace!
Sundered and scattered now, like single flowers,
The lovely islands gem the enchanted space!

" O Capri, lovely Rose, in late-red glowing!
But ah! Tiberius' castle rears its crest,
That serpent's crest, whose kiss, with poison flowing,
Pollutes, fair Ocean-rose, thy virgin breast!

" Nisita's, Ischia's snowy turrets, shining,
On the blue plain, like water-lilies, lie;
But clank of chains, and groans of captives pining,
Rise like the reeking of their cups on high!

" Ye blossoms, not on me your smile imposes!
Ye are but the selaam of sin and shame!
Each age has writ in laurels and in roses
The crimes and horrors that have stained its name!

" Ay, rose and laurel wantonly are swelling
But in the steam of graves, below them sunk;
And orange, grape and pomegranate are telling,
With blushing cheek, of all the blood they've drunk!

" They are but garlands, all, in mockery creeping
Round the great bloody altar of this land,
The victim's dying throes forever keeping,
By whose last groan their shuddering leaves are fanned!

" Through the great world-fire's rubbish still is blazing
Vesuvius, the last house that's burning yet;
Naples, thy head through din and glare, proud, raising,
Thy building's base is on his ashes set.

" Thy people are but ruins of the storming
Impetuous race, renowned in hero-strife;
Thy market-place, with petty passions swarming,
But ruins of a great, old, vigorous life!

" Castellamare, where fort Anjou, shattered,
Stammers, in ruins, many a bloody word!
Elysium, where a ruined Heaven lies scattered!
Avernus, ruin of a Hell, once feared!

" Sorrento's shore, — blue air its green is veiling!
How thrills the name with sweet and bitter pangs!
Lo! breathed by song, — in orange scents exhaling,
A ruined poet-life above it hangs!

" Pompeii, hail! thou most sublime of corpses!
The present age, great body-snatcher, swings
His spade; and lo, with every stroke, he forces
The past to render up its secret things!

" Thou art the face — that only — of the giant,
Whose body earth's vast pall still wraps around!
Yet, in thy faded features, time-defiant,
Signs of the full, old, joyous life are found.

" Thy Sarno, he that once, so proudly sweeping,
Thy treasures bore like an athletic slave,
Painfully now to ocean's bed goes creeping,
Like an old man on crutches to his grave!

" And Nature, triumphing o'er human powers,
Plants in thy grassy chambers many a tree,
Plants moss on altars, colonnades and towers,
As ensigns of her mighty victory!

" But ah, the Street of Tombs, unharmed, is gleaming;
The grave, alone, is changeless here below!
And through thy lonely ways, his old smile beaming,
Still the old sunshine paces to and fro!" —

So spake the child of the far West, while slowly
The sun went down behind the horizon's ridge
From where a streak of radiance, pure and holy,
Flew to his ship, a golden floating bridge.

And, on the golden bridge, in fancy gliding,
Westward he hies where Hope's bright gates expand,
And onward still, the watery waste dividing,
He steers, in dream, then cries, exulting: " Land!

" Land! Land! O native soil! O well-known places!
Welcome the pleasant strand of Baltimore!
Which, as a tender bride, the sea embraces, —
The Naiad, — with the green arms of the shore!

" Sweet Susquehannah's waters murmur, pouring
A hymn in honor of thy bride, the blest;
Washington's monument, a Pharos soaring,
Shines as a talisman upon thy breast!

" All hail to you, ye forests, kingly giants,
With motley-flowering vines festooned around,
Great purple trumpets, blown in proud defiance,
Thy majesty to praise with silent sound!

" Majestic streams, whereon, through still and solemn
Old woods, the steamer's cloud far inland goes,
And, like the guiding smoke of Israel's column,
The way to new and fairer Edens shows!

" Ye cities, springing over night, like flowers,
Behold, the roe-buck to your market-tank
Comes shyly for the fount, at noontide hours,
Whence in the forest yesterday he drank!

" Ye homes of scattered settlers, — still plantations, —
Retreats of human woe, where gray old trees,
Physicians with their leafy preparations,
Bend o'er the wounded heart and give it ease!

" Lo! life looks freshly from thy every feature!
E'en on those grave-mounds of the olden days,
As with a lie of thousand years, weird Nature
A thousand-year-old dress of woodland lays!

" Ay, even Mount Vernon's cypresses that, sighing,
Greet the far seaman from the hero's grave,
Murmur a song of life, a never-dying
Paternal blessing o'er his land they wave!

" Far backward fly the hoary wildernesses!
Bison and howling panther leave fresh tracks;
While, conquering Nature, man behind them presses,
And with a shout of triumph, swings his axe!

" My native land, in this thy height of glory,
Turn for an hour and read Pompeii's face, —
That, when thou liest in state, death's garland o'er thee,
So calm, serene a smile thy look may grace!

" That, if Time's dagger fatally should wound thee,
Thou, too, mayst fold thy mantle to thy breast,
And, like great Caesar, with the world around thee,
Sink nobly, manfully, in death's long rest!" —

Thus, on the golden sun-bridge, fancy blends him
The Eastern laurel with the Western palm;
The cypress twig of death Pompeii lends him, —
His own America life's rosy balm.

While fresher, brighter, fairer grew the flowers,
He sank them in the deep, eternal sea;
So, friends, the Poet sinks them, in these hours,
Down in your bosom's deep, eternal sea.