Classic Poem

On the steep hill of Pausilipo stands
The tomb of Virgil. Sacred is the ground;
Sacred the gale that scatters leaves around;
Sacred the laurel-wreaths, that pilgrim hands
From climes remote strew o'er the hallowed shrine
Of Mantua's bard, the glowing, the divine!
Precipitous and wild the mountain lifts
Its shattered summits mid the cloudy rifts —
And from deep fissures spring the ilex trees,
With flowering shrubs and ivy overgrown;
On a lone cliff, more broken than the rest,
The weary traveller, ascending, sees
A small, rude building, guarded by the crest
Of a huge rock, beseamed with scars, yet strown
With silver mosses, like the thin gray hair
Around the forehead of a warrior old: —
That aged rock the mountain seems to hold
Upon its shoulders, with the pious care
Of brave Æneas, as from Troy he bore
Father Anchises to the sea-girt shore!
There is the tomb of Virgil! — in those walls
Robbed of its ashes stands the holy urn:
Softened yet clear the Morning's radiance falls —
Where incense-tapers should forever burn —
Along the vaulted roof, the winding aisle:
There, like a priestess, feeding the pure flame
Upon the altar, Evening pours her smile;
And there, blue Midnight spreads her starry shield,
(Such power, O Pallas, could thine aegis yield?)
To guard, undimmed, the splendour of his fame!