First of Achelous’ blood, Fairest daughter of the flood, Queen of the Sicilian sea, Beauteous, bright Parthenope! Syren sweet, whose magic force Stops the swiftest in his course; Wisdom’s self, when most severe, Longs to lend a list’ning ear, Gently dips the fearful oar, Trembling eyes the tempting shore, And sighing quits th’ enervate coast, With only half his virtue lost.
Let thy warm, thy wond’rous clime, Animate my artless rhyme, Whilst alternate round me rise Terror, pleasure, and surprise.-- Here th’ astonish’d soul surveys Dread Vesuvius’ awful blaze, Smoke that to the sky aspires, Heavy hail of solid fires, Flames the fruitful fields o’erflowing, Ocean with the reflex glowing; Thunder, whose redoubled sound Echoes o’er the vaulted ground!-- Such thy glories, such the gloom That conceals thy secret tomb, Sov’reign of this enchanted sea, Where sunk thy charms, Parthenope.
Now by the glimm’ring torch’s ray I tread Pozzuoli’s cavern’d way-- Hollow grot! that might beseem Th’ Ætnean cyclop, Polypheme: And here the bat at noonday ’bides, And here the houseless beggar hides, While the holy hermit’s voice Glads me with accustom’d noise. Now I trace, or trav’llers err, Modest Maro’s sepulchre, Where nature, sure of his intent, Is studious to conceal That eminence he always meant We should not see but feel. While Sannazarius from the steep Views, well pleas’d, the fertile deep Give life to them that seize the scaly fry, And to their poet--_immortality_.
Next beauteous Baia’s warm remains invite To Nero’s stoves my wond’ring sight; Where palaces and domes destroy’d Leave a flat unwholesome void: Where underneath the cooling wave, Ordain’d pollution’s fav’rite spot to lave, Now hardly heaves the stifled sigh Hot, hydropic luxury. Yet, chas’d by Heav’n’s correcting hand, Tho’ various crimes have fled the land; Tho’ brutish vice, tyrannic pow’r, No longer tread the trembling shore, Or taint the ambient air; By destiny’s kind care arrang’d, Th’ inhabitants are scarcely chang’d; For birds obscene, and beasts of prey, That seek the night and shun the day, Still find a dwelling there.
If then beneath the deep profound Retires unseen the slipp’ry ground; If melted metals pour’d from high A verdant mountain grows by time, Where frisking kids can browze and climb, And softer scenes supply: Let us who view the varying scene, And tread th’ instructive paths between, See famish’d Time his fav’rite sons devour, Fix’d for an age--then swallow’d in an hour; Let us at least be early wise, And forward walk with heav’n-fix’d eyes, Each flow’ry isle avoid, each precipice despise; Till, spite of pleasure, fear, or pain, Eternity’s firm coast we gain, Whence looking back with alter’d eye, These fleeting phantoms we’ll descry, And find alike the song and theme Was but--an empty, airy dream.