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Whose sidelong deck affords, as it cuts on,
An airy slope to lounge and read upon;

And may the sun, cooled only by white clouds,
Make constant shadows of the sails and shrouds ;
And may there be sweet, watching moons at night,
Or shows, upon the sea, of curious light;

And morning wake with happy-blushing mouth, As though her husband still had "eyes of youth;" While fancy, just as you discern from far

The coasts of Virgil and of Sannazzar,

May see the Nymphs emerging, here and there, To tie up at the light their rolling hair.

I see you now, half eagerness, half ease, .
Ride o'er the dancing freshness of the seas;
I see you now (with fancy's eyesight too)
Find, with a start, that lovely vision true,

While on a sudden, o'er the horizon's line

Phoebus looks forth with his long glance divine,
At which old Ocean's white and shapely Daughters
Crowd in the golden ferment of the waters,

And halcyons brood, and there's a glistering show
Of harps, midst bosoms and long arms of snow;
And from the breathing sea, in the God's eye,
A gush of voices breaks up to the sky

To hail the laurelled Bard, that goes careering by.

And who, thus gifted, but must hear and see
Wonders like these, approaching Italy?-
Enchantress Italy,-who born again

In Gothic fires, woke to a sphery strain,
And rose and smiled, far lovelier than before,
Copier of Greece, and Amazon no more,

But altogether a diviner thing,

Fit for the Queen of Europe's second spring,
With fancies of her own, and finer powers
Not to enslave these mere outsides of ours,

But bend the godlike mind, and crown it with her flowers.

Thus did she reign, bright-eyed, with that sweet

tone

Long in her ears; and right before her throne

Have sat the intellectual Graces three,

Music, and Painting, and wing'd Poetry,

Of whom were born those great ones, thoughtfulfac'd,

That led the hierarchy of modern taste ;

Heavenly Composers, that with bow symphonious Drew out, at last, music's whole soul harmonious;

Poets, that knew how Nature should be wooed,
With frank address, and terms heart-understood;
And Painters, worthy to be friends of theirs,
Hands that could catch the very finest airs
Of natural minds, and all that soul express
Of ready concord, which was made to bless,
And forms the secret of true amorousness.

Not that our English clime, how sharp soe'er,
Yields in ripe genius to the warmest sphere;
For what we want in sunshine out of doors,
And the long leisure of abundant shores,
By freedom, nay by sufferance, is supplied,
And each man's sacred sunshine, his fire-side.
But all the four great Masters of our Song,
Stars that shine out amidst a starry throng,
Have turned to Italy for added light,

As earth is kissed by the sweet moon at night ;

Milton for half his style, Chaucer for tales,
Spenser for flowers to fill his isles and vales,
And Shakspeare's self for frames already done
To build his everlasting piles upon.

Her genius is more soft, harmonious, fine;
Our's bolder, deeper, and more masculine :..
In short, as woman's sweetness to man's force,
Less grand, but softening by the intercourse,
So the two countries are, so may they be,→
England the high-souled man, the charmer Italy.

But I must finish, and shall chatter less

On Greece, for reasons which yourself may guess.
Only remember what you promised me
About the flask from dark-welled Castaly,―

A draught, which but to think of, as I sit,

Makes the room round me almost turn with wit.

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