OCCASIONAL POEMS. NAPLES.-1860. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTON, OF BOSTON. I GIVE thee joy!-I know to thee The dearest spot on earth must be Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea; Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, I know that when the sky shut down And, through thy tears, the mocking day Burned Ischia's mountain lines away, And Capri melted in its sunny bay,— Through thy great farewell sorrow shot Thou knewest not the land was blest Holding the fond hope closer to her breast That every sweet and saintly grave The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save. That pledge is answered. To thy ear The unchained city sends its cheer, And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear Ring Victor in. The land sits free And happy by the summer sea, And Bourbon Naples now is Italy! She smiles above her broken chain O, joy for all, who hear her call And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival! A new life breathes among her vines Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath, Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death! Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain, Writing the grave with flowers: "Arisen again!' THE SUMMONS. My ear is full of summer sounds, And in the noon-time shadows lie. I hear the wild bee wind his horn, Another sound my spirit hears, A deeper sound that drowns them all,A voice of pleading choked with tears, The call of human hopes and fears, The Macedonian cry to Paul! The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows; Shamed be the hands that idly fold, And lips that woo the reed's accord, When laggard Time the hour has tolled For true with false and new with old To fight the battles of the Lord! O brothers! blest by partial Fate THE WAITING. I WAIT and watch: before my eyes Methinks the night grows thin and gray; I wait and watch the eastern skies To see the golden spears uprise Like one whose limbs are bound in trance I know the errand of their feet, I will not dream in vain despair The loss, if loss there be, is mine, power to do! O baffled will! And good but wished with God is done! |