LINES WRITTEN AT PESTUM. THEY stand between the mountains and the sea; Awful memorials, but of whom we know not! * The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck. The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak, * The temples of Pæstum are three in number; and have survived, nearly nine centuries, the total destruction of the city. Tradition is silent concerning them; but they must have existed now between two and three thousand years. L Points to the work of magic and moves on. Time was they stood along the crowded street, Temples of Gods! and on their ample steps What various habits, various tongues beset The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice! Time was perhaps the third was sought for Justice; And here the accuser stood, and there the accused; And here the judges sate, and heard, and judged. All silent now!-as in the ages past, Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust How many centuries did the sun go round From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea, While, by some spell rendered invisible, Or, if approached, approached by him alone Who saw as though he saw not, they remained Waiting the appointed time! All, all within Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right, No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus, But with thick ivy hung or branching fern, Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure! From my youth upward have I longed to tread This classic ground.—And am I here at last? And catching, as through some majestic grove, Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like, Mountains and mountain-gulphs, and, half-way up, Towns like the living rock from which they grew? A cloudy region, black and desolate, Where once a slave withstood a world in arms. * The air is sweet with violets, running wild† Mid broken sculptures and fallen capitals; Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts, *Spartacus. See Plutarch in the Life of Crassus. + The violets of Pæstum were as proverbial as the roses. Martial mentions them with the honey of Hybla. ‡ The introduction to his treatise on Glory. Cic. ad Att. xvi. 6. For an account of the loss of that treatise, see Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Senilium. xv. 1. and Bayle, Dict. in Alcyonius. Turning to thee, divine Philosophy, Who ever cam'st to calm his troubled soul, Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago, For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds Blew from the Pæstan gardens, slacked her course. On as he moved along the level shore, These temples, in their splendour eminent Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers, Well might he dream of Glory!--Now, coiled up, Suckles her young: and, as alone I stand |
