POETRY.
A GREY DAY AT NAPLES, 1888.
Tits lazy waters of the tideless sea, That murmur homage to Parthenope, Enveloped in November's cloak of brown, Hide their bright azure, as the motley town Imports from Northern climes the low-toned dress Which masks awhile her laughing loveliness.
Southward the eye to-day can scarce divine The clear-cut range of Capri's mountain line, Dreaming that Autumn's spirit even thus Fell on the dark soul of Tiberius, And mourned with him the lights that disappear Out of the records of the dying year.
Yet still, when Colour fails, the grace of Form Clasps the fair coast in her embraces warm, Even as to classic shapes inspired of Death The sculptor's chisel lends a second breath, And in the courts of Naples bids again The ghosts of Cmsars stand like living men. So,—when the sad but gracious veil of grey Falls softly silent o'er the melting day,— Go teach thy thoughts in unison to turn To statued record and sepulchral urn, And feel that dullest hour can only shroud Eternal Beauty with a passing cloud.
Even as I write, against my window-pane Plash early heralds of the dewy rain, And to the sun-tired spirit sound confessed A kind of gentle parable of Rest.
A-weary of the long internal strife, Which surges still beneath the crust of Life, And threatens all men in securest hour With some dread flash of the Destroyer's power, Till in a moment be to ruin hurled Their baby-hold upon their treasured world,— The mind will crave, ere sultry evening close, From waste of fretful labour, dead Repose.
So, o'er the treacherous beauty of a soil Quick with the live volcano's long turmoil, In sullen murmur hinting slow desire, And wrapping Nature in a lust of fire, Or threatening to upheave in sudden birth On ruins of herself unstable Earth, Careless of all the suffering of the few, So the great whole be to its mission true ;- Still ever and anon the Southern day Pales out in quiet folds of tender grey, As if, where first their angry watch they kept, The very Titans in the prison slept.
With them tired heart, sleep, then, a little too, When restful cloud obscures the vaulted blue ! If changeless sunshine flooded shore and sea, Where would the Spirit of the Shadow be ?
HERMAN MERIVALE.
Previous page
