uplifted crest
Lashes the foaming beach with sullen roar;
The smooth sea sparkles in unbroken rest,
Or lightly rakes upon the pebbled shore.

The Ocean's Monarch on these golden sands
Seems the luxurious laws of Love to own,[2]
And yield his trident to Thalassia's hands,
To rule the waters from the Baian throne.

Here the green olive, and the purple vine,
The lofty poplar and the elm espouse,
Or round the mulberry their tendrils twine,
Or creep in clusters through the ilex boughs.

A thousand flow'rs, enamelling the fields,
Declare the presence of returning spring;
A various harvest smiling Ceres yields,
And all the groves with vocal music sing.

Earth, air, and sea th' enchantment of the clime,
Revived that young elation of the breast
When Hope, undaunted, saw the form of Time
In Fancy's gay, deluding colours drest,

And though those visions are for ever fled
Which in the morning of existence rose,
And all the false and flatt'ring hopes are dead
That vainly promised a serener close.

I'll snatch the joys which spite of fate remain
To cheer life's darkness with a transient ray,
And oft in vivid fancy roam again
Through these blest regions when I'm far away.

[2] The Temple of Venus stands upon the shore of the Bay of
Baiae.

[Page Head: THE AQUEDUCTS]

Rome, May 13th, 1830 {p.362}

_11th._--Walked about visiting to announce my return, and found
nobody at home. Hired a horse and rode with Lovaine till near
eight o'clock; rode by the Via Sacra two or three miles along the
Street of Tombs--very interesting and curious--and then cut
across to the ruin of an old villa, where an apartment floored
with marble has lately been discovered, evidently a bath, and a
very large one; on to Torlonia's _scavo_ and under the arches of
the Claudian aqueduct. Nothing at Rome delights and astonishes
me more than the aqueducts, the way they stretch over the
Campagna--[3]

As some earth-born giants spread
Their mighty arms along th' indented mead.

And when you approach them how admirable are their vastness and
solidity--each arch in itself a fabric, and the whole so
venerable and beautiful. After all my delight at Naples I
infinitely prefer Rome; there is a tranquil