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 poets tomb,     The land of Virgil gave thee room     To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom.     I know that when the sky shut down     Behind thee on the gleaming town,     On Baiaes baths and Posilippos crown;     And, through thy tears, the mocking day     Burned Ischias mountain lines away,     And Capri melted in its sunny bay;     Through thy great farewell sorrow shot     The sharp pang of a bitter thought     That slaves must tread around that holy spot.     Thou knewest not the land was blest     In giving thy beloved rest,     Holding the fond hope closer to her breast,     That every sweet and saintly grave     Was freedoms prophecy, and gave     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     The languid smile that follows pain,     Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again.     Oh, joy for all, who hear her call     From gray Camaldolis convent wall     And Elmos towers to freedoms carnival!     A new life breathes among her vines     And olives, like the breath of pines     Blown downward from the breezy Apennines.     Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath,     Rejoice as one who witnesseth     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!