book of the AEneid, which I am
now reading in Annibal Caro's translation: there Agrippina mourned
Germanicus; and there her daughter fell a victim to her monster of a
son. At our feet lay the lovely little Island of Nisida, the spot on
which Brutus and Portia parted for the last time before the battle of
Philippi.

To the south of the bay the scenery is not less magnificent, and
scarcely less dear to memory: Naples, rising from the sea like an
amphitheatre of white palaces, and towers, and glittering domes:
beyond, Mount Vesuvius, with the smoke curling from its summits like a
silver cloud, and forming the only speck upon the intense blue sky;
along its base Portici, Annunziata, Torre del Greco, glitter in the
sun; every white building--almost every window in every building,
distinct to the eye at the distance of several miles: farther on, and
perched like white nests on the mountainous promontory, lie Castel a
Mare, and Sorrento, the birth-place of Tasso, and his asylum when the
injuries of his cold-hearted persecutors had stung him to madness, and
drove him here for refuge to the arms of his sister. Yet, farther on,
Capua rises from the sea, a beautiful object in itself, but from which
the fancy gladly turns to dwell again upon the snowy buildings of
Sorrento.

"O de la liberte vieille et sainte patrie!
Terre autrefois feconde en sublimes vertus!
Sous d'indignes Cesars maintenant asservie
Ton empire est tombe! tes heros ne sont plus!
Mais dans son sein l'ame aggrandie
Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur genie,
Comme on respire encore dans un temple aboli
La Majeste du Dieu dont il etait rempli."

DE LA MARTINE.

THE SONG OF THE SYREN PARTHENOPE.

A RHAPSODY,

WRITTEN AT NAPLES.

Mine are these waves, and mine the twilight depths
O'er which they roll, and all these tufted isles
That lift their backs like dolphins from the deep,
And all these sunny shores that gird us round!

Listen! O listen to the Sea-maid's shell!
Ye who have wander'd hither from far climes,
(Where the coy summer yields but half her sweets,)
To breathe my bland luxurious airs, and drink
My sunbeams! and to revel in a land
Where Nature--deck'd out like a bride to meet
Her lover--lays forth all her charms, and smiles
Languidly bright, voluptuously gay,
Sweet to the sense, and tender to the heart.

Listen! O l