isten to the Sea-maid's shell;
Ye who have fled your natal shores in hate
Or anger, urged by pale disease, or want,
Or grief, that clinging like the spectre bat,
Sucks drop by drop the life-blood from the heart,
And hither come to learn forgetfulness,
Or to prolong existence! ye shall find
Both--though the spring Lethean flow no more,
There is a power in these entrancing skies
And murmuring waters and delicious airs,
Felt in the dancing spirits and the blood,
And falling on the lacerated heart
Like balm, until that life becomes a boon,
Which elsewhere is a burthen and a curse.

Hear then--O hear the Sea-maid's airy shell,
Listen, O listen! 'tis the Syren sings,
The spirit of the deep--Parthenope--
She who did once i' the dreamy days of old
Sport on these golden sands beneath the moon,
Or pour'd the ravishing music of her song
Over the silent waters; and bequeath'd
To all these sunny capes and dazzling shores
Her own immortal beauty, and her _name_.

* * * * *

This is the last day of the Carnival, the last night of the opera; the
people are permitted to go in masks, and after the performances there
will be a ball. To-day, when Baldi was describing the excesses which
usually take place during the last few hours of the Carnival, he said,
"the man who has but half a shirt will pawn it to-night to buy a good
supper and an opera-ticket: to-morrow for fish and soup-maigre--fasting
and repentance!"

* * * * *

_Saturday, 23._--I have just seen a most magnificent sight; one which
I have often dreamed of, often longed to behold, and having beheld,
never shall forget. Mount Vesuvius is at this moment blazing like a
huge furnace; throwing up every minute, or half minute, columns of
fire and red-hot stones, which fall in showers and bound down the side
of the mountain. On the east, there are two distinct streams of lava
descending, which glow with almost a white heat, and every burst of
flame is accompanied by a sound resembling cannon at a distance.--

I can hardly write, my mind is so overflowing with astonishment,
admiration, and sublime pleasure: what a scene as I looked out on the
bay from the Sante Lucia! On one side, the evening star and the
thread-like crescent of the new moon were setting together over
Pausilippo, reflected in lines of silver radiance on the blue