In lofty lines, Mid palms and pines, And olives, aloes, elms, and vines, On sunset wings, Where Tasso's spirit soars and sings. Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles; And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates. I heed not, if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise. Under the walls Where swells and falls The Bay's deep breast at intervals, Blown softly by, A cloud upon this liquid sky. The day, so mild, Is heaven's own child, With earth and ocean reconciled; The airs I feel Around me steal Are murmuring to the murmuring keel. Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail; The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence. With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies; UP from the south at break of day, The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, And Sheridan twenty miles away. And wider still those billows of war But there is a road from Winchester town, And there, through the flush of the morning light, He stretched away with his utmost speed Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south, The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, Under his spurning feet the road And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, The first that the general saw were the groups |