RUINS AT PESTUM.

BY REV. J. PIERPONT, AUTHOR OF 'AIRS OF PALESTINE,

ETC.

CALL ye these 'ruins? What is ruined here ?
What fallen shaft - what broken capital-
What architraves or friezes, scattered round?
What leaning walls, with ivy overrun,

Or forced asunder by the roots of trees,

That have struck through them, tell you here was once
A finished temple- now o'erthrown by Time?

Seems it not, rather, a majestic fane,
Now going up, in honor of some god,

Whose greatness or whose beauty had impressed
The builder's soul with reverence profound,
And an entire devotion? It is true,

No tools of architects are seen around,

Compass, or square, or plummet, with its line;
Else, one might argue that the artisans
Had gone to dinner, and would soon return,
To carry on the work they had begun,

And, thus far, done so well. Yet, long ago,
The laborers who hewed these massy blocks,

And laid them where they lie; who grooved these shafts

To such a depth, and with such perfect truth,

Were called off from their work not called, indeed,
With sweating brow, to eat their daily bread;

But to lie down in the long sleep of death,

To rest from all their labors, and to mix

Their own dust with the dust that autumn's blasts

Or summer's whirlwind drives across this plain,

And through these voiceless temples, that now stand,
Their only, their mysterious monument.

Mysterious? Ay; for, if ye ask the age

That saw these temples rise, or in what tongue

The service was performed, or to what god

This fane or that was dedicate, no name,

Inscribed along the architrave, records

By whom, or to whom, wherefore built, or when.

And, if ye ask the Muse of History,

'Non mi recordo,' is her sole reply.

Tradition, too, that prates of all things else,

Is silent as to this. One only ray

Shoots through the darkness that broods o'er these fanes;

But that is not more worthy of our trust,

Than is the ignis fatuus that, at times,

Swims doubtfully by night across this plain,

Seeking, not finding rest. It is the ray

Thrown from the lamp of Logic, reasoning thus:
She has been told that Pæstum's ancient name

Was Posidonia. She has also learned

That, by the Greeks, old Neptune, Ocean's god,
Was called Poseidon. Ergo,' says the dame,
Who, from slight data, draws conclusions grave,
'Pæstum was Neptune's city; and the fane
That, in its grandeur and magnificence,
Excels the rest, must have been Neptune's temple.'
But wherefore Neptune's? Standing on this plain,
That stretches seaward for a league or more,
These massy columns never could have seen
Themselves reflected from the glassy wave,
When it lay sleeping on the nearest shore;
Nor could the surge, when lifted by the storm,
Have ever fallen, and bathed their feet in foam.

Nor could old ocean's monarch, while he dwelt
Within his own domains, have e'er beheld
The votive gifts suspended from these walls,
Or heard the prayers or praises offered here;
Unless, indeed, the zealous worshipper
Had, with a trumpet, called upon his god,
And spoken in thunders louder than his own;
Or which is far from probable - unless
The god had taken a carriage at the beach,
And been set down here at his own expense,
Whene'er he wished to show his peaceful head *
To those who bowed in worship at his shrine.

I've seen seven columns, standing now at Corinth,
On five of which for two bear nothing up
Some portion of the entablature remains;
And that old ruin the same style displays
Of severe Doric beauty, that prevails
In these grave works of hoar antiquity.
But to what god rose the Corinthian fane,
Or when, or by what architect, 't was reared,
How much below the time of Sisyphus,
Who laid the corner-stone of Corinth's state,
How much above the æra of Timoleon,

Whom that proud state commissioned to dethrone
The tyrant Dionysius, and convey

A Grecian colony to Syracuse

"T is all unknown. The ruins there, and here,

Of the same genius speak, and the same age;
And in the same oblivion both have slept

For more than two milleniums. Roman bards t
Have of the rosaries of Pæstum sung,

Twice blooming in a year. And he who first
Held in his hands the empire of the world-
Augustus Cæsar-visited this spot,

As I do now, to muse among these columns,

Of times whose works remain, whose history's lost.

And yet the palace of that same Augustus,
Built, as you know, upon the Palatine,
With all that Rome could do to hold it up
Beneath the pressure of the hand of Time,
Is now all swept away, even to the floor.
This little piece of marble, jaune antique,
Which now I use to keep these Sibyl leaves,
(As she of Cumæ cared not to keep hers) +
From floating off, on every wind that blows,
Before the printer gives them leave to fly,
Once formed a part of that same palace floor.
Among the weeds and bushes that o'erhang
The giant arches that the floor sustained,
I picked it up. Those arches, and the mass
Of bricks beneath them, and the floor above,
And bushes as aforesaid hanging o'er,
And, with their roots, helping the elements
To pry apart what Roman masons joined,
And fit the lower creature for the use

Of the superior converting thus

Things inorganic, mortar, bricks, and stones,

To soil, that it may feed organic life,

Grass, flowers, and trees, that they, in turn, may serve
As food for animals, and they for man,

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According to the eternal laws of God-
Are all, of Cæsar's palace, that remains.

† Biferi rosaria Pæsti. Virg. Georg. tv. 119.

Tepidi rosaria Pæsti. Ovid, Met. xv. 708.

Nec revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curat.- Virg. En. m. 451.

VOL. XIII.

But of this solemn temple, not a shaft
Hath fallen, nor yet an architrave or frieze,
Triglyph or metope. Dissolution's work,
The work of frost and moisture, cold and heat,
Has not, on this old sanctuary, begun.
The suns and rains of ages seem not yet
On any one of all these ponderous stones
To have given root to the minutest plant.
Not even a lichen or a moss has dared
To fix itself and flourish on these dry
And everlasting blocks of travertine.
The sun has only touched them with a tinge
Of his own gold. And, as I sit between
These columns, and observe how gently fall
His beams upon them, and how soft and calm
The air is, as it sleeps upon their sides,
(Even now, though 't is a January day,)
How gingerly that quick-eyed lizard runs,

In the warm sunshine, up and down their grooves,
It seems as if the very heavens and earth,
With all the elements and creeping things,
Had formed a league to keep eternal silence
Within, above, and all around this pile,

To see how many ages more 't would stand.

Methinks, even now, as the soft wind flows through
These noble colonnades, as through the strings
Of an Eolian harp, I hear a low

And solemn voice it is the temple's voice -
Though in what language it addresses me,
Greek, Latin, or Italian, it were hard

For Mezzofanti or the Polyglott,

Without a close attention, to decide;

For, since this temple pyenostyle hath stood,

It hath been exercised to many a tongue;

And to my ear it says, or seems to say:

'Stranger, I know as little of the world

From which thou comést, as thou dost of the time
From which I came: 'tis only yesterday
To me, since it was known there was a world
West of the promontories thou'st heard called
The 'Pillars' of my old friend Hercules.

I was so young, when I was first set up,
That I've forgotten who my builders were,
Or to what god my altars were devoted;
Else would I tell thee; for, I know the Muse

Would, through the lines which thou wilt write of me,
Preserve the knowledge to all future time.

But Hercules the friend of whom I've spoken-
I well remember, and for ever shall:

For, once he sat where thou art sitting now.
It was, I think, when he was on his way
From Thebes to Calpe, when he went to help
Atlas, his father-in-law, hold up the heavens.
I told him, then, that if he'd bring them here,
And lay them on my shoulders, I'd uphold
The whole of them to all eternity.

Excuse what, to thy cold and western ear,
May savor, somewhat, of hyperbole !
But, friend, it is the privilege of age

To be laudator acti temporis.

And, long since then, I've heard events, unmoved,

Which shook all Italy with their report,

And, ever since, have echoed round the globe.

For, I was quite in years when Hannibal

Came down the Alps, and at the river Ticin,

Which, on thy journey homeward, thou shalt cross,
O'erthrew the Romans under Scipio:

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When, after that, by Thrasymene's lake,
(Thou canst not have forgotten the nice fish
Thou a'st, one night, upon the same lake's shore,
Or how, like the good wife of Abraham,
Thy pretty hostess laughed, in unbelief,
When, in the papers of the Pope's police,
Thou didst report thyself' a clerkly man,'
Because thou worest not a monkish garb!)
The Roman legions, that Flaminius led,
Were, by the Carthaginian, overthrown,
In such a desperate, all-engrossing shock,
That even an earthquake walked unnoticed by !
And when, still later, the same African
Sent forty thousand Romans to the shades,
And their gold rings, by bushels, o'er to Carthage,
From yonder field of Cannæ; the small stream,
Bridged by the bodies of the Roman dead,
Is still called 'Sanguinetto' - Bloody Brook;
(Thou hast one, I've been told, in thine own land.)
When all these empire-shaking shocks were felt,
I heard them all, and heard them all, unmoved.

But later still, when, had the conqueror gone

With nothing but the panic of his name,

And said, in thunder, to the gates of Rome, 'Lift up your heads, Eternal City's gates,

And let the Conqueror of Rome come in!'

Those gates would have swung open. O, when I

Then saw those Africans sink down and doze

On the soft bosom of Parthenope;

When they who scaled the Alps, and stemmed the Po,

(A very muddy river that, you'll find,)

And stood against the arms of Rome's best men,
Within the arms of Capua's worst women

Fell, as fell Sampson in Dalilah's lap;

Then was I moved, indeed; yea deeply moved,
At the same time with gladness and with grief,
For though for Rome I smiled, I wept for man!

'Stranger, beware! for still Parthenope,

From whose bewitching smile thou hast withdrawn, To visit these drear solitudes, and muse

For a few hours among my colonnades,

Spreads all the snares that were by Capua spread,
The indolent and thoughtless to destroy.
But 'sapienti verbum sat! Thou goest,
And I no more shall see thee; but I pray,
(I see thou takest pleasure in my stones!)

Spare me, as Time hath spared; though I am sure

I owe him little thanks; for I have felt

The hackings of his scythe, (now somewhat dulled,
Thou 'It guess, thou sayest thou art from Yankee land,)
For some few thousand years; and I leave thee

To judge which hath the better of the game:
So, lift not hand, or hammer, I entreat,

To break a fragment, as 'a specimen'

Of the strange, hard, but spongy-looking stone
That the Silaro, (which from yonder hills
Thou seest flowing to Salerno's gulf,)
Turns all things into that it falls upon :
I've heard the same thing of Medusa's eyes!
O, treat me not as did the plundering Pict
My fair young sister, hight the Parthenon,'
Whom thou shalt see, and seeing shalt deplore,
When thou shalt visit the Acropolis.

Yea, spare me, friend, and spare me, all ye gods,
From virtuosi, earthquakes, Elgins spare,
And let me have my tussle out with TIME!'

THE SHIPWRECK.

ALL OF WHICH I SAW, AND PART OF WHICH 1 WAS.

'BREAKERS ahead!-breakers ahead! All hands on deck!' These startling words, uttered in a loud, shrill voice, accompanied by violent stamping overhead, roused me from a delightful slumber, as I lay in the berth of a noble coaster, on a bleak December night. It was but a few weeks after the melancholy wreck of the Home, whose timbers, peering above the water, we had seen and passed a few days before.

With the velocity of thought, I sprang from my berth, and made for the companion-way; but such a getting up stairs!' I was twice violently prostrated, before I succeeded in the attempt. The captain, who was also sleeping when the alarm was given, reached the deck just before me. On the first appearance of danger, an attempt had been made to put the vessel about, when there were but two men on deck; and she was now rolling and struggling in the trough of the sea, while the utmost confusion prevailed among the crew. The roar of the tempest, the blackness of the night, the rain sweeping and hurtling by, with the thunder-voice of the breakers, that seemed entirely to surround us, gave a terrific character to the scene, which I can never forget.

I had scarcely glanced at our situation, when the vessel, raised by a tremendous sea, was pitched forward upon the bottom. Heavens! how the 'many waters' swept over her! For a moment, not a word was uttered by the crew, who were laying hold of the nearest objects, as a temporary security against being borne overboard. Drenched from head to foot by the chilling flood, I retreated farther into the cabin. Every timber in the vessel groaned audibly; she trembled like a huge leviathan, in the agonies of death. As she rose upon the succeeding wave, she seemed to recover from the shock of the first breaker. The crew, inspired with courage by the apparent effort which she made to escape destruction, resumed their endeavors to put her about. She " wore round beautifully;' and we began to flatter ourselves we had escaped.

With this hope swelling his bosom, one of the crew sang out, in exulting tones, • We are off! we are off! But before the words died upon his lips, the delusion had vanished. The vessel struck again and again. We were in a field of breakers! Orders were given to take in the few sails that were flying; but the united strength of a crew of nine men failed to accomplish the object. The next command was, to throw overboard the deck load, naval stores and cotton. A few barrels were cast into the sea; but the attendant danger was so great, that the captain soon ordered the crew to desist.

While these operations were going forward, I still occupied my place on the steps of the companion-way, with my eye fixed upon a spar near at hand; for I recollected that some who escaped the wreck of the Home, had floated to the shore upon a similar material. At length we all sought refuge in the cabin; which-thanks to copper bolts, live oak, and faithful workmen had admitted but little water.

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