Ode to Naples by Percy Bysshe Shelley — Read

Epode 1a

I stood within the City disinterred; [1] / And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls / Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard / The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals / Thrill through those roofless halls; / The oracular thunder penetrating shook / The listening soul in my suspended blood; / I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke- / I felt, but heard not: -through white columns glowed / The isle-sustaining ocean-flood, / A plane of light between two heavens of azure! / Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre / Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure / Were to spare Death, had never made erasure; / But every living lineament was clear / As in the sculptor's thought; and there / The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine, / Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, / Seemed only not to move and grow / Because the crystal silence of the air / Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine / Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.