University of Virginia Library

CARRARA.

On to the bleak and barren Appennine,
Where Nature in her wildness walks alone
On the rude mountain rock, and shapeless stone.
Trace her coy footstep to her central shrine,
Thro' many a darksome glen and deep ravine,
Where foaming torrents pour their floods between.
There view, with domes and radiant temples crown'd,
A city rise, th' enchanter's hand beneath.
Lo! its inhabitants, a marble race,
Sea-Nymph, or Naiad, Satyr, Faun, or Grace,
Stern Jove, or Love's enticing goddess, breathe,
And woo thy stay.—But, linger not—pursue
A path, by bubbling brooks, along the dell,
Where amid verdant hills that smoothly swell,
The marble mountain tow'rs before thy view,
Carrara's unwrought temple.—There behold,
How Sculpture on the mount engraves their name,
Theirs, in that quarry, those rude rocks among,
Who, led by Genius, step by step along,
Pass'd to immortal fame.—
Nor fail thou in that region to deplore
Canova, in his noon of glory gone:
Who oft in tranced vision, bending o'er
The mountain's marble brow,
On rugged fragments round confus'dly thrown,
The shapeless mass below,
Saw each fine form the Graces had enshrin'd
In the pure sanctuary of his cultur'd mind:
And, like the youth, who, on his air-borne steed
From fetters loos'd rock-bound Andromeda,
Unchain'd the struggling limbs, and boldly freed
The form of Beauty, that unseen, unknown,
A living statue lay tomb'd in th' imprisoning stone.