I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme 35 And perfect beauty anywhere?
Sweet vision! Do not fade away; Linger until my heart shall take Into itself the summer day, And all the beauty of the lake. 40
Linger until upon my brain Is stamped an image of the scene, Then fade into the air again, And be as if thou hadst not been.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
TO VERONA
Verona! thy tall gardens stand erect Beckoning me upward. Let me rest awhile Where the birds whistle hidden in the boughs, Or fly away when idlers take their place, Mated as well, concealed as willingly; 5 Idlers whose nest must not swing there, but rise Beneath a gleaming canopy of gold, Amid the flight of Cupids, and the smiles Of Venus ever radiant o"er their couch.
Here would I stay, here wander, slumber here, 10 Nor pa.s.s into that theatre below Crowded with their faint memories, shades of joy.
But ancient song arouses me: I hear Coelius and Aufilena; I behold Lesbia, and Lesbia"s linnet at her lip 15 Pecking the fruit that ripens and swells out For him whose song the Graces loved the most, Whatever land, east, west, they visited.
Even he must not detain me: one there is Greater than he, of broader wing, of swoop 20 Sublimer. Open now that humid arch Where Juliet sleeps the quiet sleep of death, And Romeo sinks aside her.
Fare ye well, Lovers! Ye have not loved in vain: the hearts Of millions throb around ye. This lone tomb, 25 One greater than yon walls have ever seen, Greater than Manto"s prophet-eye foresaw In her own child or Rome"s, hath hallowed; And the last sod or stone a pilgrim knee 29 Shall press (Love swears it, and swears true) is here.
W. S. LANDOR.
THE APENNINE
Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which--had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more s.h.a.ggy summits, and where roar The thundering lauwine--might be worshipped more; 5 But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow, and seen the h.o.a.r Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,
Th" Acroceraunian mountains of old name; 10 And on Parna.s.sus seen the eagles fly Like spirits of the spot, as "twere for fame, For still they soared unutterably high: I"ve looked on Ida with a Trojan"s eye; Athos, Olympus, Aetna, Atlas, made 15 These hills seem things of lesser dignity, All, save the lone Soracte"s height, displayed Not _now_ in snow, which asks the lyric Roman"s aid
For our remembrance, and from out the plain Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, And on the curl hangs pausing. 21
LORD BYRON.
WHERE UPON APENNINE SLOPE
Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply, Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, 5 Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,-- Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!
A. H. CLOUGH.
"DE GUSTIBUS----"
I
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice-- 5 A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,-- The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pa.s.s, as they will too soon, 10 With the beanflowers" boon, And the blackbird"s tune, And May, and June!
II
What I love best in all the world, Is, a castle, precipice-encurled, 15 In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O" the grave, and loose my spirit"s bands, And come again to the land of lands)-- 20 In a sea-side house to the farther south, Where the baked cicalas die of drouth, And one sharp tree--"tis a cypress--stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o"ercrusted, 25 My sentinel to guard the sands To the water"s edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles 30 Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there"s news to-day--the king 35 Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: --She hopes they have not caught the felons.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary"s saying serves for me-- 40 (When fortune"s malice Lost her, Calais)
Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy,"
Such lovers old are I and she; 45 So it always was, so shall ever be!
R. BROWNING.
VENICE
There is a glorious City in the sea.
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 5 Lead to her gates. The path lies o"er the sea, Invisible; and from the land we went, As to a floating city--steering in, And gliding up her streets as in a dream, So smoothly, silently--by many a dome, 10 Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, The statues ranged along an azure sky; By many a pile in more than eastern pride, Of old the residence of merchant-kings; The fronts of some, though Time had shattered them, Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 16 As though the wealth within them had run o"er.
S. ROGERS.
OCEAN"S NURSLING
Underneath Day"s azure eyes Ocean"s nursling, Venice lies, A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite"s destined halls, Which her h.o.a.ry sire now paves 5 With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; 10 And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion 15 From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold 20 Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City! thou hast been Ocean"s child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, 25 If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier.
P. B. Sh.e.l.lEY.
VENICE
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter"s wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 5 Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O"er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion"s marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 10 Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 15 Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.
In Venice Ta.s.so"s echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; 20 Her palaces are crumbling to the sh.o.r.e, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade--but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 25 The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 30 Above the dogeless city"s vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away-- The keystones of the arch! though all were o"er, 35 For us repeopled were the solitary sh.o.r.e.
The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood! 40 St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, but in mockery of his withered power, Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. 45
Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of bra.s.s, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria"s menace come to pa.s.s?
Are they not _bridled_?--Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 50 Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction"s death, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.