CURRENTE CALAMO

All along the valley, stream that flashest white,Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,All along the valley, where thy waters flow,I walked with one I loved two and thirty years ago.All along the valley while I walked to-day,5The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.10

Lord Tennyson.

Quick, painter, quick, the moment seizeAmid the snowy Pyrenees;More evanescent than the snow,The pictures come, are seen, and go:Quick, quick,currente calamo.5I do not ask the tints that fillThe gate of day 'twixt hill and hill;I ask not for the hues that fleetAbove the distant peaks; my feetAre on a poplar-bordered road,10Where with a saddle and a loadA donkey, old and ashen-grey,Reluctant works his dusty way.Before him, still with might and mainPulling his rope, the rustic rein,15A girl: before both him and me,Frequent she turns and lets me see,Unconscious, lets me scan and traceThe sunny darkness of her faceAnd outlines full of southern grace.20Following I notice, yet and yet,Her olive skin, dark eyes deep set,And black, and blacker e'en than jet,The escaping hair that scantly showed,Since o'er it in the country mode,25For winter warmth and summer shade,The lap of scarlet cloth is laid.And then, back-falling from the head,A crimson kerchief overspreadHer jacket blue; thence passing down,30A skirt of darkest yellow-brown,Coarse stuff, allowing to the viewThe smooth limb to the woollen shoe.But who—here's some one following too,—A priest, and reading at his book!35Read on, O priest, and do not look;Consider,—she is but a child,—Yet might your fancy be beguiled.Read on, O priest, and pass and go!But see, succeeding in a row,40Two, three, and four, a motley train,Musicians wandering back to Spain;With fiddle and with tambourine,A man with women following seen.What dresses, ribbon ends, and flowers!45And,—sight to wonder at for hours,—The man,—to Phillip has he sat?—With butterfly-like velvet hat;One dame his big bassoon conveys,On one his gentle arm he lays;50They stop, and look, and something say,And to 'España' ask the way.But while I speak, and point them on;Alas, my dearer friends are gone,The dark-eyed maiden and the ass55Have had the time the bridge to pass.Vainly, beyond it far descried,Adieu, and peace with you abide,Grey donkey, and your beauteous guide.The pictures come, the pictures go,60Quick, quick,currente calamo.

A. H. Clough.

Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenesIn variegated maze of mount and glen.Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,To follow half on which the eye dilatesThrough views more dazzling unto mortal ken5Than those whereof such things the bard relates,Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates?The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd,The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown'd,10The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,The tender azure of the unruffled deep,The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,The vine on high, the willow branch below,15Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd,The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown'd,10The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,The tender azure of the unruffled deep,The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,The vine on high, the willow branch below,15Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

Lord Byron.

In the steamy, stuffy Midlands, 'neath an English summer sky,When the holidays are nearing with the closing of July,And experienced Alpine stagers and impetuous recruitsAre renewing with the season their continual disputes—Those inveterate disputes5On the newest Alpine routes—And inspecting the condition of their mountaineering boots:You may stifle your reflections, you may banish them afar,You may try to draw a solace from the thought of 'Nächstes Jahr'—But your heart is with those climbers, and you'll feverishly yearn10To be crossing of the Channel with your luggage labelled 'Bern',Leaving England far asternWith a ticket through to Bern,And regarding your profession with a lordly unconcern!Theywill lie beside the torrent, just as you were wont to do,15With the woodland green around them and a snow-field shining through:They will tread the higher pastures, where celestial breezes blow,While the valley lies in shadow and the peaks are all aglow—Where the airs of heaven blow'Twixt the pine woods and the snow,20And the shades of evening deepen in the valley far below:They will scale the mountain strongholds that in days of old you won,They will plod behind a lantern ere the rising of the sun,On a 'grat' or in a chimney, on the steep and dizzy slope,For a foothold or a handhold they will diligently grope—On the rocky, icy slope26(Where we'll charitably hope'Tis assistance only Moral that they're getting from a rope);They will dine on mule and marmot, and on mutton made of goats,They will face the various horrors of Helvetian table d'hotes:30But whate'er the paths that lead them, and the food whereon they fare,They will taste the joy of living, as you only taste it there,As you taste it Only ThereIn the higher, purer air,Unapproachable by worries and oblivious quite of care!35Place me somewhere in the Valais, 'mid the mountains west of Binn,West of Binn and east of Savoy, in a decent kind of inn,With a peak or two for climbing, and a glacier to explore,—Any mountains will content me, though they've all been climbed before—Yes! I care not any more40Though they've all been done before,And the names they keep in bottles may be numbered by the score!Though the hand of Time be heavy: though your ancient comrades fail:Though the mountains you ascended be accessible by rail:44Though your nerve begin to weaken, and you're gouty grown and fat,And prefer to walk in places which are reasonably flat—Though you grow so very fatThat you climb the Gorner GratOr perhaps the Little Scheideck,—and are rather proud of that:Yet I hope that till you die50You will annually sighFor a vision of the Valais with the coming of July,For the Oberland or Valais and the higher, purer air,And the true delight of living, as you taste it only there!

You may stifle your reflections, you may banish them afar,You may try to draw a solace from the thought of 'Nächstes Jahr'—But your heart is with those climbers, and you'll feverishly yearn10To be crossing of the Channel with your luggage labelled 'Bern',Leaving England far asternWith a ticket through to Bern,And regarding your profession with a lordly unconcern!

Theywill lie beside the torrent, just as you were wont to do,15With the woodland green around them and a snow-field shining through:They will tread the higher pastures, where celestial breezes blow,While the valley lies in shadow and the peaks are all aglow—Where the airs of heaven blow'Twixt the pine woods and the snow,20And the shades of evening deepen in the valley far below:

They will scale the mountain strongholds that in days of old you won,They will plod behind a lantern ere the rising of the sun,On a 'grat' or in a chimney, on the steep and dizzy slope,For a foothold or a handhold they will diligently grope—On the rocky, icy slope26(Where we'll charitably hope'Tis assistance only Moral that they're getting from a rope);

They will dine on mule and marmot, and on mutton made of goats,They will face the various horrors of Helvetian table d'hotes:30But whate'er the paths that lead them, and the food whereon they fare,They will taste the joy of living, as you only taste it there,As you taste it Only ThereIn the higher, purer air,Unapproachable by worries and oblivious quite of care!35

Place me somewhere in the Valais, 'mid the mountains west of Binn,West of Binn and east of Savoy, in a decent kind of inn,With a peak or two for climbing, and a glacier to explore,—Any mountains will content me, though they've all been climbed before—Yes! I care not any more40Though they've all been done before,And the names they keep in bottles may be numbered by the score!

Though the hand of Time be heavy: though your ancient comrades fail:Though the mountains you ascended be accessible by rail:44Though your nerve begin to weaken, and you're gouty grown and fat,And prefer to walk in places which are reasonably flat—Though you grow so very fatThat you climb the Gorner GratOr perhaps the Little Scheideck,—and are rather proud of that:Yet I hope that till you die50You will annually sighFor a vision of the Valais with the coming of July,For the Oberland or Valais and the higher, purer air,And the true delight of living, as you taste it only there!

A. D. Godley.

'C'était une guerre avec le Matterhorn,'said a Zermatt peasant of the manyattempts to scale this great mountain

They warred with Nature, as of old with godsThe Titans; like the Titans too they fell,Hurled from the summit of their hopes, and dashedSheer down precipitous tremendous crags,A thousand deaths in one. 'Tis o'er, and we5Who sit at home, and by the peaceful hearthRead their sad tale, made wise by the event,May moralize of folly and a thirstFor barren honour, fruitful of no end.'Tis well: we were not what we are without10That cautious wisdom, and the sober mindOf prudence, steering calm 'twixt rock and storm.Yet, too, methinks, we were not what we areWithout that other fiery element—The love, the thirst for venture, and the scorn15That aught should be too great for mortal powersThat yet one peak in all the skyey throngShould rise unchallenged with unvanquished snows,Virgin from the beginning of the world.Such fire was theirs; O not for fame alone—20That coarser thread in all the finer skeinThat draws adventure, oft by vulgar mindsDeemed man's sole aim—but for the high delightTo tread untrodden solitudes, and feelA sense of power, of fullest freedom, lost25In the loud vale whereManis all in all.For this they dared too much; nor they alone,They but the foremost of an Alpine band,Who in the life of cities pine and pantFor purer air, for peak, and pass, and glen,30With slow majestic glacier, born to-day,Yet with the trophies of a thousand yearsOn its scarred bosom, till its icy bondsIt burst, and rush a torrent to the main.Such sons still hast thou, England; be thou proudTo have them, relics of thy younger age.36Nor murmur if not all at once they takeThe care and burden on them. Learn of them!Youth has its teaching, too, as well as age:We grow too old too soon; the flaxen head40Of childhood apes experience' hoary crown,And prudent lisps ungraceful aged saws.'Tis so: yet here in Zermatt—here beneathThe fatal peak, beside the heaving moundThat bears the black cross with the golden namesOf men, our friends, upon it—here we fain46Would preach a soberer lesson. Forth they went,Fearless and gay as to a festival,One clear, cold morn: they climbed the virgin height;They stood where still the awestruck gazer's eye50Shudders to follow. There a little whileThey spake of home, that centre whose wide armsHold us where'er we are, in joy, or woe,On earth, in air, and far on stormy seas.Then they turned homeward, yet not to return.It was a fearful place, and as they crept56Fearfully down the giddy steep, there cameA slip—no more—one little slip, and downLinked in a living avalanche they fell,Brothers in hope, in triumph, and in death,60Nor dying were divided. One remainedTo tell their story, and to bury them.

A. G. Butler.

Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,And four lives paid for what the seven had won.They were the first by whom the deed was done,5And when I look at thee, my mind takes flightTo that day's tragic feat of manly might,As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soonThou didst behold the planets lift and lower;10Saw'st, maybe, Joshua's pausing sun and moon,And the betokening sky when Caesar's powerApproached its bloody end; yea, even that NoonWhen darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,And four lives paid for what the seven had won.

They were the first by whom the deed was done,5And when I look at thee, my mind takes flightTo that day's tragic feat of manly might,As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.

Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soonThou didst behold the planets lift and lower;10Saw'st, maybe, Joshua's pausing sun and moon,And the betokening sky when Caesar's powerApproached its bloody end; yea, even that NoonWhen darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

T. Hardy.

The Lady of the Hills with crimes untoldFollowed my feet, with azure eyes of prey;By glacier-brink she stood—by cataract-spray—When mists were dire, or avalanche-echoes rolled.At night she glimmered in the death-wind cold,5And if a footprint shone at break of day,My flesh would quail, but straight my soul would say:''Tis hers whose hand God's mightier hand doth hold.'I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was bright,Her icicle-arch across the sheer crevasse,10When lo, she stood!... God made her let me pass,Then felled the bridge!... Oh, there in sallow lightThere down the chasm, I saw her cruel, white,And all my wondrous days as in a glass.

I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was bright,Her icicle-arch across the sheer crevasse,10When lo, she stood!... God made her let me pass,Then felled the bridge!... Oh, there in sallow lightThere down the chasm, I saw her cruel, white,And all my wondrous days as in a glass.

T. Watts-Dunton.

What power is this? what witchery wins my feetTo peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow,All silent as the emerald gulfs below,Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat?What thrill of earth and heaven—most wild, most sweet—5What answering pulse that all the senses know,Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glowWhere, far away, the skies and mountains meet?Mother, 'tis I reborn: I know thee well:That throb I know and all it prophesies,10O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spellOf silence, gazing from thy hills and skies!Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tellThe secret at thy heart through helpless eyes!

Mother, 'tis I reborn: I know thee well:That throb I know and all it prophesies,10O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spellOf silence, gazing from thy hills and skies!Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tellThe secret at thy heart through helpless eyes!

T. Watts-Dunton.

——Brook and roadWere fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass,And with them did we journey several hoursAt a slow step. The immeasurable heightOf woods decaying, never to be decayed,5The stationary blasts of waterfalls,And in the narrow rent, at every turn,Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,10Black drizzling crags that spake by the waysideAs if a voice were in them, the sick sightAnd giddy prospect of the raving stream,The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light—15Were all like workings of one mind, the featuresOf the same face, blossoms upon one tree,Characters of the great Apocalypse,The types and symbols of Eternity,Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.20

W. Wordsworth.

IIn front the awful Alpine trackCrawls up its rocky stair;The autumn storm-winds drive the rackClose o'er it, in the air.Behind are the abandoned baths5Mute in their meadows lone;The leaves are on the valley paths;The mists are on the Rhone—The white mists rolling like a sea.I hear the torrents roar.10—Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!I feel thee near once more.How often, where the slopes are greenOn Jaman, hast thou sateBy some high chalet door, and seen15The summer day grow late,And darkness steal o'er the wet grassWith the pale crocus starred,And reach that glimmering sheet of glassBeneath the piny sward,20Lake Leman's waters, far below:And watched the rosy lightFade from the distant peaks of snow:And on the air of nightHeard accents of the eternal tongue25Through the pine branches play:Listened, and felt thyself grow young:Listened, and wept——Away!Away the dreams that but deceive!And thou, sad Guide, adieu!30I go; Fate drives me: but I leaveHalf of my life with you.IIGlion?——Ah, twenty years, it cutsAll meaning from a name!White houses prank where once were huts!Glion, but not the same,And yet I know not. All unchanged5The turf, the pines, the sky!The hills in their old order ranged.The lake, with Chillon by!And 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiffAnd stony mounts the way,10Their crackling husk-heaps burn, as ifI left them yesterday.Across the valley, on that slope,The huts of Avant shine—Its pines under their branches ope15Ways for the tinkling kine.Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,Invite to rest the traveller thereBefore he climb the pass—20The gentian-flowered pass, its crownWith yellow spires aflame,Whence drops the path to Allière downAnd walls where Byron came.Still in my soul the voice I heard25Of Obermann—awayI turned; by some vague impulse stirred,Along the rocks of NayeAnd Sonchaud's piny flanks I gazeAnd the blanched summit bare30Of Malatrait, to where in hazeThe Valais opens fair,And the domed Velan with his snowsBehind the upcrowding hillsDoth all the heavenly opening close35Which the Rhone's murmur fills—And glorious there, without a sound,Across the glimmering lake,High in the Valais depth profound,I saw the morning break.40

In front the awful Alpine trackCrawls up its rocky stair;The autumn storm-winds drive the rackClose o'er it, in the air.

Behind are the abandoned baths5Mute in their meadows lone;The leaves are on the valley paths;The mists are on the Rhone—

The white mists rolling like a sea.I hear the torrents roar.10—Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!I feel thee near once more.

How often, where the slopes are greenOn Jaman, hast thou sateBy some high chalet door, and seen15The summer day grow late,

And darkness steal o'er the wet grassWith the pale crocus starred,And reach that glimmering sheet of glassBeneath the piny sward,20

Lake Leman's waters, far below:And watched the rosy lightFade from the distant peaks of snow:And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue25Through the pine branches play:Listened, and felt thyself grow young:Listened, and wept——Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive!And thou, sad Guide, adieu!30I go; Fate drives me: but I leaveHalf of my life with you.

Glion?——Ah, twenty years, it cutsAll meaning from a name!White houses prank where once were huts!Glion, but not the same,

And yet I know not. All unchanged5The turf, the pines, the sky!The hills in their old order ranged.The lake, with Chillon by!

And 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiffAnd stony mounts the way,10Their crackling husk-heaps burn, as ifI left them yesterday.

Across the valley, on that slope,The huts of Avant shine—Its pines under their branches ope15Ways for the tinkling kine.

Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,Invite to rest the traveller thereBefore he climb the pass—20

The gentian-flowered pass, its crownWith yellow spires aflame,Whence drops the path to Allière downAnd walls where Byron came.

Still in my soul the voice I heard25Of Obermann—awayI turned; by some vague impulse stirred,Along the rocks of Naye

And Sonchaud's piny flanks I gazeAnd the blanched summit bare30Of Malatrait, to where in hazeThe Valais opens fair,

And the domed Velan with his snowsBehind the upcrowding hillsDoth all the heavenly opening close35Which the Rhone's murmur fills—

And glorious there, without a sound,Across the glimmering lake,High in the Valais depth profound,I saw the morning break.40

M. Arnold.

Ten years!—and to my waking eyeOnce more the roofs of Berne appear;The rocky banks, the terrace high,The stream—and do I linger here?The clouds are on the Oberland,5The Jungfrau snows look faint and far;But bright are those green fields at hand,And through those fields comes down the Aar,And from the blue twin lakes it comes,Flows by the town, the church-yard fair,10And 'neath the garden-walk it hums,The house—and is my Marguerite there?

Ten years!—and to my waking eyeOnce more the roofs of Berne appear;The rocky banks, the terrace high,The stream—and do I linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland,5The Jungfrau snows look faint and far;But bright are those green fields at hand,And through those fields comes down the Aar,

And from the blue twin lakes it comes,Flows by the town, the church-yard fair,10And 'neath the garden-walk it hums,The house—and is my Marguerite there?

M. Arnold.

Never, oh never more shall I beholdA sunrise on the glacier:—stars of mornPaling in primrose round the crystal horn;Soft curves of crimson mellowing into gold4O'er sapphire chasm, and silvery snow-field cold;Fire that o'er-floods the horizon; beacons borneFrom wind-worn peak to storm-swept peak forlorn;Clear hallelujahs through heaven's arches rolled.Never, oh never more these feet shall feelThe firm elastic tissue of upland turf,10Or the crisp edge of the high rocks; or clingWhere the embattled cliffs beneath them reelThrough cloud-wreaths eddying like the Atlantic surf,Far, far above the wheeling eagle's wing.

Never, oh never more these feet shall feelThe firm elastic tissue of upland turf,10Or the crisp edge of the high rocks; or clingWhere the embattled cliffs beneath them reelThrough cloud-wreaths eddying like the Atlantic surf,Far, far above the wheeling eagle's wing.

J. A. Symonds.

Happy is England! I could be contentTo see no other verdure than its own;To feel no other breezes than are blownThrough its tall woods with high romances blent:Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment5For skies Italian, and an inward groanTo sit upon an Alp as on a throne,And half forget what world or worldling meant.Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;Enough their simple loveliness for me,10Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:Yet do I often warmly burn to seeBeauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,And float with them about the summer waters.

J. Keats.

O love, what hours were thine and mine,In lands of palm and southern pine;In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.What Roman strength Turbia showed5In ruin, by the mountain road;How like a gem, beneath, the cityOf little Monaco, basking, glowed.How richly down the rocky dellThe torrent vineyard streaming fell10To meet the sun and sunny waters,That only heaved with a summer swell.What slender campanili grewBy bays, the peacock's neck in hue;Where, here and there, on sandy beaches15A milky-belled amaryllis blew.How young Columbus seemed to rove,Yet present in his natal grove,Now watching high on mountain cornice,And steering, now, from a purple cove,20Now pacing mute by ocean's rim;Till, in a narrow street and dim,I stayed the wheels at Cogoletto,And drank, and loyally drank to him.Nor knew we well what pleased us most,25Not the clipt palm of which they boast;But distant colour, happy hamlet,A mouldered citadel on the coast,Or tower, or high hill-convent, seenA light amid its olives green;30Or olive-hoary cape in ocean;Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,Where oleanders flushed the bedOf silent torrents, gravel-spread;And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten35Of ice, far up on a mountain bead.We loved that hall, tho' white and cold,Those nichèd shapes of noble mould,A princely people's awful princes,The grave, severe Genovese of old.40At Florence too what golden hours,In those long galleries, were ours;What drives about the fresh Cascinè,Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.In bright vignettes, and each complete,45Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet,Or palace, how the city glittered,Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet.But when we crost the Lombard plainRemember what a plague of rain;50Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma;At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.And stern and sad (so rare the smilesOf sunlight) looked the Lombard piles;Porch-pillars on the lion resting,55And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.O Milan, O the chanting quires,The giant windows' blazoned fires,The height, the space, the gloom, the glory!A mount of marble, a hundred spires!60I climbed the roofs at break of day;Sun-smitten Alps before me lay.I stood among the silent statues,And statued pinnacles, mute as they.How faintly-flushed, how phantom-fair,65Was Monte Rosa, hanging thereA thousand shadowy-pencilled valleysAnd snowy dells in a golden air.Remember how we came at lastTo Como; shower and storm and blast70Had blown the lake beyond his limit,And all was flooded; and how we pastFrom Como, when the light was grey,And in my head, for half the day,The rich Virgilian rustic measure75Of Lari Maxume, all the way,Like ballad-burthen music, kept,As on The Lariano creptTo that fair port below the castleOf Queen Theodolind, where we slept;80Or hardly slept, but watched awakeA cypress in the moonlight shake,The moonlight touching o'er a terraceOne tall Agavè above the lake.What more? we took our last adieu,85And up the snowy Splugen drew,But ere we reached the highest summitI plucked a daisy, I gave it you.It told of England then to me,And now it tells of Italy.90O love, we two shall go no longerTo lands of summer across the sea;So dear a life your arms enfoldWhose crying is a cry for gold:Yet here to-night in this dark city,95When ill and weary, alone and cold,I found, though crushed to hard and dry,This nurseling of another skyStill in the little book you lent me,And where you tenderly laid it by:100And I forgot the clouded Forth,The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth,The bitter east, the misty summerAnd grey metropolis of the North.Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain,105Perchance, to charm a vacant brain,Perchance, to dream you still beside me,My fancy fled to the South again.

O love, what hours were thine and mine,In lands of palm and southern pine;In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.

What Roman strength Turbia showed5In ruin, by the mountain road;How like a gem, beneath, the cityOf little Monaco, basking, glowed.

How richly down the rocky dellThe torrent vineyard streaming fell10To meet the sun and sunny waters,That only heaved with a summer swell.

What slender campanili grewBy bays, the peacock's neck in hue;Where, here and there, on sandy beaches15A milky-belled amaryllis blew.

How young Columbus seemed to rove,Yet present in his natal grove,Now watching high on mountain cornice,And steering, now, from a purple cove,20

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim;Till, in a narrow street and dim,I stayed the wheels at Cogoletto,And drank, and loyally drank to him.

Nor knew we well what pleased us most,25Not the clipt palm of which they boast;But distant colour, happy hamlet,A mouldered citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seenA light amid its olives green;30Or olive-hoary cape in ocean;Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,

Where oleanders flushed the bedOf silent torrents, gravel-spread;And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten35Of ice, far up on a mountain bead.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold,Those nichèd shapes of noble mould,A princely people's awful princes,The grave, severe Genovese of old.40

At Florence too what golden hours,In those long galleries, were ours;What drives about the fresh Cascinè,Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.

In bright vignettes, and each complete,45Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet,Or palace, how the city glittered,Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet.

But when we crost the Lombard plainRemember what a plague of rain;50Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma;At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.

And stern and sad (so rare the smilesOf sunlight) looked the Lombard piles;Porch-pillars on the lion resting,55And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.

O Milan, O the chanting quires,The giant windows' blazoned fires,The height, the space, the gloom, the glory!A mount of marble, a hundred spires!60

I climbed the roofs at break of day;Sun-smitten Alps before me lay.I stood among the silent statues,And statued pinnacles, mute as they.

How faintly-flushed, how phantom-fair,65Was Monte Rosa, hanging thereA thousand shadowy-pencilled valleysAnd snowy dells in a golden air.

Remember how we came at lastTo Como; shower and storm and blast70Had blown the lake beyond his limit,And all was flooded; and how we past

From Como, when the light was grey,And in my head, for half the day,The rich Virgilian rustic measure75Of Lari Maxume, all the way,

Like ballad-burthen music, kept,As on The Lariano creptTo that fair port below the castleOf Queen Theodolind, where we slept;80

Or hardly slept, but watched awakeA cypress in the moonlight shake,The moonlight touching o'er a terraceOne tall Agavè above the lake.

What more? we took our last adieu,85And up the snowy Splugen drew,But ere we reached the highest summitI plucked a daisy, I gave it you.

It told of England then to me,And now it tells of Italy.90O love, we two shall go no longerTo lands of summer across the sea;

So dear a life your arms enfoldWhose crying is a cry for gold:Yet here to-night in this dark city,95When ill and weary, alone and cold,

I found, though crushed to hard and dry,This nurseling of another skyStill in the little book you lent me,And where you tenderly laid it by:100

And I forgot the clouded Forth,The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth,The bitter east, the misty summerAnd grey metropolis of the North.

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain,105Perchance, to charm a vacant brain,Perchance, to dream you still beside me,My fancy fled to the South again.

Lord Tennyson.

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaksThe silence of the summer day,As by the loveliest of all lakesI while the idle hours away.I pace the leafy colonnade5Where level branches of the planeAbove me weave a roof of shadeImpervious to the sun and rain.At times a sudden rush of airFlutters the lazy leaves o'erhead,10And gleams of sunshine toss and flareLike torches down the path I tread.By Somariva's garden gateI make the marble stairs my seat,And hear the water, as I wait,15Lapping the steps beneath my feet.The undulation sinks and swellsAlong the stony parapets,And far away the floating bellsTinkle upon the fisher's nets.20Silent and slow, by tower and townThe freighted barges come and go,Their pendent shadows gliding downBy town and tower submerged below.The hills sweep upward from the shore,25With villas scattered one by oneUpon their wooded spurs, and lowerBellagio blazing in the sun.And dimly seen, a tangled massOf walls and woods, of light and shade,30Stands beckoning up the Stelvio PassVarenna with its white cascade.I ask myself, Is this a dream?Will it all vanish into air?Is there a land of such supreme35And perfect beauty anywhere?Sweet vision! Do not fade away;Linger until my heart shall takeInto itself the summer day,And all the beauty of the lake.40Linger until upon my brainIs stamped an image of the scene,Then fade into the air again,And be as if thou hadst not been.

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaksThe silence of the summer day,As by the loveliest of all lakesI while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade5Where level branches of the planeAbove me weave a roof of shadeImpervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of airFlutters the lazy leaves o'erhead,10And gleams of sunshine toss and flareLike torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva's garden gateI make the marble stairs my seat,And hear the water, as I wait,15Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swellsAlong the stony parapets,And far away the floating bellsTinkle upon the fisher's nets.20

Silent and slow, by tower and townThe freighted barges come and go,Their pendent shadows gliding downBy town and tower submerged below.

The hills sweep upward from the shore,25With villas scattered one by oneUpon their wooded spurs, and lowerBellagio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled massOf walls and woods, of light and shade,30Stands beckoning up the Stelvio PassVarenna with its white cascade.

I ask myself, Is this a dream?Will it all vanish into air?Is there a land of such supreme35And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away;Linger until my heart shall takeInto itself the summer day,And all the beauty of the lake.40

Linger until upon my brainIs stamped an image of the scene,Then fade into the air again,And be as if thou hadst not been.

H. W. Longfellow.

Verona! thy tall gardens stand erectBeckoning me upward. Let me rest awhileWhere the birds whistle hidden in the boughs,Or fly away when idlers take their place,Mated as well, concealed as willingly;5Idlers whose nest must not swing there, but riseBeneath a gleaming canopy of gold,Amid the flight of Cupids, and the smilesOf Venus ever radiant o'er their couch.Here would I stay, here wander, slumber here,10Nor pass into that theatre belowCrowded with their faint memories, shades of joy.But ancient song arouses me: I hearCoelius and Aufilena; I beholdLesbia, and Lesbia's linnet at her lip15Pecking the fruit that ripens and swells outFor him whose song the Graces loved the most,Whatever land, east, west, they visited.Even he must not detain me: one there isGreater than he, of broader wing, of swoop20Sublimer. Open now that humid archWhere Juliet sleeps the quiet sleep of death,And Romeo sinks aside her.Fare ye well,Lovers! Ye have not loved in vain: the heartsOf millions throb around ye. This lone tomb,25One greater than yon walls have ever seen,Greater than Manto's prophet-eye foresawIn her own child or Rome's, hath hallowèd;And the last sod or stone a pilgrim knee29Shall press (Love swears it, and swears true) is here.

W. S. Landor.

Once more upon the woody Apennine,The infant Alps, which—had I not beforeGazed on their mightier parents, where the pineSits on more shaggy summits, and where roarThe thundering lauwine—might be worshipped more;5But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rearHer never-trodden snow, and seen the hoarGlaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near,And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;10And on Parnassus seen the eagles flyLike 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, made15These hills seem things of lesser dignity,All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayedNotnowin snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aidFor our remembrance, and from out the plainHeaves like a long-swept wave about to break,And on the curl hangs pausing.21

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;10And on Parnassus seen the eagles flyLike 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, made15These hills seem things of lesser dignity,All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayedNotnowin snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

For our remembrance, and from out the plainHeaves like a long-swept wave about to break,And on the curl hangs pausing.21

Lord Byron.

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