Of happy Atlantis, and heard Björne's keel
Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore:
For I believed the poets; it is they
Who utter wisdom from the central deep,
And, listening to the inner flow of things,
Speak to the age out of eternity.
ORE pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves. No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps. To towns, whose shades of no rude noise complain, From ringing team apart and grating wain,· To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound, Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound, Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling, The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines; And silence loves its purple roof of vines. The loitering traveller hence, at evening, sees From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees; Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids Tend the small harvest of their garden glades; Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats, Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, Each with its household boat beside the door; Thy torrent shooting from the clear-blue sky; Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high; That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descried Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side, Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods; Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or gray, Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray Slow-travelling down the western hills, to enfold Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold; Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell
Calls forth the woodman from his desert cell,
And quickens the blithe sound of oars that pass
Along the steaming lake, to carly mass.
But now farewell to each and all, - adieu
To every charm, and last and chief to you,
Ye lovely maidens that in noontide shade
Rest near your little plots of wheaten glade;
To all that binds the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance;
Where sparling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enlivened gloom.
Alas! the very murmur of the streams
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And lures from bay to bay the vocal barge.
AND, Como! thon, a treasure whom the earth
Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth
Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake
Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots
Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids;
Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,
Winding from house to house, from town to town,
Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,
League after league, and cloistral avenues,
Where silence dwells if music be not there:
While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
Through foud ambition of that hour, I strove
To chant your praise; nor can approach you now
Ungreeted by a more melodious song,
Where tones of nature smoothed by learned art
May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze
Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
In motion without pause; but ye have left
Your beauty with me, a serene accord
Of forms and colors, passive, yet endowed
In their submissiveness with power as sweet
And gracious, almost might I dare to say,
As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,
Or the remembrance of a generous deed,
Or mildest visitation of pure thought,
When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked
Religiously, in silent blessedness;
Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.
LOVE to sail along the Larian Lake
Under the shore, though not, where'er he dwelt, To visit Pliny; not, in loose attire,
When from the bath or from the tennis-court,
To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk,
Or angling from his window: and, in truth,
Could I recall the ages past and play
The fool with Time, I should perhaps reserve
My leisure for Catullus on his lake,
Though to fare worse, or Virgil at his farm
A little further on the way to Mantua.
But such things cannot be. So I sit still,
And let the boatman shift his little sail,
His sail so forked and so swallow-like,
Well pleased with all that comes. The morning air
Plays on my cheek how gently, flinging round
A silvery gleam: and now the purple mists
Rise like a curtain; now the sun looks out,
Filling, o'erflowing with his glorious light
This noble amphitheatre of hills;
And now appear as on a phosphor sea
Numberless barks, from Milan, from Pavìa;
Some sailing up, some down, and some at rest,
Lading, unlading at that small port-town
Under the promontory, its tall tower
And long flat roofs, just such as Gaspar drew,
Caught by a sunbeam slanting through a cloud;
A quay-like scene, glittering and full of life,
And doubled by reflection.
What delight,
After so long a sojourn in the wild,
To hear once more the peasant at his work!
But in a clime like this where is he not?
Along the shores, among the hills 't is now
The heyday of the vintage; all abroad,
But most the young and of the gentler sex,
Busy in gathering; all among the vines,
Some on the ladder and some underneath,
Filling their baskets of green wicker-work,
While many a canzonet and frolic laugh
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