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Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast;

But distant color, happy hamlet,

A moulder'd citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen

A light amid its olives green;

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine.

Where oleanders flush'd the bed
Of silent torrents, gravel-spread;
And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten
Of ice, far up on a mountain head.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould,

A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old.

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

In bright vignettes, and each complete,
Of tower or Duomo, sunny-sweet,

Or palace, how the city glitter'd,
Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet.

But when we crost the Lombard plain
Remember what a plague of rain;

Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma;
At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.

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

O Milan, O the chanting quires,

The giant windows' blazon'd fires,

The height, the space, the gloom, the glory!

A mount of marble, a hundred spires!

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,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there

A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.

Remember how we came at last
To Como; shower and storm and blast
Had blown the lake beyond his limit,
And all was flooded; and how we past

From Como, when the light was gray,
And in my head, for half the day,

The rich Virgilian rustic measure

Of Lari Maxume, all the way,

Like ballad-burthen music, kept,
As on the Lariano crept

To that fair port below the castle
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept ;

Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake
A cypress in the moonlight shake,

The moonlight touching o'er a terrace
One tall Agave above the lake.

What more? we took our last adieu,

And up the snowy Splugen drew,

But ere we reach'd the highest summit

I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you.

It told of England then to me,
And now it tells of Italy.

O love, we two shall go no longer
To lands of summer across the sea;

So dear a life your arms enfold
Whose crying is a cry for gold:

Yet here to-night in this dark city,
When ill and weary, alone and cold,

I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry,
This nurseling of another sky

Still in the little book you lent me,
And where you tenderly laid it by:

And I forgot the clouded Forth,

The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer

And gray metropolis of the North.

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance to dream you still beside me,

My fancy fled to the South again.

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O sovereign Master! stern and splendid power, That calmly dost both Time and Death defy; Lofty and lone as mountain peaks that tower Leading our thoughts up to the eternal sky: Keeper of some divine, mysterious key,

Raising us far above all human care, Unlocking awful gates of harmony

To let heaven's light in on the world's despair. Smiter of solemn chords that still command

Echoes in souls that suffer and aspire,

In the great moment while we hold thy hand, Baptized with pain and rapture, tears and fire, God lifts our saddened foreheads from the dust, The everlasting God, in whom we trust!

And was it thus the master looked, think you?
Is this the painter's fancy? Who can tell!
These strong and noble outlines should be true;
On the broad brow such majesty should dwell.
Yea, and these deep, indomitable eyes

Lo, the imperial will

Are surely his.

In every feature!

Mighty purpose lies

About the shut mouth, resolute and still.

Notice the head's pathetic attitude,

Bent forward, listening,―he that might not hear! Ah, could the world's adoring gratitude,

So late to come, have made his life less drear! Hearest thou, now, great soul beyond our ken, Men's reverent voices answering thee, “Amen?”

IN DEATH'S DESPITE.

Whither departs the perfume of the rose ?
Into what life dies music's golden sound?
Year after year earth's long procession goes
To hide itself beneath the senseless ground.
Upon the grave's inexorable brink

Amazed with loss the human creature stands,
Vainly he strives to reason or to think,

Left with his aching heart and empty hands; He seeks his lost in vain. In sorrow drowned, Darkness and silence all his sense confound.

Till on Death's roll-call stern he hears his name,
In turn he follows and is lost to sight,
Though comforted by Love and crowned by Fame
He hears the summons dread no man may slight;
Sweetly and clear above his quiet grave

The birds shall sing, unmindful of his dust,
Softly, in turn the long green grass shall wave
Over his fallen head. In turn he must

Submit to be forgotten like the rest,

Though high the heart that beat within his breast.

The rose falls and the music's sound is gone;

Dear voices cease, and clasp of loving hands:

Alone we stand when the brief day is done,

Searching with saddened eyes earth's darkening lands.

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