To Italy. Anonymous. Introductory. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Italy: Vols. XI-XIII

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Introductory

To Italy

Anonymous


O LAND of beauty, garlanded with pine
And luscious grape-vines, ’neath whose vaulted skies
Of blue eternal, marble mansions rise,
And roseate flowers from every lattice shine!
Still have the nations striven from of yore	5
For thy fair fields, lovely as Eden’s plain;
Thy temples, and thy cities by the main
Throned hoar and gray upon the rocky shore.
Who hath seen thee, O, never in his breast
The heart grows wholly old! Some youthful zest	10
Of life still lingers; some bright memory!
And when the nightingales in autumn chill
Fly forth, a yearning stirs his spirit still
To fly with them toward sunny Italy!