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| SNOW was glistening on the mountains, but the air was that of June; | |
| Leaves were falling, but the runnels playing still their summer tune, | |
| And the dial’s lazy shadow hovered nigh the brink of noon. | |
| On the benches in the market rows of languid idlers lay, | |
| When to Pisa’s nodding belfry, with a friend, I took my way. | 5 |
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| From the top we looked around us, and as far as eye might strain, | |
| Saw no sign of life or motion in the town or on the plain. | |
| Hardly seemed the river moving, through the willows to the main; | |
| Nor was any noise disturbing Pisa from her drowsy hour, | |
| Save the doves that fluttered ’neath us, in and out and round the tower. | 10 |
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| Not a shout from gladsome children, or the clatter of a wheel, | |
| Nor the spinner of the suburb, winding his discordant reel, | |
| Nor the stroke upon the pavement of a hoof or of a heel. | |
| Even the slumberers in the churchyard of the Campo Santo seemed | |
| Scarce more quiet than the living world that underneath us dreamed. | 15 |
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| Dozing at the city’s portal, heedless guard the sentry kept, | |
| More than Oriental dulness o’er the sunny farms had crept, | |
| Near the walls the ducal herdsman by the dusty roadside slept; | |
| While his camels, resting round him, half alarmed the sullen ox, | |
| Seeing those Arabian monsters pasturing with Etruria’s flocks. | 20 |
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| Then it was, like one who wandered, lately, singing by the Rhine, | |
| Strains perchance to maiden’s hearing sweeter than this verse of mine, | |
| That we bade Imagination lift us on her wing divine, | |
| And the days of Pisa’s greatness rose from the sepulchral past, | |
| When a thousand conquering galleys bore her standard at the mast. | 25 |
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| Memory for a moment crowned her sovereign mistress of the seas, | |
| When she braved, upon the billows, Venice and the Genoese, | |
| Daring to deride the Pontiff, though he shook his angry keys. | |
| When her admirals triumphant, riding o’er the Soldan’s waves, | |
| Brought from Calvary’s holy mountain fitting soil for knightly graves. | 30 |
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| When the Saracen surrendered, one by one, his pirate isles, | |
| And Ionia’s marbled trophies decked Lungarno’s Gothic piles, | |
| Where the festal music floated in the light of ladies’ smiles; | |
| Soldiers in the busy courtyard, nobles in the hall above, | |
| O, those days of arms are over,—arms and courtesy and love! | 35 |
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| Down in yonder square at sunrise, lo! the Tuscan troops arrayed, | |
| Every man in Milan armor, forged in Brescia every blade: | |
| Sigismondi is their captain,—Florence! art thou not dismayed? | |
| There ’s Lanfranchi! there the bravest of Gherardesca stem, | |
| Hugolino,—with the bishop; but enough, enough of them. | 40 |
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| Now, as on Achilles’ buckler, next a peaceful scene succeeds; | |
| Pious crowds in the cathedral duly tell their blessed beads; | |
| Students walk the learned cloister; Ariosto wakes the reeds; | |
| Science dawns; and Galileo opens to the Italian youth, | |
| As he were a new Columbus, new discovered realms of truth. | 45 |
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| Hark! what murmurs from the million in the bustling market rise! | |
| All the lanes are loud with voices, all the windows dark with eyes; | |
| Black with men the marble bridges, heaped the shores with merchandise; | |
| Turks and Greeks and Libyan merchants in the square their councils hold, | |
| And the Christian altars glitter gorgeous with Byzantine gold. | 50 |
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| Look! anon the masqueraders don their holiday attire; | |
| Every palace is illumined,—all the town seems built of fire,— | |
| Rainbow-colored lanterns dangle from the top of every spire. | |
| Pisa’s patron saint hath hallowed to himself the joyful day, | |
| Never on the thronged Rialto showed the Carnival more gay. | 55 |
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| Suddenly the bell beneath us broke the vision with its chime. | |
| “Signors,” quoth our gray attendant, “it is almost vesper time.” | |
| Vulgar life resumed its empire,—down we dropt from the sublime. | |
| Here and there a friar passed us, as we paced the silent streets, | |
| And a cardinal’s rumbling carriage roused the sleepers from the seats. | 60 |
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