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(From Italy)
THERE would I linger, then go forth again; | |
| And he who steers due east, doubling the cape, | |
| Discovers, in a crevice of the rock, | |
| The fishing-town, Amalfi. Haply there | |
| A heaving bark, an anchor on the strand, | 5 |
| May tell him what it is; but what it was, | |
Cannot be told so soon.
The time has been, | |
| When on the quays along the Syrian coast, | |
| ’T was asked and eagerly, at break of dawn, | |
| “What ships are from Amalfi?” when her coins, | 10 |
| Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime; | |
| From Alexandria southward to Sennaar, | |
| And eastward, through Damascus and Cabul | |
| And Samarcand, to thy great wall, Cathay. | |
| Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed; | 15 |
| And every crime on every sea was judged | |
| According to her judgments. In her port | |
| Prows, strange, uncouth, from Nile and Niger met, | |
| People of various feature, various speech; | |
| And in their countries many a house of prayer, | 20 |
| And many a shelter, where no shelter was, | |
| And many a well, like Jacob’s in the wild, | |
| Rose at her bidding. Then in Palestine, | |
| By the wayside, in sober grandeur stood | |
| A hospital, that, night and day, received | 25 |
| The pilgrims of the west; and, when ’t was asked, | |
| “Who are the noble founders?” every tongue | |
| At once replied, “The merchants of Amalfi.” | |
| That hospital, when Godfrey scaled the walls, | |
| Sent forth its holy men in complete steel; | 30 |
| And hence, the cowl relinquished for the helm, | |
| That chosen band, valiant, invincible, | |
| So long renowned as champions of the Cross, | |
In Rhodes, in Malta.
For three hundred years | |
| There, unapproached but from the deep, they dwelt; | 35 |
| Assailed forever, yet from age to age | |
| Acknowledging no master. From the deep | |
| They gathered in their harvests; bringing home, | |
| In the same ship, relics of ancient Greece, | |
| That land of glory where their fathers lay, | 40 |
| Grain from the golden vales of Sicily, | |
| And Indian spices. Through the civilized world | |
| Their credit was ennobled into fame; | |
| And when at length they fell, they left mankind | |
| A legacy, compared with which the wealth | 45 |
| Of Eastern kings, what is it in the scale?— | |
| The mariner’s compass. | |
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