| |
| YOUR peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! | |
| In the soft light of these serenest skies; | |
| From the broad highland region, black with pines, | |
| Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, | |
| Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold | 5 |
| In rosy flushes on the virgin gold. | |
| |
| There, rooted to the aerial shelves that wear | |
| The glory of a brighter world, might spring | |
| Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air, | |
| And heaven’s fleet messengers might rest the wing, | 10 |
| To view the fair earth in its summer sleep, | |
| Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep. | |
| |
| Below you lie men’s sepulchres, the old | |
| Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday; | |
| The herd’s white bones lie mixed with human mould,— | 15 |
| Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey | |
| Death never climbed, nor life’s soft breath, with pain, | |
| Was yielded to the elements again. | |
| |
| Ages of war have filled these plains with fear: | |
| How oft the hind has started at the clash | 20 |
| Of spears, and yell of meeting armies here, | |
| Or seen the lightning of the battle flash | |
| From clouds, that, rising with the thunder’s sound, | |
| Hung like an earth-born tempest o’er the ground! | |
| |
| Ah me! what armed nations—Asian horde | 25 |
| And Lybian host, the Scythian and the Gaul— | |
| Have swept your base and through your passes poured, | |
| Like ocean-tides uprising at the call | |
| Of tyrant winds,—against your rocky side | |
| The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died. | 30 |
| |
| How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes, | |
| Sacked cities smoked, and realms were rent in twain; | |
| And commonwealths against their rivals rose, | |
| Trode out their lives, and earned the curse of Cain! | |
| While in the noiseless air and light that flowed | 35 |
| Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode. | |
| |
| Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames | |
| Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng, | |
| Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names; | |
| While, as the unheeding ages passed along, | 40 |
| Ye, from your station in the middle skies, | |
| Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise. | |
| |
| In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks | |
| Her image; there the winds no barrier know, | |
| Clouds come, and rest, and leave your fairy peaks; | 45 |
| While even the immaterial Mind, below, | |
| And Thought, her winged offspring, chained by power, | |
| Pine silently for the redeeming hour. | |
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