| |
| OUR boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream, | |
| Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, | |
| The helm sways idly hither and thither. | |
| Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast | |
| And the oars and the sails; but ’t is sleeping fast, | 5 |
| Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. | |
| |
| The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, | |
| And the thin white moon lay withering there; | |
| To tower and cavern and rift and tree | |
| The owl and the bat fled drowsily. | 10 |
| Day had kindled the dewy woods, | |
| And the rocks above and the stream below, | |
| And the vapors in their multitudes, | |
| And the Apennines’ shroud of summer snow, | |
| And clothed with light of airy gold | 15 |
| The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. | |
| |
| Day had awakened all things that be,— | |
| The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, | |
| And the milkmaid’s song and mower’s scythe, | |
| And the matin-bell and the mountain bee. | 20 |
| Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn; | |
| Glow-worms went out on the river’s brim, | |
| Like lamps which a student forgets to trim; | |
| The beetle forgot to wind his horn; | |
| The crickets were still in the meadow and hill; | 25 |
| Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun, | |
| Night’s dreams and terrors, every one, | |
| Fled from the brains which are their prey | |
| From the lamp’s death to the morning ray. | |
| |
| All rose to do the task He set to each, | 30 |
| Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; | |
| The million rose to learn, and one to teach | |
| What none yet ever knew or can be known. | |
| |
| And many rose | |
| Whose woe was such that fear became desire;— | 35 |
| Melchior and Lionel were not among those; | |
| They from the throng of men had stepped aside, | |
| And made their home under the green hillside. | |
| It was that hill whose intervening brow | |
| Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye, | 40 |
| Which the circumfluous plain waving below, | |
| Like a wide lake of green fertility, | |
| With streams and fields and marshes bare | |
| Divides from the far Apennines, which lie | |
| Islanded in the immeasurable air. | 45 |
| |
| “What think you, as she lies in her green cove, | |
| Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of? | |
| If morning dreams are true, why I should guess | |
| That she was dreaming of our idleness, | |
| And of the miles of watery way | 50 |
| We should have led her by this time of day.” | |
| |
| “Never mind,” said Lionel, | |
| “Give care to the winds, they can bear it well | |
| About yon poplar tops; and see! | |
| The white clouds are driving merrily, | 55 |
| And the stars we miss this morn will light | |
| More willingly our return to-night. | |
| List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair; | |
| How it scatters Dominic’s long black hair! | |
| Singing of us, and our lazy motions, | 60 |
| If I can guess a boat’s emotions.” | |
| |
| The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, | |
| The living breath is fresh behind, | |
| As, with dews and sunrise fed, | |
| Comes the laughing morning wind. | 65 |
| The sails are full, the boat makes head | |
| Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce, | |
| Then flags with intermitting course, | |
| And hangs upon the wave, | |
| Which fervid from its mountain source | 70 |
| Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come; | |
| Swift as fire, tempestuously | |
| It sweeps into the affrighted sea; | |
| In morning’s smile its eddies coil, | |
| Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil, | 75 |
| Torturing all its quiet light | |
| Into columns fierce and bright. | |
| |
| The Serchio, twisting forth | |
| Between the marble barriers which it clove | |
| At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm | 80 |
| The wave that died the death which lovers love, | |
| Living in what it sought; as if this spasm | |
| Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling, | |
| But the clear stream in full enthusiasm | |
| Pours itself on the plain, until wandering, | 85 |
| Down one clear path of effluence crystalline | |
| Sends its clear waves, that they may fling | |
| At Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine; | |
| Then, through the pestilential deserts wild | |
| Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted fir, | 90 |
| It rushes to the ocean. | |
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