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

Sorrento

Tasso

By Samuel Rogers (1763–1855)

(From Italy)

HE who sets sail from Naples when the wind

Blows fragrance from Posílipo may soon,

Crossing from side to side that beautiful lake,

Land underneath the cliff, where once among

The children gathering shells along the shore,

One laughed and played, unconscious of his fate;

His to drink deep of sorrow, and through life

To be the scorn of them that knew him not,

Trampling alike the giver and his gift,—

The gift a pearl precious, inestimable,

A lay divine, a lay of love and war,

To charm, ennoble, and from age to age

Sweeten the labor when the oar was plied

Or on the Adrian or the Tuscan sea.