Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Sorrento | | Sorrento | | William Wetmore Story (1819–1895) |
| | | THE MIDNIGHT, thick with cloud, | |
| Hangs o’er the city’s jar, | |
| The spirit’s shell is in the crowd, | |
| The spirit is afar; | |
| Far, where in shadowy gloom | 5 |
| Sleeps the dark orange grove, | |
| My sense is drunk with its perfume, | |
| My heart with love. | |
| |
| The slumberous, whispering sea, | |
| Creeps up the sands to lay | 10 |
| Its sliding bosom fringed with pearls | |
| Upon the rounded bay. | |
| List! all the trembling leaves | |
| Are rustling overhead, | |
| Where purple grapes are hanging dark | 15 |
| On the trellised loggia spread. | |
| |
| Far off, a misted cloud, | |
| Hangs fair Inarimé. | |
| The boatman’s song from the lighted boat | |
| Rises from out the sea. | 20 |
| We listen,—then thy voice | |
| Pours forth a honeyed rhyme; | |
| Ah! for the golden nights we passed | |
| In our Italian time. | |
| |
| There is the laugh of girls | 25 |
| That walk along the shore, | |
| The marinaio calls to them | |
| As he suspends his oar. | |
| Vesuvius rumbles sullenly, | |
| With fitful lurid gleam, | 30 |
| The background of all Naples life, | |
| The nightmare of its dream. | |
| |
| O lovely, lovely Italy, | |
| I yield me to thy spell! | |
| Reach the guitar, my dearest friend, | 35 |
| We ’ll sing, “Home! fare thee well!” | |
| O world of work and noise, | |
| What spell hast thou for me? | |
| The siren Beauty charms me here | |
| Beyond the sea. | 40 | | | |
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