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* * * * * ’MID the mountains Euganean, | |
| I stood listening to the pæan | |
| With which the legioned rooks did hail | |
| The sun’s uprise majestical; | |
| Gathering round with wings all hoar, | 5 |
| Through the dewy mist they soar | |
| Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven | |
| Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, | |
| Flecked with fire and azure, lie | |
| In the unfathomable sky, | 10 |
| So their plumes of purple grain, | |
| Starred with drops of golden rain, | |
| Gleam above the sunlight woods, | |
| As in silent multitudes | |
| On the morning’s fitful gale | 15 |
| Through the broken mist they sail; | |
| And the vapors cloven and gleaming | |
| Follow down the dark steep streaming, | |
| Till all is bright and clear and still | |
| Round the solitary hill. | 20 |
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| Beneath is spread like a green sea | |
| The waveless plain of Lombardy, | |
| Bounded by the vaporous air, | |
| Islanded by cities fair. | |
| Underneath day’s azure eyes, | 25 |
| Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies,— | |
| A peopled labyrinth of walls, | |
| Amphitrite’s destined halls, | |
| Which her hoary sire now paves | |
| With his blue and beaming waves. | 30 |
| Lo! the sun upsprings behind, | |
| Broad, red, radiant, half reclined | |
| On the level quivering line | |
| Of the waters crystalline; | |
| And before that chasm of light, | 35 |
| As within a furnace bright, | |
| Column, tower, and dome, and spire, | |
| Shine like obelisks of fire, | |
| Pointing with inconstant motion | |
| From the altar of dark ocean | 40 |
| To the sapphire-tinted skies; | |
| As the flames of sacrifice | |
| From the marble shrines did rise | |
| As to pierce the dome of gold | |
| Where Apollo spoke of old. * * * * * | 45 |
| Lo, the sun floats up the sky, | |
| Like thought-wingéd Liberty, | |
| Till the universal light | |
| Seems to level plain and height; | |
| From the sea a mist has spread, | 50 |
| And the beams of morn lie dead | |
| On the towers of Venice now, | |
| Like its glory long ago. * * * * * | |
| Noon descends around me now: | |
| ’T is the noon of autumn’s glow, | 55 |
| When a soft and purple mist | |
| Like a vaporous amethyst, | |
| Or an air-dissolvéd star | |
| Mingling light and fragrance, far | |
| From the curved horizon’s bound, | 60 |
| To the point of heaven’s profound, | |
| Fills the overflowing sky; | |
| And the plains that silent lie | |
| Underneath. The leaves unsodden | |
| Where the infant frost has trodden | 65 |
| With his morning-wingéd feet, | |
| Whose bright print is gleaming yet; | |
| And the red and golden vines, | |
| Piercing with their trellised lines | |
| The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; | 70 |
| The dun and bladed grass no less, | |
| Pointing from this hoary tower | |
| In the windless air; the flower | |
| Glimmering at my feet; the line | |
| Of the olive-sandalled Apennine | 75 |
| In the south dimly islanded; | |
| And the Alps, whose snows are spread | |
| High between the clouds and sun; | |
| And of living things each one; | |
| And my spirit, which so long | 80 |
| Darkened this swift stream of song, | |
| Interpenetrated lie | |
| By the glory of the sky; | |
| Be it love, light, harmony, | |
| Odor, or the soul of all | 85 |
| Which from heaven like dew doth fall, | |
| Or the mind which feeds this verse | |
| Peopling the lone universe. | |
| Noon descends, and after noon | |
| Autumn’s evening meets me soon, | 90 |
| Leading the infantine moon, | |
| And that one star, which to her | |
| Almost seems to minister | |
| Half the crimson light she brings | |
| From the sunset’s radiant springs: | 95 |
| And the soft dreams of the morn | |
| (Which like winged winds had borne | |
| To that silent isle, which lies | |
| ’Mid remembered agonies, | |
| The frail bark of this lone being,) | 100 |
| Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, | |
| And its ancient pilot, Pain, | |
| Sits beside the helm again. * * * * * | |
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