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(From Italy)
YET there is, | |
| Within an eagle’s flight and less, a scene | |
| Still nobler if not fairer, (once again | |
| Would I behold it ere these eyes are closed, | |
| For I can say, “I also have been there!”) | 5 |
| That sacred lake withdrawn among the hills, | |
| Its depth of waters flanked as with a wall | |
| Built by the giant-race before the flood; | |
| Where not a cross or chapel but inspires | |
| Holy delight, lifting our thoughts to God | 10 |
| From godlike men,—men in a barbarous age | |
| That dared assert their birthright, and displayed | |
| Deeds half divine, returning good for ill; | |
| That in the desert sowed the seeds of life, | |
| Framing a band of small Republics there, | 15 |
| Which still exist, the envy of the world! | |
| Who would not land in each, and tread the ground,— | |
| Land where Tell leaped ashore,—and climb to drink | |
| Of the three hallowed fountains? He that does, | |
| Comes back the better; and relates at home | 20 |
| That he was met and greeted by a race | |
| Such as he read of in his boyish days, | |
| Such as Miltiades at Marathon | |
| Led, when he chased the Persians to their ships. | |
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| There, while the well-known boat is heaving in, | 25 |
| Piled with rude merchandise, or launching forth, | |
| Thronged with wild cattle for Italian fairs, | |
| There in the sunshine, mid their native snows, | |
| Children, let loose from school, contend to use | |
| The cross-bow of their fathers; and o’errun | 30 |
| The rocky field where all, in every age, | |
| Assembling sit, like one great family, | |
| Forming alliances, enacting laws; | |
| Each cliff and headland and green promontory | |
| Graven to their eyes with records of the past | 35 |
| That prompt to hero-worship, and excite | |
| Even in the least, the lowliest, as he toils, | |
| A reverence nowhere else or felt or feigned; | |
| Their chronicler great Nature; and the volume | |
| Vast as her works,—above, below, around! | 40 |
| The fisher on thy beach, Thermopylæ, | |
| Asks of the lettered stranger why he came, | |
| First from his lips to learn the glorious truth! | |
| And who that whets his scythe in Runnemede, | |
| Though but for them a slave, recalls to mind | 45 |
| The barons in array, with their great charter? | |
| Among the everlasting Alps alone, | |
| There to burn on as in a sanctuary, | |
| Bright and unsullied lives the ethereal flame; | |
| And mid those scenes unchanged, unchangeable, | 50 |
| Why should it ever die? | |
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