Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Tasso
By Samuel Rogers (1763–1855)(From Italy)
H
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.