Nowhere I sojourn but I thence depart,
Leaving a little portion of my heart;
Then day-dreams make the heart's division good
With many a loved Italian solitude.4
As sons the whole year scattered here and there
Gather at Christmas round their father's chair,
Prodigal memories tenderly come home—
Suns Neapolitan, white noons at Rome;
Watches that from the wreck'd Arena wall
Saw Alps and Plain deny the Sun in his fall,10
And rosy gold upon Verona tarry.
O Cloister-Castle that the high winds harry,
Butting Saint Benet's tower and doubling short
To whisper with the rosebush in the Court!14
How sweet the frogs by reedy Mantuan marges
Cried in the broken moonlight round the barges,
Where, glib decline of glass, the Mincio's march
Flaws in a riot at the Causeway arch!
How Cava from grey wall and silence green
Echoes the humming voice of the ravine,20
The while a second spell the brain composes,
Fresh elder mixt with sun-dishevelled roses!
How that first sunbeam on Assisi fell
To wake Saint-Mary-of-the-Angels' bell,
Before the tides of noonday washed the pale25
Mist-bloom from off the purple Umbrian vale!
Multitudinous colonies of my love!
But there's a single village dear above
Cities and scenes, a township of kind hearts,
The quick Boïte laughs to and departs30
Burying his snowy leaps in pools of green.
My tower that climbs to see what can be seen
Towards Three Crosses or the high Giaù daisies,
Or where the great white highway southward blazes!
My sloping barley plots, my hayfield lawn35
Breathing heavy and sweet, before the dawn
Shows up her pillared bulwarks one by one—
Cortina, open-hearted to the Sun!
Oft as the pilgrim spirit, most erect,
Dares the poor dole of Here and Now reject,40
The lust of larger things invades and fills—
The heart's homesickness for the hills, the hills!
J. S. Phillimore.
FAREWELL TO ITALY
I leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more
From the high terraces, at even-tide,
To look supine into thy depths of sky,
Thy golden moon between the cliff and me,
Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses5
Bordering the channel of the milky-way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet's song.
I did believe (what have I not believed?),10
Weary with age, but unopprest by pain,
To close in thy soft clime my quiet day
And rest my bones in the Mimosa's shade.
Hope! Hope! few ever cherisht thee so little;
Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised;15
But thou didst promise this, and all was well.
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceast, when the lone heart
Can lift no aspiration ... reasoning
As if the sight were unimpaired by death,20
Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,
And the sun cheered corruption! Over all
The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm,
And light us to our chamber at the grave.
W. S. Landor.
MESSINA
'Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto.'
Why, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart
Towards these scenes of ancient heathen fame?
Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came
Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art,
And shades of power, and those who bore a part5
In the mad deeds that set the world in flame,
So fret my memory here,—ah! is it blame?—
That from my eyes the tear is fain to start.
Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise;
'Tis but that sympathy with Adam's race10
Which in each brother's history reads its own.
So let the cliffs and seas of this fair place
Be named man's tomb and splendid record stone,
High hope, pride-stained, the course without the prize.
J. H. Newman.
TAORMINA
'And Jacob went on his way;
and the angels of God met him.'
Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round,
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou couldst but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair?
And feel an awe within thee rise,5
That sinful man should see
Glories far worthier Seraph's eyes
Than to be shared by thee?
Store them in heart! thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears,10
As the third heaven once nerved a Saint
For fourteen trial-years.
J. H. Newman.
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'—say,5
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
R. Browning.
GIBRALTAR
England, we love thee better than we know.—
And this I learned when, after wanderings long
'Mid people of another stock and tongue,
I heard again thy martial music blow,
And saw thy gallant children to and fro5
Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates,
Which like twin giants watch the Herculean Straits.
When first I came in sight of that brave show,
It made the very heart within me dance,
To think that thou thy proud foot shouldst advance
Forward so far into the mighty sea.11
Joy was it and exultation to behold
Thine ancient standard's rich emblazonry,
A glorious picture by the wind unrolled.
R. C. Trench.
GIBRALTAR
Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm
Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
We ride into still water and the calm
Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore
Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er,5
Our exile is accomplished. Once again
We look on Europe, mistress as of yore
Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.
Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill11
Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
And at the summons of the rock gun's roar
To see her red coats marching from the hill!
W. S. Blunt.
FROM 'THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY'
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
—As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow5
Among the Aegean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine—9
And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
The young light-hearted masters of the waves—
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;
And day and night held on indignantly
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,15
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the western straits; and unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
And on the beach undid his corded bales.20
M. Arnold.
FAREWELL TO MALTA
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely entered!
Adieu, ye mansions where—I've ventured!
Adieu, ye cursèd streets of stairs!5
(How surely he who mounts you swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adieu, ye packets—without letters!
Adieu, ye fools—who ape your betters!10
Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
Adieu, that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,
Adieu, his Excellency's dancers!
Adieu to Peter—whom no fault's in,15
But could not teach a colonel waltzing;
Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!
Adieu, red coats, and redder faces!
Adieu, the supercilious air
Of all that strut 'en militaire!'20
I go—but God knows when, or why,
To smoky towns and cloudy sky,
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad—but in a different way.
Farewell to these, but not adieu,25
Triumphant sons of truest blue!
While either Adriatic shore,
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and woman's winners.30
Pardon my muse, who apt to prate is,
And take my rhyme—because 'tis 'gratis'.
And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us,
Thou little military hothouse!
I'll not offend with words uncivil,35
And wish thee rudely at the Devil,
But only stare from out my casement,
And ask, for what is such a place meant?
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book,40
Or take my physic while I'm able
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label),
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless the gods I've got a fever.
Lord Byron.
TO E[DWARD] L[EAR], ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE
Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,
Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,5
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:
And trust me while I turned the page,
And tracked you still on classic ground,10
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.
For me the torrent ever poured
And glistened—here and there alone
The broad-limbed Gods at random thrown15
By fountain-urns;—and Naiads oared
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom20
From him that on the mountain lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.
Lord Tennyson.
HELLAS
It is not only that the sun
Loves best these southern lands,
It is not for the trophies won
Of old by hero hands,
That nature wreathed in softer smiles5
Was here the bride of art;
A closer kinship claims these isles,
The love-land of the heart.
It is because the poet's dream
Still haunts each happy vale,10
That peopled every grove and stream
To fit his fairy tale.
There may be greener vales and hills
Less bare to shelter man;
But still they want the naiad rills,15
And miss the pipe of Pan.
There may be other isles as fair
And summer seas as blue,
But then Odysseus touched not there
Nor Argo beached her crew.20
The Nereid-haunted river shore,
The Faun-frequented dell,
Possess me with their magic more
Than sites where Caesars fell:
And where the blooms of Zante blow25
Their incense to the waves;
Where Ithaca's dark headlands show
The legendary caves;
Where in the deep of olive groves
The summer hardly dies;30
Where fair Phaeacia's sun-brown maids
Still keep their siren eyes;
Where Chalcis strains with loving lips
Towards the little bay,
The strand that held the thousand ships,35
The Aulis of delay;
Where Oeta's ridge of granite bars
The gate Thermopylae,
Where huge Orion crowned with stars
Looks down on Rhodope;40
Where once Apollo tended flocks
On Phera's lofty plain,
Where Peneus cleaves the stubborn rocks
To find the outer main;
Where Argos and Mycenae sleep45
With all the buried wrong,
And where Arcadian uplands keep
The antique shepherd song,
There is a spirit haunts the place
All other lands must lack,50
A speaking voice, a living grace,
That beckons fancy back.
Dear isles and sea-indented shore,
Till songs be no more sung,
The singers that have gone before55
Will keep your lovers young:
And men will hymn your haunted skies,
And seek your holy streams,
Until the soul of music dies,
And earth has done with dreams.60
Sir Rennell Rodd.
THE VIOLET CROWN
'Wherefore the "city of the violet crown"?'
One asked me, as the April sun went down
Behind the shadows of the Persian's mound,
The fretted crags of Salamis.
'Look round,
And see the question answered!'
For we were
Upon the summit of that battled square,6
The rock of ruin, in whose fallen shrine
The world still worships what man made divine,
The maiden fane, that yet may boast the birth
Of half the immortalities of earth.10
The last rays light the portal, a gold wave
Runs up the columns to the architrave,
Lingers about the gable and is gone:—
Parnes, Hymettus, and Pentelicon
Show shadowy violet in the after-rose,15
Cithaeron's ridge and all the islands close
The mountain ring, like sapphires o'er the sea,
And from this circle's heart aetherially
Springs the white altar of the land's renown,
A marble lily in a violet crown.20
And fairer crown had never queen than this
That girds thee round, far-famed Acropolis!
So of these isles, these mountains, and this sea,
I wove a crown of song to dedicate to thee.
Sir Rennell Rodd.
ATHENS
The nodding promontories and blue isles,
And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles
Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody5
On the unapprehensive wild.
The vine, the corn, the olive wild,
Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled;
And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,
Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain,10
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,
Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein
Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child,
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain
Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Aegean main15
Athens arose: a city such as vision
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision
Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors
Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it;20
Its portals are inhabited
By thunder-zonèd winds, each head
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,—
A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,
Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;26
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river31
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
P. B. Shelley.
PARNASSUS
Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!5
What marvel if I thus essay to sing?
The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.
Oft have I dreamed of Thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:11
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee;15
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!
Lord Byron.
CORINTH
Many a vanished year and age,
And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,
A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,5
Have left untouched her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill,
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,10
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed,
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,
Or baffled Persia's despot fled,15
Arise from out the earth which drank
The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:
Or could the bones of all the slain,20
Who perished there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise
More mountain-like, through those clear skies,
Than yon tower-capped Acropolis,
Which seems the very clouds to kiss.25
Lord Byron.
CORINNA TO TANAGRA
FROM ATHENS
Tanagra! think not I forget
Thy beautifully-storied streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy,5
Whose sunny bosom swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds and blushes.
A gift I promise: one I see
Which thou with transport wilt receive,10
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won,15
A crown no God can wear, beside Latona's son.
There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue20
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.
Sweetly where caverned Dirce flows25
Do white-armed maidens chant my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues
Lisp your Corinna's early songs;30
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home.
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother's knee,
And gaze into her face, and want35
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven: be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays.
W. S. Landor.
WARING
What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down5
Any longer London-town?
Ichabod, Ichabod,
The glory is departed!
Travels Waring East away?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,10
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a God,
Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame?15
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright
With serpentine and syenite,20
Steps, with five other Generals
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfold his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff25
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring, in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures borne, perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear30
From the circle of mute kings
Unable to repress the tear,
Each as his sceptre down he flings,
To Dian's fane at Taurica,
Where now a captive priestess, she alway35
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach,
As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry40
Amid their barbarous twitter?
In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain
That we and Waring meet again
Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane
Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid45
All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid
Its stiff gold blazing pall
From some black coffin-lid.
'When I last saw Waring ...'50
(How all turned to him who spoke—
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel, or sea-faring?)
'We were sailing by Triest,
Where a day or two we harboured:55
A sunset was in the West,
When, looking over the vessel's side,
One of our company espied
A sudden speck to larboard.
And, as a sea-duck flies and swims60
At once, so came the light craft up,
With its sole lateen sail that trims
And turns (the water round its rims
Dancing, as round a sinking cup)
And by us like a fish it curled,65
And drew itself up close beside,
Its great sail on the instant furled,
And o'er its planks, a shrill voice cried
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's),
"Buy wine of us, you English brig?70
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?
A pilot for you to Triest?
Without one, look you ne'er so big,
They'll never let you up the bay!
We natives should know best."75
I turned, and "Just those fellows' way",
Our captain said, "The 'long-shore thieves
Are laughing at us in their sleeves."
'In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;
And one, half-hidden by his side80
Under the furled sail, soon I spied,
With great grass hat and kerchief black,
Who looked up with his kingly throat,
Said somewhat, while the other shook
His hair back from his eyes to look85
Their longest at us; then the boat,
I know not how, turned sharply round,
Laying her whole side on the sea
As a leaping fish does; from the lee,
Into the weather, cut somehow90
Her sparkling path beneath our bow;
And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rosy and golden half
Of the sky, to overtake the sun
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf95
Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite passed,
And neither time nor toil could mar
Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!'—You? Oh, never star100
Was lost here, but it rose afar!
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
R. Browning.
ON THE RHINE
Vain is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moon-lit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go
But ah, not yet! not yet!5
Vain is the agony of grief.
'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt—thou lov'st me not!
But is despair relief?10
Awhile let me with thought have done;
And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine
And that far purple mountain line
Lie sweetly in the look divine
Of the slow-sinking sun;15
So let me lie, and calm as they
Let beam upon my inward view
Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue—
Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey.20
Ah Quiet, all things feel thy balm!
Those blue hills too, this river's flow,
Were restless once, but long ago.
Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow:
Their joy is in their calm.25
M. Arnold.
THE CASTLED CRAG OF DRACHENFELS
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,5
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strewed a scene, which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me.10
And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of grey;15
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
But one thing want these banks of Rhine,—
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!20
I send the lilies given to me;
Though long before thy hand they touch,
I know that they must withered be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherished them as dear,25
Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And know'st them gathered by the Rhine,
And offered from my heart to thine!30
The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound35
Through life to dwell delighted here:
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!40
Lord Byron.
'UP THE RHINE'
Why, Tourist, why
With Passport have to do?
Pr'ythee stay at home and pass
The Port and Sherry too.
Why, Tourist, why5
Embark for Rotterdam?
Pr'ythee stay at home and take
Thy Hollands in a dram.
Why, Tourist, why
To foreign climes repair?10
Pr'ythee take thy German Flute,
And breathe a German air.
Why, Tourist, why
The Seven Mountains view?
Any one at home can tint15
A hill with Prussian Blue.
Why, Tourist, why
To old Colonia's walls?
Sure, to see a Wrenish Dome,
One needn't leave St. Paul's.20
T. Hood.
COLOGNE