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Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
FROM this high portal, where upsprings | |
| The rose to touch our hands in play, | |
| We at a glance behold three things,— | |
| The sea, the town and the highway. | |
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| And the sea says: My shipwrecks fear, | 5 |
| I drown my best friends in the deep; | |
| And those who braved my tempests, here | |
| Among my sea-weeds lie asleep! | |
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| The town says: I am filled and fraught | |
| With tumult and with smoke and care; | 10 |
| My days with toil are overwrought, | |
| And in my nights I gasp for air. | |
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| The highway says: My wheel-tracks guide | |
| To the pale climates of the North; | |
| Where my last milestone stands, abide | 15 |
| The people to their death gone forth. | |
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| Here, in the shade, this life of ours, | |
| Full of delicious air, glides by | |
| Amid a multitude of flowers, | |
| As countless as the stars on high; | 20 |
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| These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil, | |
| Bathed with an azure all divine, | |
| Where springs the tree that gives us oil, | |
| The grape that giveth us the wine; | |
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| Beneath these mountains stripped of trees, | 25 |
| Whose tops with flowers are covered o’er; | |
| Where springtime of the Hesperides | |
| Begins, but endeth nevermore; | |
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| Under these leafy vaults and walls, | |
| That unto gentle sleep persuade; | 30 |
| This rainbow of the waterfalls, | |
| Of mingled mist and sunshine made; | |
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| Upon these shores, where all invites, | |
| We live our languid life apart; | |
| This air is that of life’s delights, | 35 |
| The festival of sense and heart; | |
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| This limpid space of time prolong, | |
| Forget to-morrow in to-day, | |
| And leave unto the passing throng | |
| The sea, the town, and the highway. | 40 |
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