Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Sorrento | | Tasso | | Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) |
| | (From Italy)
HE who sets sail from Naples when the wind | |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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