Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Appendix: Catania | | Catania | | James Gates Percival (1795–1856) |
| | | CATANIA! on thy famed and classic shore | |
| I long to plant my foot, and stand between | |
| A paradise, all blooming, gay, and green, | |
| And thy earth-circled ocean’s gentle roar, | |
| Along whose peaceful waves the sunbeams pour, | 5 |
| From stainless skies, deep amber, and imbue | |
| The ruffled waters with an iris hue, | |
| Like torchlight sparkling in a vault of ore,— | |
| And turning I behold thy fields of grain | |
| Waving in yellow floods o’er vale and plain, | 10 |
| And meadows mantled in a waste of flowers, | |
| And hills whereon the golden orange glows, | |
| And purpling with the ripe vine’s nectared bowers, | |
| And breathing with the myrtle and the rose; | |
| And higher still, flame-crested Ætna towering, | 15 |
| A belt of giant oak and chestnut waves | |
| In gloomy verdure, like the cypress louring | |
| With shade of solemn night o’er Eastern graves; | |
| And loftier, in its virgin robe of white, | |
| The snow-cap, pillowed on the cloudless sky, | 20 |
| Seems like a floating column of pure light, | |
| And round its pointed cone dark volumes lie | |
| Rolled from the volcan’s jaws, and sheets of flame | |
| Dart on their path to Heaven, and flowing o’er | |
| The glowing torrent rolls its flashing stream, | 25 |
| And from the mountain’s womb comes forth a sullen roar. | | | | |
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