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| THERE is an isle, kissed by a smiling sea, | |
| Where all sweet confluents meet: a thing of heaven, | |
| A spent aërolite, that well may be | |
| The missing sister of the starry Seven. | |
| Celestial beauty nestles at its knee, | 5 |
| And in its lap is naught of earthly leaven. | |
| ’T is girt and crowned with loveliness; its year, | |
| Eternal summer; winter comes not near. | |
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| ’T is small, as things of beauty ofttimes are, | |
| And in a morning round it you may row, | 10 |
| Nor need a tedious haste your bark debar | |
| From gliding inwards where the ripples flow | |
| Into strange grots whose roofs are azure spar, | |
| Whose pavements liquid silver. Mild winds blow | |
| Around your prow, and at your keel the foam, | 15 |
| Leaping and laughing, freshly wafts you home. | |
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| They call the island Capri,—with a name | |
| Dulling an airy dream, just as the soul | |
| Is clogged with body palpable,—and Fame | |
| Hath long while winged the word from pole to pole. | 20 |
| Its human story is a tale of shame, | |
| Of all unnatural lusts a gory scroll, | |
| Record of what, when pomp and power agree, | |
| Man once hath been, and man again may be. | |
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| Terrace and slope from shore to summit show | 25 |
| Of all rich climes the glad-surrendered spoil. | |
| Here the bright olive’s phantom branches glow, | |
| There the plump fig sucks sweetness from the soil. | |
| Mid odorous flowers that through the Zodiac blow, | |
| Returning tenfold to man’s leisured toil, | 30 |
| Hesperia’s fruit hangs golden. High in air, | |
| The vine runs riot, spurning human care. | |
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| And flowers of every hue and breath abound, | |
| Charming the sense; the burning cactus glows, | |
| Like daisies elsewhere dappling all the ground, | 35 |
| And in each cleft the berried myrtle blows. | |
| The playful lizard glides and darts around, | |
| The elfin fireflies flicker o’er the rows | |
| Of ripened grain. Alien to pain and wrong, | |
| Men fill the days with dance, the nights with song. | 40 |
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