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| VALLOMBROSA! I longed in thy shadiest wood | |
| To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor, | |
| To listen to Anio’s precipitous flood, | |
| When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar; | |
| To range through the temples of Pæstum, to muse | 5 |
| In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth; | |
| On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues; | |
| And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth! | |
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| The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome, | |
| Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret? | 10 |
| With a hope (and no more) for a season to come, | |
| Which ne’er may discharge the magnificent debt? | |
| Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned | |
| Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust; | |
| Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned | 15 |
| From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just. | |
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| Now, risen ere the light-footed chamois retires | |
| From dew-sprinkled grass to heights guarded with snow, | |
| Toward the mists that hang over the land of my sires, | |
| From the climate of myrtles contented I go. | 20 |
| My thoughts become bright like yon edging of pines | |
| On the steep’s lofty verge: how it blackened the air! | |
| But, touched from behind by the sun, it now shines | |
| With threads that seem part of his own silver hair. | |
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| Though the toil of the way with dear friends we divide, | 25 |
| Though by the same zephyr our temples be fanned, | |
| As we rest in the cool orange-bower side by side, | |
| A yearning survives which few hearts shall withstand: | |
| Each step hath its value while homeward we move;— | |
| O joy when the girdle of England appears! | 30 |
| What moment in life is so conscious of love, | |
| Of love in the heart made more happy by tears? | |
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