| |
| HAS earth a lovelier sight to show | |
| Than yonder strait whose waters flow | |
| Bordered with vineyards, summer bowers, | |
| White palaces, and ivied towers? | |
| How mellow upon snowy walls | 5 |
| The tranquil light of morning falls; | |
| The various tints how softly blent | |
| On distant hill and battlement; | |
| What gleaming mist half veils the slopes, | |
| Fair as the haze of youthful hopes; | 10 |
| How darkly blue or lucent green | |
| The current in the noonday sheen | |
| Goes by, anon impearled with spray, | |
| Or lingering in some sheltered bay, | |
| Where charmed pavilions skirt the marge, | 15 |
| Where idly floats the fisher’s barge, | |
| And ancient plane-trees shade the stream, | |
| Bidding the passer there to dream, | |
| Lapped in the arms of peaceful rest, | |
| As in the Islands of the Blest. | 20 |
| |
| There let my footsteps lead me down | |
| To gaze on palace, tower, and town; | |
| To taste the grape of purple hue, | |
| And peel the fig ice-cool with dew; | |
| To breathe the influence of the clime, | 25 |
| And smoke the lotus of our time; | |
| Watching the white-winged vessels glide | |
| Like flocks of sea-fowl down the tide, | |
| Lulled by the sound of plunging oars | |
| Echoing along the wooded shores, | 30 |
| Or soothed by the eerie wind that roves | |
| With whispers through the slumberous groves, | |
| Or dances through the tossing vines | |
| And sweeps the harp of dark-robed pines, | |
| Low murmuring to the dreamer’s ears | 35 |
| The requiem for the dying years. | |
| |
| There let me linger till the rays | |
| Of sunset make the sky ablaze | |
| With vast magnificence that fires | |
| The imperial city’s thousand spires. | 40 |
| See, in the west, how, fold on fold, | |
| The clouds are gathered, massive gold; | |
| What glowing purple robes the shore, | |
| Richer than monarchs ever wore; | |
| The hill-tops and the distant isles | 45 |
| Reflect the sun’s departing smiles; | |
| The very cypresses that keep | |
| Stern watch above the dead man’s sleep | |
| Have caught the glory of the scene, | |
| And woven its purple with their green. | 50 |
| Then twilight’s veil steals softly down | |
| O’er ruined tower and droning town; | |
| Lights quiver on the glassy deep, | |
| Ships at their moorings lie asleep, | |
| From festal halls voluptuous strains | 55 |
| Float gently by in soft refrains, | |
| The nightingale’s delicious trills | |
| Ring in the covert of the hills; | |
| And hark, upon the swooning air, | |
| The solemn voice that calls to prayer. | 60 |
| But lo! the moon majestic looms | |
| Above the sea, and braids the glooms | |
| Of evening with her argent light, | |
| And summons to my wondering sight | |
| The brave and fair of olden time | 65 |
| Who dwelt in this enchanted clime. * * * * * | |
| Then let me tarry here awhile, | |
| O land of roses! in the smile | |
| O’ th’ Eastern sun; in the serene | |
| Elysian light of midnight’s queen; | 70 |
| Thankful that Time—who turns our gold | |
| To ashes, cramps us in a mould | |
| Of social forms, and gives, instead | |
| Of youth’s gay garlands crushed and dead, | |
| The abstractions of philosophy, | 75 |
| Too purely cold to satisfy | |
| The ardent, earnest, restless soul | |
| Whose passionate yearnings scorn control— | |
| Has left me still the power to enjoy | |
| The beautiful without alloy. | 80 |
| The fervor of my earlier days | |
| Still warms my bosom when I gaze | |
| On all the lovely and sublime | |
| In this my own, my native clime. | |
| I count among God’s choicest gifts | 85 |
| That love of beauty which uplifts | |
| The weary soul above the prose | |
| Of life’s routine, its toil and woes; | |
| That subtle spirit of poesy | |
| That joins the soul in harmony | 90 |
| With outward objects, that imbues | |
| The humblest things with magic hues, | |
| Sublimes our nature, and allies | |
| Our mortal being with the skies. | |
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