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| I LEAVE thee, beauteous Italy! no more | |
| From the high terraces, at eventide, | |
| To look supine into thy depths of sky, | |
| Thy golden moon between the cliff and me, | |
| Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses | 5 |
| Bordering the channel of the milky-way. | |
| Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams | |
| Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico | |
| Murmur to me but in the poet’s song. | |
| I did believe (what have I not believed?) | 10 |
| Weary with age, but unoppressed by pain, | |
| To close in thy soft clime my quiet day | |
| And rest my bones in the Mimosa’s shade. | |
| Hope! Hope! few ever cherished thee so little; | |
| Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised; | 15 |
| But thou didst promise this, and all was well. | |
| For we are fond of thinking where to lie | |
| When every pulse hath ceased, when the lone heart | |
| Can lift no aspiration—reasoning | |
| As if the sight were unimpaired by death, | 20 |
| Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid, | |
| And the sun cheered corruption! Over all | |
| The smiles of nature shed a potent charm, | |
| And light us to our chamber at the grave. | |
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