Their tyrannies, but that, in a later day,
Great spirits, and gentle too, triumphing came;
And, as the mighty day-star makes its way
From darkness into light, they toward their fame
Went, gathering splendor till they grew sublime.
Yet first of all thy sons were they who wove
Thy silken language into tales of love,
And fairest far the gentle forms that shine
In thy own poets' faery songs divine.
O, long as lips shall smile or pitying tears
Rain from the eyes of beauty, — long as fears
Or doubts or hopes shall sear or soothe the heart,
Or flatteries softly fall on woman's ears,
Or witching words be spoke at twilight hours,
Or tender songs be sung in orange bowers,
Long as the stars, like ladies' looks, by night
Shall shine, more constant and almost as bright,-
So long, though hidden in a foreign shroud,
Shall Dante's mighty spirit speak aloud:
So long the lamp of fame on Petrarch's urn
Shall, like the light of learning, duly burn;
And he be loved, he with his hundred tales,
As varying as the shadowy cloud that sails
Upon the bosom of the April sky,
And musical as when the waters run
Lapsing through sylvan haunts deliciously..
Nor may that gay romancer who hath told
Of knight and damsel and enchantments old,
So well, be e'er forgot; nor he who sung
Of Salem's holy city lost and won,
The seer-like Tasso, who enamoured hung
On Leonora's beauty, and became
Her martyr, blasted by a mingled flame.
NOW'ST thou the land, there where the citron
In darksome leaves the golden orange glows;
A gentle wind from the blue heaven expands,
The myrtle still, and high the laurel stands!
Know'st thou the land? Ah, there, ah, there
Would I with thee, O my beloved, go!
Know'st thou the house? On columns rests its roof; Glitters the hall, the chambers gleam aloof;
And marble statues stand and gaze at me;
"What have they done, poor little child, to thee?" Know'st thou the house? Ah, there, ah, there Would I with thee, O my protector, go!
Know'st thou the mount, with cloud-enveloped track?
The mule seeks out his way in mist and rack;
In caverns dwells the dragon's ancient brood;
Down leaps the crag, and over it the flood!
Know'st thou the mount? Ah, there, ah, there
Leadeth our road, O father, let us go!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Tr. Anon.
LOVE, what hours were thine and mine In lands of palm and southern pine, In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.
What Roman strength Turbìa showed
In ruin, by the mountain road;
How like a gem, beneath, the city
Of little Monaco, basking, glowed.
How richly down the rocky dell
The torrent vineyard streaming fell
To meet the sun and sunny waters,
That only heaved with a summer swell.
What slender campanili grew
By bays, the peacock's neck in hue;
Where, here and there, on sandy beaches
A milky-belled amaryllis blew.
How young Columbus seemed to rove,
Yet present in his natal grove,
Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove,
Now pacing mute by ocean's rim
Till, in a narrow street and dim,
I stayed the wheels at Cogoletto,
And drank, and loyally drank to him.
Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast;
But distant color, happy hamlet,
A mouldered citadel on the coast,
Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen
A light amid its olives green;
Or olive-hoary cape in ocean;
Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,
Where oleanders flushed the bed
Of silent torrents, gravel-spread;
And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten
Of ice, far up on a mountain head.
We loved that hall, though white and cold, Those nichéd shapes of noble mould,
A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old.
At Florence, too, what golden hours
In those long galleries were ours;
What drives about the fresh Cascinè,
Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.
In bright vignettes, and each complete,
Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet,
Or palace, how the city glittered,
Through cypress avenues, at our feet.
But when we crost the Lombard plain
Remember what a plague of rain;
Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.
And stern and sad (so rare the smiles
Of sunlight) looked the Lombard piles;
Porch-pillars on the lion resting,
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.
O Milan, O the chanting quires,
The giant windows' blazoned fires,
The height, the space, the gloom, the glory!
A mount of marble, a hundred spires!
I climbed the roofs at break of day;
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay.
I stood among the silent statues,
And statued pinnacles, mute as they.
How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.
Remember how we came at last
To Como; shower and storm and blast
Had blown the lake beyond his limit,
And all was flooded; and how we past
From Como, when the light was gray,
And in my head, for half the day,
The rich Virgilian rustic measure
Of Lari Maxume, all the way,
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