On her still lake the city sits
While bark and boat beside her flits,
Nor hears, her soft siesta taking,
The Adriatic billows breaking.
In the Piazza at night
O beautiful beneath the magic moon5
To walk the watery way of palaces;
O beautiful, o'er-vaulted with gemmed blue
This spacious court; with colour and with gold,
With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points,
And crosses multiplex, and tips, and balls,10
(Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,
Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused;)
Fantastically perfect this lone pile
Of oriental glory; these long ranges
Of classic chiselling; this gay flickering crowd,
And the calm Campanile.—Beautiful!16
O beautiful!
A. H. Clough.
FLORENCE
Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps5
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale11
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold15
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.
Lord Byron.
AN INVITATION TO ROME
Oh, come to Rome, it is a pleasant place,
Your London sun is here seen shining brightly;
The Briton, too, puts on a cheery face,
And Mrs. Bull is suave and even sprightly.
The Romans are a kind and cordial race,5
The women charming, if one takes them rightly;
I see them at their doors, as day is closing,
More proud than duchesses,—and more imposing.