University of Virginia Library

Mountains! on whose granite crests
Above the clouds the eagle rests,
Where the shy chamois haunts the untrodden snow:
Glaciers! and ye whose torrents flow,
Gushing down glens that wind between
The Grisons and the Valteline:
And thou, still Lake! that sleep'st yon heights among:
I may not rudely pass thy loveliness unsung.

Fain would I in these votive numbers weave
Thy memory, and the enchantment of that day,
When from fair Dawn to rosy-vestur'd Eve
Bright Summer thro' thy haunts led on my way:
Now amid dazzling sun-beams, as the ray
Flash'd from the oared water, now amid
Cool shadows from the wilderness of wood,
And grots in darkness hid:
Or where along the mirror of the flood
Shone palaces, with dome, and colonnade,
Before whose marble steps bright fountains play'd
'Mid trim parterres, and arbors quaintly shorn
By artful toil, that here and there displayed
A Flora, grac'd with Almalthea's horn,
Pan, or a piping Fawn, who glads the groves,
Or quiver'd Dians under gilt alcoves.

But—lovlier far, fair Como! lovelier far
Thy solitudes, and th' untam'd wantoning
Of the sweet woodbine, that, ne'er taught to cling,
Clasps the wild rose, and closely interweaves
Its ring of trailing twine
To deck the rustic porch, and wed the vine,
Where the green trellis of th' exuberant leaves
Shades off Italia's sun-beam. Lovelier far
Where wild flow'rs wanton are,
And th' unseen violet beneath the tread
Betrays its fragrant bed,
To wind along the margin of the lake:
Or in the coolness of the rocky cave
With icy drops the fiery lip to slake,
And watch the flow and ebbing of the wave,
Where Pliny wont to muse: and, free from Rome,
Pomps, and gorg'd theatres, and vain parade
Of train'd disputes beneath the sophist's dome,
By other teacher taught, and better lore,
Where the coy Spirit of the Water stray'd,
Question'd the fount: or lone on Como's shore
Found Wisdom, making solitude a home,
Nature a book.—Far lovelier to explore
The leafy labyrinths, o'er whose growth, on high
Tow'r'd the stone-pine, while streams that flow'd beneath
Wound, musical, their many-sparkling wreath.—

And can I pass those roofs unsung
That o'er the lake so peaceful hung,
Where on each rock that view'd the flood
The hamlet of the woman stood?—
The woman, who there dwelt alone:
Her sire—her son—her husband—gone:
Gone all, save one, who now withheld,
Basks in the sun, an hoary eld,
And to the grand-child on his knee
Repeats in fond garrulity,
Strange tales of far and foreign lands,
While the child spreads his wondering hands,
And feeds the wish, like him, to roam,
And bring the tale of peril home.
Yes—o'er that eld ere close the tomb,
The boy, in manhood's brightest bloom,
Leaves the young bride, so lately blest,
Leaves the fair infant on her breast,
And o'er the world in exile driv'n,
Leaves Como's lake, his earthly heav'n.
Have we not seen him on his way
A stranger 'mid our cities stray,
And in the track his fathers wore,
Retrace their footsteps o'er and o'er,
And proffer to the passers by
The treasures of his pedlary?
And is his birth-place quite forgot,
His earthly heav'n remember'd not?—
No—Como's lake before him lies,
Her rocks, her peaceful roofs arise:
Here, his stone-seat, and there the sod
On which his little foot first trod,
And every flow'r his little hand
First wedded to the rocky strand.
He hears the bleating kid he bred,
And wild notes from the mountain head:
Calls on the bride his young arm prest,
And clasps the infant on her breast.
Hence, wanderer! hence!—return, return—
Soothe thy own heart:—soothe those that mourn.
Ne'er on thy eyelid Peace shall dwell,
Till hiv'd thy honey in that cell:
Till on the threshold of that door
Thou vow the vow to part no more,
And where thy blissful childhood past,
In that rock cradle breathe thy last.

And I would fain that thou, my song, recall
The twilight's shadowy fall,
When, wearied of the sun-light, and the glare
That flash'd from off the flood, I woo'd the air
To cool me, where on green Belagio's brow
I heard the night-breeze blow:
And back recall the moon, that, while I lay,
And heard the waters play,
Full-orb'd in all her brightness, burst above
The darkness of the grove,
And o'er the lake diffus'd her silver day.
Sweet was it, under myrtle shade reclin'd,
To listen to the whisper of the wind:
Sweet was it, to behold on either side
The crystal flood divide,
Making an isle of that green eminence:
And watch the sails that flash'd on the far stream,
Now seen, now lost,
Like fire-flies glancing thro' the moonlight gleam,
As winds the current cross'd:
But sweeter far, at midnight hour,
When song has witchery pow'r,
At measur'd interval to hear
The cadence of the oar keep time
To the Italian rhyme,
As some fay boat drew nearer and more near,
Attemper'd to the touches of the lute,
And smoothly-flowing flute;
And when the oar had resting, and the gale
Fann'd with fresh breath of flow'rs the sail,
To hear around the winding of the cove
A voice, whose word was song, steal thro' the lip of love.

Oh, sweet Belagio! when the tear will flow
At sense of rooted woe,
Breathe back the voice that, winding round the cove,
Stole thro' the lip of love:
And give again thy water's silvery gleam,
And all that glanc'd in light beneath that moonshine beam!