Beyond, the lake is darkest, deepest green;
Its emerald surges toss with tiny boats;
Far-reaching over all the peaceful scene,

The shadow of a mighty mountain floats.

The terraced villas fleck the mountain side
With walls of buff and brown and ochre-red;
And over all the prospect far and wide
A saffron tower uplifts its slender head.

A monastery crowns a hazy height;

Luxuriant creepers cover half the stones; Above the creamy walls, in amber light,

The cypress rears its trim-sharp-pointed cones.

Far-off, in deepest, softest, dimmest blue,

The faint, faint mountains melt in mellow skies, As dreamy-sweet as one whose soul is true, When saying that she loves me with her eyes.

As night comes on, a cloud all rosy-red
Conceals the splendour of the silvery moon;
Then sunset's crocus petals all are shed,
And like a golden melon hangs the moon.

Across the lake, aglitter light on light,

Strung like a necklace, little cities gleam, While harps and bugles through the fragrant night,

Lure sleepless lovers to a land of dream.

Yet beauty such as this must end at last,
And so a tempest gathers in its might.

The thunders roll, trees shiver in the blast,

And angry lightnings pierce the shuddering night.

Sheet after sheet, the furious torrents fall,

Flame after flame, the swords of heaven flash. The locust boughs are snapped against the wall, The fisher-boats against the beaches dash.

Night, like a passion-mad Elizabeth,

Smites day, her Essex loved in bygone years, Then, horror-stricken at her darling's death, Pours on his grave a torrent of her tears. WALTER MALONE.

CADENABBIA

NO SOUND of wheels or hoof-beat breaks

The silence of the summer day,

As by the loveliest of all lakes
I while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade

Where level branches of the plane Above me weave a roof of shade

Impervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of air

Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, And gleams of sunshine toss and flare Like torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva's garden gate

I make the marble stairs my seat, And hear the water, as I wait, Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swells
Along the stony parapets,
And far away the floating bells
Tinkle upon the fisher's nets.

Silent and slow, by tower and town

The freighted barges come and go, By town and tower submerged below. Their pendent shadows gliding down

The hills sweep upward from the shore
With villas scattered one by one
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower
Bellaggio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled mass

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, Stands beckoning up the Stelvio Pass Varenna with its white cascade. '

I ask myself, Is this a dream?

Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme
And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away;
Linger until my heart shall take
Into itself the summer day,

And all the beauty of the lake.

Linger until upon my brain

Is stamped an image of the scene, Then fade into the air again,

And be as if thou hadst not been.

HENRY WADsworth Longfellow.

LAKE VARESE

LAGO VARESE

I STOOD beside Varese's Lake,

Mid that redundant growth

Of vines and maize and bower and brake
Which Nature, kind to sloth,

And scarce solicited by human toil,

Pours from the riches of the teeming soil.

A mossy softness distance lent
To each divergent hill,

One crept away looking back as it went,
The rest lay round and still;

The westering sun not dazzling now, though bright
Shed o'er the mellow land a molten light.

And, sauntering up a circling cove,
I found upon the strand

A shallop, and a girl who strove

To drag it to dry land:

I stood to see the girl look round; her face

Had all her country's clear and definite grace.