Beyond, the lake is darkest, deepest green; The shadow of a mighty mountain floats. The terraced villas fleck the mountain side 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 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, 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 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 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 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? Sweet vision! Do not fade away; 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 And scarce solicited by human toil, Pours from the riches of the teeming soil. A mossy softness distance lent One crept away looking back as it went, The westering sun not dazzling now, though bright And, sauntering up a circling cove, 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. |