Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats,— Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, Each with its household boat beside the door; Thy torrent shooting from the clear-blue sky; Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high; That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descried ray Slow-travelling down the western hills, to enfold Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold; Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams, LAKE COMO AROUND me rise the gray-green olive trees, The palm, the pine, the lemon and the fig; A spray of honeysuckle scents the breeze A-dangle from a slim acacia twig. Bronze, green with moss, this Triton-fountain plays, While red and orange fishes swim below; Like blushing nymphs a-peep through misty sprays, I see the scarlet-robed geraniums glow. Here gowned in pink, with copper-tinted cheek, Canary-coloured asters blaze and burn, Carnations in flame-coloured garbs are gowned; The clustered grapes to gold and purple turn, With honeyed nectars swelling ripe and round. Along this wall the blue wistaria blows, The green magnolia lifts her milk-white flowers; The poppy like a Cleopatra glows, And trumpet-blossoms droop in scarlet showers. Queen over all, the oleander blooms, And scatters pink-white snows across the lawn; Her splendour glimmers through the verdant glooms As rosy and as radiant as the dawn. Beyond, the lake is darkest, deepest green; The terraced villas fleck the mountain side With walls of buff and brown and ochre-red; 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, 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. |