Classic Poem

IV

A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease.
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
The ruin'd aisle, the crumbling fane,
The broken column, vast and prone,
It may be joy — it may be pain —
Amid such wrecks to walk alone!
The saddest man will sadder be,
The gentlest lover gentler there,
As if, whate'er the spirit's key,
It strengthened in that solemn air.

The heart soon grows to mournful things,
And Italy has not a breeze
But comes on melancholy wings;
And even her majestic trees
Stand ghost-like in the Caesar's home,
As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,
And drew their sap all kingly yet!
And every stone your feet beneath
Is broken from some mighty thought,
And sculptures in the dust still breathe
The fire with which their lines were wrought,
And sunder'd arch, and plunder'd tomb
Still thunder back the echo, " Rome! "

Yet gaily o'er Egeria's fount
The ivy flings its emerald veil,
And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount,
And light-sprung arches span the dale,
And soft, from Caracalla's Baths,
The herdsman's song comes down the breeze,
While climb his goats the giddy paths
To grass-grown architrave and frieze;
And gracefully Albano's hill
Curves into the horizon's line,
And sweetly sings that classic rill,
And fairly stands that nameless shrine,
And here, oh, many a sultry noon
And starry eve, that happy June,
Came Angelo and Melanie,
And earth for us was all in tune —
For while Love talk'd with them, Hope walked apart with me!