Classic Poem

From Capo di Sorrento, its poppies and its clover,
The headlands of Fosilipo, the wharves of Napoli,
A wide blue trail runs westward to the ocean rim and over
To where there lies a little town with lights along the sea.

Here pink and blue the villas crowd beside the yellow sand,
And sweet and hot, the scented winds puff sultry to the bay,
The shadow of Vesuvius lies gray across the land--
And on my heart a loneliness that calls me far away.

My restless feet are weary of these hills of purple vines,
These crooked groves of olive trees that scrawl the crooked lanes
The walnuts shoulder weakly round the tall Italian pines,
That whisper like the waves of wheat across the yellow plains.

All day beneath the ruins of Donn' Anna gaunt and black,
The boats of fisher-folk go by with song and trailing net;
And dim the cloud of Capri where the red feluccas tack--
But still the belching funnels smirch the trail I can't forget.

Virgil's tomb gapes empty where the oranges are bright,
Above the Roman corridors that goats and beggars tread;
Soft voices and thin music and laughter all the night--
I only see a thousand leagues the Channel lights burn red;

I only hear dear English tongues forever calling me,
Across the high white English cliffs and flowers of the foam;
I only breathe sweet lilac bloom a-blowing out to sea--
A-blowing down the long sea-lanes to lead a lover home!