Classic Poem

Eventide puts all the mills to sleep,
When quietly the harass'd waters creep
To comb their crystal tresses at the weirs.
All day an outlaw, Peace at eve appears:
No drudge mechanic but at evening shelves
His trade—the hour when men may be themselves—
And handles happiness awhile.
And I,
Italian hearted with Italian sky,
At evening felt the cranks and wheels of Reason
Muffle their angry travail for a season;
And, all the scolding tongues of Reason mute,
Tasted pleasure and knowledge absolute.
Each brutish pore grown wiser than the mind,
Pure single spirit the league of sense combined.
The leaves of spring were tender as the beams
Of sunlight on the floor of shallow streams;
On blossomed almond orchards changed the flush;
Sweet from the beanfields came the throb and rush
In my ear and over my cheek of the breeze
Stroking the plain with breath of placid seas.
Red with the sunset still beside the road
Rome in innumerable arches strode;
Each white acclivity of town that fills
The shadowy creases in the Alban hills,
Six leagues away seemed just a stone's-throw distant.
Master of life and free of all existent,
Thanking God for awhile to know and feel,
Silent I slid upon my twinkling wheel.