Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Pisa

Evening

By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Ponte a Mare, Pisa

THE SUN is set; the swallows are asleep;

The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;

The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep;

And evening’s breath, wandering hero and there

Over the quivering surface of the stream,

Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;

The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze

The dust and straws are driven up and down,

And whirled about the pavement of the town.

Within the surface of the fleeting river

The wrinkled image of the city lay,

Immovably unquiet, and forever

It trembles, but it never fades away.

*****

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut

By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,

Like mountain over mountain huddled, but

Growing and moving upwards in a crowd;

And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.