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

Nemi

Nemi

By Lord Byron (1788–1824)

(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)

LO, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills

So far, that the uprooting wind which tears

The oak from his foundation, and which spills

The ocean o’er its boundary, and bears

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares

The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;

And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears

A deep, cold, settled aspect naught can shake,

All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

And near Albano’s scarce divided waves

Shine from a sister valley; and afar

The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves

The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war,

“Arms and the Man,” whose reascending star

Rose o’er an empire;—but beneath thy right

Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar

Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight

The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard’s delight.