Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
Switzerland and Italy
By Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885)W
When summer chases high the snow,
You ’ll meet with many a youthful band
Of strangers wandering to and fro:
Through hamlet, town, and healing bath
They haste and rest as chance may call,
No day without its mountain-path,
No path without its waterfall.
However well or ill be shared,
Content that they should wing their way,
Unchecked, unreckoned, uncompared:
For though the hills unshapely rise,
And lie the colors poorly bright,
They mould them by their cheerful eyes,
And paint them with their spirit’s light.
The energies their souls possess;
And if some wayward scene refuse
To pay its part of loveliness,—
Onward they pass, nor less enjoy
For what they leave;—and far from me
Be every thought that would destroy
A charm of that simplicity!
From doubt or misery’s pen be thrown,—
If once the sense awake, that age
Is counted not by years alone,—
Then no more grand and wondrous things!
No active happinesses more!
The wounded heart has lost its wings,
And change can only fret the sore.
Where the divine Italian sea
Rests like a maiden hushed asleep
And breathing low and measuredly;
Where all the sunset-purpled ground,
Fashioned by those delicious airs,
Seems strewed with softest cushions round
For weary heads to loose their cares;
Out of her free imperial store,
That perfect beauty their weak powers
Can help her to create no more,
And grateful for that ancient aid,
Comes forth to comfort and relieve
Those minds in prostrate sorrow laid,
Bidding them open and receive!
For Nature reigns not there alone,
A mightier queen beside her lives,
Whom she can serve but not dethrone;
For she is fallen from the state
That waited on her Eden-prime,
And art remains by sin and fate
Unscathed, for art is not of time.