Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
The Cathedral of Milan
By Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)W
I reached the marble roofs. Awe vanquished dread.
White were they as the summit of Mont Blanc,
When noontide parleys with that mountain’s head.
The far-off Alps, by morning tinged with red,
Blushed through the spires that round in myriads sprung:
A silver gleam the wind-stirred poplars flung
O’er Lombardy’s green sea below me spread.
Of these I little saw. In trance I stood;
Ere death, methought, admitted to the skies;
Around me, like a heavenly multitude
Crowning some specular mount of Paradise,
Thronged that angelic concourse robed in stone:
The sun, ascending, in their faces shone!