| |
| SWEET the memory is to me | |
| Of a land beyond the sea, | |
| Where the waves and mountains meet, | |
| Where amid her mulberry-trees | |
| Sits Amalfi in the heat, | 5 |
| Bathing ever her white feet | |
| In the tideless summer seas. | |
| |
| In the middle of the town, | |
| From its fountains in the hills, | |
| Tumbling through the narrow gorge, | 10 |
| The Canneto rushes down, | |
| Turns the great wheels of the mills, | |
| Lifts the hammers of the forge. | |
| |
| ’T is a stairway, not a street, | |
| That ascends the deep ravine, | 15 |
| Where the torrent leaps between | |
| Rocky walls that almost meet. | |
| Toiling up from stair to stair | |
| Peasant girls their burdens bear; | |
| Sunburnt daughters of the soil, | 20 |
| Stately figures tall and straight, | |
| What inexorable fate | |
| Dooms them to this life of toil? | |
| |
| Lord of vineyards and of lands, | |
| Far above the convent stands. | 25 |
| On its terraced walk aloof | |
| Leans a monk with folded hands. | |
| Placid, satisfied, serene, | |
| Looking down upon the scene | |
| Over wall and red-tiled roof; | 30 |
| Wondering unto what good end | |
| All this toil and traffic tend, | |
| And why all men cannot be | |
| Free from care and free from pain, | |
| And the sordid love of gain, | 35 |
| And as indolent as he. | |
| |
| Where are now the freighted barks | |
| From the marts of east and west? | |
| Where the knights in iron sarks | |
| Journeying to the Holy Land, | 40 |
| Glove of steel upon the hand, | |
| Cross of crimson on the breast? | |
| Where the pomp of camp and court? | |
| Where the pilgrims with their prayers? | |
| Where the merchants with their wares, | 45 |
| And their gallant brigantines | |
| Sailing safely into port | |
| Chased by corsair Algerines? | |
| |
| Vanished like a fleet of cloud, | |
| Like a passing trumpet-blast, | 50 |
| Are those splendors of the past, | |
| And the commerce and the crowd! | |
| Fathoms deep beneath the seas | |
| Lie the ancient wharves and quays, | |
| Swallowed by the engulfing waves; | 55 |
| Silent streets and vacant halls, | |
| Ruined roofs and towers and walls; | |
| Hidden from all mortal eyes | |
| Deep the sunken city lies: | |
| Even cities have their graves! | 60 |
| |
| This is an enchanted land! | |
| Round the headlands far away | |
| Sweeps the blue Salernian bay | |
| With its sickle of white sand: | |
| Further still and furthermost | 65 |
| On the dim discovered coast | |
| Pæstum with its ruins lies, | |
| And its roses all in bloom | |
| Seem to tinge the fatal skies | |
| Of that lonely land of doom. | 70 |
| |
| On his terrace, high in air, | |
| Nothing doth the good monk care | |
| For such worldly themes as these. | |
| From the garden just below | |
| Little puffs of perfume blow, | 75 |
| And a sound is in his ears | |
| Of the murmur of the bees | |
| In the shining chestnut trees; | |
| Nothing else he heeds or hears. | |
| All the landscape seems to swoon | 80 |
| In the happy afternoon; | |
| Slowly o’er his senses creep | |
| The encroaching waves of sleep, | |
| And he sinks as sank the town, | |
| Unresisting, fathoms down, | 85 |
| Into caverns cool and deep! | |
| |
| Walled about with drifts of snow, | |
| Hearing the fierce north-wind blow, | |
| Seeing all the landscape white | |
| And the river cased in ice, | 90 |
| Comes this memory of delight, | |
| Comes this vision unto me | |
| Of a long-lost Paradise | |
| In the land beyond the sea. | |
| |
