Death takes us by surprise,
  And stays our hurrying feet;
The great design unfinished lies,
  Our lives are incomplete.

  But in the dark unknown
  Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge’s arch of stone
  Is rounded in the stream.

  Alike are life and death,
  When life in death survives,
And the uninterrupted breath
  Inspires a thousand lives.

  Were a star quenched on high,
  For ages would its light,
Still travelling downward from the sky,
  Shine on our mortal sight.

  So when a great man dies,
  For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
  Upon the paths of men.

TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
  And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
  Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself
  And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
  And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung
  Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
  Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again
  The Alpine torrent’s roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
  The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent’s gleaming wall
  Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
  And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
  Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
  And gleams of distant seas.

I fear no more the dust and heat,
  No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another’s feet
  O’er many a lengthening league.

Let others traverse sea and land,
  And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
  Reading these poets’ rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies
  Beneath each changing zone,
And see, when looking with their eyes,
  Better than with mine own.

CADENABBIA

LAKE OF COMO

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks
  The silence of the summer day,
As by the loveliest of all lakes
  I while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade
  Where level branches of the plane
Above me weave a roof of shade
  Impervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of air
  Flutters the lazy leaves o’erhead,
And gleams of sunshine toss and flare
  Like torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva’s garden gate
  I make the marble stairs my seat,
And hear the water, as I wait,
  Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swells
  Along the stony parapets,
And far away the floating bells
  Tinkle upon the fisher’s nets.