Silent and slow, by tower and town
  The freighted barges come and go,
Their pendent shadows gliding down
  By town and tower submerged below.

The hills sweep upward from the shore,
  With villas scattered one by one
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower
  Bellaggio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled mass
  Of walls and woods, of light and shade,
Stands beckoning up the Stelvio Pass
  Varenna with its white cascade.

I ask myself, Is this a dream? 
  Will it all vanish into air? 
Is there a land of such supreme
  And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision!  Do not fade away;
  Linger until my heart shall take
Into itself the summer day,
  And all the beauty of the lake.

Linger until upon my brain
  Is stamped an image of the scene,
Then fade into the air again,
  And be as if thou hadst not been.

MONTE CASSINO

TERRA DI LAVORO

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads
  Unheard the Garigliano glides along;—­
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
  The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
  Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain’s crest
  Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface
   Was dragged with contumely from his throne;
Sciarra Colonna, was that day’s disgrace
  The Pontiff’s only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade
  Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed
  Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
  Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light
Still hovers o’er his birthplace like the crown
  Of splendor seen o’er cities in the night.

Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets
  The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played,
And dreamed perhaps the dreams, that he repeats
  In ponderous folios for scholastics made.

And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud
  That pauses on a mountain summit high,
Monte Cassino’s convent rears its proud
  And venerable walls against the sky.

Well I remember how on foot I climbed
  The stony pathway leading to its gate;
Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed,
  Below, the darkening town grew desolate.

Well I remember the low arch and dark,
  The court-yard with its well, the terrace wide,
From which, far down, the valley like a park
  Veiled in the evening mists, was dim descried.

The day was dying, and with feeble hands
  Caressed the mountain-tops; the vales between
Darkened; the river in the meadowlands
  Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not seen.