With his tuskéd monsters grumbling, mid the alien snow-drifts stumbling,
Then, an avalanche of ruin, thundering from that frozen land
Into vales their sons declare are
Sunny as our Riviera.
Thus forever, in our musing, comes man's spirit interfusing
Thought of poet and of hero with the landscape and
And this shore, no longer lonely, lives the life of romance
Gauls and Moors and Northern Sea-Kings, all are gliding, ghostlike, by.
So with Nature man is sharer
Even on the Riviera.
AIL, Riviera! hail the mountain-range
That guards from northern winds and seasons'
change
Yon southern spurs, descending fast to be
The sunlit capes along the tideless sea,
Whose waters, azure as the sky above,
Reflect the glories of the scene they love!
Here every slope and intervening dale.
Yields a sweet fragrance to the passing gale,
From the thick woods, where dark caroubas twine
Their massive verdure with the hardier pine,
And, mid the rocks, or hid in hollowed cave,
The fern and iris in profusion wave;
From countless terraces, where olives rise,
Unchilled by autumn's blast or wintry skies,
And round the stems, within the dusky shade,
The red anemones their home have made;
From gardens, where its breath forever blows
Through myrtle thickets and their wreaths of rose.
Like the proud lords who oft, with clash of mail,
Would daunt the commerce that the trader's sail
Had sought to bring, enriching and to bless,
The lands they plagued with conflict and distress,
Till none but robber chiefs and galley slaves
Ruled the fair shores or rode the tranquil waves,
So stand their forts upon the hills; with towers
Still frowning, sullen at the genial showers,
That, brought on white-winged clouds, have come to dower
The arid soil with recreative power.
No warrior's tread is echoed by their halls,
No warder's challenge on the silence falls.
Around, the thrifty peasants ply their toil
And pluck in orange groves the scented spoil
From trees, that have for purple mountains made
A vestment bright of green, and gold inlaid.
The women, baskets poised above their brows,
In long array beneath the citron boughs
Drive on the loaded mules with sound of bells,
That, in the distance, of their presence tells,
To springs that, hid from the pursuing day,
Love only Night; who, loving them, doth stay
In the deep waters, moss and reed o'ergrown,
Or cold in caverns of the chilly stone,
Sought of the steep-built towns, whose white walls
gleam
High midst the woods, or close by ocean's stream.
Like flowering aloes, the fair belfries soar
O'er houses clustered on the sandy shore;
From ancient battlements the eye surveys
A hundred lofty peaks and curving bays,
From where, at morn and eve, the sun may paint
The cliffs of Corsica with colors faint;
To where the fleets of haughty Genoa plied
The trade that humbled the Venetian's pride,
And the blue wastes, where roamed the men who came
To leaguer tower and town with sword and flame.
For by that shore, the scene of soft repose
When happy Peace her benison bestows,
Have storms, more dire than Nature's, lashed the coasts,
When met the tides of fierce contending hosts;
From the far days when first Liguria's hordes
Stemmed for a while the rush of Roman swords,
Only to mark how, on their native hill,
Turbia's trophy stamped the tyrant's will;
To those bright hours that saw the Moslem reel
Back from the conflict with the Christian steel.
The Marquis of Lorne.
THE FIRST SNOW MOUNTAIN SEEN FROM A SUNNY HILLSIDE NEAR ROCCA PRIORI, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1846.
LOOK, love, to youder mountain's brow;
Seest thou that beckoning hand of snow?
Stern Winter dares no further come,
But waves me towards his northern home.
The sun upon this glad earth pours
His blessing, in warm golden showers;
Down the steep path, with busy hum,
The black-eyed sturdy peasants come;
Patches of colors bright and gay
Hang o'er their cheeks of ruddy brown,
Loud laugh and jest make light their way,
From rock-perched hamlets winding down.
The jogging mule goes clattering light,
His wooden tubs to seek their freight;
While others, with their vintage load,
Strain up the steep and stony road,
And, all the sunny paths along,
Snatches of loud monotonous song
Come down from hill and up from glade,
And through the broad-leaved chestnut shade;
From vineyards where a merry band
Pile the ripe treasure of the land,
Amber and amethyst shining through
Soft purple bloom and sparkling dew.
Dark white-veined glittering ivy, wed
To wreaths of vine-leaves touched with red,
Hang from the brown brows of the rocks,
A garland meet for Bacchus' locks.
The fields, the woods, the air, the ground,
Smell of the vintage all around,
And from the sunny earth and sea
Rises a shout of jubilee.
From this steep road look down, where grow
The chestnut forests deep below;
Behold how far beneath our feet
The huge wood billows spread and meet, -
A waving sea of noble trees,
Rolling their green crests in the breeze;
Mark the bright vale, the mountain chain,
The distant lines of that great plain,
Where Rome, eternal Empress, sits
Beneath the cloudless light, that fits
The lordliest and the loveliest scene
Time e'er shall see, Time yet hath seen!
O land of glorious memories,
O land as fair as Paradise,
O thou beloved, by whom I stand,
Straining in mine thy kindred hand,
Farewell! on yonder mountain's brow
I see a beckoning hand of snow;
Stern Winter dares no nearer come,
But waves me towards his northern home.
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