Page:Amalfi.pdf/4

    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, 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, The Canneto rushes down, Turns the great wheels of the mills, Lifts the hammers of the forge. 'Tis a stairway, not a street, That ascends the deep ravine, 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, Stately figures tall and straight, What inexorable fate Dooms them to this life of toil?