Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/212

 By which he drew from Nature's visible The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this, He sang of Adam's paradise and smiled, Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is The place divine to English man and child— We all love Italy.

Our Italy's The darling of the earth—the treasury, piled With reveries of gentle ladies, flung Aside, like ravelled silk, from life's worn stuff— With coins of scholars' fancy, which, being rung On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof— In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young, Before their heads have time for slipping off Hope's pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed, We all have sent our souls out from the north, On bare white feet which would not print nor I bleed, To climb the Alpine passes and look forth, Where the low murmuring Lombard rivers lead Their bee-like way to gardens almost worth The sight which thou and I see afterward From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake, When standing on the actual, blessed sward Where Galileo stood at nights to take The vision of the stars, we find it hard, Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make A choice of beauty. Therefore let us all In England, or in any other land Refreshed once by the fountain-rise and fall