THE WANDERER: 1. IN ITALY: A FANCY by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON

HOW sweet were life, -- @3this@1 life, if we
(My love and I) might dwell together
Here beyond the summer sea,
In the heart of summer weather!

With pomegranates on the bough,
And with lilies in the bower;
And a sight of distant snow,
Rosy in the sunset hour.

And a little house, -- no more
In state than suits two quiet lovers;
And a woodbine round the door,
Where the swallow builds and hovers;

With a silver sickle-moon,
O'er hot gardens, red with roses:
And a window wide, in June,
For serenades when evening closes:

In a chamber cool and simple,
Trellised light from roof to basement;
And a summer wind to dimple
The white curtain at the casement:

Where, if we at midnight wake,
A green acacia-tree shall quiver
In the moonlight, o'er some lake
Where nightingales sing songs forever.

With a pine-wood dark in sight;
And a bean-field climbing to us,
To make odors faint at night
Where we roam with none to view us.

And a convent on the hill,
Through its light green olives peeping
In clear sunlight, and so still,
All the nuns, you'd say, were sleeping.

Seas at distance, seen beneath
Grated garden-wildernesses; --
Not so far but what their breath
At eve may fan my darling's tresses.

A piano, soft in sound,
To make music when speech wanders,
Poets reverently bound,
O'er whose pages rapture ponders.

Canvas, brushes, hues, to catch
Fleeting forms in vale or mountain:
And an evening star to watch
When all's still, save one sweet fountain.

Ah! I idle time away
With impossible fond fancies!
For a lover lives all day
In a land of lone romances.

But the hot light o'er the city
Drops, -- and see! on fire departs.
And the night comes down in pity
To the longing of our hearts.

Bind thy golden hair from falling,
O my love, my one, my own!
'T is for thee the cuckoo 's calling
With a note of tenderer tone.

Up the hillside, near and nearer,
Through the vine, the corn, the flowers,
Till the very air grows dearer,
Neighboring our pleasant bowers.

Now I pass the last Podere:
There, the city lies behind me.
See her fluttering like a fairy
O'er the happy grass to find me!

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