From Asolo's uplifted land I watched with pensive pain The Evening's soft and shadowy hand Caress Venetia's plain, To where Piave's rushing sand Defined the Teuton stain. Above the wide-horizoned heath Nine-towered Treviso loomed, And Padua's seven domes, whereneath Her gentle saint is tombed; While, like a lily from its sheath, San Marco's tower bloomed. Sweet-syllabled, the vesper bells A maze of music wound, From towns whose very naming tells A rosary of sound, While grapes and lingering asphodels Still perfumed all the ground. And, last, I heard Bassano's toll (That drowns the Brenta's roar); And there was something in its roll Was never there before: A tocsin to the patriot soul The Western breezes bore. It was as though the bell were sent To wake the sleeping land, And cry "O Italy, sore-spent! Now let thy legions stand: No farther inch of fair content Yield to the spoiler's hand. "Look on thy beauty and be proud As partner of God's plan, -- Half by His mighty thought endowed And half by Him through Man: The Alps, whose incense is the cloud, The temples Love began. "Long shall outlinger human shame The snow-clad eminence; But these, that breathe His holy name -- The spirit's monuments -- Shall He who wrought with thee their fame Not share in their defense?" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR: 2. FORMER BEAUTIES by THOMAS HARDY TO MUSIC [TO BECALM HIS FEVER] by ROBERT HERRICK MY PICTURE LEFT IN SCOTLAND by BEN JONSON PROTHALAMION by EDMUND SPENSER THE REGULAR STORY by BERTON BRALEY THE BOY AND THE ANGEL by ROBERT BROWNING TO MISS FERRIER; ENCLOSING THE ELEGY ON SIR J. H. BLAIR by ROBERT BURNS |