Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to meOf a land beyond the sea,Where the waves and mountains meet,Where, amid her mulberry-treesSits Amalfi in the heat,Bathing ever her white feetIn 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.

'T is a stairway, not a street,That ascends the deep ravine,Where the torrent leaps betweenRocky walls that almost meet.Toiling up from stair to stairPeasant girls their burdens bear;Sunburnt daughters of the soil,Stately figures tall and straight,What inexorable fateDooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards and of lands,Far above the convent stands.On its terraced walk aloofLeans a monk with folded hands,Placid, satisfied, serene,Looking down upon the sceneOver wall and red-tiled roof;Wondering unto what good endAll this toil and traffic tend,And why all men cannot beFree from care and free from pain,And the sordid love of gain,And as indolent as he.

Where are now the freighted barksFrom the marts of east and west?Where the knights in iron sarksJourneying to the Holy Land,Glove of steel upon the hand,Cross of crimson on the breast?Where the pomp of camp and court?Where the pilgrims with their prayers?Where the merchants with their wares,And their gallant brigantinesSailing safely into portChased by corsair Algerines?

Vanished like a fleet of cloud,Like a passing trumpet-blast,Are those splendors of the past,And the commerce and the crowd!Fathoms deep beneath the seasLie the ancient wharves and quays,Swallowed by the engulfing waves;Silent streets and vacant halls,Ruined roofs and towers and walls;Hidden from all mortal eyesDeep the sunken city lies:Even cities have their graves!

This is an enchanted land!Round the headlands far awaySweeps the blue Salernian bayWith its sickle of white sand:Further still and furthermostOn the dim discovered coastPaestum with its ruins lies,And its roses all in bloomSeem to tinge the fatal skiesOf that lonely land of doom.

On his terrace, high in air,Nothing doth the good monk careFor such worldly themes as these,From the garden just belowLittle puffs of perfume blow,And a sound is in his earsOf the murmur of the beesIn the shining chestnut-trees;Nothing else he heeds or hears.All the landscape seems to swoonIn the happy afternoon;Slowly o'er his senses creepThe encroaching waves of sleep,And he sinks as sank the town,Unresisting, fathoms down,Into caverns cool and deep!

Walled about with drifts of snow,Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,Seeing all the landscape white,And the river cased in ice,Comes this memory of delight,Comes this vision unto meOf a long-lost ParadiseIn the land beyond the sea.