Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Tivoli
By William Sotheby (1757–1833)S
By brook or pathless dell,
Where wild woods burst the rocks between
And floods, in streams of silver sheen,
Gush from their flinty cell!
And climbs the crag alone,
Haunts the cool grotto, daylight proof,
Where loitering drops that wear the roof
Turn all beneath to stone.
From noontide’s fiery gale,
And, as thy waters round me play,
Beneath the o’ershadowing cavern lay,
Till twilight spreads her veil.
Rests on Mæcenas’ wall,
And echoes at night’s solemn noon
In Tivoli’s soft shades attune
The peaceful waterfall.
The bower, the flood, the glade;
Again on you romantic height
The Sibyl’s temple towers in light,
Above the dark cascade.
Along the dim retreat,
And mid the torrents’ deafening bray
Dash from my brow the foam away,
Where clashing cataracts meet.
And, issuing forth from night,
View on the flakes that sunward flow,
A thousand rainbows round me glow,
And arch my way with light.
Fresh flowers my path perfume,
Round cliff and cave wild tendrils wreathe,
And from the groves that bend beneath
Low trail their purple bloom.
Dark flood and rivulet clear,
That wind, where’er you wander by,
A stream of beauty on the eye,
Of music on the ear;
Illumed the rocky dell,
Didst to my charmed ear attune
The echoes of night’s solemn noon,—
Spirit unseen! farewell!
My natal isle to greet,
Where summer sunbeams mildly glow,
And sea-winds health and freshness blow
O’er freedom’s hallowed seat.
Shall fancy oft retire,
And hail the bower, the stream, the grot,
Where earth’s sole lord the world forgot,
And Horace smote the lyre.