Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Appendix: Verona

To Verona

By Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

VERONA! thy tall gardens stand erect

Beckoning me upward. Let me rest awhile

Where the birds whistle hidden in the boughs,

Or fly away when idlers take their place,

Mated as well, concealed as willingly;

Idlers whose nest must not swing there, but rise

Beneath a gleamy canopy of gold,

Amid the flight of Cupids, and the smiles

Of Venus ever radiant o’er their couch.

Here would I stay, here wander, slumber here,

Nor pass into that theatre below

Crowded with their faint memories, shades of joy.

But ancient song arouses me; I hear

Coelius and Anfilena; I behold

Lesbia, and Lesbia’s linnet at her lip

Pecking the fruit that ripens and swells out

For him whose song the Graces loved the most,

Whatever land, east, west, they visited.

Even he must not detain me: one there is

Greater than he, of broader wing, of swoop

Sublimer. Open now that humid arch

Where Juliet sleeps the quiet sleep of death,

And Romeo sinks aside her.
Fare ye well,

Lovers! Ye have not loved in vain: the hearts

Of millions throb around ye. This lone tomb

One greater than yon walls have ever seen,

Greater than Manto’s prophet eye foresaw

In her own child or Rome’s, hath hallowed;

And the last sod or stone a pilgrim knee

Shall press (Love swears it, and swears true) is here.

THE END.