Poems (Robert Underwood Johnson)/Farewell to Italy

FAREWELL TO ITALY

We lingered at Domo d'Ossola—
Like a last, reluctant guest—
Where the gray-green tide of Italy
Flows up to a snowy crest.

The world from that Alpine shoulder
Yearns toward the Lombard plain—
The hearts that come, with rapture,
The hearts that go, with pain.

Afar were the frets of Milan;
Below, the enchanted lakes;
And—was it the mist of the evening,
Or the mist that the memory makes?

We gave to the pale horizon
The Naples that evening gives;
We reckoned where Rome lies buried,
And we felt where Florence lives.

And as Hope bends low at parting
For a death-remembered tone,
We searched the land that Beauty
And Love have made their own.

We would take of her hair some ringlet,
Some keepsake from her breast,
And catch of her plaintive music
The strain that is tenderest.

So we strolled in the yellow gloaming
(Our speech with musing still)
Till the noise of the militant village
Fell faint on Calvary Hill.

And scarcely our mood was broken
Of near-impending loss
To find at the bend of the pathway
A station of the Cross.

And up through the green aisle climbing
(Each shrine like a counted bead),
We heard from above the swaying
And mystical chant of the creed.

Then the dead seemed the only living,
And the real seemed the wraith,
And we yielded ourselves to the vision
We saw with the eye of Faith.

Then she said, "Let us go no farther:
'T is fit that we make farewell
While forest and lake and mountain
Are under the vesper spell."

As we rested, the leafy silence
Broke like a cloud at play,
And a browned and burdened woman
Passed, singing, down the way.

'T was a song of health and labor,—
Of childlike gladness, blent
With the patience of the toiler
That tyrants call content.

"Nay, this is the word we have waited,"
I said, "that a year and a sea
From now, in our doom of exile,
Shall echo of Italy."

Just then what a burst from the bosquet—
As a bird might have found its soul!
And each by the halt of the heart-throb
Knew 't was the rossignol.

Then we drew to each other nearer
And drank at the gray wall's verge
The sad, sweet song of lovers,—
Their passion and their dirge.

And the carol of Toil below us
And the pæan of Prayer above
Were naught to the song of Sorrow,
For under the sorrow was Love.
······
Alas! for the dear remembrance
We chose for an amulet:
The one that is left to keep it—
Ah! how can he forget?