THE DAISY. WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. LOVE, what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. What Roman strength Turbìa show'd In ruin, by the mountain road; How like a gem, beneath, the city Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. How richly down the rocky dell To meet the sun and sunny waters, That only heaved with a summer swell. What slender campanili grew By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. How young Columbus seem'd to rove, Yet present in his natal grove, Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim; Till, in a narrow street and dim, I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him. Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast; But distant colour, happy hamlet, A moulder'd citadel on the coast, Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green; Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine, Where oleanders flush'd the bed Of silent torrents, gravel-spread; And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten Of ice, far up on a mountain head. We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours; What drives about the fresh Cascinè, Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. In bright vignettes, and each complete, Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, Or palace, how the city glitter'd, Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain ; Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles; Porch-pillars on the lion resting, And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. O Milan, O the chanting quires, The giant windows' blazon'd fires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! A mount of marble, a hundred spires! I climb'd the roofs at break of day; I stood among the silent statues, How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair, Was Monte Rosa, hanging there A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys And snowy dells in a golden air. Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast |