WITHIN the Switzer's varied land, When summer chases high the snow, You'll meet with many a youthful band Of strangers wandering to and fro: Through hamlet, town, and healing bath They haste and rest as chance may call, No day without its mountain-path, No path without its waterfall. They make the hours themselves repay, However well or ill be shared, Content that they should wing their way, Unchecked, unreckoned, uncompared: For though the hills unshapely rise, And lie the colors poorly bright, They mould them by their cheerful eyes, And paint them with their spirit's light. Strong in their youthfulness, they use The energies their souls possess; And if some wayward scene refuse To pay its part of loveliness, -- Onward they pass, nor less enjoy For what they leave; -- and far from me Be every thought that would destroy A charm of that simplicity! But if one blot on that white page From doubt or misery's pen be thrown, -- If once the sense awake, that age Is counted not by years alone, -- Then no more grand and wondrous things! No active happinesses mone! The wounded heart has lost its wings, And change can only fret the sore. Yet there is calm for those that weep, Where the divine Italian sea Rests like a maiden hushed asleep And breathing low and measuredly; Where all the sunset-purpled ground, Fashioned by those delicious airs, Seems strewed with softest cushions round For weary heads to loose their cares; Where Nature offers, at all hours, Out of her free imperial store, That perfect beauty their weak powers Can help her to create no more, And grateful for that ancient aid, Comes forth to comfort and relieve Those minds in prostrate sorrow laid, Bidding them open and receive! Though still 't is hardly she that gives, For Nature reigns not there alone, A mightier queen beside her lives, Whom she can serve but not dethrone; For she is fallen from the state That waited on her Eden-prime, And art remains by sin and fate Unscathed, for art is not of time. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON CARPACCIO'S PICTURE: THE DREAM OF ST. URSALA; SONNET by AMY LOWELL SONNET by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE RETIREMENT; TO MR. IZAAK WALTON by CHARLES COTTON BRONZE TRUMPETS AND SEA WATER; ON TURNING LATIN VERSE INTO ENGLISH by ELINOR WYLIE PURSUIT AND POSSESSION by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH STANZAS TO AN AFFECTIONATE AND PIOUS PARENT, ON THE DEATH OF HER CHILD by BERNARD BARTON PSALM 40. EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE PLEA FOR TOLERANCE by MARGARET E. BRUNER THE LAUNCH OF A FIRST-RATE; WRITTEN ON WITNESSING THE SPECTACLE, 1840 by THOMAS CAMPBELL |