From Asolo's uplifted land I watched with pensive pain The Evening's soft and shadowy hand Caress Venetia's plain, To where Piave's rushing sand Defined the Teuton stain. Above the wide-horizoned heath Nine-towered Treviso loomed, And Padua's seven domes, whereneath Her gentle saint is tombed; While, like a lily from its sheath, San Marco's tower bloomed. Sweet-syllabled, the vesper bells A maze of music wound, From towns whose very naming tells A rosary of sound, While grapes and lingering asphodels Still perfumed all the ground. And, last, I heard Bassano's toll (That drowns the Brenta's roar); And there was something in its roll Was never there before: A tocsin to the patriot soul The Western breezes bore. It was as though the bell were sent To wake the sleeping land, And cry "O Italy, sore-spent! Now let thy legions stand: No farther inch of fair content Yield to the spoiler's hand. "Look on thy beauty and be proud As partner of God's plan, -- Half by His mighty thought endowed And half by Him through Man: The Alps, whose incense is the cloud, The temples Love began. "Long shall outlinger human shame The snow-clad eminence; But these, that breathe His holy name -- The spirit's monuments -- Shall He who wrought with thee their fame Not share in their defense?" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO SONNETS: 1 by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON AN ALPINE PICTURE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH AN ARMOURY by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE A SONG OF RICHES by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE SIGHING TIME by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |