THE DAISY.

WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH.

O 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 Turbia 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

The torrent vineyard streaming fell

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 color, 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 off on a mountain head.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold,
Those niched shapes of noble mould,
A princely people's awful princes,
The grave, severe Genovese of old.

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, 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;
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay.

I stood among the silent statues,
And statued pinnacles, mute as they.

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

Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded; and how we past