Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me     Of a land beyond the sea,     Where the waves and mountains meet,     Where, amid her mulberry-trees     Sits Amalfi in the heat,     Bathing ever her white feet     In the tideless summer seas.     In the middle of the town,     From its fountains in the hills,     Tumbling through the narrow gorge,     The Canneto rushes down,     Turns the great wheels of the mills,     Lifts the hammers of the forge.     'T is a stairway, not a street,     That ascends the deep ravine,     Where the torrent leaps between     Rocky walls that almost meet.     Toiling up from stair to stair     Peasant girls their burdens bear;     Sunburnt daughters of the soil,     Stately figures tall and straight,     What inexorable fate     Dooms them to this life of toil?     Lord of vineyards and of lands,     Far above the convent stands.     On its terraced walk aloof     Leans a monk with folded hands,     Placid, satisfied, serene,     Looking down upon the scene     Over wall and red-tiled roof;     Wondering unto what good end     All this toil and traffic tend,     And why all men cannot be     Free from care and free from pain,     And the sordid love of gain,     And as indolent as he.     Where are now the freighted barks     From the marts of east and west?     Where the knights in iron sarks     Journeying to the Holy Land,     Glove of steel upon the hand,     Cross of crimson on the breast?     Where the pomp of camp and court?     Where the pilgrims with their prayers?     Where the merchants with their wares,     And their gallant brigantines     Sailing safely into port     Chased by corsair Algerines?     Vanished like a fleet of cloud,     Like a passing trumpet-blast,     Are those splendors of the past,     And the commerce and the crowd!     Fathoms deep beneath the seas     Lie the ancient wharves and quays,     Swallowed by the engulfing waves;     Silent streets and vacant halls,     Ruined roofs and towers and walls;     Hidden from all mortal eyes     Deep the sunken city lies:     Even cities have their graves!     This is an enchanted land!     Round the headlands far away     Sweeps the blue Salernian bay     With its sickle of white sand:     Further still and furthermost     On the dim discovered coast     Paestum with its ruins lies,     And its roses all in bloom     Seem to tinge the fatal skies     Of that lonely land of doom.     On his terrace, high in air,     Nothing doth the good monk care     For such worldly themes as these,     From the garden just below     Little puffs of perfume blow,     And a sound is in his ears     Of the murmur of the bees     In the shining chestnut-trees;     Nothing else he heeds or hears.     All the landscape seems to swoon     In the happy afternoon;     Slowly o'er his senses creep     The encroaching waves of sleep,     And he sinks as sank the town,     Unresisting, fathoms down,     Into caverns cool and deep!     Walled about with drifts of snow,     Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,     Seeing all the landscape white,     And the river cased in ice,     Comes this memory of delight,     Comes this vision unto me     Of a long-lost Paradise     In the land beyond the sea.