Written In Naples

We are what we are made; each following day     Is the Creator of our human mould     Not less than was the first; the all-wise God     Gilds a few points in every several life,     And as each flower upon the fresh hillside,     And every colored petal of each flower,     Is sketched and dyed, each with a new design,     Its spot of purple, and its streak of brown,     So each man's life shall have its proper lights,     And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,     For him round in the melancholy hours     And reconcile him to the common days.     Not many men see beauty in the fogs     Of close low pine-woods in a river town;     Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,     Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,     Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls     Of rich men blazing hospitable light,     Nor wit, nor eloquence,--no, nor even the song     Of any woman that is now alive,--     Hath such a soul, such divine influence,     Such resurrection of the happy past,     As is to me when I behold the morn     Ope in such law moist roadside, and beneath     Peep the blue violets out of the black loam,     Pathetic silent poets that sing to me     Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife.     March, 1833.