The Boat On The Serchio

Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,

Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,

The helm sways idly, hither and thither;

Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,

And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast,

Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,

And the thin white moon lay withering there;

To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,

The owl and the bat fled drowsily.

Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above and the stream below,

And the vapours in their multitudes,

And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow,

And clothed with light of aery gold

The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,

The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,

And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe

And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:

Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,

Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,

Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:

The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:

Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun

Night's dreams and terrors, every one,

Fled from the brains which are their prey

From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,

Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;

The million rose to learn, and one to teach

What none yet ever knew or can be known.

And many rose

Whose woe was such that fear became desire; -

Melchior and Lionel were not among those;

They from the throng of men had stepped aside,

And made their home under the green hill-side.

It was that hill, whose intervening brow

Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye,

Which the circumfluous plain waving below,

Like a wide lake of green fertility,

With streams and fields and marshes bare,

Divides from the far Apennines - which lie

Islanded in the immeasurable air.

'What think you, as she lies in her green cove,

Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?'

'If morning dreams are true, why I should guess

That she was dreaming of our idleness,

And of the miles of watery way

We should have led her by this time of day.'-

'Never mind,' said Lionel,

'Give care to the winds, they can bear it well

About yon poplar-tops; and see

The white clouds are driving merrily,

And the stars we miss this morn will light

More willingly our return to-night. -

How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair!

List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:

Hear how it sings into the air - '

- 'Of us and of our lazy motions,'

Impatiently said Melchior,

'If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before,

To have been the devil knows where.'

And then, in such transalpine Tuscan

As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,