Italy

There is a country in my mind,     Lovelier than a poet blind     Could dream of, who had never known     This world of drought and dust and stone     In all its ugliness: a place     Full of an all but human grace;     Whose dells retain the printed form     Of heavenly sleep, and seem yet warm     From some pure body newly risen;     Where matter is no more a prison,     But freedom for the soul to know     Its native beauty. For things glow     There with an inward truth and are     All fire and colour like a star.     And in that land are domes and towers     That hang as light and bright as flowers     Upon the sky, and seem a birth     Rather of air than solid earth.     Sometimes I dream that walking there     In the green shade, all unaware     At a new turn of the golden glade,     I shall see her, and as though afraid     Shall halt a moment and almost fall     For passing faintness, like a man     Who feels the sudden spirit of Pan     Brimming his narrow soul with all     The illimitable world. And she,     Turning her head, will let me see     The first sharp dawn of her surprise     Turning to welcome in her eyes.     And I shall come and take my lover     And looking on her re-discover     All her beauty:--her dark hair     And the little ears beneath it, where     Roses of lucid shadow sleep;     Her brooding mouth, and in the deep     Wells of her eyes reflected stars ...     Oh, the imperishable things     That hands and lips as well as words     Shall speak! Oh movement of white wings,     Oh wheeling galaxies of birds ...!