LINES. WRITTEN AT THE VILLAGE OF PASSIGNANO, ON THE LAKE OF THRASYMENE.

The mountains stand about the quiet lake, That not a breath its azure calm may break; No leaf of these sere olive trees is stirred, In the near silence far-off sounds are heard; The tiny bat is flitting overhead, The hawthorn doth its richest odours shed Into the dewy air; and over all Veil after veil the evening shadows fall, And one by one withdraw each glimmering height, The far, and then the nearer, from our sight— No sign surviving in this tranquil scene; That strife and savage tumult here have been. But if the pilgrim to the latest plain Of carnage, where the blood like summer rain Fell but the other day; if in his mind He marvels much and oftentimes to find With what success has Nature each sad trace Of man’s red footmarks laboured to efface— What wonder is it, if this spot appears Guiltless of strife, when now two thousand years Of daily reparation have gone by, Since it resumed its own tranquillity. This calm has nothing strange, yet not the less This holy evening’s solemn quietness, The perfect beauty of this windless lake, This stillness which no harsher murmurs break Than the frogs croaking from the distant sedge, These vineyards drest unto the water’s edge, This hind that homeward driving the slow steer, Tells that man’s daily work goes forward here, Have each a power upon me, while I drink The influence of the placid time, and think How gladly that sweet Mother once again Resumes her sceptre and benignant reign, But for a few short instants scared away By the mad game, the cruel impious fray Of her distempered children—how comes back, And leads them in the customary track Of blessing once again; to order brings Anew the dislocated frame of things, And covers up, and out of sight conceals What they have wrought of ill, or gently heals.