POETRY.
THE GUIDE-BOOK.
COME forth, and brave our Northern sky, Old comrade of the travelled ways, For 'twixt your battered covers lie, On pages scored with note and phrase, The memories of enchanted days.
Your legend, while our grey fogs drift, And while our angry sunsets frown, Can, like Aladdin's carpet, lift The dreamer up, and set him down In Lombard plain or Tuscan town. Where shall we wander ? Where abide ?
Somewhere with olive and with vine, By Tiber or by Arno side, By Mark's or Miniato's shrine, On Pincian or on Palatine ?
Lead us through churches, those and these, The Fountains, where the silence falls Among the eucalyptus trees; Show us St. Peter's or St. Paul's, In Fetters or Without the Walls.
Come where Benozzo Gozzoli Makes the Riccardi chapel glow With ranks of gorgeous Medici, Or where the convent cloisters show Visions of Fra Angelico; Or where the Adriatic wave, The tideway of the Sea-queen's power, Still murmurs round her earliest grave, And chants her requiem hour by hour Beneath Torcello's lonely tower.
With you in band we turn to trace Once more the Doge's gloomy state, We feed the pigeons in the Place, And board the gondolas that wait, Black shadows at the palace gate.
Back to your shelf : on many a night You bring for him who sits at home Your Odyssey of sound and sight-
Bargello, Forum, arch and dome—
From Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome.
ALFRED COCHRANE.
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