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When once we have left Genoa behind us, and have taken our last look of the blue Mediterranean, I shall indeed feel that we have quitted Italy. Piedmont is not Italy. Cities which are only famous for their sieges and fortifications, plains only celebrated as fields of battle and scenes of blood, have neither charms nor interest for me.
On Monday we set off for Turin: how I dread travelling! and the motion of the carriage, which has now become so painful! Yet a little, a very little longer, and it will all be over.
FAREWELL TO ITALY.
Mira il ciel com’e
bello, e mira il sole,
Ch’a se
par che n’inviti, e ne console.
Farewell to the Land of the
South!
Farewell to the
lovely clime
Where the sunny valleys smile
in light,
And the piny mountains
climb!
Farewell to her bright blue
seas!
Farewell to her
fervid skies!
O many and deep are the thoughts
which crowd
On the sinking
heart, while it sighs,
“Farewell
to the Land of the South!”
As the look of a face beloved,
Was that bright
land to me!
It enchanted my sense, it
sunk on my heart
Like music’s
witchery!
In every kindling pulse
I felt the genial
air,
For life is life in
that sunny clime,
—’Tis
death of life elsewhere:
Farewell to the
Land of the South!
The poet’s splendid
dreams,
Have hallowed
each grove and hill,
And the beautiful forms of
ancient Faith
Are lingering
round us still.
And the spirits of other days,
Invoked by fancy’s
spell,
Are rolled before the kindling
thought,
While we breathe
our last farewell
To the glorious
Land of the South!
A long—a last adieu,
Romantic Italy!
Thou land of beauty, and love,
and song
As once of the
brave and free!
Alas! for thy golden fields!
Alas! for thy classic shore!
Alas! for thy orange and myrtle
bowers!
I shall never
behold them more—
Farewell to the
Land of the South!
Turin, May 10th.—We arrived here yesterday, after a journey to me most trying and painful: I thought at Novi and afterwards at Asti, that I should have been obliged to give up and confess my inability to proceed; but we know not what we can bear till we prove ourselves; I can live and suffer still.
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