The Sicilian Captive

"They bid me sing of Thee, mine own, my sunny land! of Thee! Am I not parted from thy shores by the mournful sounding sea? Doth not thy shadow wrap my soul?—In silence let me die, In a voiceless dream of thy silvery founts, and thy pure deep sapphire sky! How should thy lyre give here its wealth of buried sweetness forth? Its tones, of summer's breathings born, to the wild winds of the North?

"Yet thus it shall be once, once more! my spirit shall awake, And through the mists of death break out, my Country! for thy sake! That I may make thee known, with all the glory and the light, And the beauty never more to bless thy daughter's yearning sight! Thy woods shall whisper in my song, thy bright streams warble by, Thy soul flow o'er my lips again—yet once, my Sicily! "There are blue heavens—far hence, far hence! but oh! their glorious blue! Its very night is beautiful with the hyacinth's deep hue! It is above my own fair land, and round my laughing home, And arching o'er the vintage hills, they hang their cloudless dome; And making all the waves as gems, that melt along the shore, And steeping happy hearts in joy—that now is mine no more!

"And there are haunts in that green land—oh! who may dream or tell Of all the shaded loveliness it hides in grot and dell? By fountains flinging rainbow spray on dark and glossy leaves, And bowers wherein the forest-dove her nest untroubled weaves; The myrtle dwells there, sending round the richness of its breath, And the violets gleam, like amethysts, in the dewy moss beneath!

"And there are floating sounds that fill the skies through night and day, Sweet sounds! the soul to hear them faints in dreams of heaven away! They wander through the olive-woods, and o'er the shining seas, They mingle with the orange scents, that load the sleepy breeze; Lute, voice, and bird are blending there; it were a bliss to die, As dies a leaf, thy groves among, my flowery Sicily!

"I may not perish thus—farewell!—yet no, my Country! no!, Is not Love stronger than the Grave? I feel it must be so! My fleeting spirit shall o'erpass the mountains and the main, And in thy tender starlight rove, and through thy woods again! Its passion deepens—it prevails!—I break my chain—I come To dwell a viewless thing, yet bless'd, in thy sweet air, my home!"