Classic Poem

Black mountains pricked with pointed pine
A melancholy sky.
Out-distanced was the German vine,
The sterile fields lay high.
From swarthy Alps I travelled forth
Aloft; it was the north, the north;
Bound for the Noon was I.

I seemed to breast the streams that day;
I met, opposed, withstood
The northward rivers on their way,
My heart against the flood —
My heart that pressed to rise and reach,
And felt the love of altering speech,
Of frontiers, in its blood.

But O the unfolding South! the burst
Of summer! O to see
Of all the southward brooks the first!
The travelling heart went free
With endless streams; that strife was stopped;
And down a thousand vales I dropped,
I flowed to Italy.