We lingered at Domo d'Ossola—
 Like a last, reluctant guest—
Where the gray-green tide of Italy
 Flows up to a snowy crest.

The world from that Alpine shoulder
 Yearns toward the Lombard plain—
The hearts that come, with rapture,
 The hearts that go, with pain.

Afar were the frets of Milan;
 Below, the enchanted lakes;
And— was it the mist of the evening,
 Or the mist that the memory makes?

We gave to the pale horizon
 The Naples that evening gives;
We reckoned where Rome lies buried,
 And we felt where Florence lives.

And as Hope bends low at parting
 For a death-remembered tone,
We searched the land that Beauty
 And Love have made their own.

We would take of her hair some ringlet,
 Some keepsake from her breast,
And catch of her plaintive music
 The strain that is tenderest.

So we strolled in the yellow gloaming
 (Our speech with musing still)
Till the noise of the militant village
 Fell faint on Calvary Hill.

And scarcely our mood was broken
 Of near-impending loss
To find at the bend of the pathway
 A station of the Cross.

And up through the green aisle climbing
 (Each shrine like a counted bead),
We heard from above the swaying
 And mystical chant of the creed.

Then the dead seemed the only living,
 And the real seemed the wraith,
And we yielded ourselves to the vision
 We saw with the eye of Faith.

Then she said, “Let us go no farther:
 'T is fit that we make farewell
While forest and lake and mountain
 Are under the vesper spell.”

As we rested, the leafy silence
 Broke like a cloud at play,
And a browned and burdened woman
 Passed, singing, down the way.

'T was a song of health and labor,—
 Of childlike gladness, blent
With the patience of the toiler
 That tyrants call content.

“Nay, this is the word we have waited,”
 I said, “that a year and a sea
From now, in our doom of exile,
 Shall echo of Italy.”

Just then what a burst from the bosquet—
 As a bird might have found its soul!
And each by the halt of the heart-throb
 Knew 't was the rossignol.

Then we drew to each other nearer
 And drank at the gray wall's verge
The sad, sweet song of lovers,—
 Their passion and their dirge.

And the carol of Toil below us
 And the pæan of Prayer above
Were naught to the song of Sorrow,
 For under the sorrow was Love.

Alas! for the dear remembrance
 We chose for an amulet:
The one that is left to keep it—
 Ah! how can he forget?