Ambarvalia/Burbidge/To the Pines of the Cascine at Florence, January 1840

by Thomas Burbidge

TO THE PINES OF THE CASCINE AT
FLORENCE.
January, 1840.

Sweet is your shade in summer heat,
Your screening boughs in winter sweet!
Bright are ye, noble trees! beside
Your thickets Arno loves to glide,
A river silent in his pride,
—A lively creature from his source
He springs, and noisy as a horse
Flings up the pebbles as he strides
Adown the clamouring mountain sides;
But silent as a brooding dove
He glides beside this cheerful grove;
Nor calmed by years, but by the weight
Of memories terrible and great
Made silent and deliberate.

And thou too, Florence!—not too much
Hast thou received from grateful Fame.

Thy slave, if e'er the Power were such
To aught of mortal birth that came.
Faint as a city of the air
In seeming, delicately fair
In colour as the flowers of Spring,
Thou risest, an enchanted thing,
A pomp—a play-work of the cloud
To which the hills this lovely plain
Spread out, scarce hoping to retain!
Silent, yet longing to rejoice aloud!

Fair all the scene in which I stand;
I sing—so Fancy doth command;
—But I am in a foreign land.