526 
JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL. 
Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; 
The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space nor time; 
Not in mid-June, the golden cuirassed bee 
Feels a more Summer-like, warm ravishment, 
In the white lily’s breezy tent, 
His conquered Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,— 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 
Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways;— 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
'v. 
Or whiten in the wind,—or waters blue 
That from a distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap,—and of a sky above 
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 
My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song, 
Who, from the dark oak tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 
And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
With news from heaven, which he did bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 
