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, 
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 sttay 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. 

