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John Greenleaf Whittier - Naples – 1860
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        I GIVE thee joy!—I know to thee
        The dearest spot on earth must be
Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea;

        Where, near her sweetest poet’s tomb,
        The land of Virgil gave thee room
To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom.

        I know that when the sky shut down
        Behind thee on the gleaming town,
On Baiae’s baths and Posilippo’s crown;

        And, through thy tears, the mocking day
        Burned Ischia’s mountain lines away,
And Capri melted in its sunny bay;

        Through thy great farewell sorrow shot
        The sharp pang of a bitter thought
That slaves must tread around that holy spot.

        Thou knewest not the land was blest
        In giving thy beloved rest,
Holding the fond hope closer to her breast,

        That every sweet and saintly grave
        Was freedom’s prophecy, and gave
The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save.

        That pledge is answered. To thy ear
        The unchained city sends its cheer,
And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear

        Ring Victor in. The land sits free
        And happy by the summer sea,
And Bourbon Naples now is Italy!

        She smiles above her broken chain
        The languid smile that follows pain,
Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again.

        Oh, joy for all, who hear her call
        From gray Camaldoli’s convent wall
And Elmo’s towers to freedom’s carnival!

        A new life breathes among her vines
        And olives, like the breath of pines
Blown downward from the breezy Apennines.

        Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath,
        Rejoice as one who witnesseth
Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death!

        Thy sorrow shall no more be pain,
        Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain,
Writing the grave with flowers: “Arisen again!”
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