[MS VIII 63v-64r]

Lago di Como
It was a little peaceful bay
Beneath the precipices grey
Lay deep, and blue, and calm, but clear,
As is the sapphire, and you saw
The precipices sharp and sheer
And the white clouds careering war
And the blue sky and the high hills
Neath the cold waters where they slept,
Seemed fed by thousand mountain rills
Flowed upward from the crystal depth
 And all along that quiet bay
A range of little shipping lay
With their red flags drooped downward right,
And sheltered by their awnings white
From the high suns red scorching look
That oer the living waters shook
 A blaze of hot, and swarthy glow
When we had launched from below
The shade of the tall cliffs, and came
Where Comorolled his breast of flame
Down southward winding far away
The olives tints of gentle grey
Stooped to his borders from between
The hills uncultivated green
And orange groves him girded round
 Blossoming oer him fragrantly
 And in the sleep of his profound
White villages shone silently
And from our prow the ripples flash
Threw forth its little sparkles paly
The light sound of the oars dash
Came dancing oer the waters gaily
There was blue above, and blue below
And the gleam of the eternal snow
Forth from the fastnesses it came
Of the high alps retiring chain
And all along the shored whereer,
The stormwinds wont to chafe the wave
The crucifix is shrined there
That Christ may hear the passioned prayer