To daily tasks we set our hand,
And oft the spirit, pent at home,
Breaks out and longs for Switzerland,
Longs oftener yet and pines for Rome.
I pass’d to-day o’er Walton Heath—
The coming spring-time’s earliest stir
Quickened and moved, a happy breath,
In moss, and gorse, and shining fir.
Fortunate firs! who never think
How firs less curst by Fortune’s frown
O’er Glion fringe the mountain’s brink,
Or dot the slopes to Vevey down.
I cross’d St. George’s Hill to-day—
There in the leaf-strewn copse I found
The tender foxglove-plants display
Their first green muffle on the ground.
They envy not, this tranquil brood,
The cyclamens whose blossoms fill
With fragrance all Frascati’s wood
Along the gracious Alban Hill!
Man only, with eternal bent
To come and go, to shift and range,
At life and living not content,
Chafes in his place, and pines for change.
Yet happy—since his feverish blood
Leaves him no rest, and change he will—
When restlessness is restless good,
Still mending, lessening, human ill!
Unwearied, as from land to land
The incessant wanderer takes his way,
To hold the light and reach the hand
To all who sink, to all who stray!