640 That night our lodging was a house that stood Alone within the valley, at a point Where, tumbling from aloft, a torrent swelled The rapid stream whose margin we had trod; A dreary mansion, large beyond all need, [Cc] 645 With high and spacious rooms, deafened and stunned By noise of waters, making innocent sleep Lie melancholy among weary bones.
Uprisen betimes, our journey we renewed, Led by the stream, ere noon-day magnified 650 Into a lordly river, broad and deep, Dimpling along in silent majesty, With mountains for its neighbours, and in view Of distant mountains and their snowy tops, And thus proceeding to Locarno's Lake, [Dd] 655 Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
Locarno! spreading out in width like Heaven, How dost thou cleave to the poetic heart, Bask in the sunshine of the memory; And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth 660 Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth Of Abyssinian privacy.

I spake Of thee, thy chestnut woods, [Ee] and garden plots Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids; Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines, 665 Winding from house to house, from town to town, Sole link that binds them to each other; [Ff] walks, League after league, and cloistral avenues, Where silence dwells if music be not there: While yet a youth undisciplined in verse, 670 Through fond ambition of that hour I strove To chant your praise; [Gg] nor can approach you now Ungreeted by a more melodious Song, Where tones of Nature smoothed by learned Art May flow in lasting current.

Like a breeze 675 Or sunbeam over your domain I passed In motion without pause; but ye have left Your beauty with me, a serene accord Of forms and colours, passive, yet endowed In their submissiveness with power as sweet 680 And gracious, almost might I dare to say, As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love, Or the remembrance of a generous deed, Or mildest visitations of pure thought, When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked 685 Religiously, in silent blessedness; Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.
With those delightful pathways we advanced, For two days' space, in presence of the Lake, That, stretching far among the Alps, assumed 690 A character more stern.

The second night, From sleep awakened, and misled by sound Of the church clock telling the hours with strokes Whose import then we had not learned, we rose By moonlight, doubting not that day was nigh, 695 And that meanwhile, by no uncertain path, Along the winding margin of the lake, Led, as before, we should behold the scene Hushed in profound repose.

We left the town Of Gravedona [Hh] with this hope; but soon 700 Were lost, bewildered among woods immense, And on a rock sate down, to wait for day.
An open place it was, and overlooked, From high, the sullen water far beneath, On which a dull red image of the moon 705 Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form Like an uneasy snake.