Il Ponte Vecchio Di Firenze

Gaddi mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;
    Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto
    Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo
    Pianto sul draco.    Mentre ch' io ragiono
Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono
    Le rilucenti scaglie.    Ha questi affranto
    Due volte i miei maggior.    Me solo intanto
    Neppure muove, ed io non l' abbandono.
Io mi rammento quando fur cacciati
    I Medici; pur quando Ghibellino
    E Guelfo fecer pace mi rammento.
Fiorenza i suoi giojelli m' ha prestati;
    E quando penso ch' Agnolo il divino
    Su me posava, insuperbir mi sento.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Seaweed

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Rain In Summer

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Daylight And Moonlight

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

To William E. Channing

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Italian

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Old Bridge At Florence

Taddeo Gaddi built me.    I am old,
    Five centuries old.    I plant my foot of stone
    Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
    Was planted on the dragon.    Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles.    I behold
    Its glistening scales.    Twice hath it overthrown
    My kindred and companions.    Me alone
    It moveth not, but is by me controlled,
I can remember when the Medici
    Were driven from Florence; longer still ago
    The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.
Florence adorns me with her jewelry;
    And when I think that Michael Angelo
    Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Il Ponte D'Aviglio. (Italian Poems)

I.

    O mesto bambino col capo chinato,
    Rispondi; rispondi. Che fece Renato?
    Fu vinto Morello? Fu salvo Lindoro?
    Rispondi; rispondi! - Son padre di loro.


II.

    Non veggo tornare dal Ponte d'Aviglio
    Renato superbo del vinto periglio.
    L' han forse promosso? Risorge la guerra?
    Rispondi; rispondi! - L' han messo sotterra.


III.

    O ciel! tu lo senti, tu vedi l'oltraggio;
    Renato fu prence del nostro villaggio! ...
    Ma dimmi, piccino. Che fece Morello?
    Rispondi; rispondi! - Lo chiude l' avello.


IV.

    Ahi, crudo destino! Si grande, si forte,
    Morello nasceva per vincer la morte.
    Ma l' altro? Che fece sul campo serrato?
    Rispondi; rispondi! - M...

Eric Mackay

Dante

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,
    With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
    Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
    Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
    Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
    What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
    The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
    By Fra Hilario in his diocese,
    As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
    And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
    Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Love's Evening.

Se 'l troppo indugio.


What though long waiting wins more happiness
        Than petulant desire is wont to gain,
        My luck in latest age hath brought me pain,
        Thinking how brief must be an old man's bliss.
Heaven, if it heed our lives, can hardly bless
        This fire of love when frosts are wont to reign:
        For so I love thee, lady, and my strain
        Of tears through age exceeds in tenderness.
Yet peradventure though my day is done,--
        Though nearly past the setting mid thick cloud
        And frozen exhalations sinks my sun,--
If love to only mid-day be allowed,
        And I an old man in my evening burn,
        You, lady, still my night to noon may turn.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Monte Cassino - Terra Di Lavoro

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads
    Unheard the Garigliano glides along;--
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
    The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
    Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
    Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface
    Was dragged with contumely from his throne;
Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace
    The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade
    Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed
    Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
    Where Juvenal was born, w...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

After Reading Trollope's History Of Florence

My books are on their shelves again
And clouds lie low with mist and rain.
Afar the Arno murmurs low
The tale of fields of melting snow.
List to the bells of times agone
The while I wait me for the dawn.

Beneath great Giotto's Campanile
The gray ghosts throng; their whispers steal
From poets' bosoms long since dust;
They ask me now to go. I trust
Their fleeter footsteps where again
They come at night and live as men.

The rain falls on Ghiberti's gates;
The big drops hang on purple dates;
And yet beneath the ilex-shades--
Dear trysting-place for boys and maids--
There comes a form from days of old,
With Beatrice's hair of gold.

The breath of lands or lilied streams
Floats through the fabric of my dreams;
And yonder from the...

Eugene Field