…….Dearest to each his birthplace; but to recall a green
valley where mushrooms fatten in the summer nights
and silvered willows copy
the circumflexions of the stream

is not my gladness today: I am presently moved
by sun-drenched Parthenopea, my thanks are for you,
Ischia, to whom a fair wind has
brought me rejoicing with dear friends

from soiled productive cities. How well you correct
our injured eyes, how gently you train us to see
things and men in perspective
underneath your uniform light.

Noble are the plans of the shirt-sleeved engineer,
but luck, you say, does more. What design could have washed
with such delicate yellows
and pinks and greens your fishing ports

that lean against ample Epomeo, holding on
to the rigid folds of her skirts? The boiling springs
which betray her secret fever,
make limber the gout-stiffened joint

and improve the venereal act; your ambient peace
in any case is a cure for, ceasing to think
of a way to get on, we
learn to simply wander about

by twisting paths which at any moment reveal
some vista as an absolute goal; eastward, perhaps,
suddenly there, Vesuvius,
looming across the bright bland bay

like a massive family pudding, or, around
a southern point, sheer-sided Capri who by herself
defends the cult of Pleasure,
a jealous, sometimes a cruel, god.

Always with some cool space or shaded surface, too,
you offer a reason to sit down; tasting what bees
from the blossoming chestnut
or short but shapely dark-haired men

from the aragonian grape distil, your amber wine,
your coffee-coloured honey, we believe that our
lives are as welcome to us as
loud explosions are to your saints……

W. H. Auden – June 1948    Ischia