Read "Catullus: XXXI" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(After passing Sirmione, April 1887.)
SIRMIO, thou dearest dear of strands / That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, / With what high joy from stranger lands / Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! / Yea, barely seems it true to me / That no Bithynia holds me now, / But calmly and assuringly / Around me stretchest homely Thou.
Is there a scene more sweet than when / Our clinging cares are undercast, / And, worn by alien moils and men, / The long untrodden sill repassed, / We press the pined for couch at last, / And find a full repayment there? / Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast, / And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!