Our lives are Swiss, —
So still, so cool,
Till, some odd afternoon,
The Alps neglect their curtains,
And we look farther on.
Italy stands the other side,
While, like a guard between,
The solemn Alps,
The siren Alps,
Forever intervene!
Emily Dickinson never travelled outside the USA, in fact she barely ever left her home town of Amherst, Massachusetts, and she never saw the sea. Nevertheless, places she imagined appear here and there, throughout her poetry.