THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ft 
 
 VI 
 
 Wl?, 
 
 N 
 
 / *%
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 AND OTHER LYRICS
 
 THE Triton in the Ilex-ivood 
 Is lonely at Castello. 
 The snow is on him like a hood, 
 The fountain-reeds are yelloiv. 
 
 But never Triton sorrozved yet 
 For weather chill or mellow : 
 
 He mourns, my Dear, that you forget 
 The gardens of Castello ! 
 
 A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY and other 
 LYRICS PRTNTED FOR AND PUB- 
 LISHED BY THOMAS B MOSHER PORTLAND 
 MAINE MDCCCCXII
 
 EX1 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 PROEM 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY . 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 II 
 
 WITH A POETRY BOOK 
 
 
 
 IO 
 
 III 
 
 UMBRIA 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 IV 
 
 IN FLORENCE 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 V 
 
 FLORENTINE MAY 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 VI 
 
 RICORDI 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 VII 
 
 IN AN ARBOUR, ASOLO 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 nil 
 
 RELICS 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 IX 
 
 IN A GONDOLA . 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 X 
 
 LA RETRAITE 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 XI 
 
 O PRIMAVERA, GIOVENTU DI 
 
 : l'a> 
 
 INO 
 
 46 
 
 576409 
 
 LISRARf
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 THE white magic of style is seldom displayed 
 to greater adva?itage than when it has to do 
 with Italy. If this be true of prose such as Pater's 
 Renaissance and Maurice Hewletfs Earthwork 
 out of Tuscany it is doubly true of the poetry that 
 has gathered around all things Italian and, like 
 11 music slumbering in the shell" become audible. 
 Four lyrics chosen for an earlier volume in this 
 series are here augmented a?id carried out with 
 variations upon the same underlying theme : music 
 that closes in " commiserating sevenths" — beauty 
 that at last must lose its lustrous gaze and die. 
 
 Our choice ranges from the unknown writer 
 who signs his poem "Aureolus Paracelsus" an 
 u?idoubted disciple of Broiuning as the name alone 
 tvould imply, to an almost equally ufiknown poet 
 from whose unique little volume Galeazzo : A 
 Venetian Episode (1886) two poems are given.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 One lyric has the added pathos of a young life 
 that never grew old. Cora Fabbri died in i8q2 at 
 the age of twenty years, and did not live to see the 
 Lyrics she had written as they were issued in their 
 beautiful first editio?i. It is with the permission of 
 her publishers, the Messrs. Harper, that we are 
 now enabled to reprint In Florence. 
 
 The fiames of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 
 fohn Addington Symonds, A. Mary F. Robin so >n 
 and Laurence Binyon require no introduction or 
 commendation from us. As for the passage from 
 Guarini which closes our selections it will probably 
 never find a tra?islator who may hope to equal 
 Leigh Hunt in recapturing " one of the most beau- 
 tiful sighs " that ever greeted the return of spring. 
 
 T. B. M.
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 AND OTHER LYRICS
 
 PROEM 
 
 O DEATH of things that are, Eternity 
 Of things that seem ; 
 Of all the happy past remains to me, 
 To-day, a dream ! 
 
 Long blessed days of love and wakening thought, 
 
 All, all are dead ; 
 Nothing endures we did, nothing we wrought, 
 
 Nothing we said. 
 
 But once I dreamed I sat and sang with you 
 
 On Ida hill. 
 There, in the echoes of my life, we two 
 
 Are singing still. 
 
 A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 
 ROSE-RED lilies that bloom on the banner ; 
 Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring; 
 Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they 
 climb, 
 Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan 
 her 
 With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing, 
 What do they sing in the spring of their 
 time ? 
 
 If this be the rose that the world hears singing, 
 Soft in the soft night, loud in the day, 
 
 Songs for the fire-flies to dance as they 
 hear ; 
 If that be the song of the nightingale, springing 
 Forth in the form of a rose in May, 
 
 What do they say of the way of the year?
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 
 What of the way of the world gone Maying, 
 What of the work of the buds in the bowers, 
 What of the will of the wind on the wall, 
 Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing, 
 Shrinking again as a bird that cowers, 
 
 Thinking of hours when the flowers have 
 to fall ? 
 
 Out of the throats of the loud birds showering, 
 Out of the folds where the flag-lilies leap. 
 Out of the mouths of the roses stirred, 
 Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering, 
 
 Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep, 
 Out of the deep and the steep, one word. 
 
 One from the lips of the lily-flames leaping, 
 The glad red lilies that burn in our sight, 
 
 The great live lilies for standard and 
 crown ; 

 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 
 One from the steeps where the pines stand sleep- 
 ing, 
 One from the deep land, one from the height, 
 One from the light and the might of the 
 town. 
 
 The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands, 
 Whence May winds feed them with balm and 
 breath 
 From hills that beheld in the years behind 
 A shape as of one from the blest souls' islands, 
 Made fair by a soul too fair for death, 
 
 With eyes on the light that should smite 
 them blind. 
 
 Vallombrosa remotely remembers, 
 
 Perchance, what still to us seems so near 
 
 That time not darkens it, change not mars,
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 
 The foot that she knew when her leaves were 
 September's, 
 The face lift up to the star-blind seer, 
 
 That saw from his prison arisen his stars. 
 
 And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning, 
 For love of her loveliness given them in fee ; 
 And Prato gleams with the glad monk's 
 gift 
 Whose hand was there as the hand of morning ; 
 And Siena, set in the sand's red sea, 
 
 Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's 
 drift. 
 
 And far to the fair south-westward lightens, 
 Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers 
 At sunset over the love-lit lands, 
 The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens, 
 Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers, 
 Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.
 
 SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 
 Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest, 
 Mother of men that were lords of man, 
 
 Whose name in the world's heart works as 
 a spell, 
 My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest, 
 As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for 
 a span, 
 Fare well we may not who say farewell. 
 
 ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.
 
 WITH A POETRY BOOK 
 
 THIS may beguile a moment in some day 
 Of brief division from a city's roar, 
 When in the rush, the turbulence, the din 
 There comes a pause. Then one may think of 
 
 fields, 
 Of flowers, of birds, of all sweet natural things 
 That never lose their spell upon the soul. 
 In such an hour of the dim afternoon, 
 When yellow fog has curtained up the pane, 
 Draw to the lamp and read of tragedies 
 How kings and sons of kings have met their 
 
 deaths ; 
 And if you tire of all the writer's art, 
 Think, then, of Venice in her sapphire sea, 
 Of me afloat upon the calm lagoon 
 Brought face to face with a great golden shield 
 That glorifies the water and the sky ;
 
 WITH A POETRY BOOK 
 
 While from tall towers wreathed in opal mist, 
 Sweet bells spread melody along the waves, 
 Warning me that all lovely hours must die ; 
 And that we, too. are hurrying to our end. 
 
 PERCY E. PIXKERTOX.
 
 UMBRIA 
 
 EEP Italian day with a wide-washed splen- 
 
 jLJ dour fills 
 
 Umbria green with valleys, blue with a hundred 
 hills. 
 
 Dim in the south Soracte, a far rock faint as a 
 cloud 
 
 Rumours Rome, that of old spoke over earth, 
 " Thou art mine ! " 
 
 Mountain shouldering mountain circles us forest- 
 browed 
 
 Heaped upon each horizon in fair uneven line ; 
 
 And white as on builded altars tipped with a 
 vestal flame 
 
 City on city afar from the thrones of the moun- 
 tains shine, 
 
 Kindling, for us that name them, many a memo- 
 ried fame,
 
 UMBRIA 
 
 Out of the murmuring ages, flushing the heart 
 
 like wine. 
 Pilgrim-desired Assisi is there ; Spoleto proud 
 With Rome's imperial arches, with hanging woods 
 
 divine : 
 Monte Falco hovers above the hazy vale 
 Of sweet Clitumnus loitering under poplars pale ; 
 O'er Foligno, Trevi clings upon Apennine. 
 And over this Umbrian earth — from where with 
 
 bright snow spread 
 Towers abrupt Leonessa, huge, like a dragon's 
 
 chine, 
 To western Ammiata's mist-apparelled head, 
 Ammiata that sailors watch on wide Tyrrhenian 
 
 waves, — 
 Lie in the jealous gloom of cold and secret shrine 
 Or Gorgon-sculptured chamber hewn in old rock 
 
 caves, 
 Hiding their dreams from the light, the austere 
 
 Etruscan dead.
 
 UMBRIA 
 
 O lone forests of oak and little cyclamens red 
 Flowering under shadowy silent boughs benign ! 
 Streams that wander beneath us over a pebbly 
 
 bed! 
 Hedges of dewy hawthorn and wild woodbine ! 
 Now as the eastern ranges flush and the high air 
 
 chills 
 Blurring meadowy vale, blackening heaths of pine, 
 Now as in distant Todi, loftily-towered — a sign 
 To wearying travellers — lights o'er hollow Tiber 
 
 gleam, 
 Now our voices are stilled and our eyes are given 
 
 to a dream, 
 As night, upbringing o'er us the ancient stars anew, 
 Stars that triumphing Caesar and tender Francis 
 
 knew, 
 With fancied voices mild, august, immortal, fills 
 Umbria dim with valleys, dark with a hundred 
 
 hills. 
 
 LAURENCE BINYON.
 
 IN FLORENCE 
 
 O TUSCAN days, my true, gold-hearted days, 
 With thy deep skies and fleecy clouds afloat, 
 Like the dropped petals of some moon-pale flower ; 
 
 With thy still sunset, zephyr-stirred hour, 
 
 Thy evening bird with thrilled melodious throat . . . 
 
 Gone, gone from me, my golden Tuscan day. 
 
 Once wert thou with me in fair Florence, crown 
 
 Of all that perfect, flower-filled Italy. 
 
 Thy name, O Florence, like a song doth fill 
 
 With memories the gray unblossoming still 
 That girts me round and holds me fast from thee — 
 From thee, O peaceful, perfect Tuscan town. 
 
 Thy lang'rous hush at even-tide just stirred 
 By some faint convent chime from very far, 
 Thy murmurous Arno speeding on its way,
 
 16 IN FLORENCE 
 
 And in the East a shadow wan and gray, 
 Kindled to brightness by a single star, 
 And somewhere in the West a singing bird. 
 
 All mem'ries. And the window whence my eyes 
 Saw Ponte Vecchio with its old-time mien, 
 Like some rich gem set deep in thy gold heart ; 
 
 And faint Fiesole, where pale clouds start, 
 Dusted with leafy olive-trees, gray-green, 
 That fade off in the shadow-girted skies. 
 
 O Florence, my fair Florence, I would stray 
 Once more to-day, as in that dear dead time, 
 Along the streets at golden mid-noon's hour, 
 
 Till thy old Duomo and thy slender tower 
 Rose up before me with its mid-noon chime, 
 And haply step therein. All twilight gray,
 
 IN FLORENCE 
 
 With a faint trail of incense on the air, 
 And the low murmured hidden monotone 
 Of priests at holy mass. So, entered in, 
 
 How still it seemed after the city's din, 
 How solemn sweet the organ's vibrant tone. 
 I did not pray. The silence was a prayer. 
 
 Then out again into the rain of gold 
 
 Flooding the broad gay piazza everywhere . . . 
 
 A flutter of white wings, a flock of birds 
 
 Let loose, like some sweet tumult of love words, 
 Floating and sweeping through the sun-cleft air, 
 To peck the golden grain some hands would hold. 
 
 In those Spring days (Spring comes with tend'rer 
 
 look, 
 And far more lavish hands to that sweet place, 
 My little Tuscan town, than to this clime,
 
 [8 IN FLORENCE 
 
 Cold England and its fogs) I used to climb 
 Thy Colli, Florence — climbing, reach the place 
 Where thy sweet face lies stretched out like a book ; 
 
 Lies stretched out like a soft smile, caught and 
 
 kept 
 From the Past's fast-sealed lips, or like a flower 
 Yielding its petals up to the blue sky. 
 
 And when I strayed back to the city, I 
 Found all things flooded with the sunset hour 
 Save Ponte Vecchio, where the shadows crept. 
 
 Elsewise at night — the amorous Tuscan night, 
 When the white moon had climbed the silver stair 
 The fair stars make for their most lowly Queen — 
 
 How sweet from out the casement far to lean, 
 
 And feel the fragrance of the dewy air, 
 
 And see the whole world bathed in silver light !
 
 IN FLORENCE 19 
 
 Warm Tuscan sun ! in that last dreaming lull 
 'Tvvixt night and day, along the Western ways 
 Thy tender light hath set from me fore'er : 
 
 Set, with my first lost love, lost dream, lost 
 prayer . . . 
 
 Tuscan days ! my true, gold-hearted days, 
 Thy lips are dumb, and mine are sorrowful. 
 
 Thy earth beneath my feet is cold and brown, 
 The skies are netted in a blank, gray shroud, 
 The mournful rain is dripping from the eaves. . . . 
 
 Lost — like a flower too deep-sunk in the leaves; 
 Lost — like a white star hidden by a cloud, 
 
 1 see thee now, O little Tuscan town ! 
 
 CORA FABBRI.
 
 FLORENTINE MAY 
 
 STILL, still is the Night; still as the pause 
 after pain ; 
 
 Still and as dear ; 
 Deep, solemn, immense ; veiling the stars in the 
 
 clear 
 Thrilling and luminous blue of the moon-shot 
 atmosphere ; 
 
 Ah, could the Night remain ! 
 
 Who, truly, shall say thou art sullen or dark or 
 unseen, 
 
 Thou, O heavenly Night, 
 Clear o'er the valley of olives asleep in the quiv- 
 ering light, 
 Clear o'er the pale-red hedge of the rose, and the 
 lilies all white 
 
 Down at my feet in the green ?
 
 FLORENTINE MAY 
 
 Nay, not as the Day, thou art light, O Night, with 
 a beam 
 
 Far more dear and divine ; 
 Never the noon was blue as these tremulous 
 
 heavens of thine, 
 Pulsing with stars half seen, and vague in a pal- 
 lid shine, 
 
 Vague as a dream. 
 
 Night, clear with the moon, filled with the dreamy 
 fire 
 
 Shining in thicket and close, 
 Fire from the lamp in his breast that the luminous 
 
 fire-fly throws ; 
 Night, full of wandering light and of song, and 
 the blossoming rose, 
 
 Night, be thou my desire ! 
 
 Night, Angel of Night, hold me and cover me so — 
 Open thy wings !
 
 FLORENTINE MAY 
 
 Ah, bend above and embrace ! — till I hear in the 
 
 one bird that sings 
 The throb of thy musical heart in the dusk, and 
 
 the magical things 
 
 Only the Night can know. 
 
 A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
 
 RICORDI 
 
 OF a tower, of a tower, white 
 In the warm Italian night, 
 Of a tower that shines and springs 
 I dream, and of our delight. 
 
 Of doves, of a hundred wings 
 Sweeping in sound that sings 
 Past our faces, and wide 
 Returning in tremulous rings : 
 
 Of a window on Arno side, 
 Sun-warm when the rain has dried 
 On the roofs, and from far below 
 The clear street-cries are cried : 
 
 Of a certain court we know, 
 And love's and sorrow's throe
 
 24 RICORDI 
 
 In marbles of mighty limb, 
 
 And the beat of our hearts aglow : 
 
 -& j 
 
 Of water whispering dim 
 To a porphyry basin's rim ; 
 Of flowers on a windy wall 
 Richly tossing, I dream. 
 
 And of white towns nestling small 
 Upon Apennine, with a tall 
 Tower in the sunset air 
 Sounding soft vesper-call : 
 
 And of golden morning bare 
 On Lucca roofs, and fair 
 Blue hills, and scent that shook 
 From blossoming chestnuts, where 
 
 Red ramparts overlook 
 
 Hot meadow and leafy nook,
 
 RICORDI 25 
 
 Where girls with laughing cries 
 Beat clothes in a glittering brook : 
 
 And of magic-builded skies 
 Upon still lagoons ; and wise 
 Padua's pillared street 
 In the charm of a day that dies : 
 
 Of olive-shade in the heat, 
 And a lone, cool, rocky seat 
 On an island beach, and bright 
 Fresh ripples about our feet : 
 
 Of mountains in vast moon-light, 
 Of rivers' rushing flight, 
 Of gardens of green retreat 
 I dream, and of our delight. 
 
 LAURE^XE BINYON.
 
 IN AN ARBOUR, ASOLO 
 
 MY perfumed jasmine-tent commands 
 An outlook vast along the lands. 
 Northward, green hills confront my gaze, 
 Shrouded in filmy morning haze. 
 Their smooth sides take a deeper dye 
 As the red sun deserts the sky, 
 When clouds, like poppy-petals, fall 
 And fade around a purple wall 
 Whose top one fain would tread and see 
 All that across the barrier be. 
 Here, where the white road bends below, 
 Are ranged the roofs of Asolo, 
 An old, uneven, faded file 
 Of broken beams and rusty tile. 
 The stones which strew that quiet street 
 Were trampled once by Roman feet, 
 When through the city's gateway arched
 
 IX AN ARBOUR, A SOLO 27 
 
 Caesar's intrepid legions marched, 
 
 And every house had harbour for 
 
 The cohorts of a conqueror. 
 
 They, in these peaceful hills, maybe, 
 
 Forgot their lust for victory, 
 
 Forgot red war in hours of ease 
 
 Above the waving apple-trees ; 
 
 And, in the silence of the plain, 
 
 Heard Nature's eloquence again. 
 
 In later days those walls have been 
 
 Safe shelter for a Cypriote queen, 
 
 Catherine Cornaro, homeless wife, 
 
 Here fled when clouds were round her life 
 
 And, shut in painted palace, she 
 
 Shook off the chains of royalty. 
 
 Ah ! she was wise ; here one enjoys 
 
 Peace after clamour, after noise 
 
 Of cities and the ceaseless strain 
 
 To win what one will lose again. 
 
 Am I not rich who hear the bees
 
 28 IN AN ARBOUR, ASOLO 
 
 Kissing those pale anemones 
 
 That make the grass about my feet 
 
 A coloured pavement rich and sweet ; 
 
 Who see the birch-leaves on their stem 
 
 Shake as the wind goes over them ; 
 
 Is not this opulence for me 
 
 Here to forget futurity, 
 
 And leave all feverish questioning 
 
 If life be just a trivial thing, 
 
 That they use best who multiply 
 
 Their pleasures in it ere they die, 
 
 Ignoring an eternity ? 
 
 Is not this wealth, to bask supine 
 
 Beneath a roof of jessamine ? 
 
 Yes, it is enviable ; and yet, 
 No mood uncoloured by regret 
 Visits my vexed heart that now 
 As ever questions : where art thou ? 
 For I am chafed with memories
 
 IN AN ARBOUR, ASOLO 29 
 
 Of life below the moonlit skies 
 With thee in Venice, while our bark 
 Aimlessly loitered in the dark, 
 And tremulous, pathetic notes 
 Reached us from yellow-lanterned boats, 
 As violins and voices there 
 Showered sweet sounds upon the air ; 
 Sunk in a reverie sublime, 
 Oblivious of the world, of Time, 
 No better fate we wished than here 
 Across moon-silvered waves to steer 
 Serenely to some shining beach 
 Where never Nemesis may reach; 
 Where as an echo heard should be 
 The hubbub of humanity; 
 Where we should win deliverance 
 From all the tyranny of Chance ; 
 And memory should keep no mark 
 Upon her scrolls of sad and dark ; 
 So, ours were e'en a fairer home
 
 30 IN AN ARBOUR, ASOLO 
 
 Than Venice in the Adrian foam ! 
 Ah ! by recalling selfish dreams 
 The present only wearier seems. 
 I want Thee ; yet away, afar, 
 Beyond the blue horizon bar 
 Are opening now those orient eyes, 
 Where first my soul saw Paradise. 
 
 PERCY E. PINKERTON.
 
 RELICS 
 
 THIS flower that smells of honey and the sea, 
 White laurustine, seems in my hand to be 
 A white star made of memory long ago 
 Lit in the heaven of dear times dead to me. 
 
 A star out of the skies love used to know 
 Here held in hand, a stray left yet to show 
 
 What flowers my heart was full of in the clays 
 That are long since gone down dead memory's 
 flow. 
 
 Dead memory that revives on doubtful ways, 
 Half hearkening what the buried season says 
 
 Out of the world of the unapparent dead 
 Where the lost Aprils are, and the lost Mays. 
 
 Flower, once I knew thy star-white brethren bred 
 Nigh where the last of all the land made head
 
 32 RELICS 
 
 Against the sea, a keen-faced promontory, 
 Flowers on salt wind and sprinkled sea-dews fed. 
 
 Their hearts were glad of the free place's glory ; 
 The wind that sang them all his stormy story 
 
 Had talked all winter to the sleepless spray, 
 And as the sea's their hues were hard and hoary. 
 
 Like things born of the sea and the bright day, 
 They laughed out at the years that could not slay, 
 
 Live sons and joyous of unquiet hours, 
 And stronger than all storms that range for prey. 
 
 And in the close indomitable flowers 
 A keen-edged odour of the sun and showers 
 Was as the smell of the fresh honeycomb 
 Made sweet for mouths of none but paramours. 
 
 Out of the hard green wall of leaves that clomb 
 They showed like windfalls of the snow-soft foam,
 
 RELICS 33 
 
 Or feathers from the weary south-wind's wing, 
 Fair as the spray that it came shoreward from. 
 
 And thou, as white, what word hast thou to bring ? 
 If my heart hearken, whereof wilt thou sing? 
 For some sign surely thou too hast to bear, 
 Some word far south was taught thee of the spring. 
 
 White like a white rose, not like these that were 
 Taught of the wind's mouth and the winter air, 
 
 Poor tender thing of soft Italian bloom, 
 Where once thou grewest, what else for me grew 
 there ? 
 
 Born in what spring and on what city's tomb, 
 By whose hand wast thou reached, and plucked 
 
 for whom ? 
 There hangs about thee, could the soul's sense 
 
 tell, 
 An odour as of love and of love's doom.
 
 34 RELICS 
 
 Of days more sweet than thou wast sweet to smell, 
 Of flower-soft thoughts that came to flower and fell, 
 
 Of loves that lived a lily's life and died, 
 Of dreams now dwelling where dead roses dwell. 
 
 O white birth of the golden mountain-side 
 That for the sun's love makes its bosom wide 
 
 At sunrise, and with all its woods and flowers 
 Takes in the morning to its heart of pride ! 
 
 Thou hast a word of that one land of ours, 
 And of the fair town called of the fair towers, 
 
 A word for me of my San Gimignan, 
 A word of April's greenest-girdled hours. 
 
 Of the breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran 
 Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man, 
 Though time with soft feet break them stone by 
 
 stone, 
 Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign's 
 
 span.
 
 RELICS 35 
 
 Off the cliff overcome and overgrown 
 That all that rlowerage clothed as flesh clothes 
 bone. 
 That garment of acacias made for May, 
 Whereof here lies one witness overblown. 
 
 The fair brave trees with all their flowers at play, 
 How king-like they stood up into the day ! 
 
 How sweet the day was with them, and the 
 night ! 
 Such words of message have dead flowers to say. 
 
 This that the winter and the wind made bright, 
 And this that lived upon Italian light, 
 
 Before I throw them and these words away, 
 Who knows but I what memories too take flight ? 
 
 ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.
 
 IN A GONDOLA 
 
 (suggested by Mendelssohn's andante in g 
 minor, book i, lied 6, of the " lieder ohne 
 
 WORTE ") 
 
 IN Venice ! This night so delicious — its air 
 Full of moonlight and passionate snatches 
 of song, 
 And quick cries, and perfume of romances, 
 which throng 
 To my brain, as I steal down this marble sea-stair. 
 
 And my gondola comes. 
 And I hear the slow, rhythmical sweep of the oar 
 Drawing near and more near — and the noise 
 
 of the prow — 
 And the sharp, sudden splash of her stoppage 
 — and now
 
 IN A GONDOLA 37 
 
 I step in ; we are off o'er the street's heaving 
 floor, 
 
 As my gondola glides 
 Away, past these palaces silent and dark, 
 
 Looming ghostly and grim o'er their bases, 
 
 where clings 
 Rank seaweed that gleams flecked with light 
 as it swings 
 To the plash of the waves, where they reach the 
 
 tide-mark 
 On the porphyry blocks — with a song full of dole, 
 A forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides. 
 
 11. 
 
 And the wind seems to sigh through that lattice 
 rust-gnawn 
 A low dirge for the past : the sweet past when 
 it played
 
 38 INAGONDOLA 
 
 In the pearl-braided hair of some beauty, who 
 stayed 
 But one shrinking half-minute — her mantle close- 
 drawn 
 O'er the swell of her bosom and cheeks passion- 
 pale, 
 Ere her lover came by, and they kissed. " They 
 
 are clay, 
 Those fire-hearted men with the regal pulse- 
 play ; 
 They are dust ! " sighs the wind with its whisper 
 of wail : 
 "Those women snow-pure, flower-sweet, pas- 
 sion-pale ! " 
 And the waves make reply with their song full 
 of dole, 
 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides.
 
 INAGONDOLA 39 
 
 III. 
 
 Dust — those lovers ! But Love ever lives, ever 
 new, 
 Still the same : so we shoot into bustle and light, 
 And lamps from the festal casinos stream bright 
 On the ripples — and here 's the Rialto in view ; 
 And black gondolas, spirit-like, cross or slide past, 
 And the gondoliers cry to each other: a song 
 Far away, from sweet voices in tune, dies along 
 The waters moon-silvered. So on to the vast 
 Shadowy span of an arch where the oar-echoes 
 leap 
 Through chill gloom from the marble ; then 
 
 moonlight once more, 
 And laughter and strum of guitars from the 
 shore, 
 And sonorous bass-music of bells booming deep 
 From St. Mark's. Still those waves with their 
 song full of dole,
 
 4 o INAGONDOLA 
 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Here the night is voluptuous with odorous sighs 
 From verandas o'erstarred with dim jessamine 
 
 flowers, 
 Their still scent deep-stirred by the tremulous 
 showers 
 Of a nightingale's notes as his song swells and 
 dies — 
 
 While my gondola glides. 
 
 v. 
 
 Dust — those lovers! — who floated and dreamed 
 
 long ago, 
 Gazed and languished and loved, on these 
 
 waters, — where I 
 Float and dream and gaze up in the still 
 
 summer sky
 
 IN A GONDOLA 41 
 
 Whence the great stars look down — as they did 
 
 long ago ; 
 Where the moon seems to dream with my dream- 
 ing — disc-hid 
 In a gossamer veil of white cirrhus — then breaks 
 The dream-spell with a pensive half-smile, as 
 she wakes 
 To new splendor. But lo ! while I mused we 
 
 have slid 
 From the open — the stir — down a lonely lane- 
 way 
 Into hush and dark shadow : fresh smells of 
 
 the sea 
 Come cool from beyond; a faint lamp mistily 
 Hints fair shafts and quaint arches, in crumbling 
 decay ; 
 And the waves still break in with their song 
 full of dole, 
 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides.
 
 42 IN A GONDOLA 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then the silent lagune stretched away through 
 
 the night, 
 
 And the stars, — and the fairy-like city behind, 
 
 Domes and spires rising spectral and dim : till 
 
 the mind 
 
 Becomes tranced in a vague, subtle maze of 
 
 delight ; 
 And I float in a dream, lose the present — or 
 seem 
 To have lived it before. Then a sense of deep 
 
 bliss, 
 Just to breathe — to exist — in a night such as 
 this: 
 Just to feel what I feel, drowns all else. But the 
 
 gleam 
 Of the lights, as we turn to the city once more, 
 And the music, and clangor of bells booming 
 slow,
 
 INAGONDOLA 43 
 
 And this consummate vision, St. Mark's! — 
 the star-glow 
 For a background — crowns all. Then I step 
 out on shore : 
 The Piazzetta ! my life-dream accomplished at 
 last, 
 
 (As my gondola goes.) 
 I am here : here alone with the ghost of the Past ! 
 But the waves still break in with their song full 
 of dole, 
 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola goes ; 
 And the pulse of the oar swept through silvery 
 
 spray 
 Dies away in the gloom, dies away, dies away — 
 Dies away dies away ! 
 
 AUREOLUS PARACELSUS.
 
 LA RETRAITE 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE LAST PAGE OF A GIFT BOOK 
 
 OLD books, old flowers, old feelings, foliage 
 pressed 
 By Time, who lays the stony weight of years 
 Upon our palpitating hopes and fears, 
 The scented herbage of our throbbing breast ! 
 These leaves I turn, on a vague scholar's quest, 
 In search of some frail thought that disap- 
 pears ; 
 But meet, instead, the broad soul-haunted 
 
 meres 
 Of memory, and the friend's face I love best. 
 Dearest, this book I gave you years ago : 
 I find it now in Florence ; and I write, 
 Here by your hearth, words you may never 
 know.
 
 LARETRAITE 45 
 
 Live well ; live happy. Short is day, but bright. 
 The Bersaglieri on the flags below 
 Cry : Comes for us, for you, for all the night ! 
 
 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
 
 PRIMA VERA, GIO VENTU DE UANNO 
 
 O SPRING, thou youthful beauty of the year, 
 Mother of flowers, bringer of warbling 
 quires, 
 Of all sweet new green things and new desires, 
 Thou, Spring, returnest ; but, alas ! with thee 
 A T o more return to me 
 
 The calm and happy days these eyes were 7ised to see. 
 Thou, thou returnest, thou, 
 But with thee returns now 
 Nought else but dread remembrance of the pleasure 
 
 1 took in my lost treasure. 
 
 Thou still, thou still, art the same blithe, sweet thing 
 Thou ever wast, O Spring ; 
 But I, in whose weak orbs these tears arise, 
 Am what I was ?w more, dear to afiother's eyes. 
 
 GIOVANNI BATTISTA GUARINI, 
 
 (Translated by Leigh Hunt.)
 
 HERE ENDS SPRING IN TUSCANY 
 AND OTHER LYRICS PRINTED FOR 
 THOMAS B MOSHER AND PUBLISHED 
 BY HIM AT XLV EXCHANGE STREET 
 PORTLAND MAINE MDCCCCXII

 
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 APR 3 1953
 
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