The Kite
There's something in the sun that's new this morn,
or something old: I live elsewhere, and know
that round about the violets are born.
Deep in the monastery woods they grow,
the Capuchins', among the lifeless leaves
under the oak tree, where the soft winds blow.
There is an air of freshness, one which cleaves
the sods, and at the country church makes bright
the threshold, where the year its greenness leaves:
an air of other place, of other light,
of other life: an air of heavenly blue,
that holds suspended many pinions white. . . .
Ah, yes, the kites! We came out, not a few
(there was no school that day), to a region where
the blackberry and hawthorn hedges grew.
Bare were the hedges, bristling, but, still there
from autumn, was a bunch of berries red
and a stray flower from the springtime fair;
and the red robin on the branches dead
was dancing, and the lizard there nearby
amid the dry ditch leaves displayed its head.
We take our stand: we see Urbino nigh,
the windy: each with upward leap and free
lets out his kite into the turquoise sky.
It wavers, totters, pushes, plunges, see!
goes up again, then takes the wind; and lo!
it rises, while the boys shout long in glee.
It plunders from the hand the long string, slow,
as though a flower along its stem would hie,
seeking again and far away to blow.
The face, the panting breast, the eager eye,
the trembling feet, the heart, they with it rise;
it bears them all away into the sky.
Higher, higher, already there it lies,
a point of light gleaming on high ... but lo!
a cross wind, lo! a loud outcry. Who cries?
It is the voices of my mates: I know
the sound of them at once, I know them all,
one sweet, one sounding clearly, and one low. . . .
You all now, one by one, I can recall:
thee too, as when one day we saw thy sweet,
pale face in silence droop, and downward fall.
Yes: over thee the prayers I did repeat.
and wept: yet happy thou who sawest no more
than wind-blown kites swept downward at thy feet.
Thou wert all white except thy knees that wore
(I well remember them) the spots of rose
left from our praying on the pavement floor.
Oh, happy thou, who thus thine eyes didst close
content, letting of all thy playthings fair
the very fairest on thy heart repose.
Oh, it is sweet to die, I am aware,
close pressing to the heart the childhood ways,
as holds, while yet in bud, the flower rare.
its petals white! Thou, dead in boyhood days,
soon I beneath the sod shall find my place,
where thou dost sleep alone with peaceful gaze.
Better to come there panting, with glowing face
and dripping forehead, as with rivals, bold
to climb a hill after a merry race!
Better to come there with pale locks of gold,
which in free waves thy mother combed for thee,
there where they lay upon the pillow cold,
softly, softly, lest she give pain to thee.
or something old: I live elsewhere, and know
that round about the violets are born.
Deep in the monastery woods they grow,
the Capuchins', among the lifeless leaves
under the oak tree, where the soft winds blow.
There is an air of freshness, one which cleaves
the sods, and at the country church makes bright
the threshold, where the year its greenness leaves:
an air of other place, of other light,
of other life: an air of heavenly blue,
that holds suspended many pinions white. . . .
Ah, yes, the kites! We came out, not a few
(there was no school that day), to a region where
the blackberry and hawthorn hedges grew.
Bare were the hedges, bristling, but, still there
from autumn, was a bunch of berries red
and a stray flower from the springtime fair;
and the red robin on the branches dead
was dancing, and the lizard there nearby
amid the dry ditch leaves displayed its head.
We take our stand: we see Urbino nigh,
the windy: each with upward leap and free
lets out his kite into the turquoise sky.
It wavers, totters, pushes, plunges, see!
goes up again, then takes the wind; and lo!
it rises, while the boys shout long in glee.
It plunders from the hand the long string, slow,
as though a flower along its stem would hie,
seeking again and far away to blow.
The face, the panting breast, the eager eye,
the trembling feet, the heart, they with it rise;
it bears them all away into the sky.
Higher, higher, already there it lies,
a point of light gleaming on high ... but lo!
a cross wind, lo! a loud outcry. Who cries?
It is the voices of my mates: I know
the sound of them at once, I know them all,
one sweet, one sounding clearly, and one low. . . .
You all now, one by one, I can recall:
thee too, as when one day we saw thy sweet,
pale face in silence droop, and downward fall.
Yes: over thee the prayers I did repeat.
and wept: yet happy thou who sawest no more
than wind-blown kites swept downward at thy feet.
Thou wert all white except thy knees that wore
(I well remember them) the spots of rose
left from our praying on the pavement floor.
Oh, happy thou, who thus thine eyes didst close
content, letting of all thy playthings fair
the very fairest on thy heart repose.
Oh, it is sweet to die, I am aware,
close pressing to the heart the childhood ways,
as holds, while yet in bud, the flower rare.
its petals white! Thou, dead in boyhood days,
soon I beneath the sod shall find my place,
where thou dost sleep alone with peaceful gaze.
Better to come there panting, with glowing face
and dripping forehead, as with rivals, bold
to climb a hill after a merry race!
Better to come there with pale locks of gold,
which in free waves thy mother combed for thee,
there where they lay upon the pillow cold,
softly, softly, lest she give pain to thee.
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