English

On the rough Bracco's top, at break of day,
High o'er that gulf which bounds the Genoese,
Since thou and I pursued our mountain way,
Twenty Decembers have disrobed the trees.

Charmed by the glowing earth and golden sky,
In Arno's vale you made yourself a nest;
There perched in peace and bookish case, while I,
In love with Freedom, sought her in the West.

And here, amid remembrances that throng

Farewell, Ravenna's forest! and farewell
For aye through coming centuries to the sound,
Over blue Adria, of the lyric pines,
And Chiassi's bird-song keeping burden sweet
To their low moan as once to Dante's lines,
Which when my step first felt Italian ground
I strove to follow, carried by the spell
Of that sad Florentine whose very street
(At morn and midnight) where he used to dwell
My father bade me pace with reverent feet.
Some rapid spirit, misapprehending this,
Will say, “Perchance our imbecile prefers

Wee Shemus was a misdropt man
Without a shoulder to his back;
He had the way to lift a rann
And throttled rabbits in a sack.

And red-haired Mary whom he wed,
Brought him but thirty shillings told;
She had but one eye in her head,
But Shemus counted it for gold.

The two went singing in the hay
Or kissing underneath the sloes,
And where they chanced to pass the day
There was no need to scare the crows.

But now with Mary waked and laid
As decent as she lived and died,

I called for love;
And at the name,
From a black sky
White lightning came.

I called for love,
Then sank abashed;
From a dumb cloud
Wild thunder crashed.

I gaze and gaze when I behold
The meadows springing green and gold.
I gaze, until my mind is naught
But wonderful and wordless thought!
Till, suddenly, surpassing wit,
Spontaneous meadows spring in it;
And I am but a glass between
Unwalked-in meadows, gold and green.

My Father,
Here for a moment in your light I stand,
And feel upon my lifted face
Your touch, your touch, as of a father's hand.
Shine down upon me. See,
It is so little and so brief a thing
That drinks your light, remembering
The dark that was, the dark that is to be —
So soon to be again.
O let your glance fall tenderly and mild!
Have pity now, and when
The night has taken me, have pity then,
Father, on me, your child.

Her eyes are dim, yet also bright
And wide-awake, yet natheless dreaming,
Like moonbeams on a summer night,
Athro' a nimbus softly streaming,
Or morning's liberating light,
The blind, unhappy dark redeeming.

Her eyes are bright, yet also dim,
As though with joy they had been weeping,
The lashes, broidering the brim,
Have tiny tear-drops in their keeping,
And rainbows arch from rim to rim,
And through the archway stars are peeping.

O eyes so bright, so dim, so fair,

Rivers that roll most musical in song
Are often lovely to the mind alone;
The wanderer muses, as he moves along
Their vacant banks, on glories not their own.

When, to give substance to his boyhood's dreams,
He leaves his land, far countries to survey,
Oft must he think, in greeting foreign streams,
" Their names alone are beautiful, not they. "

If chance he mark the dwindled Arno pour
A tide more meagre than his native Charles;
Or view the Rhone when summer's heat is o'er,

We are the tides, fast and slow,
Bitter and sweet;
We are the tides that come and go,
Ebb and flow,
Throb and beat
In the Godhead's every vein,
Hands and feet,
And body and brain.

Fleet! Fleet!
Sweet! Sweet!
Fleet! Fleet!
Fair! Fair!
Sweet and fleet, have you wings or feet?
Are you made of earth, are you made of air?
Across the snow
I watch you go,
Like a flying bird, like a falling star;
Prithee say,
As you dart away,
Whether a body or soul you are.