Classic Poem

R OME , 1860

I

I

Out of my own great woe
I make my little songs,
Which rustle their feathers in throngs
And beat on her heart even so.

II

They found the way, for their part,
Yet come again, and complain:
Complain, and are not fain
To say what they saw in her heart.

II

I

Art thou indeed so adverse?
Art thou so changed indeed?
Against the woman who wrongs me
I cry to the world in my need.

II

O recreant lips unthankful,
How could ye speak evil, say,
Of the man who so well has kissed you
On many a fortunate day?

III

I

My child, we were two children,
Small, merry by childhood's law;
We used to crawl to the hen-house
And hide ourselves in the straw.

II

We crowed like cocks, and whenever
The passers near us drew —
Cock-a-doodle! they thought
'T was a real cock that crew.

III

The boxes about our courtyard
We carpeted to our mind,
And lived there both together —
Kept house in a noble kind.

IV

The neighbor's old cat often
Came to pay us a visit;
We made her a bow and curtsey,
Each with a compliment in it.

V

After her health we asked
Our care and regard to evince —
(We have made the very same speeches
To many an old cat since).

VI

We also sat and wisely
Discoursed, as old folk do,
Complaining how all went better
In those good times we knew, —

VII

How love and truth and believing
Had left the world to itself,
And how so dear was the coffee,
And how so rare was the pelf.

VIII

The children's games are over,
The rest is over with youth —
The world, the good games, the good times,
The belief, and the love, and the truth.

IV

I

Thou lovest me not, thou lovest me not!
'T is scarcely worth a sigh:
Let me look in thy face, and no king in his place
Is a gladder man than I.

II

Thou hatest me well, thou hatest me well —
Thy little red mouth has told:
Let it reach me a kiss, and, however it is,
My child, I am well consoled.

V

I

My own sweet Love, if thou in the grave,
The darksome grave, wilt be,
Then will I go down by the side, and crave
Love-room for thee and me.

II

I kiss and caress and press thee wild,
Thou still, thou cold, thou white!
I wail, I tremble, and weeping mild,
Turn to a corpse at the right.

III

The Dead stand up, the midnight calls,
They dance in airy swarms —
We two keep still where the grave-shade falls,
And I lie on in thine arms.

IV

The Dead stand up, the Judgment-day
Bids such to weal or woe —
But nought shall trouble us where we stay
Embraced and embracing below.

VI

I

The years they come and go,
The races drop in the grave,
Yet never the love doth so
Which here in my heart I have.

II

Could I see thee but once, one day,
And sink down so on my knee,
And die in thy sight while I say,
" Lady, I love but thee!"