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29
PRIMO SOSPIRO DI PRIMAVERA.
(Noon: First of February: On the Corsini Terraces on the Janiculum).
Boom!
The gun has thundered forth the hour of Noon!
High upon the wings of Tramontana
Swells a storm of bells,
From a thousand churches, convents, buildings,
Clanging, jangling, intermingling,
Softened to a joyous music
Borne upward by the wind
To the heights already sounding
With the surge of the three fountains
Of the Acqua Paola torrent,
To the heights already echoing
With the Tramontana's challenge
Tossed with reckless glee and laughter
Through the ilexes and stone-pines.
What a sound as of the ocean
When the tides are driving inland,
And the rampant waves are leaping
Swift before the scourging sea-wind!
And through all the windy tumult
How the bells go wildly echoing,
Like a storm of voices calling
Far o'er mist-beleaguered waters.
Suddenly silence: even the wind swings
For a brief space skyward, chasing
The last flying ragged cloudlets:
Then from out the ilex-avenue
Rings with palpitant, thrilling rapture,
Clear and sweet, the first spring-music
Of the speckle-breasted storm-thrush!
Swish-sh-sh! the wind again, the medley
Of its strong wings beating wildly,
Spray-wet, filled with piny odours.
The gun has thundered forth the hour of Noon!
High upon the wings of Tramontana
Swells a storm of bells,
From a thousand churches, convents, buildings,
Clanging, jangling, intermingling,
Softened to a joyous music
Borne upward by the wind
To the heights already sounding
With the surge of the three fountains
Of the Acqua Paola torrent,
To the heights already echoing
With the Tramontana's challenge
Tossed with reckless glee and laughter
Through the ilexes and stone-pines.
What a sound as of the ocean
When the tides are driving inland,
And the rampant waves are leaping
Swift before the scourging sea-wind!
30
How the bells go wildly echoing,
Like a storm of voices calling
Far o'er mist-beleaguered waters.
Suddenly silence: even the wind swings
For a brief space skyward, chasing
The last flying ragged cloudlets:
Then from out the ilex-avenue
Rings with palpitant, thrilling rapture,
Clear and sweet, the first spring-music
Of the speckle-breasted storm-thrush!
Swish-sh-sh! the wind again, the medley
Of its strong wings beating wildly,
Spray-wet, filled with piny odours.
Silence where the herald-thrush first
Took the break of Spring with rapture.
Yet what song in all the springtide
Shall be sweeter, rarer, wilder,
Than the sudden burst of music,
Sung from utter joy and wonder
Ere the earliest limes have budded:
Than that momentary outburst
When the bells of noon had fallen
To an ebbing tide of music
Down the sounding shores of Roma,
And the turbulent Tramontana
Had far skyward swept, with pinions
Hawk-like spread to swoop upon the
Flying drifts of ragged cloudlets!
O the bells of Rome, the clamour
Of the joyous Tramontana,
O the wildness of thy music,
Rapturous thrush, last Spring remembering,
With thy lost voice freed one moment
From its long forlorn silence!
Spring is here—and Rome—together!
Took the break of Spring with rapture.
Yet what song in all the springtide
Shall be sweeter, rarer, wilder,
Than the sudden burst of music,
Sung from utter joy and wonder
Ere the earliest limes have budded:
Than that momentary outburst
When the bells of noon had fallen
To an ebbing tide of music
Down the sounding shores of Roma,
And the turbulent Tramontana
Had far skyward swept, with pinions
Hawk-like spread to swoop upon the
31
O the bells of Rome, the clamour
Of the joyous Tramontana,
O the wildness of thy music,
Rapturous thrush, last Spring remembering,
With thy lost voice freed one moment
From its long forlorn silence!
Spring is here—and Rome—together!
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