University of Virginia Library

AN EVENING IN TUSCANY.

Close, O close and clasp, the pages
Of that too-long-pamper'd book!
Leave all poets of past ages,
You, my living poem! Look,
Down the summer-colour'd weather
The sweet day begins to sink!
And the thought that we're together
Is the sole thought I can think.
Cool the breeze mounts, like this Chianti
Which I drain down to the sun.
So away with your green Dante!
Turn the page—where we begun—
At the last news of Ulysses—
A grand image, fit to close
Such great golden eves as this is,
Full of splendour and repose!
And look down now, o'er the city
Sleeping soft among the hills—
Our dear Florence! That great Pitti
With its steady shadow fills
Half the town up: its unwinking
Cold white windows, as they glare
Down the long streets, set one thinking
Of the old Dukes who lived there;
For one knows them, those strange men, so—
Subtle brains, and iron thews!
There, the gardens of Lorenzo—
The long cypress avenues—
Creep up slow the stately hill side
Where the merry loungers are.
But far more I love this still side—
The blue plain you see so far!
Where the shore of bright white villas
Leaves off faint: the purple breadths
Of the olives and the willows:
And the gold-rimm'd mountain-widths:
All transfused in slumbrous glory
To one burning point—the sun!
But up here—slow, cold, and hoary,
Reach the olives, one by one:
And the land looks fresh: the yellow
Arbute-berries, here and there,
Growing slowly ripe and mellow
Through a flush of rosy hair.
For the Tramontana last week
Was about. 'Tis scarce three weeks
Since the snow lay, one white vast streak,
Upon those old purple peaks.
So to-day among the grasses
One may pick up tens and twelves
Of young olives, as one passes,
Blown about, and by themselves
Blackening sullen-ripe. The corn too
Grows each day from green to golden.
The large-eyed windflowers forlorn too
Blow among it, unbeholden.
Bind these bounteous curls from falling,
O my beautiful, my own!
'Tis for you the cuckoo's calling.
Hark! that plaintive mellow moan
Up the hillside, floating nearer,
Past the two white convent towers,
Where the air is cooler, clearer,
Round our calm and pleasant bowers.—
Oh, that night of purple weather!
(Just before the moon had set)
You remember how together
We walk'd home?—the grass was wet—
The long grass in the Poderé—
With the balmy dew among it:
And that nightingale—his airy
Song—how joyously he sung it!
All the fig-trees had grown heavy
With the young figs white and woolly:
And the fireflies, bevy on bevy
Of soft sparkles, pouring fully
Their warm life through trance on trances
Of thick citron-shades behind,
Rose, like swarms of loving fancies
Through some rich and pensive mind.
So we reach'd the Logia. Leaning
Faint, we sat there in the shade.
Neither spake. The night's deep meaning
Fill'd the silence up unsaid.
Hoarsely through the cypress-alley
A civetta out of tune
Tried his voice by fits. The valley
Lay all dark below the moon.
Until into song you burst out—
That old song I made for you
When we found our rose—the first out
Last sweet Spring-time in the dew.
Well! . . . if things had gone less wildly—
Had I settled down before
There, in England—labour'd mildly—
And been patient—and learn'd more
Of how men should live in London—
Been less happy—or more wise—
Left no great works tried and undone—
Never look'd in your soft eyes—
I . . . but what's the use of thinking?
Hark! our nightingale—he sings—
Now a rising note—now sinking
Back in little broken rings
Of warm song, that spread and eddy—
Now he picks up heart—and draws
His great music, slow and steady,
To a silver-centred pause!