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31
NORTH AND SOUTH.
How I remember one day of all
That Tuscan spring-tide's carnival!
How I remember one eve when we
Leaned over the edge of Fiésole,
While all the plain lay in opal mist
Low under the ridges of amethyst,
When the gates of heaven seemed open wide
As the sun went under the mountain's side,
And over the sky in a flood-wave rolled
The tide of the glory of molten gold.
That Tuscan spring-tide's carnival!
How I remember one eve when we
Leaned over the edge of Fiésole,
While all the plain lay in opal mist
Low under the ridges of amethyst,
When the gates of heaven seemed open wide
As the sun went under the mountain's side,
And over the sky in a flood-wave rolled
The tide of the glory of molten gold.
Do you remember the chime that fell
From the tinkling roof of the cloister bell?
Do you remember the tales we told
Of the dwellers there in the days of old,
While the reapers climbed from the slopes below
With scythes that flashed in the after-glow,
With the laughing eyes and the hill-born grace,
And the tale of ages in their face?
From the tinkling roof of the cloister bell?
Do you remember the tales we told
Of the dwellers there in the days of old,
While the reapers climbed from the slopes below
With scythes that flashed in the after-glow,
With the laughing eyes and the hill-born grace,
And the tale of ages in their face?
32
Do you remember how marble-white
The towers lay in the May moonlight,
How the first few fire-flies came and went,
And just to live was a deep content?
How warm and sweet was the evening air,
As if all the garden of spring grew there!
How we seemed to have reached to a joy at last
That was not in the morrow and not in the past,
And only a word might have held it fast!
The towers lay in the May moonlight,
How the first few fire-flies came and went,
And just to live was a deep content?
How warm and sweet was the evening air,
As if all the garden of spring grew there!
How we seemed to have reached to a joy at last
That was not in the morrow and not in the past,
And only a word might have held it fast!
We were hardly lovers, yet more than friends,
If one begins where the other ends:
And was it the dream, the time, the place,
Or was it the magic of your sweet face?
For I can remember your least word said,—
When the blood is young and the lips are red,
Oh why should the dead not bury their dead!
If one begins where the other ends:
And was it the dream, the time, the place,
Or was it the magic of your sweet face?
For I can remember your least word said,—
When the blood is young and the lips are red,
Oh why should the dead not bury their dead!
Here, leagues away, are the plains that roll
To the Baltic shore and the silent Pole;
Dark belts of forest shut in the day
Low under the dome of the autumn grey,
With a gleam of red on the rifting lines
Over the edge where day declines:
The leaves decay and the chestnuts fall,
The chill Norse shadow is over all!
To the Baltic shore and the silent Pole;
Dark belts of forest shut in the day
Low under the dome of the autumn grey,
With a gleam of red on the rifting lines
Over the edge where day declines:
33
The chill Norse shadow is over all!
And yet, and yet, were you only here,
I might not fret for the waning year,
Nor hunger so for the valley wide,
For the starry blue and the steep hill-side,
And the tower of Arno dim-descried.
I might not fret for the waning year,
Nor hunger so for the valley wide,
For the starry blue and the steep hill-side,
And the tower of Arno dim-descried.
Pomerania, '87.
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