The violet crown by Sir Rennell Rodd :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where the steep Volscian ridge leans down
To the low Pontine shore
We found a little silent town
In which men dwell no more.
Mid-spring had strewn with lavish hands
That wilderness with flowers,
Where mirrored in her mere she stands
A wreck of broken towers,
A fortress of the border feud
In long-forgotten years,
That consecrates to solitude
Her triumphs and her tears.

Dark ivy shrouds her girdling walls
A hundred summers deep,
And stillness like a spell enthralls
Her everlasting sleep;
A sleep no jarring voices break,—

The faint sob from her stream,
The sway of rush-beds in the lake
Accord with her long dream.
The marsh bird comes to hide her nest
Here in a safe retreat;
The silver nettles have possessed
Wide square and trackless street;
The arches of her palace courts
Are tapestried with vine;
Tall thistles close her battle-ports
And bar the unroofed shrine,
Where frescoed choir and moss-green nave
Are choked with bramble-rose,
And through the creviced apse a wave
Of honeysuckle flows;
Where wild valerien's crimson fires
Light altars long grown dim,
And jasmine's heavy scent inspires
The insect's drowsy hymn.

Beyond, toward the waning day,
The fens stretch rank and wide,
In all their reckless pomp of May,
To the blue Tuscan tide.

The poppied fields are one red flare,
And banks of golden broom
Make all the languid lowland air
Oppressive with perfume.

What bandit clan of lawless days,
What brood of outcast men,
Dwelt here to watch the southward ways
That cross the ill-famed fen!
What hands for good or evil wrought!
What fervent hearts grew cold!
What thinkers here untimely thought
In that grim world of old?
What stricken captives fronted fate?
What penitents cried woe?
How did they fare in love and hate
Who died here long ago?
Alike on belfry tower and keep
Impartial ivy waves,
And wheresoe'er her dead folk sleep
The poppies hide their graves.

Lo while we dream the skies turn gold,
The evening draws to end,

Dark over Ninfa's ruined hold
The purple shadows blend;
And gabled fane and fortress tower,
And lake and winding stream
Grow conscious of the passing hour,
And catch the transient gleam.
The rose flush fades from Norba's height
And Circe's cape afar;
Now Cori shows a single light
Beneath a single star.
Now myriad swarms of flitting fires
Light up the path we climb
Between dark banks of scented briars
With feet that bruise the thyme;
The heart's quick pulse is almost pain
In this tense mood of May;
And as we leave the shadowy plain
And make the mountain way,
We turn and see, where swift night falls,
The marsh-land's misty breath
Refold the shroud round those grey walls
Long dedicate to death.