Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams :: :: University of Virginia Library

Again, perhaps and only once again,
I turn my steps to London. Few the scenes
And few the friends that there delighted me
Will now delight me: some indeed remain,
Tho' changed in features . . friend and scene . . both changed!
I shall not watch my lilac burst her bud
In that wide garden, that pure fount of air,
Where, risen ere the morns are warm and bright,
And stepping forth in very scant attire,
Timidly, as became her in such garb,

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She hasten'd prompt to call up slumbering Spring.
White and dim-purple breathed my favourite pair
Under thy terrace, hospitable heart,
Whom twenty summers more and more endear'd;
Part on the Arno, part where every clime
Sent its most graceful sons to kiss thy hand,
To make the humble proud, the proud submiss,
Wiser the wisest, and the brave more brave.
Never, ah never now, shall we alight
Where the man-queen was born, or, higher up
The nobler region of a nobler soul,
Where breathed his last the more than kingly man.

Thou sleepest, not forgotten, nor unmourn'd,
Beneath the chesnut shade by Saint Germain;
Meanwhile I wait the hour of my repose,
Not under Italy's serener sky,
Where Fiesole beheld me from above
Devising how my head most pleasantly
Might rest ere long, and how with such intent
I smooth'd a platform for my villagers,
(Tho' stood against me stubborn stony knoll
With cross-grain'd olives long confederate)
And brought together slender cypresses
And bridal myrtles, peering up between,
And bade the modest violet bear her part.

Dance, youths and maidens! tho' around my grave
Ye dance not, as I wisht: bloom, myrtles! bend
Protecting arms about them, cypresses!
I must not come among you; fare ye well!