XX
IN AMPEZZO
In days of summer let me go
Up over fields, at afternoon,
And, lying low against my stone
On slopes the scythe has pain to mow,
Look southward a long hour alone.
For evening there is lovelier
Than vision or enchanted tale:
When wefts of yellow vapour pale,
And green goes down to lavender
On rosy cliffs, shutting the vale
Whose smoke of violet forest seeks
The steep and rock, where crimson crawls,
And drenched with carmine fire their walls
Go thinly smouldering to the peaks,
High, while the sun now somewhere falls;
Except a cloud-caught ochre spark
In one last summit,—and away
On lazy wings of mauve and gray,
Away and near, like memory, dark
Is bluish with the filmy day,
What time the swallows flying few
Over uncoloured fields become
Small music thro' the shining dome;
And sleepy leaves are feeling dew
Above the crickets' under-hum,
In bye-tone to a savage sound
Of waters that with discord smite
The frigid wind and lurking light,
And swarm behind the gloom, and
Down sleepy valleys to the night:
And thoughts delicious of the whole,
Gathering over all degrees,
Yet sad for something more than these
Across low meadow-lands of soul
Grow large, like north-lights no one
I care not if the painter wrought
The tinted dream his spirit hid,
When rich with sight he saw, amid
A jarring world, one tone, and caught
The colour passing to his lid.
Be still, musician and thy choir!
Where trumpets blare and the bow stings
In symphony a thousand strings
To cry of wood-wind and desire
Of one impassioned voice that sings.
Nay, silence have the poet's mode
And southern vowels all! let die,
So ghostly-vague, the northern cry!—
This world is better than an ode
And evening more than elegy.—
Yet what shall singing do for me?
How shall a verse be crimsoned o'er?
I ever dream one art the more;
I who did never paint would see
The colour painters languish for,
And wisely use the instruments
That earlier harmony affords;
I dream a poesy of chords
Embroidered very rich in tints:
'T is not enough, this work of words.
A wilder thing inflames our hearts.
We do refuse to sift and share.
For we would musically bear
The burden of the gathered arts
Together which divided were,
And, passing Knowledge, highly rear
Upon her iron architrave
These airy images we rave,—
Lest wholly vain and fallen sheer
Our vision dress us for the grave.
[1898]
