 | Graffiti d'Italia |  |
279
THE LILAC.
The lilac-bush is in blossom,
It hath the balmy smell
Of that dear delicious summer,
Of love's first miracle.
I feel, as I breathe its fragrance,
The old enchanting pain,
The sweet insatiate longing,
Thrill through my heart and brain.
It hath the balmy smell
Of that dear delicious summer,
Of love's first miracle.
I feel, as I breathe its fragrance,
The old enchanting pain,
The sweet insatiate longing,
Thrill through my heart and brain.
Oh youth! youth! youth! where are you?
I call, but you come no more!
I weep, but afar you mock me!
And you laugh when I implore!
Yet you hide within the lilac,
With an odour you shoot me through,
And a whiff of the old you fling me
That is better than all the new.
I call, but you come no more!
I weep, but afar you mock me!
And you laugh when I implore!
280
With an odour you shoot me through,
And a whiff of the old you fling me
That is better than all the new.
How proudly we struggled to leave you,
When you implored us to stay!
How bitterly grieve to regain you
When once you have fled away.
Too late, too late, we love you,
And long for your laugh of surprise,
And we only truly can see you
With manhood's tears in our eyes.
When you implored us to stay!
How bitterly grieve to regain you
When once you have fled away.
Too late, too late, we love you,
And long for your laugh of surprise,
And we only truly can see you
With manhood's tears in our eyes.
You flung your arms around me
And pelted me with flowers;
You clung to me as we wandered
Among those lilac bowers.
You kissed me, half laughing, half crying,
Beseeching me to remain,
But impatient I shook you from me—
And you never will come again.
And pelted me with flowers;
You clung to me as we wandered
Among those lilac bowers.
You kissed me, half laughing, half crying,
Beseeching me to remain,
But impatient I shook you from me—
And you never will come again.
281
Your lilacs are ever blooming
In happy gardens of play,
But they love you not who have you,
And fain would they flee away.
They long for the fields of freedom
Where the fruit of ambition grows,
And for manhood's heights, that are lifted
Against a sky of rose.
In happy gardens of play,
But they love you not who have you,
And fain would they flee away.
They long for the fields of freedom
Where the fruit of ambition grows,
And for manhood's heights, that are lifted
Against a sky of rose.
| Graffiti d'Italia | |