XLIX
“Chiunque venne qui, portò con sè il suo mistero amoroso.”
Matilde Serao
This vision of my childhood comes to me:
A little river by my northern home,
A mountain river, noisy, white with foam,
Brave-hearted, full of laughter, song and glee,
Myself like to in those old days care-free,
It longed for other scenes and left the home;
I met it far away, now silent grown
Mid meadows; sad, with nearness of the sea.
O little mountain river! I’m like you,
Hushed, silenced, by the wonder of life, too,
Struck fear-dumb by the nearness of a sea
Which, as for you the ocean, waits for me;
Were it not there with cruel, baleful glow
I’d not have lived life thus—O no, no, no!