April, 1913
Here in a garden under vines
Translucent in the mid-day sun,
Washing, green shutters, and the lines
Of the Salute, which is fun
And pure baroque to men of taste,
I'm waiting—while the pot-boy chaste
Or chastish since Ignatius Chowne
And J. A. Symonds to this town
Have taught Italian history—waiting,
I say, while he is regulating
A "conto" of 12.50-Change
For 50 lire; it is strange
In "tutto il viale bello"
In which the shops are small but thrifty
There's not a single honest fellow
To furnish 37.50.
I'm waiting still, and still I ponder,
As I have pondered all the morning,
Out on the blue Giudecca yonder,
Under the arches, listless, yawning
Full-mouthed against precocious summer
That's sprung this quick surprise upon us,
And found us out, the sly new-comer,
Tweed-coated, winter-hosed, astonished—
I ponder, knowing all the time
The answer, ponder for the pleasure
Of fitting fancy into rhyme
And matching music with the weather,
What lacks when sea and sky conspire
With form as thin but more romantic
Than that which some of us admire
At Covent Garden,—Transatlantic
Cousins still call it monumental,
But we know better—sentimental
People divine a riddle basking
Under its marble,—never mind them,
Be sure they'll come, their tales behind them,
Safe home to Chelsea. Still I'm asking:
"What's lacking yet?" The Spring's awake,
Each palace curtsies to her neighbour,
Each gondolier's a handsome rake,
Each mouth-organ a dulcet tabor;
What can I want when Venice plays
And Time's a song, and Fate's a dancer,
And Life drifts gaily down her ways,
What's lacking, Madame? Can you answer?
[TO A.V.S. WITH A BOOK]
Books are the quiet monitors of mind,
They prompt its motions, shape its ways, they find
A road through mazes to the higher ground,
Whence to explore the sky-bound marches. Round
About us lie the open downs. Our days
Still ask a guide and goad. Wherefore always
We meditate wise thoughts and passionate lays;
Wherefore I send a book.
Books are the mind's last symbol. They express
Its visions and its subtleties—a dress
Material for the immaterial things
That soar to immortality on wings
Of words, and live, by magic of the pen,
Where dead minds live, upon the lips of men
And deep in hearts that stir. Wherefore do I,
Drawing a little near, prophetically,
Send you a book.
Books are the heart's memorial. They shall measure,
In after days, our undiscovered treasure,—
Thrilling self-knowledge, half-divined untold
Yearnings, and tongueless agonies, shall unfold
Or half unfold to half-illumined eyes.
The cypress shadows creeping gnomonwise
Still stretch their purple fingers down the hill
That hangs above Fiesole; and still
Your English fireside glows. Do you most dear—
Sometimes just guessed at, sometimes very near—
Yet always dear and fairest friend, do you
Recall the sunlight and the firelight too?
Recall the pregnant hours, the gay delights,
The pain, the tears maybe, the ravished heights,
The golden moments my cold lines commend,
The days, in memory or which I send
A book?
Dec. 1909.
[MYSELF TO MYSELF]
It was the thrush's song I heard
To-day, in March. And you who came
At life through books, whom poets stirred
To love of beauty, who the name
Of art revered and fancy knew
From earliest days,—why, how should you
Guess at my feelings when among
The elms I heard the thrush's song?
For you the country means a mood,
Recalls a poem, lays a scene;
For you its beauties are more good
Sometimes than paintings: it has been
Music to calm or move you, still
A background to your thought and will.
Nothing for me the country means:
It is. The thrush's earliest song
In the precocious sunshine cleans
My soul of culture. Comes along
The acrid smell of daffodil,
Hard from the soil still wet and chill.
These do not mean. I am content
To look or listen, passion spent,
Far beyond art and thought, and free
From Vanity and Jealousy,
As free as flower, or bird, or tree,
Not to mean anything, but be.
1901.