From creek to cove of the curving shore,
Buffeted, blown, and broken before me,
Scattered and spread to its sunlit core:
As a dove that dips in the dark of maples
To sip the sweetness of shelter and shade,
I kneel in thy nimbus, O noon of Naples,
I bathe in thine beauty, by thee embayed.
What is it ails me that I should sing of her?
The queen of the flashes and flames that were!
Yea, I have felt the shuddering sting of her,