FRANCES ISABEL PARNELL.
* * * * *
CANADA NOT LAST.
AT VENICE.
Lo Venice, gay with color, lights and song,
Calls from St. Mark's with ancient voice and strange:
I am the Witch of Cities! glide along
My silver streets that never wear by change
Of years: forget the years, and pain, and wrong,
And ever sorrow reigning men among.
Know I can soothe thee, please and marry thee
To my illusions. Old and siren strong,
I smile immortal, while the mortals flee
Who whiten on to death in wooing me.
AT FLORENCE.
Say, what more fair by Arno's bridgèd gleam
Than Florence, viewed from San Miniato's slope
At eventide, when west along the stream
The last of day reflects a silver hope!—
Lo, all else softened in the twilight beam:—
The city's mass blent in one hazy cream,
The brown Dome 'midst it, and the Lily tower,
And stern Old Tower more near, and hills that seem
Afar, like clouds to fade, and hills of power
On this side greenly dark with cypress, vine and bower.
AT ROME.
End of desire to stray I feel would come
Though Italy were all fair skies to me,
Though France's fields went mad with flowery foam
And Blanc put on a special majesty,
Not all could match the growing thought of home
Nor tempt to exile. Look I not on Rome—
This ancient, modern, mediæval queen—
Yet still sigh westward over hill and dome,
Imperial ruin and villa's princely scene
Lovely with pictured saints and marble gods serene.