I

IN A ITALIAN HILL TOWN

I MISSED the uses of my mother tongue;
Afire with Beauty, yet I scarce could speak
A few, poor stammering words, hard-wrung
From lips inapt. So, through a silent week
Of dreamful isolation wandered I,
The dumbest thing between the sod and sky.

But heaven sent me token, after while:
A wee bambino waved a chubby hand
At me, the stranger, in the open street;
Smiling, it waved; I found it very sweet,
This wordless converse; both could understand
The universal language of a smile!

II

THE CLOISTER GARDEN AT CERTOSA

I T is a place monastic, set above
The city's pride and pleasuring below;
The benediction of the sky breathes love
Over the olive trees and vines a-row.

The old gray walls are dedicate to prayer
And silence; in the corridors dim-lit
Lurks many a painting, many a fresco rare
Done by some brother for the joy of it.

Pale lavender and red pomegranate trees,
Roses and poppies spilling garden sweets;
And tall lush grass and grain, and, circling these,
The cool of cloistral walks and shadowed seats.

By a sun-dial in the center, rests
One brown-robed Father; and his lips recite
Some holy word; little he heeds the jests
Of those who make the world their chief delight.

While Florence, far below, from dreamy towers
Throws back the sun and tolls the tranquil hours.

III

OLD STORY-TELLING

Heedless gay folk, lying at ease amid
The fruits and flowers, far above the town
Whose evil case from them was duly hid
By olive gardens stretching down and down;
There, in the scented evenings long ago,
They laughed and listened in the afterglow,
To tales eternized by Boccaccio.

IV

FRA ANGELICO

T HEY called him angels brother, for his smile
Was amiable like angels, and he loved
To paint them ever on the convent walls;
Even in his very cell he made them sing
And praise and weep Lord Jesus and the Maid,
While all his fellow monks looked raptly on.
No wage he took for work, and ne'er began
To paint an angel till he breathed a prayer;
And by that prayer and from that dreaming hand
Came pictures tremulous with worshiping,
Till all beholding them are fain to say:
" Angelico, the artist, loved what things
Are high and holy, and his tender soul
Shines through his colors and his saintly forms,
And shows to men a half-forgotten heaven. "

The flower-like name of Florence sounds twice fair
Because he worked within her walls of fame;
And on the heights of far Fiesole
Floats like a Presence his so pure renown.


V

LIKE PAESTUM'S TEMPLE

M OMENTS there are that loom up from the past
Tarnished yet beautiful; we deemed them dead,
Their old-time witchery for ever fled;
Not so; for of a sudden, all unasked,
Lo, they return to rule our souls at last;
So fresh, so fair, they almost seem to shed
A lovelier light than in the years long sped,
Weaving a wonder that is unsurpassed:

Proud vistaed arches, gleams of broken stone,
Columns superb, blithe statues buried deep
Until exhumed from immemorial sleep
To be beloved as our household own:
Like Paestum's temple, tranced beside the sea,
Radiant with dreams and ancient ecstasy.