Classic Poem

9

Not against thee shall my Muse vent her spleen,
O Land, to which my love
Ne'er paid its debt, which I have only seen
Through tearful dreams, where move

Ghosts of my childhood. Oh, on the mountain-side
By the Etruscan sea,
Farewell, Versilia mine, Ligurian pride
Of Counts of Lombardy!

If from thy women my Tuscan accent got
Its strength with sweetness blent,
Thy marbles, Serravezza, I ask not
To build my monument.

Lest in the past my name forgotten sink,
Far from my cradle I 've sought
For other marbles, while I write and think —
Marbles which cost me naught.

Other the glories. O like diamond white
Amid the Ægean blue,
Paros, from whose Marpesian side the bright
Pure Gods of Hellas grew,

Thou, who 'twixt Naxos, where Ariadne slept
Upon a breast divine,
And wandering Delos, whence Apollo leapt,
The Grecian's god and mine,

Sawest Archilochus uncurb his pent
Iambics 'neath thy skies,
And heardest, 'mid the halcyon's lament,
Evenus' elegies.

To me th' Archilochus of Italy
Who play Evenus' part,
But better, give so much stone as may be
Tomb for my weary heart.

This heart, which ne'er asked love, but only cares
After ideals to strain,
And which, hard stricken in the fray, prepares
To die: lo, I would fain

Now bury it: sweet may the labour be
Which to that work belongs!
O Paros, Greece, ancient serene, give me
Thy marbles and thy songs.