A Night in Italy

Sweet are the rosy memories of the lipsThat first kiss’d ours, albeit they kiss no more:Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships,Altho’ they leave us on a lonely shore:Sweet are familiar songs, tho’ Music dipsHer hollow shell in Thought’s forlornest wells:And sweet, tho’ sad, the sound of midnight bellsWhen the oped casement with the night-rain drips.

There is a pleasure which is born of pain:The grave of all things hath its violet.Else why, thro’ days which never come again,Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret?Why put the posy in the cold dead hand?Why plant the rose above the lonely grave?Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave?Why deem the dead more near in native land?

Thy name hath been a silence in my lifeSo long, it falters upon language now,O more to me than sister or than wife,Once ... and now--nothing! It is hard to knowThat such things have been, and are not; and yetLife loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure,And goes upon its business and its pleasure,And knows not all the depths of its regret....

Ah, could the memory cast her spots, as doThe snake’s brood theirs in spring! and be once moreWholly renew’d, to dwell i’ the time that’s new,With no reiterance of those pangs of yore.Peace, peace! My wild song will go wanderingToo wantonly, down paths a private painHath trodden bare. What was it jarr’d the strain?Some crush’d illusion, left with crumpled wing

Tangled in Music’s web of twinèd strings--That started that false note, and crack’d the tuneIn its beginning. Ah, forgotten thingsStumble back strangely! and the ghost of JuneStands by December’s fire, cold, cold! and putsThe last spark out.--How could I sing arightWith those old airs haunting me all the nightAnd those old steps that sound when daylight shuts?

For back she comes, and moves reproachfully,The mistress of my moods, and looks bereft(Cruel to the last!) as tho’ ’twere I, not she,That did the wrong, and broke the spell, and leftMemory comfortless.--Away! away!Phantoms, about whose brows the bindweed clings,Hopeless regret! In thinking of these thingsSome men have lost their minds, and others may.

Yet, O for one deep draught in this dull hour!One deep, deep draught of the departed time!O for one brief strong pulse of ancient power,To beat and breathe thro’ all the valves of rhyme!Thou, Memory, with thy downward eyes, that artThe cup-bearer of gods, pour deep and long,Brim all the vacant chalices of songWith health! Droop down thine urn. I hold my heartOne draught of what I shall not taste againSave when my brain with thy dark wine is brimm’d,--One draught! and then straight onward, spite of pain,And spite of all things changed, with gaze undimm’d,Love’s footsteps thro’ the waning Past to exploreUndaunted; and to carve in the wan lightOf Hope’s last outposts, on Song’s utmost height,The sad resemblance of an hour or more.

Midnight, and love, and youth, and Italy!Love in the land where love most lovely seems!Land of my love, tho’ I be far from thee,Lend, for love’s sake, the light of thy moonbeams,The spirit of thy cypress-groves and allThy dark-eyed beauty for a little whileTo my desire. Yet once more let her smileFall o’er me: o’er me let her long hair fall....

Under the blessèd darkness unreprovedWe were alone, in that best hour of timeWhich first reveal’d to us how much we loved,’Neath the thick starlight. The young night sublimeHung trembling o’er us. At her feet I knelt,And gazed up from her feet into her eyes.Her face was bow’d: we breathed each other’s sighs:We did not speak: not move: we look’d: we felt.

The night said not a word. The breeze was dead.The leaf lay without whispering on the tree,As I lay at her feet. Droop’d was her head:One hand in mine: and one still pensivelyWent wandering through my hair. We were together.How? Where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream,Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream:Whither? Together: then what matter whither?

It was enough for me to clasp her hand:To blend with her love-looks my own: no more.Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land,Blown by faint winds about a magic shore)To realize, in each mysterious feeling,The droop of the warm cheek so near my own:The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown:Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling.

How little know they life’s divinest bliss,That know not to possess and yet refrain!Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss:Grasp it--a few poor grains of dust remain.See how those floating flowers, the butterflies,Hover the garden thro’, and take no root!Desire for ever hath a flying foot:Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies.

Close not thy hand upon the innocent joyThat trusts itself within thy reach. It may,Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroyThe wingèd wanderer. Let it go or stay.Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold.Blessèd are those that spare, and that withhold;Because the whole world shall be trusted them.

The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling NymphThat culls her flowers beside the precipiceOr dips her shining ankles in the lymph:But, just when she must perish or be his,Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. The shoreGains some new fountain; or the lilied lawnA rarer sort of rose: but ah, poor Faun!To thee she shall be changed for evermore.

Chase not too close the fading rapture. LeaveTo Love his long auroras, slowly seen.Be ready to release as to receive.Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, betweenWhose lips yet lingers reverence on a sigh.Judge what thy sense can reach not, most thine own,If once thy soul hath seized it. The unknownIs life to love, religion, poetry.

The moon had set. There was not any light,Save of the lonely legion’d watch-stars paleIn outer air, and what by fits made brightHot oleanders in a rosy valeSearched by the lamping fly, whose little sparkWent in and out, like passion’s bashful hope.Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to slopeA ponderous shoulder sunward thro’ the dark.

And the night pass’d in beauty like a dream.Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny,With her last star descending in the gleamOf the cold morrow, from the emptied sky.The hour, the distance from her old self, allThe novelty and loneness of the placeHad left a lovely awe on that fair face,And all the land grew strange and magical.

As droops some billowy cloud to the crouch’d hill,Heavy with all heaven’s tears, for all earth’s care,She droop’d unto me, without force or will,And sank upon my bosom, murmuring thereA woman’s inarticulate passionate words.O moment of all moments upon earth!O life’s supreme! How worth, how wildly worth,Whole worlds of flame, to know this world affords.

What even Eternity can not restore!When all the ends of life take hands and meetRound centres of sweet fire. Ah, never more,Ah never, shall the bitter with the sweetBe mingled so in the pale after-years!One hour of life immortal spirits possess.This drains the world, and leaves but weariness,And parching passion, and perplexing tears.

Sad is it, that we cannot even keepThat hour to sweeten life’s last toil: but YouthGrasps all, and leaves us: and when we would weep,We dare not let our tears fall, lest, in truth,They fall upon our work which must be done.And so we bind up our torn hearts from breaking:Our eyes from weeping, and our brows from aching:And follow the long pathway all alone.