Here in a garden under vines
Translucent in the mid-day sun,
Washing, green shutters, and the lines
Of the _Salute_, which is fun
And pure baroque to men of taste,
I'm waiting--while the pot-boy chaste
Or chastish since Ignatius Chowne
And J. A. Symonds to this town
Have taught Italian history--waiting,
I say, while he is regulating
A "_conto_" of 12.50-Change
For 50 lire; it is strange
In "_tutto il viale bello_"
In which the shops are small but thrifty
There's not a single honest fellow
To furnish 37.50.
I'm waiting still, and still I ponder,
As I have pondered all the morning,
Out on the blue _Giudecca_ yonder,
Under the arches, listless, yawning
Full-mouthed against precocious summer
That's sprung this quick surprise upon us,
And found us out, the sly new-comer,
Tweed-coated, winter-hosed, astonished--
I ponder, knowing all the time
The answer, ponder for the pleasure
Of fitting fancy into rhyme
And matching music with the weather,
What lacks when sea and sky conspire
With form as thin but more romantic
Than that which some of us admire
At Covent Garden,--Transatlantic
Cousins still call it monumental,
But we know better--sentimental
People divine a riddle basking
Under its marble,--never mind them,
Be sure they'll come, their tales behind them,
Safe home to Chelsea. Still I'm asking:
"What's lacking yet?" The Spring's awake,
Each palace curtsies to her neighbour,
Each gondolier's a handsome rake,
Each mouth-organ a dulcet tabor;
What can I want when Venice plays
And Time's a song, and Fate's a dancer,
And Life drifts gaily down her ways,
What's lacking, Madame? Can you answer?
_TO_ A.V.S. WITH A BOOK
Books are the quiet monitors of mind,
They prompt its motions, shape its ways, they find
A road through mazes to the higher ground,
Whence to explore the sky-bound marches. Round
About us lie the open downs. Our days
Still ask a guide and goad. Wherefore always
We meditate wise thoughts and passionate lays;
Wherefore I send a book.
Books are the mind's last symbol. They express
Its visions and its subtleties--a dress
Material for the immaterial things
That soar to immortality on wings
Of words, and live, by magic of the pen,
Where dead minds live, upon the lips of men
And deep in hearts that stir. Wherefore do I,
Drawing a little near, prophetically,
Send you a book.
Books are the heart's memorial. They shall
measure,
In after days, our undiscovered treasure,--
Thrilling self-knowledge, half-divined untold
Yearnings, and tongueless agonies, shall unfold
Or half unfold to half-illumined eyes.
The cypress shadows creeping gnomonwise
Still stretch their purple fingers down the hill
That hangs above Fiesole; and still
Your English fireside glows. Do you most dear--
Sometimes just guessed at, sometimes very near--
Yet always dear and fairest friend, do you
Recall the sunlight and the firelight too?
Recall the pregnant hours, the gay delights,
The pain, the tears maybe, the ravished heights,
The golden moments my cold lines commend,
The days, in memory or which I send
A book?
Dec. 1909.