Poems, 1914-1919

And the hot village feels the drowsy spell.

Sleep, child, the Angel of Death his wings has spread;
His engines scour the land, the sea, the sky;
And all the weapons of Hell’s armoury
Are ready for the blood that is their bread;
And many a thousand men to-night must die,
So many that they will not count the Dead.

POEMS WRITTEN

BEFORE THE WAR

VITA NUOVA

I watched you in the distance tall and pale,
Like a swift swallow in a pearly sky;
Your eyelids drooped like petals wearily,
Your face was like a lily of the vale.
You had the softness of all Summer days,
The silver radiance of the twilight hour,
The mystery of bluebell-haunted ways,
The passion of the white syringa’s flower.

I watched you, and I knew that I had found
The long-delaying, long-expected Spring;
I knew my heart had found a tune to sing;
That strength to soar was in my spirit’s wing;
That life was full of a triumphant sound,
That death could only be a little thing.

Ω Κάλα, ὧ χαρίεσσα

I saw you by the Summer candlelight: —
You put to shame the sparkle of the gems,
The lights, the flashing of the diadems,
The moon and all the stars of Summer night.
I saw you in the radiant morning hour: —
You put to shame the white rose and the red;
Your chiselled lips, your little lovely head,
Were fairer than the petals of a flower.

And on the shaven surface of the lawn,
You moved like music, and you smiled like dawn, —
The leaves, the flowers, the dragon-flies, the dew,
Beside you seemed the stuff of coarser clay;
And all the glory of the Summer day
A background for the wonder that was you.

ITALY

The almond trees of Tuscany in flower,
Narcissus and the tulip growing wild;
White oxen; and like a lily undefiled,
Beyond the misty plain, the marble tower;
The roses and the corn upon the hill,
The Judas-tree against the solid blue;
The fire-flies, and the downy owl’s too-whoo,
Thy Aziola, Shelley, plaintive still.

The lisp of Baiæ’s phosphorescent foam;
And Venice like a bubble made of dew,
A shell transfigured with the rainbow’s hue;
The Appian Way beneath a sullen sky,
(The shepherd’s pipe is like a seagull’s cry)
And in a silver rift, eternal Rome.

SEVILLE

The orange blossoms in the Alcazar,
Where roses and syringas are in flower;
The blinding glory of the morning hour;
The eyes that gleam behind a twisted bar;
The women on the balconies, – a smile;
The barrel-organs, and the blazing heat;
The awning hanging high across the street;
A dark mantilla in a sombre aisle.

A fountain tinkling in a shady court;
The gold arena of the bull-ring’s feast;
The coloured crowd acclaiming perilous sport;
The sudden silence when they hold their breath,
While the torero gently plays with death,
And flicks the horns of the tremendous beast.

GREECE

The Spring had scattered poppies on the land,
The Spring was saying her secret to the breeze;
In the translucent shallows of green seas,
A fisherman, a trident in his hand,
Was casting shining fishes to the sand,
And wading in the water to his knees;
And still I hear the crickets and the bees,
The hidden hoofs, the ringing saraband.

I see the temples above the breaking foam,
The pillars pink as dawn in the silver dust;
The Parthenon at sunset large and dim,
Smouldering against the purple mountain’s crust;