Enough if far-off sounds of children’s glee Bid me to “take and read” God’s open call, Or some sad Monnica pray here to see Her son, like thee, a second Paul.
HARD by the home of Dante’s infant life I saw a Yankee “Kake Walk” advertised; Within San Miniato’s pillared aisle A Japanese was peering unsurprised; Where Michelangelo set “Dawn” and “Night,” And her, most blest, whose softly sculptured smile Glows with a maiden’s and a mother’s light, A German Jew was nagging with his wife.
THE Church divided and the Empire fell, Grave Dante, but thy verse in magic grows And charms men upward to the snow-white Rose Of heaven from the mire and grief of hell.
No lonely isle of dull forgetfulness Hides Beatrice within its shadowed gloom, For ’mid the petals of thy Rose’s bloom Time’s hand has set that pearl of loveliness.
Though patched and powdered poets could not taste Thy limpid sweetness, and exposed thy fame To meet the leering Frenchman’s cynic air,
Thy love was fair without brocade or paste, Thyself too great to need a gilded name; Thy Comedy and God survive Voltaire.
YES, Petrarch, we most certainly believe That you who wore your heart upon your sleeve, Did love your love for Laura, and the eye Of public fame, at which your sonnets fly, Like skyward larks that court the genial sun; And o’er the tears you treasured one by one You downward bent with all a statue’s grace To see reflections of your tearful face. But none redeemed by love will e’er consent To say you tasted of love’s sacrament.
NICE, though your lips of coral Now are dust; And the schoolboy scans the moral Graven on your broken bust
In the gilt barocco chapel After Mass; Where ten coats with broidered lappel Bent when Nice used to pass.
Still perchance your spirit hovers Where the lute And the voices of your lovers Chimed, but now are gone and mute.
Where the lonely arbour’s hollow Shadier grows, And the butterflies can follow Fearlessly to kiss the rose.
And you smile because a poet À la mode Flouted you; and then, we know it, Wrote an abject palinode.
For your hands, though light as feathers, Held him tight: Love was made to last all weathers, Not to change with day and night.
THE “middle path” meets every need, The Stagirite and Buddha say; I won’t doubt more than half the creed Nor wear a costume wholly lay.