| I | |
| I wonder do you feel to-day | |
| As I have felt since, hand in hand, | |
| We sat down on the grass, to stray | |
| In spirit better through the land, | |
| This morn of Rome and May? | 5 |
| |
| II | |
| For me, I touched a thought, I know, | |
| Has tantalized me many times, | |
| (Like turns of thread the spiders throw | |
| Mocking across our path) for rhymes | |
| To catch at and let go. | 10 |
| |
| III | |
| Help me to hold it! First it left | |
| The yellowing fennel, run to seed | |
| There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, | |
| Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed | |
| Took up the floating weft, | 15 |
| |
| IV | |
| Where one small orange cup amassed | |
| Five beetles,--blind and green they grope | |
| Among the honey-meal: and last, | |
| Everywhere on the grassy slope | |
| I traced it. Hold it fast! | 20 |
| |
| V | |
| The champaign with its endless fleece | |
| Of feathery grasses everywhere! | |
| Silence and passion, joy and peace, | |
| An everlasting wash of air-- | |
| Rome's ghost since her decease. | 25 |
| |
| VI | |
| Such life here, through such lengths of hours, | |
| Such miracles performed in play, | |
| Such primal naked forms of flowers, | |
| Such letting nature have her way | |
| While heaven looks from its towers! | 30 |
| |
| VII | |
| How say you? Let us, O my dove, | |
| Let us be unashamed of soul, | |
| As earth lies bare to heaven above! | |
| How is it under our control | |
| To love or not to love? | 35 |
| |
| VIII | |
| I would that you were all to me, | |
| You that are just so much, no more. | |
| Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! | |
| Where does the fault lie? What the core | |
| O' the wound, since wound must be? | 40 |
| |
| IX | |
| I would I could adopt your will, | |
| See with your eyes, and set my heart | |
| Beating by yours, and drink my fill | |
| At your soul's springs,--your part my part | |
| In life, for good and ill. | 45 |
| |
| X | |
| No. I yearn upward, touch you close, | |
| Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, | |
| Catch your soul's warmth,--I pluck the rose | |
| And love it more than tongue can speak-- | |
| Then the good minute goes. | 50 |
| |
| XI | |
| Already how am I so far | |
| Out of that minute? Must I go | |
| Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, | |
| Onward, whenever light winds blow, | |
| Fixed by no friendly star? | 55 |
| |
| XII | |
| Just when I seemed about to learn! | |
| Where is the thread now? Off again! | |
| The old trick! Only I discern-- | |
| Infinite passion, and the pain | |
| Of finite hearts that yearn. | 60 |