Before San Guido

The tall straight cypresses in double row
Troop from San Guido down to Bolgheri;
Like giant striplings at a race they go
Bounding to meet and gaze once more on me.

Straightway they knew me. "Welcome back again,"
Bending their heads to me they whispering say,
Why dost thou not alight ? Why not remain?
The evening's cool, familiar the way,

"Oh, sit thee down beneath our odorous shade,
Where breathes the North-West wind from off the sea.
We bear no malice for thy cannonade
Of stones once hurled, they wrought no injury.

"We carry still the nests of nightingales,
Alas! Wherefore wouldst speed so soon away?
The sparrows round us still when evening pales
Circle in mazy flight. Ah, prithee, stay!"

"Fair cypresses, sweet cypresses so dear,
True friends of better times now far from me,
How gladly would I tarry with you here,"
Gazing I answer: "Ah! how joyfully!

"But oh my cypresses, pray let me go;
This day is not as those, nor is my age.
To-day. . . . However can I make you know?
I'm a celebrity and quite the rage.

"I can read Latin now and even Greek,
I write and write as many volumes show,
In other qualities I am not weak;
No more an urchin, hence no stones I throw,

"Especially at plants." All the long file
Of tree tops with a doubtful murmur swayed
And the declining sun with gentle smile
Between green peaks its rosy hues displayed.

Between the sun and cypresses 'twas clear
A kindly thrill of pity for me ran;
Then 'stead of murmurs, words distinct I hear:
"We know it well, poor friend, thou art a man.

"We know it well ; we from the winds have learned,
The winds that gather up and waft men's sighs,
How in thy bosom feuds eternal 2 burned
For which nor wit nor skill a balm supplies.

"To us and to the oaks thou mayest confide
Thine own heart's grief and all that mortal sadness.
Behold how calm, how blue yon ocean wide,
As therein sinks the sun with smiling gladness.

"How full the sunset sky of birds in flight,
And how the swallows twitter in their glee;
The nightingales will sing the livelong night.
Then prithee stay, those evil phantoms flee.

"Those evil phantoms from some dark recess
Of your hearts battered by incessant thought
Rise, as in graveyards flitting flames distress
The passer-by, from foul miasma wrought.

"Ah, prithee stay! To-morrow at noontide
When 'neath the spreading oak-trees ample shade
The horses gather closely side by side
And all the sultry plain's in silence laid.

"Anthems that ever pass 'twixt heaven and earth
We cypresses will for thee still recite,
And nymphs who in the hollow elms have birth
Will come to fan thee with their veils of white;

"And Pan, who on the solitary height
And o'er the plain at this hour lonely fares,
Shall drown in god-like harmony's delight
The dissonance, O mortal, of thy cares."

And I reply: "Nay, let me go; since me
Beyond the Apennines Titti expects;
Much like a sparrow-nestling is Titti,
But her no feather robe from cold protects.

"She must eat more than cypress berries rough,
Nor do I reap like the Manzonian strain,
A fourfold payment, for insipid stuff.
Good-bye, my cypresses, good-bye, sweet plain."

"Then at the churchyard what wouldst have us say,
Where in her grave thy grandam sleeping lies?"
They fled, and seemed a train in black array
That hasting and lamenting onward hies.

Then from the hill-top down the road between
Those cypresses, that from the churchyard leads,
Methought grandmother Lucy, sad of mien,
To meet me came, tall in her sable weeds.

Sweet mistress Lucy, from whose lips there fell,
Beneath her silvery locks, the Tuscan speech,
Not such as the Romantics fondly tell,
The stentorelli could the learned teach.

Versis accents musical and sad,
That in my heart abide like some old strain
Of Mediaeval song, that in it had
The strength and sweetness of our joy and pain.

Oh grannie, grannie, those were joyous times,
When you to me, a child, that old tale told,
Tell me, grown wise, of her 8 who in strange climes
Her lost love sought 'mid perils manifold.

"Full seven pairs of shoes have I worn out
Of iron made, to find thee once again;
Full seven staves of iron strong and stout
Have I ground down in that long journey's pain!

"Full seven vials with tears I made overflow
Through seven long years of bitter, bitter weeping!
Thou sleep'st, my desp'rate cries unheeded go,
The cock crows loud, but still thou wilt be sleeping."

Ah grandmother, how beautiful, how true
This tale is still. For many, many a year
Have I sought thus, nor ever found the clue,
Though toiling morn and eve ; perchance 'tis here,

Beneath these cypresses, where I to rest
No longer hope, to dwell no longer crave,
Haply 'neath those above is hid my quest,
Beside, dear grandmother, thy lonely grave.

The engine snorting sped upon its way,
While I thus wept within my heart of hearts.
A group of gamesome colts with joyful neigh,
Pleased with the din, run as the train departs.

But a grey ass nibbling a purple thistle
Aloof, maintained his meditative mood,
Nor deigned to glance where shrilled the strident whistle,
But slow and stolid still he chewed and chewed.