Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN TUSCANY: IN FLORENCE, by CORA RANDALL FABBRI


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN TUSCANY: IN FLORENCE, by                    
First Line: O tuscan days, my true, gold-hearted days
Last Line: I see thee now, o little tuscan town!
Subject(s): Florence, Italy; Travel; Journeys; Trips


O TUSCAN days, my true, gold-hearted days,
With thy deep skies and fleecy clouds afloat,
Like the dropped petals of some moon-pale flower;

With thy still sunset, zephyr-stirrèd hour,
Thy evening bird with thrilled melodious throat ...
Gone, gone from me, my golden Tuscan day.

Once wert thou with me in fair Florence, crown
Of all that perfect, flower-filled Italy.
Thy name, O Florence, like a song doth fill

With memories the gray unblossoming still
That girts me round and holds me fast from thee—
From thee, O peaceful, perfect Tuscan town.

Thy lang'rous hush at even-tide just stirred
By some faint convent chime from very far,
Thy murmurous Arno speeding on its way,

And in the East a shadow wan and gray,
Kindled to brightness by a single star,
And somewhere in the West a singing bird.

All mem'ries. And the window whence my eyes
Saw Ponte Vecchio with its old-time mien,
Like some rich gem set deep in thy gold heart;

And faint Fiesole, where pale clouds start,
Dusted with leafy olive-trees, gray-green,
That fade off in the shadow-girted skies.

O Florence, my fair Florence, I would stray
Once more to-day, as in that dear dead time,
Along the streets at golden mid-noon's hour,

Till thy old Duomo and thy slender tower
Rose up before me with its mid-noon chime,
And haply step therein. All twilight gray,

With a faint trail of incense on the air,
And the low murmured hidden monotone
Of priests at holy mass. So, entered in,

How still it seemed after the city's din,
How solemn sweet the organ's vibrant tone.
I did not pray. The silence was a prayer.

Then out again into the rain of gold
Flooding the broad gay piazza everywhere ...
A flutter of white wings, a flock of birds

Let loose, like some sweet tumult of love words,
Floating and sweeping through the sun-cleft air,
To peck the golden grain some hands would hold.

In those Spring days (Spring comes with tend'rer look,
And far more lavish hands to that sweet place,
My little Tuscan town, than to this clime,

Cold England and its fogs) I used to climb
Thy Colli, Florence—climbing, reach the place
Where thy sweet face lies stretched out like a book;

Lies stretched out like a soft smile, caught and kept
From the Past's fast-sealed lips, or like a flower
Yielding its petals up to the blue sky.

And when I strayed back to the city, I
Found all things flooded with the sunset hour
Save Ponte Vecchio, where the shadows crept.

Elsewise at night—the amorous Tuscan night,
When the white moon had climbed the silver stair
The fair stars make for their most lowly Queen—

How sweet from out the casement far to lean,
And feel the fragrance of the dewy air,
And see the whole world bathed in silver light!

Warm Tuscan sun! in that last dreaming lull
'Twixt night and day, along the Western ways
Thy tender light hath set from me fore'er:

Set, with my first lost love, lost dream, lost prayer ...
O Tuscan days! my true, gold-hearted days,
Thy lips are dumb, and mine are sorrowful.

Thy earth beneath my feet is cold and brown,
The skies are netted in a blank, gray shroud,
The mournful rain is dripping from the eaves. ...

Lost—like a flower too deep-sunk in the leaves;
Lost—like a white star hidden by a cloud,
I see thee now, O little Tuscan town!





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