Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NAPLES, 1590, by HELEN YETTA WALKER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NAPLES, 1590, by                    
First Line: The same old scene of the same old play
Last Line: Over her silken knees.
Subject(s): Love; Man-woman Relationships; Naples, Italy; Romance; Youth; Male-female Relations


THE same old scene of the same old play:
An arbor seat, with sculptured naiads and a faun;
Flapping vine-leaves; level lawns, trimmed hedges,
And the scent of opening buds;
And golden sunlight of the waning afternoon.

Two sitting alone in the garden-seat;
Alone, but for the great soft breeze that, like a mother,
Folded caresses about them,
And made them each to each like children at a mother's knee:
Fearless, and yet afraid.
There was a movement that stirred not, among the growing things.
He looked about; a calm, searching glance
That penetrated all, yet worshipped all.
The calmness of eternity.
She threw back a sun-crowned head,
Laughed softly, knowing not why,
Stretching out jewelled fingers to catch the joyous breeze.
"Oh, the wind!" she said, and sighed.

Ribbons of sunlight fluttered through
The lattice-work of twinkling leaves
And, dancing with the leaves, her eyes caught up the sunbeams from the west.

They spoke but of such things as all might speak of,
You or I, with silences, and frank replies;
Of Ponci's voice last night,
The new head in oil by Cosimo Bello,
And Bernardino's jest before the masque.
It was all as any other day, she thought,
Save that breathless, crystalline dreams floated, hovering,
In the sunlight.
Her eyes wandered from the golden lawns
To his face and his eyes fixed on her;
His black beard and hair, matched only by his velvets,—
Save for the thread of silver at his temple;
His eye blue and fearless as her own.
His gaze had followed the half-seen roundness of her arm,
The smooth curve of her neck,
And had rested in the wonderland of her sun-set-tinted hair.
"There was a day," he thought, "when Italy and I were young."
She knew, and clasped blue-veined hands
Over her silken knees.





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