Forget me for a month, a year,
But, oh, beloved, think of me
When unexpected beauty burns
Like sudden sunlight on the sea.
III
Naples
Nisida and Prosida are laughing in the light,
Capri is a dewy flower lifting into sight,
Posilipo kneels and looks in the burnished sea,
Naples crowds her million roofs close as close can be;
Round about the mountain's crest a flag of smoke is hung--
Oh when God made Italy he was gay and young!
IV
Capri
When beauty grows too great to bear
How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
Makes the heart break.
Now while I watch the dreaming sea
With isles like flowers against her breast,
Only one voice in all the world
Could give me rest.
V
Night Song at Amalfi
I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love--
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.
I asked the darkened sea
Down where the fishers go--
It answered me with silence,
Silence below.
Oh, I could give him weeping,
Or I could give him song--
But how can I give silence
My whole life long?
VI
Ruins of Paestum
On lowlands where the temples lie
The marsh-grass mingles with the flowers,
Only the little songs of birds
Link the unbroken hours.
So in the end, above my heart
Once like the city wild and gay,
The slow white stars will pass by night,
The swift brown birds by day.
VII
Rome
Oh for the rising moon
Over the roofs of Rome,
And swallows in the dusk
Circling a darkened dome!
Oh for the measured dawns
That pass with folded wings--
How can I let them go
With unremembered things?
VIII
Florence
The bells ring over the Anno,
Midnight, the long, long chime;
Here in the quivering darkness
I am afraid of time.
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