At Florence
Say, what more fair, by Arno’s bridged gleam,[A]
  Than Florence, viewed from San Miniato’s slope
At eventide, when west along the stream,
  The last of day reflects a silver hope!—­
Lo, all else softened in the twilight beam:—­
The city’s mass blent in one hazy cream,
  The brown Dome midst it, and the Lily tower,
And stern Old Tower more near, and hills that seem
  Afar, like clouds to fade, and hills of power,
  On this side, greenly dark with cypress, vine and bower.

At Rome
End of desire to stray I feel would come
  Though Italy were all fair skies to me,
Though France’s fields went mad with flowery foam
  And Blanc put on a special majesty. 
Not all could match the growing thought of home
Nor tempt to exile.  Look I not on Rome—­
  This ancient, modern, mediaeval queen—­
Yet still sigh westward over hill and dome,
  Imperial ruin and villa’s princely scene
  Lovely with pictured saints and marble gods serene.

Reflection
Rome, Florence, Venice—­noble, fair and quaint,
  They reign in robes of magic round me here;
But fading, blotted, dim, a picture faint,
  With spell more silent, only pleads a tear. 
Plead not!  Thou hast my heart, O picture dim! 
  I see the fields, I see the autumn hand
Of God upon the maples!  Answer Him
  With weird, translucent glories, ye that stand
Like spirits in scarlet and in amethyst! 
I see the sun break over you; the mist
  On hills that lift from iron bases grand
  Their heads superb!—­the dream, it is my native land.

[Footnote A:  “Sovra’l bel fiume d’Arno la gran villa.”—­Dante.]

O DONNA DI VIRTU!

(Dante—­inferno, Canto I.)

“O mystic Lady; Thou in whom alone
  Our human race surpasses all that stand
In Paradise the nearest round the throne! 
  So eagerly I wait for thy command
That to obey were slow though ready done.”

How oft I read.  How agonized the turning,
  In those my earlier days of loss and pain,—­
Of eyes to space and night as though by yearning—­
  Some wall might yield and I behold again
A certain angel, fled beyond discerning;
  In vain I chafed and sought—­alas, in vain,
From spurring though my heart’s dark world returned
  To Dante’s page, those wearied thoughts of mine;
Again I read, again my longing burned.—­
  A voice melodious spake in every line,
But from sad pleasure sorrow fresh I learned: 
  Strange was the music of the Florentine.

LINES ON HEINE.

I saw a crowded circus once: 
  The fool was in the middle. 
Loud laughed contemptuous Common-sense
  At every frisk and riddle.

I see another circus now—­
  (The world a circus call I),—­
But in the centre laughs the sane;
  Round sit the sons of folly.