TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA. I. I WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? IJ. For me, I touched a thought, I know, III. Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed Took up the floating weft, IV. Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles,-blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope, I traced it. Hold it fast! V. The champaign with its endless fleece VI. Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such primal naked forms of flowers, VII. How say you? Let us, O my dove, To love or not to love? VIII. I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be? IX.. I would I could adopt your will,{ See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs,-your part, my part In life, for good and ill. X. No. I yearn upward, touch you close, XI. Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star? XII. Just when I seemed about to learn! The old trick! Only I discern— Infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn. YOUR ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon, With the beanflower's boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June! » II. What I love best in all the world In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. In a sea-side house to the farther South, To the water's edge. For, what expands Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice Lost her, Calais) Open my heart and you will see Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be ! |