Trumbull Stickney (Трамбэлл Стикни)
In Ampezzo
ONLY once more and not again--the larches Shake to the wind their echo, "Not again,"-- We see, below the sky that over-arches Heavy and blue, the plain Between Tofana lying and Cristallo In meadowy earths above the ringing stream: Whence interchangeably desire may follow, Hesitant as in dream, At sunset, south, by lilac promontories Under green skies ato Italy, or forth By calms of morning beyond Lavinores Tyrolward and to north: As now, this last of latter days, when over The brownish field by peasants are undone Some widths of grass, some plots of mountain clover Under the autumn sun, With honey-warm perfume that risen lingers In mazes of low heat, or takes the air, Passing delicious as a woman's fingers Passing aid the hair; When scythes are swishing and the mower's muscle Spans a repeated crescent to and fro, Or in dry stalks of corn the sickles rustle, Tangle, detach and go, Far thro' the wide blue day and greening meadow Whose blots of amber beaded are with sheaves, Whereover pallidly a cloud-shadow Deadens the earth and leaves: Whilst high around and near, their heads of iron Sunken in sky whose azure overlights Ravine and edges, stand the gray and maron Desolate Dolomites,-- And older than decay from the small summit Unfolds a stream of pebbly wreckage down Under the suns of midday, like some comet Struck into gravel stone. Faintly across this gold and amethystine September, images of summer fade; And gentle dreams now freshen on the pristine Viols, awhile unplayed, Of many a place where lovingly we wander, More dearly held that quickly we forsake,-- A pine by sullen coasts, an oleander Reddening on the lake. And there, each year with more familiar motion, From many a bird and windy forestries, Or along shaking fringes of the ocean, Vapours of music rise. From many easts the morning gives her splendour; The shadows fill with colours we forget; Remembered tints at evening grow tender, Tarnished with violet. Let us away! soon sheets of winter metal On this discoloured mountain-land will close, While elsewhere Spring-time weaves a crimson petal, Builds and perfumes a rose. Away! for her the mountain sinks in gravel. Let us forget the unhappy site with change, And go, if only happiness be travel After the new and strange:-- Unless 'twere better to be very single, To follow some diviner monotone, And in all beauties, where ourselves commingle, Love but a love, but one, Across this shadowy minute of our living, What time our hearts so magically sing, To meditate our fever, simply giving All in a little thing? Just as here, past yon dumb and melancholy Sameness of ruin, while the mountains ail, Summer and sunset-coloured autumn slowly Dissipate down the vale; And all these lines along the sky that measure Sorapis and the rocks of Mezzodi Crumble by foamy miles into the azure Mediterranean sea: Whereas to-day at sunrise, under brambles, A league above the moss and dying pines I picked this little--in my hand that trembles-- Parcel of columbines.
Trumbull Stickney’s other poems:
- The Melancholy Year is Dead with Rain
- Live Blindly and Upon the Hour
- In a City Garden
- Mt. Lykaion
- Service
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