Out of the hard green wall of leaves that clomb

They showed like windfalls of the snow-soft foam,

Or feathers from the weary south-wind's wing, Fair as the spray that it came shoreward from.

And thou, as white, what word hast thou to bring?

If my heart hearken, whereof wilt thou sing?

For some sign surely thou too hast to bear, Some word far south was taught thee of the spring.

White like a white rose, not like these that were

Taught of the wind's mouth and the winter air,

Poor tender thing of soft Italian bloom,

Where once thou grewest, what else for me grew there?

Born in what spring and on what city's tomb,

By whose hand wast thou reached, and plucked for

whom?

There hangs about thee, could the soul's sense tell,

An odour as of love and of love's doom.

Of days more sweet than thou wast sweet to smell,

Of flower-soft thoughts that came to flower and fell,

Of loves that lived a lily's life and died,

Of dreams now dwelling where dead roses dwell.

O white birth of the golden mountain-side
That for the sun's love makes its bosom wide

At sunrise, and with all its woods and flowers
Takes in the morning to its heart of pride!

Thou hast a word of that one land of ours,

And of the fair town called of the fair towers,
A word for me of my San Gimignan,

A word of April's greenest-girdled hours.

Of the breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran

Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man,

Though time with soft feet break them stone by stone, Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign's span.

Of the cliff overcome and overgrown

That all that flowerage clothed as flesh clothes bone,

That garment of acacias made for May,

Whereof here lies one witness overblown.

The fair brave trees with all their flowers at play,
How king-like they stood up into the day!

How sweet the day was with them, and the night! Such words of message have dead flowers to say.

This that the winter and the wind made bright,
And this that lived upon Italian light,

Before I throw them and these words away,

Who knows but I what memories too take flight?

AT A MONTH'S END.

THE night last night was strange and shaken : More strange the change of you and me.

Once more, for the old love's love forsaken, We went out once more toward the sea.

For the old love's love-sake dead and buried,
One last time, one more and no more,

We watched the waves set in, the serried
Spears of the tide storming the shore.

Hardly we saw the high moon hanging,
Heard hardly through the windy night
Far waters ringing, low reefs clanging,

Under wan skies and waste white light.

With chafe and change of surges chiming,

The clashing channels rocked and rang

Large music, wave to wild wave timing,

And all the choral water sang.

Faint lights fell this way, that way floated, Quick sparks of sea-fire keen like eyes From the rolled surf that flashed, and noted Shores and faint cliffs and bays and skies.

The ghost of sea that shrank up sighing

At the sand's edge, a short sad breath

Trembling to touch the goal, and dying
With weak heart heaved up once in death--

The rustling sand and shingle shaken

With light sweet touches and small sound— These could not move us, could not waken

Hearts to look forth, eyes to look round.