| |
I WHERE, girt with orchard and with olive-yard, | |
| The white hill-fortress glimmers on the hill, | |
| Day after day an ancient goldsmith’s skill | |
| Guided the copper graver, tempered hard | |
| By some lost secret, while he shaped the sard | 5 |
| Slowly to beauty, and his tiny drill, | |
| Edged with corundum, ground its way until | |
| The gem lay perfect for the ring to guard. | |
| Then seeing the stone complete to his desire, | |
| With mystic imagery carven thus, | 10 |
| And dark Egyptian symbols fabulous, | |
| He drew through it the delicate golden wire, | |
| And bent the fastening; and the Etrurian sun | |
| Sank behind Ilva, and the work was done. | |
| |
II What dark-haired daughter of a Lucumo | 15 |
| Bore on her slim white finger to the grave | |
| This the first gift her Tyrrhene lover gave, | |
| Those five-and-twenty centuries ago? | |
| What shadowy dreams might haunt it, lying low | |
| So long, while kings and armies, wave on wave, | 20 |
| Above the rock-tomb’s buried architrave | |
| Went million-footed trampling to and fro? | |
| Who knows? but well it is so frail a thing, | |
| Unharm’d by conquering Time’s supremacy, | |
| Still should be fair, though scarce less old than Rome. | 25 |
| Now once again at rest from wandering | |
| Across the high Alps and the dreadful sea, | |
| In utmost England let it find a home. | |
| |
