From "Tuscan Cypress" by Agnes Mary Frances Darmesteter. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

From “Tuscan Cypress”

Agnes Mary Frances Darmesteter (b. 1857)

Rispetti


I WHEN I am dead and I am quite forgot,
What care I if my spirit lives or dies?
To walk with angels in a grassy plot,
And pluck the lilies grown in Paradise?	5

Ah, no—the heaven of all my heart has been
To hear your voice and catch the sighs between.
Ah, no—the better heaven I fain would give,
But in a cranny of your soul to live.

II Ah me, you well might wait a little while,	10
And not forget me, Sweet, until I die!
I had a home, a little distant isle,
With shadowy trees and tender misty sky.

I had a home! It was less dear than thou,
And I forgot, as you forget me now.	15
I had a home, more dear than I could tell,
And I forgot, but now remember well.

III Love me to-day and think not on to-morrow,
Come, take my hands, and lead me out of doors,
There in the fields let us forget our sorrow,	20
Talking of Venice and Ionian shores;—

Talking of all the seas innumerable
Where we will sail and sing when I am well;
Talking of Indian roses gold and red,
Which we will plait in wreaths—when I am dead.	25