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| ’T WAS in the Via Felice | |
| My friend his dwelling made, | |
| The Roman Via Felice, | |
| Half sunshine, half in shade. | |
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| A marble god stands near it | 5 |
| That once deserved a shrine, | |
| And, veteran of the old world, | |
| The Barberini pine. | |
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| A very Roman is he | |
| Whom age makes not so wise | 10 |
| But that each coming winter | |
| Is still a new surprise. | |
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| But I lodged near the convent | |
| Whose bells did hallow noon, | |
| And all the lesser hours | 15 |
| With sweet recurrent tune. | |
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| They lent their solemn cadence | |
| To all the thoughtless day; | |
| The heart, so oft it heard them, | |
| Was lifted up to pray. | 20 |
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| And where the lamp was lighted | |
| At twilight, on the wall, | |
| Serenely sat Madonna, | |
| And smiled to bless us all. | |
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| Those voices, illustrating | 25 |
| Their bargains, from the street, | |
| Shaming Thought’s narrow meanness | |
| With music infinite. | |
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| Those men of stately stature, | |
| Those women, fair of shape, | 30 |
| That watched the chestnuts roasting, | |
| The fig, and clustered grape; | |
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| All this, my daily pleasure | |
| That made none poor to give, | |
| Was near the Via Felice | 35 |
| Where Horace loved to live. | |
| |
| I see him from the window | |
| That ne’er my heart forgets, | |
| He buys from yonder maiden | |
| My morning violets. | 40 |
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| Not ill he chose those flowers | |
| With mild, reproving eyes, | |
| Emblems of tender chiding, | |
| And love divinely wise. | |
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| For his were generous learning | 45 |
| And reconciling art; | |
| O, not with fleeting presence | |
| My friend and I could part! | |
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| His work of consolation | |
| Abode when he was gone, | 50 |
| A tower of beauty lifted | |
| From ruins widely strown. | |
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| Our own inconstant heavens | |
| Were o’er us, when we met | |
| Before a longer parting, | 55 |
| Not seen, nor dreamed of, yet. | |
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| ’T was when the Spring’s soft breathing | |
| Restores the frozen sense, | |
| And Patience, dull with Winter, | |
| Is glad in recompense. | 60 |
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| There, in our pleasant converse, | |
| As by one thought, we said: | |
| “This is the Via Felice, | |
| Where friends together tread.” | |
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| Again, my friend turned seaward, | 65 |
| Again, athwart the wave | |
| He flung the wayward fortune | |
| His fiery planet gave. | |
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| And in that heart of Paris | |
| That hides distress and wrong, | 70 |
| So cold, with show and splendor, | |
| So dumb, with dance and song; | |
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| Drawn, by some hidden current | |
| Of unknown agony, | |
| To seek a throb responsive, | 75 |
| Our Horace sank to die. | |
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| O, not where he is lying | |
| With dear ancestral dust, | |
| Not where his household traces | |
| Grow sad and dim with rust; | 80 |
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| But in the Ancient City | |
| And from the quaint old door | |
| I ’m watching at my window | |
| His coming, evermore. | |
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| For Death’s eternal city | 85 |
| Has yet some happy street; | |
| ’T is in the Via Felice | |
| My friend and I shall meet. | |
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