Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VIEWS, by FORD MADOX FORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VIEWS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Being in rome I wonder will you go
Last Line: When I may be your I, your rome my rome.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Love - Unrequited; Man-woman Relationships; Rome, Italy; Male-female Relations


I
BEING in Rome I wonder will you go
Up to the Hill. But I forget the name. ...
Aventine? Pincio? No: I do not know.
I was there yesterday and watched. You came.

The seven Pillars of the Forum stand
High, stained and pale 'neath the Italian heavens,
Their capitals linked up form half a square;
A grove of silver poplars spears the sky.
You came. Do you remember? Yes, you came,
But yesterday. Your dress just brushed the herbs
That nearly hide the broken marble lion. ...
And I was watching you against the sky.
Such light! Such air! Such prism hues! and Rome
So far below; I hardly knew the place.
The domed St Peter's; mass of the Capitol;
The arch of Trajan and St Angelo. ...
Tiny and grey and level; tremulous
Beneath a haze amidst a sea of plains. ...
But I forget the name, who never looked
On any Rome but this of unnamed hills.

II
Tho' you're in Rome you will not go, my You,
Up to that Hill. ...but I forget the name,
Aventine? Pincio? No, I never knew. ...
I was there yesterday. You never came.

I have that Rome; and you, you have a Me,
You have a Rome and I, I have my You;
My Rome is not your Rome: my you, not you
... For, if man knew woman
I should have plumbed your heart; if woman, man
Your me should be true I. ... If in your day—
You who have mingled with my soul in dreams,
You who have given my life an aim and purpose,
A heart, an imaged form—if in your dreams
You have imagined unfamiliar cities
And me among them, I shall never stand
Beneath your pillars or your poplar groves,...
Images, simulacra, towns of dreams
That never march upon each other's borders
And bring no comfort to each other's hearts!

III
Nobly accompanied am I—Since you,
You—simulacrum, image, dream of dreams,
Amidst these images and simulacra
Of shadowy house fronts and these dim, thronged streets
Are my companion!

Where the pavements gleam
I have you alway with me: and grey dawns
In the far skies bring you more near—more near
Than City sounds can interpenetrate.
All vapours form a background for your face
In this unreal town of real things,
And my you stands beside me and makes glad
All my imagined cities and thence walks
Beside me towards yet unimagined hills. ...

Being we two, full surely we shall go
Up to that Hill . ... some synonym for Home.
Avalon? Grave? or Heaven? I do not know. ...
But one day or to-day, the day may come,
When I may be your I, your Rome my Rome.





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