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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO VERNON LEE by AMY LEVY

First Line: ON BELLOSGUARDO, WHEN THE YEAR WAS YOUNG
Last Line: HOPE UNTO YOU, AND UNTO ME DESPAIR.
Subject(s): LEE, VERNON (VIOLET PAGET) (1856-1935);

ON Bellosguardo, when the year was young,
We wandered, seeking for the daffodil
And dark anemone, whose purples fill
The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.

Over the grey, low wall the olive flung
Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on hill
Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still,
Above the large and luminous landscape hung.

A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach ;
You broke a branch and gave it to me there ;
I found for you a scarlet blossom rare.

Thereby ran on of Art and Life our speech ;
And of the gifts the gods had given to each --
Hope unto you, and unto me Despair.





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