Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME, by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO ONE WHO NEVER GOT TO ROME, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You who were once bereft of rome
Last Line: Your dream of italy!
Subject(s): Rome, Italy; Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833-1908)


YOU who were once bereft of Rome
With but the Apennines between,
And went no more beyond the foam,
But loved your Italy at home
As others loved her seen:

You knew each old imperial shaft
With sculpture laureled to the blue;
Where martyr bled and tyrant laughed;
Where Horace his Falernian quaffed,
And where the vintage grew.

The Forum's half-unopened book
You would have pondered well and long;
And loved St. Peter's misty look,
With vesper chantings in some nook
Of far-receding song.

Oft had you caught the silver gleams
Of Roman fountains. To your art
They add no music. Trevi teems
With not more free or bounteous streams
Than did your generous heart.

I hoped that this Muse-hallowed day
Might find your yearning dream come true:
That you might see the moonlight play
On ilex and on palace gray
As 't were alone for you; --

That your white age might disappear
Within the whiteness of the night,
While the late strollers, lending ear
To your young joy, would halt and cheer
At such a happy wight; --

That you, -- whose toil was never done, --
Physicianed by the Land of Rest,
Might, like a beggar in the sun,
Watch idly the green lizard run
From out his stony nest; --

That you, from that high parapet
That crowns the graceful Spanish Stairs,
(Whose cadence, as to music set,
Moving like measured minuet,
Would charm your new-world cares),

Might see the shrine you helped to save;
And yonder blest of cypresses,
That proud above your poets wave.
Warder of all our song, you gave
What loyalty to these!

The path to Adonais' bed,
That pilgrims ever smoother wear,
Who could than you more fitly tread? --
Or with more right from Ariel dead
The dark acanthus bear?

Alas! your footstep could not keep
Your fond hope's rendezvous, brave soul!
Yet, if our last thoughts ere we sleep
Be couriers across the deep
To greet us at the goal,

Who knows but now, aloof from ills,
The heavenly vision that you see --
The towers on the sapphire hills,
The song, the golden light -- fulfils
Your dream of Italy!





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