Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DREAM AT ARDEA (MAREMMA), by WILLIAM SHARP



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DREAM AT ARDEA (MAREMMA), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where ardea, the cliff-girt
Last Line: The star of eve.
Alternate Author Name(s): Macleod, Fiona
Subject(s): Dreams; Earth; Love; Mythology - Classical; Rome, Italy; Sea; Venus (goddess); Nightmares; World; Ocean


Where Ardea, the cliff-girt,
Looks to the Sea,
Dreaming forever
In her desert place
Of her vanished glory --
There too in the tall grass,
Starred with narcissus
And the flaming poppy,
I dreamed a dream.

Not of the days when
The fierce trumpeting
Of the Asian elephants
Made the wild horses
Snort in new terror,
Snort and wheel wildly;
Till o'er the Campagna
They passed like a trail
Of vanishing smoke.
No, nor when
The brazen clarions
Of the Roman legion
Summoned the hill-folk
To the Punic War:
Nor yet when the shadow
Of the falling star
Of the House of Tarquin
Swept unseen o'er the banquet,
And none, foreseeing,
Drew forth the pure sword
For the foul heart of Sextus.
Nor yet of the ancient days
When the fierce Rutuli
Laughed at the boasting of
The seven-hilled city,
And when on rude altars
White victims lay,
To appease the anger
Of barbarian Gods --
Nay, not of these, not even the far-off,
The ancient time, when the mother of Perseus,
Danae the beautiful, came hither and builded
Close to the sea the hill-town which standeth
Now amid leagues of the inland grasses,
White with the surf of the blossoming asphodels --
Nay, but only
Of the shrine of her,
Venus, the Beautiful One,
The Well-Beloved.
Lost, it lieth
Deep 'mid the tangle,
Deep 'neath the roots of the flowers and the grasses
Drawn like a veil o'er
The face of Maremma.
Only the brown lark
singing above it,
Only the grey hare
Beneath the wild olive;
Only the linnet aflit in the myrtle,
Only the spotted snake
Writhing swiftly
O'er the thyme and the spikenard,
Only the falcon
Dusking a moment the gold of the yellow broom,
Only the things of the air and the desert,
Know where deep in the maze of the undergrowth
Lieth the shrine of the sacred Goddess,
The shrine of Venus.
Up through the dark blue mist of the harebells --
All the wild glory, with trailing convolvulus;
Lenten lilies asway in the sunlight,
Wine-dark anemones, pasque-flowers of ruby,
Iris and daffodil and sweet-smelling violet,
And high over all the white and gold shining
Where the wind raced o'er the aspodel meadows:
All the flower-glory of Spring in Maremma.
But here, just here, a mist of the harebells --
Up through the dark blue mist of the harebells
Rose like a white smoke hovering gently
Over the windless woodlands of Ostia
Where the charcoal-burners wander like shadows,
Rose a white vapour, stealthily, slowly.

Ah, but the wonder! the wan ghost of Venus
Rose slowly before me:
Dark, deep, and awful the eyes of the vision,
Sad beyond words that wraith of dead beauty,
Chill now and solemn
Austere as the grave,
The face that had blanched
The high gods of old,
The face that had led
The heroes of men
From the heights of Caucasus
To the uttermost ends
Of Earth, as leadeth nightly
The Moon, her cohorts
Of perishing billows.
"I am she whom thou lovest:"
"Nay, whom I worship, Goddess and Queen!"
"I am she whom thou worshippest:"
"For thou art Beauty, and Beauty I worship,
And thou art Love, and Love --"
"Love is Beauty. They love not nor worship,
They who dissever the one from the other."
"Hearken, O Goddess!"
"Nay, shadow of shadows, why callest me Goddess!
Far from thy world 'the Goddess' is banished.
Ye have chosen the dark: the dark be with you!
Ye have chosen sorrow: and sorrow is yours:
O fools that worship vain Gods, and know not
That life is the breath but of perishing dust --
They only live in whose hearts there hath fallen
The breath of my passion --"
"O Goddess, fade not!"
"I pass, and behold,
With my passing goeth
The joy of the world!"

Darkly austere
The face of the Goddess.
Then like a flame
That groweth wan
And flickereth forth from the reach of vision,
The face of Venus
Was seen no more,
Though through the mist
Her eyes gleamed darkly,
Great fires of joy --
Of joy disherited,
But glorious ever
In their lordly scorn,
Their high disdain.

Not till the purple-hued
Wings of the twilight
Waved softly downward
From the Alban hills,
And moved stilly
Over the vast dim leagues of Maremma,
Turned I backward
My wandering steps.
Far o'er the white-glimmering
Breast of the Tyrrhene Sea
(Laid as in sleep at the feet of the hills)
Rose, dropping liquid fires
Into the wine-dark vault of the heaven,
The Star of Evening,
Venus, the Evening Star:
Eternal, serene,
In deathless beauty
Revolving ever
Through the stellar spheres!

High o'er the shadowy heights
Of the Volscian summits
The full moon soared:
Soared slowly upward
Like a golden nenuphar
In a vaster Nilus
Than that which floweth
Through the heart of Egypt.
The moon that maketh
The world so beautiful,
That moveth so tenderly
Over desolate things,
The moon that giveth
The amber light,
Wherein best blossom
The mystic flowers
Of human love.

Through the darkness
Whelming the waste,
And, like a stealthy tide
Rising around
Ardea, the cliff-girt,
Wavered the sound of joyous laughter.
Sweet words and sweeter
Fell where the lentisc
Bloomed, and the rosemary:
Loving caresses
Lost in a rustle
Where the hawthorn-bushes
Loomed large in the twilight
Of the fireflies' lanterns.

Deep in the heart of
A myrtle-thicket
A nightingale stirred:
With low sweet note,
Thrilling strangely,
And as though moving
With the breath of its passion
The midmost leaves.
But once her plaint: --
Then wild and glad,
In a free ecstasy,
In utter bliss,
In one high whirl of rapture, sang
His answering song
Her mate, low swaying upon a bough,
With throat full-strained, and quivering wings
Beating with tremulous whirr.
Then I was glad,
For surely I knew
I had dreamed a dream 'neath the spell of Maremma.
Not sunk in the drift
Of antique dust,
Lost from the ken of Earth
Within her shrine,
Venus, the Beautiful,
The Queen of Love!
But though no longer
Beheld of man,
Still living and breathing
Through the heart of the world --
Whether in the song,
Passionate, beautiful,
Of the nightingale;
Or in the glad rapture
Of lovers meeting,
With soft caresses
Hid in the dusk;
In the fair flower of the vast field of heaven;
Or in the glow,
The pulsing splendour,
Of the white star of joy,
The Star of Eve.





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