ONCE more, once more, Inarimé, | |
| I see thy purple hills!—once more | |
| I hear the billows of the bay | |
| Wash the white pebbles on thy shore. | |
| |
| High o’er the sea-surge and the sands, | 5 |
| Like a great galleon wrecked and cast | |
| Ashore by storms, thy castle stands, | |
| A mouldering landmark of the Past. | |
| |
| Upon its terrace-walk I see | |
| A phantom gliding to and fro; | 10 |
| It is Colonna,—it is she | |
| Who lived and loved so long ago. | |
| |
| Pescara’s beautiful young wife, | |
| The type of perfect womanhood, | |
| Whose life was love, the life of life, | 15 |
| That time and change and death withstood. | |
| |
| For death, that breaks the marriage band | |
| In others, only closer pressed | |
| The wedding-ring upon her hand | |
| And closer locked and barred her breast. | 20 |
| |
| She knew the life-long martyrdom, | |
| The weariness, the endless pain | |
| Of waiting for some one to come | |
| Who nevermore would come again. | |
| |
| The shadows of the chestnut-trees, | 25 |
| The odor of the orange blooms, | |
| The song of birds, and, more than these, | |
| The silence of deserted rooms; | |
| |
| The respiration of the sea, | |
| The soft caresses of the air, | 30 |
| All things in nature seemed to be | |
| But ministers of her despair; | |
| |
| Till the o’erburdened heart, so long | |
| Imprisoned in itself, found vent | |
| And voice in one impassioned song | 35 |
| Of inconsolable lament. | |
| |
| Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, | |
| Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, | |
| Her life was interfused with light, | |
| From realms that, though unseen, exist. | 40 |
| |
| Inarimé! Inarimé! | |
| Thy castle on the crags above | |
| In dust shall crumble and decay, | |
| But not the memory of her love. | |
| |
