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| WHO can forget thy Carnival, Rome, thy Carnival flashing | |
| Joy and life through thy solemn streets? Ah, season when Pleasure | |
| Day after day its kaleidoscope turned of bright robes and bright faces; | |
| Rain of confetti and snowing of flowers from window to window; | |
| Tumult of chatter and laughter, glances of youths and of maidens, | 5 |
| While their exchanges of flowers and bonbons beneath the balconies | |
| Made the heart flutter with dreams of a world too sweet for possession. | |
| Then the masking, the tricolored plumes in the broad black sombrero; | |
| Blouses and harlequins battling like boys in a snowballing frolic; | |
| While the thronged Corso scarce opened a way for the carriages passing. | 10 |
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| Wild was the revelry,—counting no hours from noontide till nightfall; | |
| Till, as behind the solemn old palaces dropped the last sunbeam, | |
| Boomed the loud cannon that cleared the carriages off in an instant. | |
| Then came the cavalry making an opening amid the thronged faces, | |
| Down from the Piazza del Popolo on to the Palace Venetian: | 15 |
| Then the mad race of this riderless horses, and shouts of the people | |
| Ended each many-hued day. Young hearts grew weary of pleasure. | |
| Tired feet trod upon flowers that lay on the pavement neglected, | |
| And the soiled maskers trailed heavily homeward their fanciful trappings. | |
| Silent the stars shone down on the narrow streets, and the watchman | 20 |
| Dozed in his corner and dreamed of the coming delights of the morrow. | |
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| Can I forget the wild masque-ball at the brilliant Teatro? | |
| Dominoes, white, black, and red, all thronging and jostling each other: | |
| Men dark-bearded and women in costumes as fair as Sultanas, | |
| Every one free as the wind, by fashion’s conventions untrammelled, | 25 |
| All borne away by the moment, and chasing the butterfly Pleasure, | |
| Till the stars faded and set in the cold gray light of the morning. | |
| Then, last of all, like a candle that flares at its death in the socket, | |
| Burst on the night the bewildering blaze of the wild Moccoletti,— | |
| Flashed in the windows from palace to palace the swift ’llumination, | 30 |
| Flashed in the street, on foot and in carriage each man and each woman | |
| Bearing aloft from all reach their torches, with breath or with flapper | |
| Striving to keep their own and to put out the lights of their neighbors, | |
| While Senza Moccolo, Moccolo! all through the Corso resounded. | |
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| Can I forget thee, Rome, at this season of innocent pleasure? | 35 |
| Now when I see how the tyrants have caught thee and ruffled thy plumage,— | |
| Clipped the gay pinions which once every year thou spreadest in frolic; | |
| Forced thee to laugh, when the bitterest scorn should have answered their meddling; | |
| Forced thee to take thy harp from the willows and sing at their bidding, | |
| When thou shouldst call down the lightning of heaven to blast thy oppressors! | 40 |
| Patience! the day hastens onward. Thunder-clouds on the horizon | |
| Rumble and will not rest. Beneath the thrones a volcano | |
| Moans, not in vain; and the hour must come when the forces electric, | |
| Justice and Freedom and Truth, no longer can slumber inactive. | |
| Then shall thy children exult in a jubilee holier, grander, | 45 |
| And thy brief carnival pleasures seem but the sport of a school-boy | |
| To the true freedom that then shall crown thee with blessing and honor! | |
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