<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=473284" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ravenna</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and<br>'Mirage')</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>A year ago I breathed the Italian air, -<br>And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-<br>These fields made golden with the flower of March,<br>The throstle singing on the feathered larch,<br>The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,<br>The little clouds that race across the sky;<br>And fair the violet's gentle drooping head,<br>The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,<br>The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,<br>The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire<br>Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);<br>And all the flowers of our English Spring,<br>Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.<br>Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,<br>And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;<br>And down the river, like a flame of blue,<br>Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,<br>While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.<br>A year ago! - it seems a little time<br>Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,<br>Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,<br>And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.<br>Full Spring it was - and by rich flowering vines,<br>Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,<br>I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,<br>The white road rang beneath my horse's feet,<br>And musing on Ravenna's ancient name,<br>I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,<br>The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O how my heart with boyish passion burned,<br>When far away across the sedge and mere<br>I saw that Holy City rising clear,<br>Crowned with her crown of towers! - On and on<br>I galloped, racing with the setting sun,<br>And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,<br>I stood within Ravenna's walls at last!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>How strangely still! no sound of life or joy<br>Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy<br>Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day<br>Comes the glad sound of children at their play:<br>O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here<br>A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,<br>Watching the tide of seasons as they flow<br>From amorous Spring to Winter's rain and snow,<br>And have no thought of sorrow; - here, indeed,<br>Are Lethe's waters, and that fatal weed<br>Which makes a man forget his fatherland.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,<br>Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,<br>Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.<br>For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,<br>Thy noble dead are with thee! - they at least<br>Are faithful to thine honour:- guard them well,<br>O childless city! for a mighty spell,<br>To wake men's hearts to dreams of things sublime,<br>Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,<br>Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain, -<br>The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,<br>Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star<br>Led him against thy city, and he fell,<br>As falls some forest-lion fighting well.<br>Taken from life while life and love were new,<br>He lies beneath God's seamless veil of blue;<br>Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head,<br>And oleanders bloom to deeper red,<br>Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look farther north unto that broken mound, -<br>There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb<br>Raised by a daughter's hand, in lonely gloom,<br>Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,<br>Sleeps after all his weary conquering.<br>Time hath not spared his ruin, - wind and rain<br>Have broken down his stronghold; and again<br>We see that Death is mighty lord of all,<br>And king and clown to ashen dust must fall</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mighty indeed THEIR glory! yet to me<br>Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,<br>Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,<br>Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.<br>His gilded shrine lies open to the air;<br>And cunning sculptor's hands have carven there<br>The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,<br>The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,<br>The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,<br>The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,<br>The weary face of Dante; - to this day,<br>Here in his place of resting, far away<br>From Arno's yellow waters, rushing down<br>Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,<br>Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise<br>A marble lily under sapphire skies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain<br>Of meaner lives, - the exile's galling chain,<br>How steep the stairs within kings' houses are,<br>And all the petty miseries which mar<br>Man's nobler nature with the sense of wrong.<br>Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;<br>Our nations do thee homage, - even she,<br>That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,<br>Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,<br>Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,<br>And begs in vain the ashes of her son.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:<br>Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;<br>Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!<br>No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.<br>The broken chain lies rusting on the door,<br>And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:<br>Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run<br>By the stone lions blinking in the sun.<br>Byron dwelt here in love and revelry<br>For two long years - a second Anthony,<br>Who of the world another Actium made!<br>Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,<br>Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,<br>'Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.<br>For from the East there came a mighty cry,<br>And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,<br>And called him from Ravenna: never knight<br>Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!<br>None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,<br>Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!<br>O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,<br>Thy day of might, remember him who died<br>To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:<br>O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain!<br>O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!<br>O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!<br>He loved you well - ay, not alone in word,<br>Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,<br>Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And England, too, shall glory in her son,<br>Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.<br>No longer now shall Slander's venomed spite<br>Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,<br>Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For as the olive-garland of the race,<br>Which lights with joy each eager runner's face,<br>As the red cross which saveth men in war,<br>As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far<br>By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea, -<br>Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:<br>Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene<br>Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,<br>In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;<br>The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine,<br>And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze<br>With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,<br>And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright; -<br>I wandered through the wood in wild delight,<br>Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,<br>Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,<br>Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,<br>And small birds sang on every twining spray.<br>O waving trees, O forest liberty!<br>Within your haunts at least a man is free,<br>And half forgets the weary world of strife:<br>The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life<br>Wakes i' the quickening veins, while once again<br>The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.<br>Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see<br>Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy<br>Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid<br>In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,<br>The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face<br>Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,<br>White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,<br>And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!<br>Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!<br>Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,<br>The evening chimes, the convent's vesper bell,<br>Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.<br>Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours<br>Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,<br>And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told<br>Of thy great glories in the days of old:<br>Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see<br>Caesar ride forth to royal victory.<br>Mighty thy name when Rome's lean eagles flew<br>From Britain's isles to far Euphrates blue;<br>And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,<br>Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.<br>Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,<br>Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!<br>No longer now upon thy swelling tide,<br>Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!<br>For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,<br>The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;<br>And the white sheep are free to come and go<br>Where Adria's purple waters used to flow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!<br>In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,<br>Alone of all thy sisters; for at last<br>Italia's royal warrior hath passed<br>Rome's lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown<br>In the high temples of the Eternal Town!<br>The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,<br>And with his name the seven mountains ring!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,<br>And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again,<br>New risen from the waters! and the cry<br>Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,<br>Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where<br>The marble spires of Milan wound the air,<br>Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,<br>And Dante's dream is now a dream no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,<br>Thy ruined palaces are but a pall<br>That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name<br>Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame<br>Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun<br>Of new Italia! for the night is done,<br>The night of dark oppression, and the day<br>Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away<br>The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,<br>Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand<br>Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,<br>From the far West unto the Eastern sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died<br>In Lissa's waters, by the mountain-side<br>Of Aspromonte, on Novara's plain, -<br>Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:<br>And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine<br>From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,<br>Thou hast not followed that immortal Star<br>Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.<br>Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,<br>As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,<br>Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,<br>Mourning some day of glory, for the sun<br>Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,<br>And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet wake not from thy slumbers, - rest thee well,<br>Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,<br>Thy lily-sprinkled meadows, - rest thee there,<br>To mock all human greatness: who would dare<br>To vent the paltry sorrows of his life<br>Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife<br>Of kings' ambition, and the barren pride<br>Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride<br>Of the wild Lord of Adria's stormy sea!<br>The Queen of double Empires! and to thee<br>Were not the nations given as thy prey!<br>And now - thy gates lie open night and day,<br>The grass grows green on every tower and hall,<br>The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;<br>And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest<br>The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.<br>O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,<br>O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,<br>Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,<br>But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,<br>From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;<br>Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,<br>Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?<br>Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose<br>To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;<br>As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold<br>From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter's cold;<br>As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O much-loved city! I have wandered far<br>From the wave-circled islands of my home;<br>Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome<br>Rise slowly from the drear Campagna's way,<br>Clothed in the royal purple of the day:<br>I from the city of the violet crown<br>Have watched the sun by Corinth's hill go down,<br>And marked the 'myriad laughter' of the sea<br>From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;<br>Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,<br>As to its forest-nest the evening dove.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O poet's city! one who scarce has seen<br>Some twenty summers cast their doublets green<br>For Autumn's livery, would seek in vain<br>To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,<br>Or tell thy days of glory; - poor indeed<br>Is the low murmur of the shepherd's reed,<br>Where the loud clarion's blast should shake the sky,<br>And flame across the heavens! and to try<br>Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know<br>That never felt my heart a nobler glow<br>Than when I woke the silence of thy street<br>With clamorous trampling of my horse's feet,<br>And saw the city which now I try to sing,<br>After long days of weary travelling.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,<br>I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow<br>From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:<br>The sky was as a shield that caught the stain<br>Of blood and battle from the dying sun,<br>And in the west the circling clouds had spun<br>A royal robe, which some great God might wear,<br>While into ocean-seas of purple air<br>Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet here the gentle stillness of the night<br>Brings back the swelling tide of memory,<br>And wakes again my passionate love for thee:<br>Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come<br>On meadow and tree the Summer's lordly bloom;<br>And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,<br>And send up lilies for some boy to mow.<br>Then before long the Summer's conqueror,<br>Rich Autumn-time, the season's usurer,<br>Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,<br>And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;<br>And after that the Winter cold and drear.<br>So runs the perfect cycle of the year.<br>And so from youth to manhood do we go,<br>And fall to weary days and locks of snow.<br>Love only knows no winter; never dies:<br>Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies<br>And mine for thee shall never pass away,<br>Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,<br>The night's ambassador, doth gleam afar,<br>And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.<br>Perchance before our inland seas of gold<br>Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,<br>Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,<br>I may behold thy city; and lay down<br>Low at thy feet the poet's laurel crown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,<br>Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,<br>Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well<br>Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oscar+Wilde">Oscar Wilde</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=473284" data-title="Ravenna de Oscar Wilde" data-description="To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and 'Mirage') I. A year ago I breathed the Italian air, - And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,- These fields made golden with the flower of March, The throstle singing on the fe..."></div> </div> </div>

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