thou mayest not reach,
Remain cloud-hunter and Praxiteles of shadows!

"Tomorrow and today for thee are snares and seas!
All are but traps for drowning thee and visions false!
Longer than thy glory is the violet's in thy garden!
And thou shalt pass away--hear this!--and thou shalt die!"

And then I answered: "Let me pass away and die!
Creator am I, too, with all my heart and mind!
Let pits devour my work! Of all eternal things,
My restless wandering may have the greatest worth!"_

FATHERLANDS

_To the blessed shade of Tigrane Yergate who loved my Fatherlands._

FATHERLANDS

I[5]

Where with its many ships the harbor moans,
The land spreads beaten by the billows wild,
Remembering not even as a dream
Her ancient silkworks, carriers of wealth.

The vineyards, filled with fruit, now make her rich;
And on her brow, an aged crown she wears,
A castle that the strangers, Franks or Turks,
Thirst for, since Venice founded it with might.

O'er her a mountain stands, a sleepless watch;
And white like dawn, Parnassus shimmers far
Aloft with midland Zygos at his side.

Here I first opened to the day mine eyes;
And here my memory weaves a dream dream-born,
An image faint, half-vanished, fair--a mother.

II[6]

Upon the lake, the island-studded, where
The breeze of May, grown strong with sea-brine, stirs
The seashore strewn with seaweed far away,
The Fates cast me a little child thrice orphan.

'Tis there the northwind battles mightily
Upon the southwind; and the high tide on
The low; and far into the main's abyss
The dazzling coral of the sun is sinking.

There stands Varassova, the triple-headed;
And from her heights, a lady from her tower,
The moon bends o'er the waters lying still.

But innocent peace, the peace that is a child's,
Not even there I knew; but only sorrow
And, what is now a fire, the spirit's spark.

III

Sky everywhere; and sunbeams on all sides;
Something about like honey from Hymettus;
The lilies grow of marble witherless;
Pentele shines, birthgiver of Olympus.

The digging pick on Beauty stumbles still;
Cybele's womb bears gods instead of mortals;
And Athens bleeds with violet blood abundant
Each time the Afternoon's arrows pour on her.

The sacred olive keeps its shrines and fields;
And in the midst of crowds that slowly move
Like caterpillars on a flower white,

The people of the relics lives and reigns
Myriad-souled; and in the dust, the spirit
Glitt