Tuscan Cypress
(sixteen rispetti)
i.
My mother bore me 'neath the streaming moon,
And all the enchanted light is in my soul.
I have no place amid the happy noon,
I have no shadow there nor aureole.
Ah, lonely whiteness in a clouded sky.
You are alone, nor less alone am I;
Ah, moon, that makest all the roses grey,
The roses I behold are wan as they!
ii.
What good is there. Ah me, what good in Love?
Since, even if you love me, we must part;
And since for either, and you cared enough.
There's but division and a broken heart!
And yet, God knows, to hear you say: My Dear!
I would lie down and stretch me on the bier.
And yet would I, to hear you say: My own!
With mine own hands drag down the burial stone.
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