The Unconquered Air, and Other Poems (1912)/The Lost Gioconda

by Florence Earle Coates

THE LOST GIOCONDA

The world is poorer, Italy's fair child,
Lacking the face
That for so long its heart beguiled;
Nor hopeth to replace
With all its riches multiplied,
Thee, eloquent, alone, art-glorified!

But somewhere, Mona Lisa! quietly,
With folded hands,
And in thine eye's soft mockery
The look that understands,
Thou wearest, lost to us the while,
Thine own inscrutable, unaging smile!