Poems of Italy - 1906 Author:Giosuč Carducci Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Miramar OMIRAMAR, about your fair white towers, Weary with weight of the rain-burdened Like some dark cluster of ill-omened birds Gather the clouds. O ... more »Miramar, against your granite rocks, Grey-rising from the grim deeps of the sea With echoing shriek as of tormented souls Thunder the waves. In melancholy shadow of the clouds Stand, keeping watch above the double gulf, Turreted cities of the Istrian shore Gems of the sea. And all its roaring anger still the sea Hurls 'gainst the rocky rampart whence you look Over the Adriatic on both sides, Hapsburgian hold. O'er Nabresina thunder bursts and rolls Along the iron coast; and, lightning-crowned, Distant Trieste through a mist of showers Raises her head. Ah, how all nature smiled on that fair morn Of April when, his lovely dame beside, Forth came the fair-haired Emperor, to sail For distant shores. Upon his placid countenance there beamed The manly strength of one to empire called; The blue eyes of his lady wandered proud Over the sea. Farewell, O castle of the happy days, Vainly constructed as a nest for love! An alien zephyr toward the desert ocean Bears off the twain. With kindled hopes, they leave the halls adorned With chiselled wisdom and triumphal story; Dante and Goethe to the castle's lord Make vain appeal. A sphinx of changeful aspect lures him on To follow in her path across the sea. He yields, and half-way open leaves the book Of old romance. Ah, 'twas no song of love or high exploit, No music of guitars that waited him To sound a welcome in the Aztec Spain! Long on the air, What is that wail which from Salvor's sad Point Sounds midst the raucous sobbing of the flood ? Do dead Venetians sing, or else the old, Old Istrian Fates ? —"Ah, Son of Hapsburg, in an il...« less