Poems Author:Unknown Author 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: GIANNONE. DEDICATED TO B. 8. Take a cigar — draw up your chair, There 's at least a good half-hour to spare Before the Capuchin clock strikes one, And the ... more »bell, with a sharp spasmodic tinkle, Rouses the Frati to shuffle to prayer, And the altar candles begin to twinkle In the cheerless chapel, bleak and bare — By Jove! we are better off here than there. And now, as that friend of yours has gone, There 's a word I must whisper to you, alone. Friends grow dearer, and hearts draw nearer, Calmed in the silent centre of night; And words we may say, that the full mid-day, If it should hear us, would jeer outright. Day, with its din, for distrust and doubt ! Night for confidence, friendship, love ' The day's work done, and the world shut out, The streets all silent, the stars above, Pleasant it is to gather about The fire of wood, and muse and dream, And talk of the hopes and joys of youth, And open our hearts and confess the truth, Ceasing to make-believe and seem. Fling another log on the fire, Another log from the Sabine hill, And a heap of those rusty crackling canes That out on the sunny Campagna plains Held on their trellis the grape-hung vine, Whose hlood was drained for this purple wine, Our straw-enwoven fiasco to fill. Look! the old tendrils, stiff as wire, Cling to them still with their strong desire, Outlasting death — as our friendship will. How the flame bickers, and quivers, and flickers. Darting its eager tongues about! Then blazes abroad with genial flashes, Till the sap comes singing and bubbling out. Wild as a Mrenad with myriad fancies, Hither and thither it leaps and dances, Fitful, whimsical, glad, and free, Like a living thing with a heart and soul. Oh, the wood-fire is the fire for me! ...« less