Page:Carducci - Poems of Italy.djvu/34



In the Piazza of San Petronio
ARK in the winter's crystal air arise Bologna's turrets, and above them laughs The mountain-slope all whitened by the snows.

It is that mellowest hour when the sun His dying salutation on the towers And, Saint Petronius, on thy temple sheds,—

Towers whose battlements the broad-spread wings Of many passing centuries have grazed, And the grave temple's solitary peak.

The adamantine sky is gleaming cold In its refulgence, and the air is drawn O'er the piazza like a silver veil

That lightly brushes with caressing touch The threatening piles, whose grim walls gather round, Raised by our fathers' mail-encircled arms.