Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/90



vines bloom now along thy rampart steeps Thy shelves of olives, undercliffs of azure. And like a lizard of the red rock sleeps The wrinkled Tuscan sea, panting for pleasure. Nets, too, festooned about thine elfin port, Telaro, in the Etrurian mountain's side, Heavings of golden luggers scarce distort The image of thy belfry where they ride. But thee, Telaro, on a night long gone That grey and holy tower upon the mole Suddenly summoned, while yet lightnings shone And hard gale lingered, with a ceaseless toll That choked, with its disastrous monotone, All the narrow channels of the hamlet's soul.

For what despair, fire, shipwreck, treachery? Was it for threat that from the macchia sprang For Genoa's feud, the oppressor's piracy. Or the Falcon of Sarzana that it rang? Was the boat-guild's silver plundered? Blood should pay. Hardwon the footing of the fishers' clan The sea-cloud-watchers.—Loud above the spray The maddening iron cry, the appeal of man. Washed through the torchless midnight on and on. Are not enough the jeopardies of day? Riot arose—fear's Self began the fray: