Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/29

 For Autumn's livery, would seek in vain

To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,

Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed

Is the low murmur of the shepherd's reed,

Where the loud clarion's blast should shake the sky,

And flame across the heavens! and to try

Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know

That never felt my heart a nobler glow

Than when I woke the silence of thy street

With clamorous trampling of my horse's feet,

And saw the city which now I try to sing,

After long days of weary travelling.

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,

I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow

From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:

The sky was as a shield that caught the stain

Of blood and battle from the dying sun,

And in the west the circling clouds had spun

A royal robe, which some great God might wear,

While into ocean-seas of purple air

Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night 15