Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/235

Rh For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower. He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.

I had waked this morn where Florence smiles, A-bloom with beauty, a white rose full-blown, Yet rich in sacred dust, in storied stone, Precious past all the wealth of Indian isles— From olive-hoary Fiesole to feed On Brunelleschi s dome my hungry eye, And see against the lotus-colored sky, Spring the slim belfry graceful as a reed. To kneel upon the ground where Dante trod, To breathe the air of immortality From Angelo and Raphael—to be— Each sense new-quickened by a demi-god. To hear the liquid Tuscan speech at whiles, From citizen and peasant, to behold The heaven of Leonardo washed with gold— Would I had waked this morn where Florence smiles!