Part 3

To Spain, Good Stranger? There it is you go! I pray you then seek out one that I knew And for me tell him—O! I pray you to!— Look not for him where piled up gold’s aglow, Nor where the servile courtier bendeth low, Nor yet indeed where banked spears filtering through Sharp steel light falls pallid and cold as dew, Where’er the humble kneel in prayer, there, go.

’Tis there you’ll find him where the tapers show His hands in blessing lifted. Then, O then, For me say this—say it again! again! (I crave your pardon, Stranger. Say not so.) But is he happy? That I have not heard— Look in his eyes and then—then—send me word!

VIII

Theocritus who sang in Sicily, By Ætna where are shepherds’ pipes a-ring, Made thus unto the night a maiden sing: “Moon-Wheel, the one I love draw unto me.” O! would that I could pray thus, Moon, to thee, And be as sure as she some peace to bring, Simætha, ’neath the laurels silvering, In old Sicilian gardens by the sea.

I pray to thee, Great Moon, make me forget! O! gracious Lady Moon, let me forget And love but beauty only as of yore! Soon now upon the grass beside my door The Fall will fling the poplars’ pallid gold— Let me forget and love it as of old!

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.