A DREAM
Signorina, you will not believe me,
You will not believe my dream of yore;
I beheld a sea, yet not an ocean
A heaving plain that touched the Grecian shore.
It was evening and the town was quiet,
Just the moon shone brightly overhead,
And we walked together, slowly, speechless,
Signorina, where our fancies led.
And I told you much, while we were walking,
And so strangely you gazed at my face
That the fire of your night-black glances
Like a shot, found in my heart a place.
You gazed strangely as if you were reading
All the wishes of my burning breath,
Wishing to live with you in our amours,
Signorina ’till we part in death.
You read all and then you gazed intently
At the sculptured steeds with eyes of fire,
At the steeds upon St. Mark’s old statue.
They came down like a bullet shot in ire.
You commanded, we leaped to the saddles,
You on one and I upon the other,
By an escort each of us was followed,
Signorina, thus we-sped together.
Love and Sorrow were our silent escorts
As we sped ’cross plain and mountain crest,
Flying like an eagle, swift, unhampered,
Speeding with no word nor look nor rest.
Well known regions . . . You know where we hastened?
Toward my native land we turned our flight,
But what more I saw in my wild dreaming
My remorseful heart cannot recite.
For we left behind our wildest rider,
Only three of us kept up the pace,
You and I and Sorrow, Signorina . . .
Love was lost in fate’s deceitful race.
65
