Portico
(Translated by Thomas Walsh)
I AM the singer who of late put by
The verse azulean and the chant profane,
Across whose nights a rossignol would cry
And prove himself a lark at morn again.
Lord was I of my garden-place of dreams,
Of heaping roses and swan-haunted brakes;
Lord of the doves; lord of the silver streams,
Of gondolas and lilies on the lakes.
And very eighteenth century; both old
And very modern; bold, cosmopolite;
Like Hugo daring, like Verlaine half-told,
And thirsting for illusions infinite.
From childhood it was sorrow that I knew;
My youth—was ever youth my own indeed?—
Its roses still their perfume round me strew,
Their perfume of a melancholy seed—
A rainless colt my instinct galloped free,
My youth bestrode a colt without a rein;
Intoxicate I went, a belted blade with me;
If I fell not—'twas God who did sustain.
