Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
Birds of PassageFlight the Fifth. Vittoria Colonna
O
I see thy purple halls!—once more
I hear the billows of the bay
Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast
Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,
A mouldering landmark of the Past.
A phantom gliding to and fro;
It is Colonna,—it is she
Who lived and loved so long ago.
The type of perfect womanhood,
Whose life was love, the life of life,
That time and change and death withstood.
In others, only closer pressed
The wedding-ring upon her hand
And closer locked and barred her breast.
The weariness, the endless pain
Of waiting for some one to come
Who nevermore would come again.
The odor of the orange blooms,
The song of birds, and, more than these,
The silence of deserted rooms;
The soft caresses of the air,
All things in nature seemed to be
But ministers of her despair;
Imprisoned in itself, found vent
And voice in one impassioned song
Of inconsolable lament.
Transmutes to gold the leaden mist,
Her life was interfused with light,
From realms that, though unseen, exist.
Thy castle on the crags above
In dust shall crumble and decay,
But not the memory of her love.