Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Pompeii
By Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) (1806–1876)Translated by C. T. Brooks
D
Perchance, e’en now, the wanton winds are playing,
That tease the grape and rose through viny meshes,
Among the sunny locks of noonday straying!
Two thousand years, am at this moment greeting!
Thou art a man with whom one well were mated,
And me thy Lar invites to friendly meeting.
Long after thee, up from the threshold glancing;
’T is good for me, as once each neighbor found it,
Who now, with thee, in fickle winds is dancing.
Nor yet will I reproach the house’s master,
Who bids me sit, he the rich man and great one,
For purple cushion, on this moss-clad plaster.
With my house-cobolds learn to exchange good wishes!
Though they each other pelt with brands of fire,
Heaven grant they only may not burn our dishes!
Does Heaven’s blue canopy alone smile o’er us?
Well, I ’m an easy guest, I ’ll say, “How graces
Mine host’s blue silk o’erhead the scene before us?”
It is the Rose of Silence (I will swear it),
That even on Pæstum’s roses scorn is flinging,—
How kind in honor of thy guest to wear it!
Sits overhead, is the slack rope, suspended,
On which thy tumbler entertains us, springing;—
No fall for him needs now be apprehended!
Limned by the painter-poets on the ceiling!
Racy and bold, in sooth! But then, in loving,
Better too bold than shy, the flame revealing!
Of Bacchanals, lie round us, tipsy creatures;
Their mouths are stopped with ashes, yet they gabble
Still of their jolly god’s inspired features!
Though black and crisp, it holds in sacred keeping
Pearls of your finery, as the muscle loses
No pearly tear within its dark shrine sleeping.
Alas, its mourning walls their treasure cherish,
Like a sad urn, where, burned and black, reposes
Fair Spring, who, as a youth, was doomed to perish!
Vines, palms, and plane-trees, Nature’s fresh plantations,
Blooming outside, look down in silent wonder,
As we on graves of long-gone generations!
As I in rooms whence thou hast long departed,
So makes herself at home the twittering swallow
In nests a thousand years ago deserted!
Like a lost ghost, a venturous goldfinch hover!
Hears he the spirits of the garden flowers?
Dreams he of sires that here flew, warbling, over?
One vast and shining track of glory, marches,
Through star and tree and rose and sun-ball sweeping,
Through man and angel, as aloft it arches!
By all,—not one can, by himself, repeat it!
What by my stammering lips is never rounded,
Rose, star, and tree, they must for me complete it!
A part of me shall still live on and flourish;
’T is part of me, that breathes in scent of roses,
And flames in suns, and vine and palm doth nourish!
In fountains, winds along through earth’s green places,
As butterfly, on bright-hued wings, is sweeping,
And with the swallow dawning summer traces!
As, o’er their roses, vines, and fountains sweeping,
Borne on the wind’s wild wings, with exultation,
My restless dust shall fly abroad unsleeping!