An Italian Visit by C. Day Lewis

Author:C. Day Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448203505
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

We went the Cassian Way, a route for legions,

We and the May morning.

Rome flaked off in stucco; blear-eyed villas

Melancholiac under their awnings.

Rome peeled off like a cataract. Clear beyond us

A vision good to believe in -

The Campagna with its longdrawn sighs of grass

Heaving, heaving to heaven.

This young-old terrain of asphodel and tufo

Opening its heart to the sun,

Was it sighing for death like Tithonus, or still athirst for

Immortal dews? . . . We run

Towards Tuscany now through a no-man’s-land where stilted

Aqueducts dryly scale

The distance and sport the lizard his antediluvian

Head and tendril tail.

But soon the road rivers between flowerbanks:

Such a fume and flamboyance of purple

Vetch, of campions, poppy, wild rose, gladioli,

Bugloss! The flowery people,

Come out in their best to line our route, how they wave

At the carnival progress! And higher,

The foothills flush with sainfoin, salutes of broom

Are setting the rocks on fire.

Sutri, Viterbo, Montefiascone passed:

Each village, it seemed, was making

A silent bar in the music, the road’s hurdy-gurdy-

Winding, the tambourine shaking

Of sunlit leaves. You tatterdemalion townships -

Elegance freaked with decay —

Your shuttered looks and your black doormouths gaping

Dumb in the heat of the day

Reject, unanswered, the engine’s urgent beat.

But now, groves of acacia

Swing their honeybells peal upon peal to welcome us

Over the vibrant, azure,

Deep organ chords of Bolsena, the silvery wavelets

Trilling tranquillamente.

That music followed us for miles, until

We came to Acquapendente.

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