Works

I


(Celeste, in the Convent at Arcetri, writes to her old lover at Rome.)

My friend, my dearest friend, my own dear love,
I, who am dead to love, and see around me...

"There are no ghosts in America."


There are no ghosts, you say,
To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail...

The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone," he muttered....

(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)


Under the palms of San Diego
Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease,...

(An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism.)


Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!...