Genoa And The Mediterranean

(March, 1887)      O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,      Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee     When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.      And multimarbled Genova the Proud,      Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,     I first beheld thee clad - not as the Beauty but the Dowd.      Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit      On housebacks pink, green, ochreous - where a slit     Shoreward 'twixt row and row revealed the classic blue through it.      And thereacross waved fishwives' high-hung smocks,      Chrome kerchiefs, scarlet hose, darned underfrocks;     Since when too oft my dreams of thee, O Queen, that frippery mocks:      Whereat I grieve, Superba! . . . Afterhours      Within Palazzo Doria's orange bowers     Went far to mend these marrings of thy soul-subliming powers.      But, Queen, such squalid undress none should see,      Those dream-endangering eyewounds no more be     Where lovers first behold thy form in pilgrimage to thee.