To Vernon Lee

On Bellosguardo, when the year was young,

We wandered, seeking for the

And dark anemone, whose purples

The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.

Over the grey, low wall the olive

Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on

Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still,

Above the large and luminous landscape hung.

A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach;

You broke a branch and gave it to me there;

I found for you a scarlet blossom rare.

Thereby ran on of Art and Life our speech;

And of the gifts the gods had given to each—Hope unto you, and unto me Despair.