To a Poet, with a Copy of Verses

[ZaunköniG]

To a Poet, with a Copy of Verses

Do you remember how that once from Rome
I sent you a poor wild-flower? tribute small
To your great kindness! yet upon the wall
It grew, where bends the blue aerial dome

Above the Colosseum; and the loam
That gave it life was sacred; and o’er all
Reigned present the grand Past imperial!
And you disdained not the poor scentless bloom.

Thus may it be with these poor songs of mine, -
Less mine than Italy’s, born of her skies,
Rocked to the rhythm of the swaying vine,

And nurtured where all night the rose replies
In perfumed whisperings, while all the vale
Rings with the joy of the enmored nightingale!