Poem by Thomas Hardy

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;
Often since when 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.

1. Genitrix Laesa
2. Song from Heine
3. V.R. 1819–1901
4. Paths of Former Time
5. Over the Coffin

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