Poem by Louise Imogen Guiney

Saint Florent-le-Vieil

THE spacious open vale, the vale of doom,
Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong
The semicirque of water sweeps among
Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb;
And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom
Two little idling clouds, that look for long
Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song
Correggio left to flush a convent room.

Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war!
In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest
With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest
Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire,
And fires that still suffuse the lower west,
Blanching the beauty of thine evening star.

1. The Still of the Year
2. The Japanese Anemone
3. Hylas
4. Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”
5. T. W. P. 1819-1892

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