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.