Julia Ward Howe

Via Felice

'T was in the Via Felice
 My friend his dwelling made,
The Roman Via Felice,
 Half sunshine, half in shade.

A marble God stands near it
 That once deserved a shrine,
And, veteran of the old world,
 The Barberini pine.

A very Roman is he
 Whom Age makes not so wise
But that each coming winter
 Is still a new surprise.

But I lodged near the Convent
 Whose bells did hallow noon,
And all the lesser hours
 With sweet recurrent tune.

They lent their solemn cadence
 To all the thoughtless day;
The heart, so oft it heard them,
 Was lifted up to pray.

And where the lamp was lighted
 At twilight, on the wall,
Serenely sat Madonna,
 And smiled to bless us all.

Those voices, illustrating
 Their bargains, from the street,
Shaming Thought's narrow meanness
 With music infinite.

Those men of stately stature,
 Those women, fair of shape,
That watched the chestnuts roasting,
 The fig, and clustered grape;

All this, my daily pleasure
 That made none poor to give,
Was near the Via Felice
 Where Horace loved to live.

I see him from the window
 That ne'er my heart forgets,
He buys from yonder maiden
 My morning violets.

Not ill he chose those flowers
 With mild, reproving eyes,
Emblems of tender chiding,
 And love divinely wise.

For his were generous learning,
 And reconciling Art;
Oh! not with fleeting presence
 My friend and I could part.

His work of consolation
 Abode when he was gone,
A tower of Beauty lifted
 From ruins widely strewn.

                * * *

Our own inconstant heavens
 Were o'er us, when we met
Before a longer parting,
 Not seen, nor dreamed of, yet.

'T was when the Spring's soft breathing
 Restores the frozen sense,
And Patience, dull with Winter,
 Is glad in recompense.

There, in our pleasant converse,
 As by one thought, we said:
This is the Via Felice,
 Where friends together tread.

                * * *

Again, my friend turned seaward,
 Again, athwart the wave
He flung the wayward fortune
 His fiery planet gave.

And, in that heart of Paris
 That hides distress and wrong
So cold, with show and splendor,
 So dumb, with dance and song;

Drawn, by some hidden current
 Of unknown agony,
To seek a throb responsive,
 Our Horace sank to die.

                * * *

Oh! not where he is lying
 With dear ancestral dust,
Not where his household traces
 Grow sad and dim with rust;

But in the Ancient City
 And from the quaint old door,
I'm watching, at my window
 His coming, evermore.

For Death's Eternal city
 Has yet some happy street,
'T is in the Via Felice
 My friend and I shall meet.