Poems of the Past and the Present

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Author: 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;
Since when too oft 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.

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Chicago: Thomas Hardy, "Genoa and the Mediterranean (March, 1887)," Poems of the Past and the Present, ed. Keil, Heinrich, 1822-1894 and trans. Seaton, R. C. in Poems of the Past and the Present (New York: George E. Wood, ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892), Original Sources, accessed March 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=86FIDC2VVEGPH86.

MLA: Hardy, Thomas. "Genoa and the Mediterranean (March, 1887)." Poems of the Past and the Present, edited by Keil, Heinrich, 1822-1894, and translated by Seaton, R. C., in Poems of the Past and the Present, New York, George E. Wood, ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892, Original Sources. 29 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=86FIDC2VVEGPH86.

Harvard: Hardy, T, 'Genoa and the Mediterranean (March, 1887)' in Poems of the Past and the Present, ed. and trans. . cited in ""Death-bed"" edition, 1892, Poems of the Past and the Present, George E. Wood, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 29 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=86FIDC2VVEGPH86.