Classic Poem

No flame such as of old it bore
Makes now its metal glad:
Shall any ever kindle more
The light that once it had?

Not mine to draw the tongues of fire
To those twin wicks of wool;
Thus may some less full heart aspire—
Or head than mine more full!

I am forbidden; my bold hand
Shrinks back at thought of this,
That ever flame in foreign land
These Tuscan lips should kiss!

With other oil than its own height
Doth yield, where windows shine
At peaceful dusk, where once its light
Cheered up an Apennine—

With purest olive gathered up
From any other hill,
His little wistful-lifted cup
'T were sacrilege to fill. . . .

O Home! I, too, an exile seem,
And the warm flames of me
Gone out, save only in dim dream
Of the old hills and thee!