Classic Poem

THE LAST POEM

R OME , May , 1861

The occasion of Mrs. Browning's last poem was a visit of the Danish novelist Hans Christian Andersen to Rome in the spring of 1861.

I

" Now give us lands where the olives grow,"
Cried the North to the South,
" Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow
Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyardrow!"
Cried the North to the South.

" Now give us men from the sunless plain,"
Cried the South to the North,
" By need of work in the snow and the rain,
Made strong, and brave by familiar pain!"
Cried the South to the North.

II

" Give lucider hills and intenser seas,"
Said the North to the South.
" Since ever by symbols and bright degrees
Art, childlike, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,"
Said the North to the South.

" Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer,"
Said the South to the North,
" That stand in the dark on the lowest stair,
While affirming of God, " He is certainly there, " "
Said the South to the North.

III

" Yet oh for the skies that are softer and higher!"
Sighed the North to the South;
For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire,
And the insects made of a song or a fire!"
Sighed the North to the South.

" And oh for a seer to discern the same!"
Sighed the South to the North;
" For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame,
To call the tree or the flower by its name!"
Sighed the South to the North.

IV

The North sent therefore a man of men
As a grace to the South;
And thus to Rome came Andersen.
— " Alas, but must you take him again?"
Said the South to the North.