Genoa And The Mediterranean By Thomas Hardy

(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.