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Poems
"Not Known."
By Denis Florence MacCarthy
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On receiving through the Post-Office a Returned Letter from an old residence, marked on the envelope, "Not Known."
A beauteous summer-home had I
As e’er a bard set eyes on -
A glorious sweep of sea and sky,
Near hills and far horizon.
Like Naples was the lovely bay,
The lovely hill like Rio -
And there I lived for many a day
In Campo de Estio.
It seemed as if the magic scene
No human skill had planted;
The trees remained for ever green,
As if they were enchanted:
And so I said to Sweetest-eyes,
My dear, I think that we owe
To fairy hands this paradise
Of Campo de Estio.
How swiftly flew the hours away!
I read and rhymed and revelled;
In interchange of work and play,
I built, and drained, and levelled;
"The Pope," so "happy," days gone by
(Unlike our ninth Pope Pio),
Was far less happy then than I
In Campo de Estio.
For children grew in that sweet place,
As in the grape wine gathers -
Their mother’s eyes in each bright face,
In each light heart, their father’s:
Their father, who by some was thought
A literary ’leo,’
Ne’er dreamed he’d be so soon forgot
In Campo de Estio.
But so it was: - Of hope bereft,
A year had scarce gone over,
Since he that sweetest place had left,
And gone - we’ll say - to Dover,
When letters came where he had flown.
Returned him from the "P. O.,"
On which was writ, O Heavens! "NOT KNOWN
IN CAMPO DE ESTIO!"
"Not known" where he had lived so long,
A "cintra" home created,
Where scarce a shrub that now is strong
But had its place debated;
Where scarce a flower that now is shown,
But shows his care: O Dio!
And now to be described, "Not known
In Campo de Estio."
That pillar from the Causeway brought -
This fern from Connemara -
That pine so long and widely sought -
This Cedrus deodara -
That bust (if Shakespeare’s doth survive,
And busts had brains and ’brio’),
Might keep his name at least alive
In Campo de Estio.
When Homer went from place to place,
The glorious siege reciting
(Of course I presuppose the case
Of reading and of writing),
I’ve little doubt the Bard divine
His letters got from Scio,
Inscribed "Not known," Ah! me, like mine
From Campo de Estio.
The poet, howsoe’er inspired,
Must brave neglect and danger;
When Philip Massinger expired,
The death-list said "a stranger!"
A stranger! yes, on earth, but let
The poet sing ’laus Deo’! -
Heaven’s glorious summer waits him yet -
God’s "Campo de Estio."
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