Barcarole I

Over the lapsing lagune all the day
Urging my gondola with oar-strokes light,
Always beside one shadowy waterway
I pause and peer, with eager, jealous sight,
Toward the Piazza where Pepita stands,
Wooing the hungry pigeons from their flight.

Dark the canal; but she shines like the sun,
With yellow hair and dreaming, wine-brown eyes.
Thick crowd the doves for food. She gives ME none.
She sees and will not see. Vain are my sighs.
One slow, reluctant stroke. Aha! she turns,
Gestures and smiles, with coy and feigned surprise.

Shifting and baffling is our Lido track,
Blind and bewildering all the currents flow.
Me they perplex not. In the midnight black
I hold my way secure and fearless row,
But ah! what chart have I to her, my Sea,
Whose fair, mysterious depths I long to know?

Subtle as sad mirage; true and untrue
She seems, and, pressing ever on in vain,
I yearn across the mocking, tempting blue.
Never she draws more near, never I gain
A furlong's space toward where she sits and a miles;
Smiles and cares nothing for my love and pain.

How shall I win her? What may strong arm do
Against such gentle distance? I can say
No more than this, that when she stands to woo
The doves beside the shadowy waterway,
And when I look and long, sometimes—she smiles
Perhaps she will do more than smile one day!