THE RICCARDI PRESS BOOKS ¶ Of this edition of TWELVE POEMS BY EDITH WHARTON 130 copies have been printed in the Riccardi fount on handmade paper of which 100 are for sale. ¶ Copy Number 44 [Illustration: Edith Wharton] TWELVE POEMS BY EDITH WHARTON [Illustration: [Logo]] TWELVE POEMS BY EDITH WHARTON PUBLISHED BY THE MEDICI SOCIETY VII GRAFTON STREET LONDON MDCCCCXXVI CONTENTS Nightingales in Provence Page 1 Mistral in the Maquis „ 7 Les Salettes „ 11 Dieu d’Amour „ 15 Segesta „ 19 The Tryst „ 23 Battle Sleep „ 27 Elegy „ 31 With the Tide „ 35 La folle du logis „ 39 The First Year „ 45 Alternative Epitaphs „ 53 NIGHTINGALES IN PROVENCE (i) Whence come they, small and brown, Miraculous and frail, Like spring’s invisible pollen blown On the wild southern gale? From whatsoever depth of gold and blue, Far-templed sand and ringèd palms they wing, Falling like dew Upon the land, they bring Music and spring, With all things homely-sweet Exhaled beneath the feet On stony mountain-trail, Or where green slopes, through tamarisk and pine, Seaward decline— Thyme and the lavender, Where honey-bees make stir, And the green dragon-flies with silver whirr Loot the last rosemaries— The morning-glory, rosy as her name, The poppies’ leaping flame Along the kindled vines, Down barren banks the vetches spilt like lees, In watery meadows the great celandines Afloat like elfin moons, In the pale world of dunes A foam of asphodel Upon the sea’s blue swell, And, where the great rocks valley-ward are rolled, The tasselled ilex-bloom fringing dark woods with gold.