The fair Alfalfa; such as has Usurped the Occident, and grows With all the sweetness of the rose On Sacramento's sundown hills, Is there, and that mid island fills With fragrance. Yet the smell of death Comes riding in on every breath. Lo! death that is not death, but rest: To step aside, to watch and wait Beside the wave, outside the gate, With all life's pulses in your breast: To absolutely rest, to pray In some lone mountain while you may. That sad sweet fragrance. It had sense, And sound, and voice. It was a part Of that which had possessed my heart, And would not of my will go hence. 'Twas Autumn's breath; 'twas dear as kiss Of any worshipped woman is. Some snails have climb'd the throne and writ Their silver monograms on it In unknown tongues. I sat thereon, I dreamed until the day was gone; I blew again my pearly shell,-- Blew long and strong, and loud and well; I puffed my cheeks, I blew, as when Horn'd satyrs danced the delight of men. Some mouse-brown cows that fed within Looked up. A cowherd rose hard by, My single subject, clad in skin, Nor yet half clad. I caught his eye, He stared at me, then turned and fled. He frightened fled, and as he ran, Like wild beast from the face of man, Across his shoulder threw his head. He gathered up his skin of goat About his breast and hairy throat. He stopped, and then this subject true, Mine only one in lands like these Made desolate by changeful seas, Came back and asked me for a _sou_. XXXIX. And yet again through the watery miles Of reeds I rowed till the desolate isles Of the black bead-makers of Venice are not. I touched where a single sharp tower is shot To heaven, and torn by thunder and rent As if it had been Time's battlement. A city lies dead, and this great gravestone Stands at its head like a ghost alone. Some cherry-trees grow here, and here An old church, simple and severe In ancient aspect, stands alone Amid the ruin and decay, all grown In moss and grasses. Old and quaint, With antique cuts of martyr'd saint, The gray church stands with stooping knees, Defying the decay of seas. Her pictured Hell, with flames blown high, In bright mosaics wrought and set When man first knew the Nubian art, Her bearded saints, as black as jet; Her quaint Madonna, dim with rain And touch of pious lips of pain, So touched my lonesome soul, that I Gazed long, then came and gazed again, And loved, and took her to my heart.