(After Rilke) <br /> <br /> <br />The city floats no longer like a bait <br />To hook the nimble darting summer days. <br />The glazed and brittle palaces pulsate and radiate <br />And glitter. Summer's garden sways, <br />A heap of marionettes hanging down and dangled, <br />Leaves tired, torn, turned upside down and strangled: <br />Until from forest depths, from bony leafless trees <br />A will wakens: the admiral, lolling long at ease, <br />Has been commanded, overnight -- suddenly --: <br />In the first dawn, all galleys put to sea! <br />Waking then in autumn chill, amid the harbor medley, <br />The fragrance of pitch, pennants aloft, the butt <br />Of oars, all sails unfurled, the fleet <br />Awaits the great wind, radiant and deadly.<br /><br />Delmore Schwartz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/late-autumn-in-venice/
