Pia dei Tolomei to Love and Death

The distant hills are blue as lips of death;

Between myself and them the hot swamps steam

In fetid curls, which, in the twilight, seem

Like gathering phantoms waiting for my breath;

While in the August heat with chattering teeth

I sit, and icy limbs, and let the stream

Of recollection flow in a dull dream;

Or weave, with marish blooms, my own death-wreath.

O Love that hast undone me, and through whom

I waste in this Maremma: King of Sighs,

Behold thy handmaid in her heavy doom!

Send me thy brother Death who so oft flies

Across these marshes in the semi-gloom,

To bear me to thy amber-tinted skies.