As I My Steps

As I my steps Along the grated streets Of sweet Valletta I retraced I passed from street to street And I me thought that I could find The dwelling where you lived. For me those streets familiar quite Became as dearer and dearer As I from city street to street My steps retraced their bearer Aye! Aye! The streets became as dearer And beautiful more than I had seen For years and years before: The pregnant windows frowning black Unmoving ghosts in city pent I wandered quite what did they hide Behind their closed doors: The small quaint front doors in the street A few light inches the cobble stones above With memories faint and dim And with fast-fretting hither and thither The hazy residents of those small abodes Hid from my anxious questioning sight. And as I passed along the street A chimney high I saw smiling with glee As it played child-like with white passing clouds Above the warm sun shone on the old stones That dreamt and dreamt and dreamt of years untold. Aye! Aye! The city old Above the harbor glideth In my warm dreams: The sailing clouds Above the trees In the small garden passing: The green leaves In their high towers With each to each In their wild love-making To each and each are rustling: The citizens in city streets With hurried steps are passing. And whither do they pass And thither do they go? The silent steps In the small sullen street I start descending As if some thief to catch That in some city nook From me is hiding: A lazy cat Watches with half-open’d eye: Little beyond The stench of its urine Drown’d by the sweet sense Of roses pent in mortar cask And hanging from the city wall. Yes! Time is passing In this sweet silent city of my dreams: Let me allow it pass Into the ocean sea-blue That in midst of it Like as in lover’s arms My senses and myself will sink. And I will not speak And I will not sing If not my lyre speaks If not my lyre sings.