by Poe · Cluster: Grief and Loss · Elegy · Clothing and Costume
Abstract
A sonnet on the Greek isle of Zante, whose flowery shores now wake only memories of a vanished maiden and entombed hopes; the place is cursed by the refrain ‘no more’. Themes of grief, lost love, transience and the classical Mediterranean.
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori Motifs: Flowers, Memory Themes & Concepts: Grief and Loss, Unrequited Frustrated Love, Transience Forms & Genres: Sonnet Historical References: Classical Antiquity Settings: Ancient Greece (2)
Testo integrale / Full text
Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more—no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No more! alas, that magical sad sound
Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more—
Thy memory _no more! _Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
“Isola d’oro! Fior di Levante!”
1837.