Abbadia San Salvatore

Abbey of Sant'Antimo


Albarese

Acquapendente


Archipelago Toscano


Arcidosso


Arezzo


Asciano


Badia di Coltibuono


Bagno Vignoni

Barberino Val d'Elsa

Beaches

Bolsena Lake


Bomarzo

Brunello di Montalcino

Buenconvento

Campagnatico


Capalbio


Castel del Piano


Castelfiorentino

Castell'Azarra

Castellina in Chianti


Castelmuzio


Castelnuovo Bererdenga


Castiglioncello Bandini


Castiglione della Pescaia


Castiglione d'Orcia


Castiglion Fiorentino


Celleno


Certaldo


Chinaciano Terme


Chianti


Chiusi


Cinigiano


Città di Castello

Cività di Bagnoregio


Colle Val d'Elsa


Cortona


Crete Senesi


Diaccia Botrona


Isola d'Elba


Firenze


Follonica


Gaiole in Chianti


Gavorrano

Gerfalco


Greve in Chianti


Grosseto


Lago Trasimeno


La Foce


Manciano


Maremma


Massa Marittima


Montagnola Senese


Montalcino


Monte Amiata


Monte Argentario


Montefalco


Montemassi


Montemerano


Monte Oliveto Maggiore


Montepulciano


Monteriggioni


Monticchiello


Monticiano


Orbetello


Orvieto


Paganico


Parco Naturale della Maremma


Perugia


Piancastagnaio


Pienza


Pisa


Pitigliano

Prato

Punta Ala

Radda in Chianti


Roccalbegna


Roccastrada


San Bruzio


San Casciano dei Bagni


San Galgano


San Gimignano


San Giovanni d'Asso


San Quirico d'Orcia


Sansepolcro


Santa Fiora


Sant'Antimo


Sarteano


Saturnia


Scansano


Scarlino


Seggiano


Siena


Sinalunga


Sorano


Sovana


Sovicille

Talamone

Tarquinia


Tavernelle Val di Pesa


Torrita di Siena


Trequanda


Tuscania


Umbria


Val d'Elsa


Val di Merse


Val d'Orcia


Valle d'Ombrone


Vetulonia


Viterbo

Volterra



 

             
 
Ponte della Pia
 
Ponte della Pia

 

Surroundings
       
   

Helen Gray Cone

Madonna Pia


   
   

To westward lies the unseen sea,
 Blue sea the live winds wander o'er.
The many-colored sails can flee,
 And leave the dead, low-lying shore.
Her longing does not seek the main,
 Her face turns northward first at morn;
There, crowning all the wide champaign,
 Siena stood, where she was born.

Siena stands, and still shall stand;
 She ne'er shall see or town or tower.
Warm life and beauty, hand in hand,
 Steal farther from her hour by hour.
Yet forth she leans, with trembling knees,
 And northward will she stare and stare
Through that thick wall of cypress-trees,
 And sigh adown the stirless air:

"Shall no remembrance in Siena linger
 Of me, once fair, whom slow Maremma slays?
As well he knows, whose ring upon my finger
 Hath sealed for his alone mine earthly days!"

From wilds where shudders through the weeds
 The dull, mean-headed, silent snake,
Like voiceless doubt that creeps and breeds;
 From swamps where sluggish waters take,
As lives unblest a passing love,
 The flag-flower's image in the spring,
Or seem, when flits the bird above,
 To stir within with shadowed wing,

A Presence mounts in pallid mist
 To fold her close: she breathes its breath;
She waxes wan, by Fever kissed,
 Who weds her for his master, Death,
Aside are set her dimmed hopes all,
 She counts no more the uncurrent hoard;
On gray Death's neck she fain would fall,
 To own him for her proper lord.

She minds the journey here by night:
 When some red sudden torch would blaze,
She saw by fits, with childish fright,
 The cork-trees twist beside the ways.
Like dancing demon shapes they showed,
 With malice drunk; the bat beat by,
The owlet sobbed; on, on they rode,
 She knew not where, she knows not why.

For Nello—when in piteous wise
 She lifted up her look to ask,
Except the ever-burning eyes
 His face was like a marble mask.
And so it always meets her now;
 The tomb wherein at last he lies
Shall bear such carven lips and brow,
 All save the ever-burning eyes.

Perchance it is his form alone
 Doth stroke his hound, at meat doth sit,
And, for the soul that was his own,
 A fiend awhile inhabits it;
While he sinks through the fiery throng,
 Down, to fill an evil bond,
Since false conceit of others' wrong
 Hath wrought him to a sin beyond.

But she—if when her years were glad
 Vain fluttering thoughts were hers, that hid
Behind that gracious fame she had;
 If e'er observance hard she did
That sinful men might call her saint,—
 White-handed Pia, dovelike-eyed,—
The sick blank hours shall yet acquaint
 Her heart with all her blameful pride.

And Death shall find her kneeling low,
 And lift her to the porphyry stair,
And she from ledge to ledge shall go,
 Stayed by the staff of that last prayer,
Until the high, sweet-singing wood
 Whence folk are rapt to heaven, she win;
Therein the unpardoned never stood,
 Nor may one Sorrow nest therein.

But through the Tuscan land shall beat
 Her Sorrow, like a wounded bird;
And if her suit at Mary's feet
 Avail, its moan shall yet be heard
By some just poet, who shall shed,
 Whate'er the theme that leads his rhyme
Bright words like tears above her, dead,
 Entreating of the after time:

"Among you let her mournful memory linger!
 Siena bare her, whom Maremma slew;
And this dark lord, who gave her maiden finger
 His ancient gem, the secret only knew." 



   
   

Podere Santa Pia, situated in a particularly scenic valley


 

 
   


[1] Helen Gray Cone (March 8, 1859 – January 31, 1934) was a poet and professor of English literature. She spent her entire career at Hunter College in New York City.
Her first book, Oberon and Puck: Verses Grave and Gay was published by Cassell, New York, in 1885. The New York Times received it well, saying, "Miss Cone has the rare talent of compression and the wit not to attempt too high a flight at first."[3] The book was reprinted by Houghton Mifflin in 1893, after that press released her The Ride to the Lady in 1891. She wrote fiction as well in this period, publishing a short story in Harper's Magazine in 1886.[4]

In 1899, she was elected to the Professorship in English after the death of her predecessor in the position. Though the Normal College admitted only female students at the time, Cone was the first woman to hold a professorship there.[5] As sole holder of the title, she was considered department head, a title she retained as the department grew.[6]

Her Soldiers of the Light was published by Richard G. Badger of Boston in 1910. Stephenson Browne commented in the New York Times: "Miss Cone refrains so steadfastly from the arts of the self-advertiser that only those who read all the magazines know how large is the volume of genuine poetry she annually presents in the best of them."[7] A poem from the book, "The Common Street," was published in the Times the following year; it praises the sunset which bursts suddenly into the New York landscape, turning the common street and its denizens, "Each with his sordid burden trudging by," into "A golden highway into golden heaven, / With the dark shapes of men ascending still."[8] Poetry collections A Chant of Love for England (New York: Dutton, 1915) and The Coat Without a Seam (New York: Dutton, 1919) followed.

In addition to poetry and fiction, she wrote literary criticism (her 1890 history of American literature was republished in a 2000 anthology[9]), co-edited Pen-Portraits of Literary Women with Jeanette L. Gilder (New York: Cassell, 1887) and provided notes for Houghton Mifflin's Riverside editions of Shakespeare's Macbeth (1897), Hamlet (1897), Merchant of Venice (1900), and Twelfth Night (1901). A volume of her selected poems was published as Harvest Home (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1930). She was awarded honorary degrees by New York University in 1908 and Hunter in 1920.[1]

  1. Dr. Helen Cone Dies, Hunter Professor". New York Times. February 1, 193

  2.  "Normal College Alumnae Reunion". New York Times (Proquest).
  3.  "New Books". New York Times (Proquest). April 11, 1886.
  4.  Cone, Helen Gray (October 1886). "The River Floweth On"Harper's Magazine.
  5.  "Young Women Graduated"New York Times. June 23, 1899.
  6.  "Two At Hunter Win Riess Scholarships". New York Times (Proquest). March 8, 1939.
  7.  Browne, Stephenson (October 15, 1910). "Literary Notes from Boston". New York Times (Proquest).
  8.  Cone, Helen Gray (May 28, 1911). "The Common Street". New York Times (Proquest).
  9.  Americans on Fiction, 1776-1900, ed. Peter Rawlings (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2000); reviewed by Beth A. Fisher, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 38:2 (2005), 121-26.
  10.  "William Wood's Memory Honored". New York Times (Proquest). October 2, 1894.
  11.  "Hunter Graduates 203 New Teachers". New York Times (Proquest). June 23, 1916.
  12.  "Faculty Changes at Hunter College". New York Times (Proquest). May 23, 1926.
  13.  "Wins Hunter Fellowship". New York Times (Proquest). June 1, 1932.
  14.  "2010 English Department Prizes and Awards" (PDF). Hunter College English Department. Retrieved 14 August 2010.


Source:wikipedia.org