St Januarius
You who with your lances burning
Melt the ice sheets of my soul,
Speed it toward the ocean yearning
For its highest hope and goal:
Ever healthier it rises,
Free in fate most amorous: –
Thus your miracle it prizes
Fairest Januarius!
Genoa in January 1882
Januarius is the first month of the Roman civil calendar. The name might (or might not) be connected with that of the deity Janus, the god of doors and entrances. St Januarius (in Italian San Gennaro) was an early Christian martyr, a vial of whose dried blood is kept in a church in Naples. On certain feast days the blood is said miraculously to become fluid again.