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All the young ones are kneeling and filling their laps with the snails

Tempted out by this first rainy weather,-your best of

regales,

As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, when, supping in state,

We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen, three over one plate)

With lasagne so tempting to swallow in slippery ropes, And gourds fried in great purple slices, that colour of

popes.

Meantime, see the grape bunch they 've brought you: the rain-water slips

O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe which the wasp to your lips

Still follows with fretful persistence. Nay, taste, while

awake,

This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball that peels, flake by flake,

Like an onion, each smoother and whiter : next, sip this weak winę

From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, a leaf of

the vine;

And end with the prickly pear's red flesh that leaves thro'

its juice

The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth.

Scirocco is loose!

Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives which, thick

in one's track,

Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them, tho' not yet half black!

How the old twisted olive trunks shudder, the medlars let

fall

Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees snap off, figs and all,

For here comes the whole of the tempest! no refuge, but

creep

Back again to my side and my shoulder, and listen or sleep.

O how will your country show next week, when all the vine-boughs

Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture the mules and the cows?

Last eve, I rode over the mountains; your brother, my

guide,

Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles that offered, each side,

Their fruit-balls, black, glossy, and luscious,-or strip from the sorbs

A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, those hairy gold orbs! But my mule picked his sure sober path out, just stopping

to neigh

When he recognised down in the valley his mates on their

way

With the faggots and barrels of water. And soon we emerged

From the plain where the woods could scarce follow; and still, as we urged

Our way, the woods wondered, and left us. Up, up still we trudged,

Though the wild path grew wilder each instant, and place was e'en grudged

Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones like the loose broken teeth

Of some monster which climbed there to die, from the ocean beneath

Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed that clung to the path,

And dark rosemary ever a-dying, that, 'spite the wind's

wrath,

So loves the salt rock's face to seaward and lentisks as

staunch

To the stone where they root and bear berries: and .. what shows a branch

Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets of pale seagreen leaves;

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Over all trod my mule with the caution of gleaners o'er sheaves.

Still, foot after foot like a lady, still, round after round, He climbed to the top of Calvano: and God's own pro

found

Was above me, and round me the mountains, and under,

the sea,

And within me my heart to bear witness what was and shall be.

Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal ! no rampart excludes Your eye from the life to be lived in the blue solitudes. Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement! still moving with you;

For, ever some new head and breast of them thrusts into view

To observe the intruder; you see it, if quickly you turn And, before they escape you, surprise them. They grudge you should learn

How the soft plains they look on, lean over and love (they pretend)

-Cower beneath them, the black sea-pine crouches, the wild fruit-trees bend,

E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut: all is silent

and grave:

'T is a sensual and timorous beauty,-how fair! but a

slave.

So, I turned to the sea; and there slumbered, as greenly

as ever

Those isles of the siren, your Galli. No ages can sever The Three, nor enable their sister to join them,-halfway

On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses-no farther to-day! Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave, watches breast-high and steady

From under the rock her bold sister, swum halfway

already.

Fortù, shall we sail there together, and see, from the

sides,

Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts where the siren abides?

Shall we sail round and round them, close over the rocks,

tho' unseen,

That ruffle the grey glassy water to glorious green?

Then scramble from splinter to splinter, reach land, and

explore,

On the largest, the strange square black turret with never

a door,

Just a loop to admit the quick lizards? Then, stand there and hear

The birds' quiet singing, that tells us what life is, so

clear?

-The secret they sang to Ulysses when, ages ago,

He heard and he knew this life's secret, I hear and I know.

Ah, see! The sun breaks o'er Calvano. He strikes

the great gloom

And flutters it o'er the mount's summit in airy gold

fume.

All is over.

smith,

Look out, see, the gipsy, our tinker and

Has arrived, set up bellows and forge, and down-squatted

forthwith

To his hammering under the wall there! One eye keeps

aloof

The urchins that itch to be putting his jews'-harp to

proof,

While the other, thro' locks of curled wire, is watching

how sleek

Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall. Chew, abbot's own cheek!

All is over. us go,

Wake up and come out now, and down let

And see the fine things got in order at church for the show

Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-morrow's the Feast

Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means of Virgins the

least:

As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse which (all nature,

no art)

The Dominican brother, these three weeks, was getting by

heart.

Not a pillar nor post but is dizened with red and blue

papers;

All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar a-blaze with long tapers.

But the great masterpiece is the scaffold rigged glorious to hold

All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers and trumpeters

bold

Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber: who, when the priest's

hoarse,

Will strike us up something that 's brisk for the feast's second course.

And then will the flaxen-wigged Image be carried in

pomp

Thro' the plain, while, in gallant procession, the priests mean to stomp.

All round the glad church lie old bottles with gunpowder

stopped,

Which will be, when the Image re-enters, religiously

popped.

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