Real wishes on myself—say, three- I would grasp Metternich until I felt his red wet throat distil In blood thro' these two hands. And next, -Nor much for that am I perplexed- Should die slow of a broken heart -Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast Do I grow old and out of strength. If I sat on the door-side bench, Inquired of all her fortunes-just So much for idle wishing-how It steals the time ! To business now. THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. PIANO DI SORRENTO. FORTÙ, Fortù, my beloved one, sit here by my side, tried, I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Now, open your eyes, Let me keep you amused, till he vanish in black from the skies, With telling my memories over, as you tell your beads; All the Plain saw me gather, I garland-the flowers or the weeds. Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn had networked with brown The white skin of each grape on the bunches, marked like a quail's crown, Those creatures you make such account of, whose heads, -specked with white Over brown like a great spider's back, as I told you last night, Your mother bites off for her supper. Red-ripe as could be, Pomegranates were chapping and splitting in halves on the tree. And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone, or in the thick dust On the path, or straight out of the rock-side, wherever could thrust Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower its yellow face up, For the prize were great butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, what change was in store, By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets which woke me before I could open my shutter, made fast with a bough and a stone, And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs, sole lattice that 's known. Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles, while, busy beneath, Your priest and his brother tugged at them, the rain in their teeth. And out upon all the flat house-roofs, where split figs lay drying, The girls took the frails under cover: nor use seemed in trying To get out the boats and go fishing, for, under the cliff, Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock. No seeing our skiff Arrive about noon from Amalfi !-- our fisher arrive, And pitch down his basket before us, all trembling alive, With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit; you touch the strange lumps, And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner of horns and of humps, Which only the fisher looks grave at, while round him like imps, Cling screaming the children as naked and brown as his shrimps; Himself too as bare to the middle-you see round his neck The string and its brass coin suspended, that saves him from wreck. But to-day not a boat reached Salerno: so back, to a man, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards grapeharvest began. In the vat, halfway up in our house-side, like blood the juice spins, While your brother all bare-legged is dancing till breathless he grins Dead-beaten in effort on effort to keep the grapes under, Since still, when he seems all but master, in pours the fresh plunder From girls who keep coming and going with basket on shoulder, And eyes shut against the rain's driving; your girls that are older,— For under the hedges of aloe, and where, on its bed Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple lies pulpy and red, All the young ones are kneeling and filling their laps with the snails Tempted out by this first rainy weather,-your best of regales, |