| |
|
I
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the
city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window
there!
II
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at
least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect
feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more
than a beast.
III
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a
bull
Just on a mountain's edge as bare as the creature's
skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
- I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's
turned wool.
IV
But the city, oh the city -the square with the houses!
Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something
to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry!
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who
hurries by:
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the
sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted
properly.
V
What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by
rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well
off the heights:
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen
steam and wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive
trees.
VI
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at
once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three
fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great
red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to
pick and sell.
VII
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to
spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such
foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and
paddle and pash
Round the lady atop in her conch -fifty gazers do not
abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist
in a sort of sash!
VIII
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though
you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted
forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn
and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem
a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is
shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the
resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons, -I spare you the months of the
fever and chill.
IX
Ere opening your eyes in the city, the blessed
church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles
in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a
pin.
By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills,
lets blood, draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene-picture -the new play,
piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal
thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of
rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little
new law of the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don
So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and
Cicero,
"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts
of Saint Paul has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous
than ever he preached."
Noon strikes, -here sweeps the procession! our Lady
borne smiling and smart
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords
stuck in her heart!
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the
fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest
pleasure in life.
X
But bless you, it's dear -it's dear! fowls, wine, at
double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays
passing the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not
the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still -ah, the
pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with
cowls and sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the
yellow candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross
with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better
prevention of scandals.
Bang, whang, whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the
fife.
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure
in life! |
|
|
