VII

Now, the single little turret that remains
On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks

VIII

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

IX

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away-

X

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair

Waits me there

In the turret, whence the charioteers caught soul

For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breath

less, dumb

Till I come.

XI

But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then,

All the men !

XII

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

XIII

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and north,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high

As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force

Gold, of course.

XIV

Oh, heart! oh, blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest. Love is best !

There is the vision of a dead city; the garrulous desire of the pleasure of a live one,

as pictured and envied by an Italian person of quality, is humorously wrought into the page of another poem (which lends itself uncommonly well to being read aloud):

UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)

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 the 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's 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: