(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality.)
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!
Something to see, by Bacchus°, something to hear,
at least! °4
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.
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of
a bull
Just on a mountain 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. 10
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.
What of a villa? Tho’ 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 gray
olive trees. 20
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.
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,
Tho’ all that she wears is some weeds round
her waist in a sort of sash. 30
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 i’
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.
Ere you open 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. 40
By and by there’s the travelling doctor gives
pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello°-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
°42
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,° St. Jerome°
and Cicero,° °48
“And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming),
“the skirts of St. Paul has
reached,°
°49
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous
than ever he
preached.”
50
Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession!
our Lady° borne smiling and smart.
°51
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords°
stuck in her heart! °52
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle
the fife;
No keeping one’s haunches still: it’s
the greatest pleasure in life.
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; 60 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!
* * * *
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