THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY
Piano di Sorrento
Fort<u`>, Fort<u`>, my beloved one,
Sit
here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I
was sure, if I 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;
10
All the Plain saw me gather, I garland
—The
flowers or the weeds.
Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn
Had
net-worked 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—speckled whlte
Over brown like a great spider’s back,
As
I told you last night—
20
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 rockside,
Wherever
could thrust
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower
Its
yellow face up,
30
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 thro’ the twisted dead vine-twigs,
Sole
lattice that’s known.
40
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, 50
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,
60
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,
70
Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest
began.
In the vat, halfway up in our houseside,
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
80
>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 90
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. 100
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 wine 110
>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! 120
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 130
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! 140
But my mule picked his sure sober path out,
Just
stopping to neigh
When he recognized 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,
As
up still we trudged
150
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,
160
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;
Over all trod my mule with the caution
Of
gleaners o’er sheaves,
Still, foot after foot like a lad
Till,
round after round, 170
He climbed to the top of Calvano,
And
God’s own profound
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.
180
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) 190
—Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine
crouches,
The
wild fruit-trees bend,
E’en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut:
All
is silent and grave:
’Tis 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
200
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.
Fort<u`>, shall we sail there together
And
see from the sides 210
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, 220
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
230
And flutters it o’er the mount’s summit
In
airy gold fume.
All is over. Look out, see the gipsy,
Our
tinker and smith,
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’-harps to proof,
240
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. Wake up and come out now,
And
down let us go,
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 250
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; 260
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
270
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;
And at night from the crest of Calvano
Great
bonfires will hang,
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,
And
more poppers bang. 280
At all events, come-to the garden
As
far as the wall;
See me tap with a hoe on the plaster
Till
out there shall fall
A scorpion with wide angry nippers!
—“Such
trifles!” you say?
Fort<u`>, in my England at home,
Men
meet gravely to-day
And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws
Be
righteous and wise
290
—If ’twere proper, Scirocco should
vanish
In
black from the skies!
Notes: “The Italian
in England.” An Italian patriot who has
taken part in an unsuccessful revolt against Austrian
dominance, reflects upon the incidents of his escape
and flight from Italy to the end that if he ever should
have a thought beyond the welfare of Italy, he would
wish first for the discomfiture of his enemies and
then to go and see once more the noble woman who at
the risk of her own life helped him to escape.
Though there is no exact historical incident upon
which this poem is founded, it has a historical background.
The Charles referred to (lines 8, 11, 20, 116, 125)
is Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, of the younger
branch of the house of Savoy. His having played
with the patriot in his youth, as the poem says, is
quite possible, for Charles was brought up as a simple
citizen in a public school, and one of his chief friends
was Alberta Nota, a writer of liberal principles,
whom he made his secretary. As indicated in
the poem, Charles at first declared himself in sympathy,
though in a somewhat lukewarm manner, with the rising
led by Santa Rosa against Austrian domination in 1823,
and upon the abdication of Victor Emanuel he became
regent of Turin. But when the king Charles Felix
issued a denunciation against the new government,
Charles Albert succumbed to the king’s threats
and left his friends in the lurch. Later the
Austrians marched into the country, Santa Rosa was
forced to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends,
he who might well have been the very patriot of the
poem was obliged to fly from Italy.
19. Metternich: the distinguished
Austrian diplomatist and determined enemy of Italian
independence.
76. Tenebrae: darkness.
“The office of matins and lauds, for the three
last days in Holy Week. Fifteen lighted candles
are placed on a triangular stand, and at the conclusion
of each psalm one is put out till a single candle
is left at the top of the triangle. The extinction
of the other candles is said to figure the growing
darkness of the world at the time of the Crucifixion.
The last candle (which is not extinguished, but hidden
behind the altar for a few moments) represents Christ,
over whom Death could not prevail.’’ (Dr.
Berdoe)
