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UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY.

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON

OF QUALITY.)

I.

AD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,

HAD

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.

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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 turn'd 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 wither'd well off the heights:

You've the brown plough'd 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

cicada 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 Punchinello-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 reach'd,

Having preach'd us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preach'd."

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-tetootle 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 clapp'd a new tax upon salt, and what

oil pays passing the gate

It's a horror to think of.

me, not the city!

And so, the villa for

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 dress'd in white skirts, 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-tetootle the fife.

Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

ROBERT BROWNING.

H

FORBEARANCE.

AST thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk; At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse; Unarm'd faced danger with a heart of trust; And loved so well a high behaviour

In man or maid that thou from speech refrain'd, Nobility more nobly to repay ?—

O be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

EMERSON.

I

THE BROOK.

COME from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

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