THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. PIANO DI SORRENTO. Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one, Sit here by my side, On my knees put up both little feet! I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Let me keep you amused till he vanish With telling my memories over As you tell your beads; All the Plain saw me gather, I garland -The flowers or the weeds. Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn The white skin of each grape on the bunches, Those creatures you make such account of, Over brown like a great spider's back, As I told you last night, Your mother bites off for her supper. Pomegranates were chapping and splitting And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone, On the path, or straight out of the rock-side, Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower For the prize were great butterflies fighting, So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets I could open my shutter, made fast With a bough and a stone, And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs, Sole lattice that 's known. Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles, While, busy beneath, Your priest and his brother tugged at them, And out upon all the flat house-roofs The girls took the frails under cover: To get out the boats and go fishing, For, under the cliff, 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 gray jellies, your sea-fruit; You touch the strange lumps, And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner Which only the fisher looks grave at, While round him like imps 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, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards Grape-harvest began. In the vat, halfway up in our house-side, 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 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 Tempted out by this first rainy weather,- As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen, With lasagne so tempting to swallow In slippery ropes, And gourds fried in great purple slices, That color of popes. 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 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 through its juice The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth. Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them, How the old twisted olive trunks shudder, Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees 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 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,- A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, But my mule picked his sure sober path out, 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, Though the wild path grew wilder each instant, 'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones Of some monster which climbed there to die Place was grudged to the silver-gray fume-weed That clung to the path, And dark rosemary ever a-dying That, 'spite the wind's wrath, So loves the salt rock's face to seaward, And lentisks as staunch To the stone where they root and bear berries, Coral-colored, transparent, with circlets Of pale seagreen leaves; Of gleaners o'er sheaves, Still, foot after foot like a lady, Till, round after round, 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. Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement! you; For, ever some new head and breast of them To observe the intruder; you see it If quickly you turn And, before they escape you, surprise them. How the soft plains they look on, lean over - 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 Those isles of the siren, your Galli; No ages can sever The Three, nor enable their sister To join them, halfway On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses No farther to-day, Though the small one, just launched in the wave, Watches breast-high and steady From under the rock, her bold sister Swum halfway already. Fortù, shall we sail there together And see from the sides Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, though unseen, That ruffle the gray 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, Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; Then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet singing, that tells us -The secret they sang to Ulysses |