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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 foambows 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,

Though 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.

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By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.

At the post-office such a scene-picturethe 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 reached,

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached."

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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.

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!

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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,

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And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,

Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent

Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,

Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.

For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,

Not a sound bath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise,

To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife,

And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.

II

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Then the tune for which quails on the corn-land will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate

Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has weight

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house

There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!

God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,

To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

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Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping

from rock up to rock,

The strong rending of boughs from the firtree, the cool silver shock

Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,

And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.

And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over

with gold dust divine,

And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,

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