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 was sure, if I tried,5I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco.Now, open your eyes,Let me keep you amused till he vanishIn black from the skies,With telling my memories over10As 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 AutumnHad net-worked with brown15The white skin of each grape on the bunches,Marked like a quail's crown,Those creatures you make such account of,Whose heads--speckled whiteOver brown like a great spider's back,20As I told you last night--Your mother bites off for her supper.Red-ripe as could be,Pomegranates were chapping and splittingIn halves on the tree:25And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,Or in the thick dustOn the path, or straight out of the rockside,Wherever could thrustSome burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower30Its yellow face up,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,35By the quick rustle-down of the quail-netsWhich woke me beforeI could open my shutter, made fastWith a bough and a stone,And look thro' the twisted dead vine-twigs,40Sole 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,The rain in their teeth.45And out upon all the flat house-roofsWhere split figs lay drying,The girls took the frails under cover:Nor use seemed in tryingTo get out the boats and go fishing,50For, under the cliff,Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock.No seeing our skiffArrive about noon from Amalfi,--Our fisher arrive,55And pitch down his basket before us,All trembling aliveWith pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit;You touch the strange lumps,And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner60Of horns and of humps,Which only the fisher looks grave at,While round him like impsCling screaming the children as nakedAnd brown as his shrimps;65Himself too as bare to the middle--You see round his neckThe string and its brass coin suspended,That saves him from wreck.But to-day not a boat reached Salerno,70So back, to a man,Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyardsGrape-harvest began.In the vat, halfway up in our houseside,Like blood the juice spins,75While your brother all bare-legged is dancingTill breathless he grinsDead-beaten in effort on effortTo keep the grapes under,Since still when he seems all but master,80In pours the fresh plunderFrom girls who keep coming and goingWith basket on shoulder,And eyes shut against the rain's driving;Your girls that are older,--85For under the hedges of aloe,And where, on its bedOf the orchard's black mould, the love-appleLies pulpy and red,All the young ones are kneeling and filling90Their laps with the snailsTempted out by this first rainy weather,--Your best of regales,As to-night will be proved to my sorrow,When, supping in state,95We 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,100That colour of popes.Meantime, see the grape bunch they've brought you:The rain-water slipsO'er the heavy blue bloom on each globeWhich the wasp to your lips105Still follows with fretful persistence:Nay, taste, while awake,This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ballThat peels, flake by flake,Like an onion, each smoother and whiter;110Next, sip this weak wineFrom the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,A leaf of the vine;And end with the prickly-pear's red fleshThat leaves thro' its juice115The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth.Scirocco is loose!Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olivesWhich, thick in one's track,Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,120Tho' not yet half black!How the old twisted olive trunks shudder,The medlars let fallTheir hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-treesSnap off, figs and all,125For here comes the whole of the tempest!No refuge, but creepBack again to my side and my shoulder,And listen or sleep.O how will your country show next week,130When all the vine-boughsHave been stripped of their foliage to pastureThe mules and the cows?Last eve, I rode over the mountains,Your brother, my guide,135Soon left me, to feast on the myrtlesThat offered, each side,Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,--Or strip from the sorbsA treasure, or, rosy and wondrous,140Those hairy gold orbs!But my mule picked his sure sober path out,Just stopping to neighWhen he recognized down in the valleyHis mates on their way145With the faggots and barrels of water;And soon we emergedFrom the plain, where the woods could scarce follow;And still as we urgedOur way, the woods wondered, and left us,150As up still we trudgedThough the wild path grew wilder each instant,And place was e'en grudged'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stonesLike the loose broken teeth155Of some monster which climbed there to dieFrom the ocean beneath--Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weedThat clung to the path,And dark rosemary ever a-dying160That, 'spite the wind's wrath,So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,And lentisks as staunchTo the stone where they root and bear berries,And... what shows a branch165Coral-coloured, transparent, with circletsOf pale seagreen leaves;Over all trod my mule with the cautionOf gleaners o'er sheaves,Still, foot after foot like a lad170Till, round after round,He climbed to the top of Calvano,And God's own profoundWas above me, and round me the mountains,And under, the sea,175And within me my heart to bear witnessWhat was and shall be.

Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!No rampart excludesYour eye from the life to be lived180In the blue solitudes.Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!Still moving with you;For, ever some new head and breast of themThrusts into view185To observe the intruder; you see itIf quickly you turnAnd, before they escape you surprise them.They grudge you should learnHow the soft plains they look on, lean over190And love (they pretend)--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:195'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty,How fair! but a slave.So, I turned to the sea; and there slumberedAs greenly as everThose isles of the siren, your Galli;200No ages can severThe Three, nor enable their sisterTo join them,--halfwayOn the voyage, she looked at Ulysses--No farther to-day,205Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave,Watches breast-high and steadyFrom under the rock, her bold sisterSwum halfway already.Fortù, shall we sail there together210And see from the sidesQuite new rocks show their faces, new hauntsWhere the siren abides?Shall we sail round and round them, close overThe rocks, tho' unseen,215That ruffle the grey glassy waterTo glorious green?Then scramble from splinter to splinter,Reach land and explore,On the largest, the strange square black turret220With never a door,Just a loop to admit the quick lizards;Then, stand there and hearThe birds' quiet singing, that tells usWhat life is, so clear?225--The secret they sang to UlyssesWhen, ages ago,He heard and he knew this life's secretI hear and I know.

Ah, see! The sun breaks o'er Calvano;230He strikes the great gloomAnd flutters it o'er the mount's summitIn airy gold fume.All is over. Look out, see the gipsy,Our tinker and smith,235Has arrived, set up bellows and forge,And down-squatted forthwithTo his hammering, under the wall there;One eye keeps aloofThe urchins that itch to be putting240His jews'-harps to proof,While the other, thro' locks of curled wire,Is watching how sleekShines the hog, come to share in the windfall--Chew, abbot's own cheek!245All is over. Wake up and come out now,And down let us go,And see the fine things got in orderAt church for the showOf the Sacrament, set forth this evening.250To-morrow's the FeastOf the Rosary's Virgin, by no meansOf Virgins the least,As you'll hear in the off-hand discourseWhich (all nature, no art)255The Dominican brother, these three weeks,Was getting by heart.Not a pillar nor post but is dizenedWith red and blue papers;All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar260A-blaze with long tapers;But the great masterpiece is the scaffoldRigged glorious to holdAll the fiddlers and fifers and drummersAnd trumpeters bold,265Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber,Who, when the priest's hoarse,Will strike us up something that's briskFor the feast's second course.And then will the flaxen-wigged Image270Be carried in pompThro' the plain, while in gallant processionThe priests mean to stomp.All round the glad church lie old bottlesWith gunpowder stopped,275Which will be, when the Image re-enters,Religiously popped;And at night from the crest of CalvanoGreat bonfires will hang,On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,280And more poppers bang.At all events, come-to the gardenAs far as the wall;See me tap with a hoe on the plasterTill out there shall fall285A scorpion with wide angry nippers!

--"Such trifles!" you say?Fortù, in my England at home,Men meet gravely to-dayAnd debate, if abolishing Corn-laws290Be righteous and wise--If 'twere proper, Scirocco should vanishIn black from the skies!