CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

228 DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS
Fantastically in the dust,
Inquired of all her fortunes-just
Her children's ages and their names,
And what may be the husband's aims
For each of them-I'd talk this out,
And sit there, for an hour about,
Then kiss her hand once more, and lay
Mine on her head, and go my way.
So much for idle wishing-how
It steals the time 1 To business now!
XXI
THE ENGLISHMAN IN IT AL Y
[PIANO DI SORRENTO)
FORTU, Fortu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet 1
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;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
-The flowers, or the weeds.
Time for rain 1 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,-spccked with white
Over brown like a great spider's back,
As I told you last night,-
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 rock side,
Wherever could thrust
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