University of Virginia Library

Dark ilexes above, dry sward below,
O'er which the flickering sunglobes come and go;
Beyond, the swooping valley roughed by lines
Ruled by the plough between the rows of vines;
O'er yellow sunburnt slopes the olives gray
Casting their rounded shadows; far away
A stately parliament of poised stone-pines;
Dark cypresses with golden balls bestrewn,
Each rocking to the breeze its solemn cone;
Dim mountains, veiled in dreamy mystery,
Sleeping upon the pale and tender sky;
And near, with softened shades of purple brown,
By distance hushed, the peaceful mellowed town,
Domes, roofs, and towers all sleeping tranced and still—
A painted city on a painted hill.

Here let me lie and my siesta take,
And gaze about me, dreaming, half awake.

What peace is here! what rapt tranquillity!—
The far-off voices seem to lull the sense;
The cock's clear crow sounds faint and drowsily;
The sharp fly buzzing round the leafy fence;
The burning wasp, the bees that droning hum
Along the shining spires of withered grass;
The far cathedral bell's half-buried boom;
The leaves that whisper as the breezes come,
And talk a moment with them as they pass,
Break not the calm;—with half-shut dreaming eyes
I watch them, while my idle fancies stray,
Even as these noiseless yellow butterflies,
That poise on grass or flower, and drift away
Like wavering leaves in their perpetual play.
And all these sounds come vague to me and seem
Drowned in the air, like voices in a dream.
Look at this ilex-trunk's mosaic bark,
With all its myriad cracks, and seams, and squares!
See with what patient pains and happy cares
'T is painted o'er with lichens light and dark,
Rich brown, pale gray, and softest malachite,
And every hue that can the eye delight!
This moss of golden green that round it clings
Is a vast forest filled with noiseless things,
That 'neath its jungle make their secret lairs.
Here the black ant may hunt as in a park,
Here hosts of beetles come in burnished mail,
On secret errands bent from underground;
Some with vermilion corselets on their back,
Marked with black crosses, some with gold embrowned,
Some bronzed with shadowy green, some ribbed and black,
Splendid as mortal knight was never found.
Here creeps the torpid locust from his cell,
Deep at its roots, to shed his silvery shell,
Breaks the thin crust, and spreads his gauzy wings,
And in the shade his praise of summer sings.
Here, in the centre of his woven wheel,
That dimly glistening in the shadow shakes,
Hangs the fat spider, ready and aware,
Round the fierce fly that pertinacious there
Darts to and fro, his silvery coil to reel.
Here the slim dragon-fly her visit makes
On glassy vans that gleam with opal hues,
And waves her tail of green enamelled rings.
Here the black grillo burrows all day long;
And peeping forth when fall the twilight dews,
Trills to the night its little simmering song.
Here creep among the grass, at work, or game,
Swarms of strange life that scarcely own a name;
Here live, and love, and fight, and sleep, and die,
Plagued by no dreams of immortality.
World within world, the deeper that we gaze,
Life widens, death recedes, the mass inert
Moves into being; all this mould and dirt
Is living in its own mysterious ways.

Which shall we dare most wonderful to call,
The infinite great, or not less infinite small?
Puzzled I gaze upon this spiring grass
That 'neath me lies, and ask,—can aught surpass
The wonder of this life minute that moves
Beneath my hand, and struggles, suffers, loves?
Are the vast worlds that darkness shows to night,
Or day enshrouds in its abyss of light,
More strange than this that hides from human eye
In the minuteness of its mystery?

No more! the shadows shrink; the prying sun
Hath found me out. The morning 's gone—how soon!
The far cathedral bell is striking noon.
This sketch, dear Annie, is for you—half done.