What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)-- 20 In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Bough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, My sentinel to guard the sands To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break? While, in the house, forever crumbles 30 Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there's news to-day--the king Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: --She hopes they have not caught the felons. Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me-- 40 (When fortune's malice Lost her, Calais) Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy." Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be! * * * * * THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side, Breathed hot an instant on my trace,-- I made, six days, a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, deg. when boys, have plucked deg.8 The fire-flies from the roof above, Bright creeping thro' the moss they love: 10 --How long it seems since Charles was lost! Six days the soldiers crossed, and crossed The country in my very sight; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal-fires. Well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress. Thinking on Metternich, deg. our friend, deg.19 And Charles's miserable end, 20 And much beside, two days; the third, Hunger o'ercame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize: you know, With us in Lombardy, deg. they bring deg.25 Provisions packed on mules, a string, With little bells that cheer their task, And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun's heat from the wine; These I let pass in jingling line; 30 And, close on them, dear noisy crew, The peasants from the village, too; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew. When these had passed, I threw my glove to strike the last,