‘But how,’ said one, ‘about the Pyrenees? In Hamlet give us Hamlet, if you please; Your friend declares you said you met with there A peasant beauty, beauteous past compare, Who fed her cows the mountain peaks between, And asked if at Velletri you had been. And was Velletri larger than was Rome? Her soldier-brother went away from home, Two years ago,—to Rome it was he went, And to Velletri was this summer sent; He twenty-three, and she was sweet seventeen, And fed her cows the mountain peaks between. Lightly along a rocky path she led, And from a grange she brought you milk and bread. In summer here she lived, and with the snow Went in October to the fields below; And where you lived, she asked, and oh, they say, That with the English we shall fight some day; Loveliest of peasant girls that e’er was seen, Feeding her cows the mountain peaks between.’ ‘’Tis true,’ I said, ‘though to betray was mean. My Pyrenean verses will you hear, Though not about that peasant girl, I fear.’ ‘Begin,’ they said, ‘the sweet bucolic song, Though it to other maids and other cows belong.’ _Currente calamo._ Quick, painter, quick, the moment seize Amid the snowy Pyrenees; More evanescent than the snow, The pictures come, are seen, and go: Quick, quick, _currente calamo_. I do not ask the tints that fill The gate of day ’twixt hill and hill; I ask not for the hues that fleet Above the distant peaks; my feet Are on a poplar-bordered road, Where with a saddle and a load A donkey, old and ashen-grey, Reluctant works his dusty way. Before him, still with might and main Pulling his rope, the rustic rein, A girl: before both him and me, Frequent she turns and lets me see, Unconscious, lets me scan and trace The sunny darkness of her face And outlines full of southern grace. Following I notice, yet and yet, Her olive skin, dark eyes deep set, And black, and blacker e’en than jet, The escaping hair that scantly showed, Since o’er it in the country mode, For winter warmth and summer shade, The lap of scarlet cloth is laid. And then, back-falling from the head, A crimson kerchief overspread Her jacket blue; thence passing down, A skirt of darkest yellow-brown, Coarse stuff, allowing to the view The smooth limb to the woollen shoe. But who—here’s some one following too,— A priest, and reading at his book! Read on, O priest, and do not look; Consider,—she is but a child,— Yet might your fancy be beguiled. Read on, O priest, and pass and go! But see, succeeding in a row, Two, three, and four, a motley train, Musicians wandering back to Spain; With fiddle and with tambourine, A man with women following seen. What dresses, ribbon-ends, and flowers!