III

World--how it walled about
Life with disgrace
Till God's own smile came out:
That was thy face!




PROLOGUE TO _PACCHIAROTTO_


1876


I

O the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long Midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!


II

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.