Is it better in May, I ask you?  You’ve summer all at once;
     In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 
     ’Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
     The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
     Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

     Is it ever hot in the square?  There’s a fountain to spout and splash! 
     In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
     On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
                pash
     Round the lady atop in her conch—­fifty gazers do not abash,
     Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
                of sash.

     All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
     Except yon cypress that points like death’s lean lifted forefinger. 
     Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i’ the corn and mingle,
     Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. 
     Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
     And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on
                the hill. 
     Enough of the seasons,—­I spare you the months of the fever and
                chill.

     Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin;
     No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: 
     You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 
     By and by there’s the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws
                teeth,
     Or the Pulcinella-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. 
     At the post-office such a scene picture—­the new play, piping hot! 
     And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. 
     Above it, behold the Archbishop’s most fatherly of rebukes,
     And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of
                the Duke’s! 
     Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
     Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,
     “And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts of St. Paul
                has reached,
     Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever
                he preached.” 
     Noon strikes,—­here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling
                and smart,
     With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her
                heart!
     Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
     No keeping one’s haunches still:  it’s the greatest pleasure in life.