The rain-water slips
O’er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
        Which the wasp to your lips
Still follows with fretful persistence: 
        Nay, taste, while awake,
This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball
        That peels, flake by flake,
Like an onion, each smoother and whiter;
        Next, sip this weak wine 110
>From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
        A leaf of the vine;
And end with the prickly-pear’s red flesh
        That leaves thro’ its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth. 
        Scirocco is loose! 
Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives
        Which, thick in one’s track,
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,
        Tho’ not yet half black! 120
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder,
        The medlars let fall
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees
        Snap off, figs and all,
For here comes the whole of the tempest! 
        No refuge, but creep
Back again to my side and my shoulder,
        And listen or sleep. 
O how will your country show next week,
        When all the vine-boughs 130
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture
        The mules and the cows? 
Last eve, I rode over the mountains,
        Your brother, my guide,
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles
        That offered, each side,
Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,—­
        Or strip from the sorbs
A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous,
        Those hairy gold orbs! 140
But my mule picked his sure sober path out,
        Just stopping to neigh
When he recognized down in the valley
        His mates on their way
With the faggots and barrels of water;
        And soon we emerged
>From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow;
        And still as we urged
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,
        As up still we trudged 150
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,
        And place was e’en grudged
’Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones
        Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster which climbed there to die
        From the ocean beneath—­
Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
        That clung to the path,
And dark rosemary ever a-dying
        That, ’spite the wind’s wrath, 160
So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,
        And lentisks as staunch
To the stone where they root and bear berries,
        And . . . what shows a branch
Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
        Of pale seagreen leaves;
Over all trod my mule with the caution
        Of gleaners o’er sheaves,
Still, foot after foot like a lad