ITALIAN QUATRAINS

Naples

PALAZZO

Lordly amid the rotting houses of the street,
It lifts a marble scorn, while at its carven feet
They crowd in ancient filth. It does not look at them,
These crumbling beggars catching at its stony hem.

NEAPOLITAN WASHING

Hellene and Roman bred this race;
Unconsciously these drying rags
Make of the squalid market-place
A conqueror’s city hung with flags!

HAIR-DRESSING

There in the littered street she sits and chats with passing friends,
While a deft neighbor combs her hair, pins close the sleek black ends;
She holds her gushing nipple to the child upon her knee,
Plucks vermin from its curls and sells her oranges to me.

STREET OF STEPS

(Flower Market)

In the noon shadows milch-goats lie and doze,
The air drips musk, carnation, lilac, rose;
The gutters ooze and spill, one walks with care—
And yet Pan might come leaping down the stair!

“GABINETTO SEGRETO”

(Naples Museum)

Then came the saints, the men of grace,
(I heard the old god say),
Destroyed my shameless laughing face,
Preserved my feet of clay!