CHAPTER II
Of the wall of his small chamber on which Paulo painted, for his
own delight, a fair landscape of trees and fields.
FOR thickly clustering over all the wall
Were trees, and flowers, and fruit, and blossom rare;
Fig, apple, pear, with pine-tree dark and tall.
And wonderful it was to see how there
The almond-blossom still clung gleaming white,
While here already hung the golden pear.
Against the sky tall laurels rose in sight.
While heart-shaped ivy, trailing from the bough,
Covered a welling spring, as dark as night.
Beyond, a hill sloped gently up, its brow
Or with red clusters of the vine aglow,
Or black with new-turned earth beneath the plough.
Willows, beside the stream, were winding slow;
Long cypresses climbed up the rocky steep:
Here idle lay a scythe, and there a hoe.
And here the fresh-turned sods were furrowed deep
And straight, between thick hedges set four-square;
While there a sea of corn stretched in a golden sweep.
And, yet more wonderful! that sturdy pair
Of oxen yoked, who yonder broke the clay,
Were not as big as the swift-footed hare
That from the threatening ploughman fled away.