The cold Licenza through the valley brawls;
Unchanged the forest rustles on the hill;
The plowman to his lagging oxen calls
Amid the self-same vines; and murmuring still
Adown the hollow rock the fountain falls
To yield the wandering herd its welcome chill.
Each sound to him so long familiar grown
Even now the poet's loving ear had known,
Could he but stand again within these walls
Which once the kindly gods made all his own.

Poor poet! who so dreaded lest his book
Might come at last to be a school-room bore.
How would he mourn to see his cherished nook
Laid bare, a prey for our myopic lore!
Sweet peace has fled, and prying eyes may look
On crumbling step and tesselated floor.
Stripped to the garish light of common day,
The sheltering mold of ages torn away,
Now lie the little rooms, where once he took
Long draughts of ease, and let his fancy stray.

Languid Maecenas left the roaring town
To sip the Sabine in this friendly vale;
Here Vergil, white of soul, oft sate him down
To hear old Cervius spin his moral tale;
Pert Davus, heedless of his master's frown,
Plied here his argument without avail;
While each new moon would rustic Phidyle stand
To offer holy meal with pious hand,
Pleasing the tiny gods with rosemary crown,
To bless the increase of her master's land.

O that far hence, in some dim Sabine glade,
These stones, half-buried in the kindly loam,
Unnoted, undiscovered, unsurveyed,
Might but afford the owl a darkling home!
There might the thrush still warble undismayed,
And timid woodland creatures boldly roam
Through broken arch and plundered portico,
Which heard the poet's footstep long ago;
That so no pang might touch thee, gentle Shade,
This more than ruined house of thine to know!