Iii

My Song, encouraged by the grace That beams from his ingenuous face, For this Adventurer scruples not To prophesy a golden lot; Due recompense, and safe return To COMO'S steeps--his happy bourne! Where he, aloft in garden glade, Shall tend, with his own dark-eyed Maid, The towering maize, and prop the twig That ill supports the luscious fig; Or feed his eye in paths sun-proof With purple of the trellis-roof, That through the jealous leaves escapes From Cadenabbia's pendent grapes. --Oh might he tempt that Goatherd-child To share his wanderings! him whose look Even yet my heart can scarcely brook, So touchingly he smiled-- As with a rapture caught from heaven-- For unasked alms in pity given.