Cale Young Rice

Basking

Give me a spot in the sun,
  With a lizard basking by me,
In Sicily, over the sea,
  Where Winter is sweet as Spring,
Where Etna lifts his plume
  Of curling smoke to try me,
But all in vain for I will not climb
  His height so ravishing.

Give me a spot in the sun,
  So high on a cliff that, under,
Far down, the flecking sails
  Like white moths flit the blue;
That over me on a crag
  There hangs, O aëry wonder,
A white town drowsing in its nest
  That cypress-tops peep thro.

Give me a spot in the sun,
  With contadini singing,
And a goat-boy at his pipes
  And donkey bells heard round
Upon steep mountain paths
  Where a peasant cart comes swinging
Mid joyous hot invectives--that
  So blameless here abound.

Give me a spot in the sun,
  In a land whose speech is flowers,
Whose breath is Hybla-sweet,
  Whose soul is still a faun's,
Whose limbs the sea enlaps,
  Thro long delicious hours,
With liquid tenderness and light
  Sweet as Elysian dawns.

Give me a spot in the sun
  With a view past vale and villa,
Past grottoed isle and sea
  To Italy and the Cape
Around whose turning lies
  Old heathen-hearted Scylla,
Whom may an ancient sailor prayed
  The gods he might escape.

Give me a spot in the sun:
  With sly old Pan as lazy
As I, ever to tempt me
  To disbelief and doubt
Of all gods else, from Jove
  To Bacchus born wine-crazy.
Give me, I say, a spot in the sun,
  And Realms I'll do without!