Italian Pictures + 

July in Vallombrosa + 

Old lady sitting still + 

Pine trees standing quite still + 

Sisters of mercy + 

whispering + 

Oust the Dryad + 

O consecration of forest + 

To the uneventful + 

I cannot imagine anything + 

Less disputably respectable + 

Than prolonged invalidism in Italy + 

At the beck + 

Of a British practitioner + 

Of all permissible pastimes + 

Attendant upon chastity + 

The one with which you can most efficiently insult + 

Life + 

Is your hobby of collecting death-beds + 

Blue Nun + 

So wrap the body in flannel and wool + 

Of superior quality from the Anglo-American + 

Until that ineffable moment + 

When Rigor Mortis + 

Divests it of its innate impurity + 

While round the hotel + 

Wanton Italian matrons + 

Discuss the better business of bed-linen + 

To regular puncture of needles + 

The old lady has a daughter + 

Who has been spent + 

In chasing moments from one room to another + 

When the essence of an hour + 

Was in its passing + 

With the passionate breath + 

Of the bronchitis kettle + 

And her last little lust + 

Lost itself in a saucer of gruel + 

But all this moribund stuff + 

Is not wasted + 

For there is always Nature + 

So its expensive upkeep + 

Goes to support + 

The loves + 

Of head-waiters + 

The Costa San Giorgio + 

We English make a tepid blot + 

On the messiness + 

Of the passionate Italian life-traffic + 

Throbbing the street + 

up + 

steep + 

Up + 

up + 

to the porta + 

Culminating + 

In the stained fresco of the dragon-slayer + 

The hips of women sway + 

Among the crawling children they produce + 

And the church hits the barracks + 

Where + 

The greyness of marching men + 

Falls through the greyness of stone + 

Oranges half-rotten are sold at a reduction + 

Hoarsely advertised as broken heads + 

Broken heads + 

and the barber + 

Has an imitation mirror + 

And Mary preserve our mistresses from seeing us as we see ourselves + 

Shaving + 

Ice cream + 

Licking is larger than mouths + 

Boots than feet + 

Slip + 

Slap + 

and the string dragging + 

And the angle of the sun + 

Cuts the whole lot in half + 

And warms the folded hands + 

Of a consumptive + 

Left outside + 

her chair is broken + 

And she wonders how we feel + 

For we walk very quickly + 

The noonday cannon + 

Having scattered the neighbourвАЩs pigeons + 

The smell of small cooking + 

From luckier houses + 

Is cruel to the maimed cat + 

Hiding + 

Among carpenterвАЩs shavings + 

From three boys + 

вАФOne holding a barвБ†вАФ + 

Who nevertheless + 

Born of human parents + 

Cry when locked in the dark + 

Fluidic blots of sky + 

Shift among roofs + 

Between bandy legs + 

Jerk patches of street + 

Interrupted by clacking + 

Of all the green shutters + 

From which + 

Bits of bodies + 

Variously leaning + 

Mingle eyes with the commotion + 

For there is little to do + 

The false pillow-spreads + 

Hugely initialed + 

Already adjusted + 

On matrimonial beds + 

And the glint on the china virgin + 

Consummately dusted + 

Having been thrown + 

Anything or something + 

That might have contaminated intimacy + 

Out + 

Onto the middle of the street + 

Costa Magic + 

Her father + 

Indisposed to her marriage + 

And a rabid man at that + 

My most sympathetic daughterвБ†вАКвБ†вАФвБ†вАКвБ†вАФвБ†вАКвБ†вАФ + 

Make yourself a conception + 

As large as this one + 

Here + 

But with yellow hair + 

From the house + 

Issuing + 

Sunday dressed + 

Combed precisely + 

Splosh! + 

Pours something + 

Viscuous + 

Malefic + 

Unfamiliar + 

While listening up + 

I hear my husband + 

Mumbling + 

Mumbling + 

Mumbling + 

at the window + 

Malediction + 

Incantation + 

Under an hour + 

Her hand to her side pressing + 

Suffering + 

Being bewitched + 

Cesira fading + 

Daily + 

daily + 

feeble + 

softer + 

The doctorвБ†вАКвБ†вАФвБ†вАКвБ†вАФвБ†вАКвБ†вАФвАКвАЬPhthisisвАЭ + 

The wise woman + 

says to take her + 

So we + 

following her instruction + 

I and the neighbour + 

Take herвБ†вАФ + 

The glass rattling + 

The rain slipping + 

I and the neighbour and her aunt + 

Bunched together + 

And Cesira + 

Droops across the cab + 

Fields and houses + 

Pass + 

like the pulling out + 

Of sweetmeat ribbon + 

From a rascalвАЩs mouth + 

Till + 

A wheel in a rut + 

Jerks back my girl on the padding + 

And the hedges into the sky + 

Coming to the magic tree + 

Cesira becomes as a wild beast + 

A tree of age + 

вАЬIf Cesira should not become as a wild beast + 

It is merely PhthisisвАЭ + 

This being the wise womanвАЩs instruction + 

Knowing she has to die + 

We drive home + 

To wait + 

She certainly does in time + 

It is unnatural in a Father + 

Bewitching a daughter + 

Whose hair + 

down + 

covers her thighs. + 