William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
An Italian SongSamuel Rogers (17631855)
D
The ringdove builds and murmurs there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved lute’s romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale!