CHAPTER V
How Paulo, who longed for a little living bird, fell to murmuring in his heart.
‘OH, holy Mother Poverty,’ he said,
‘One of thy silly sheep am I, alack!
Water I drink, and eat coarse barley-bread:
And every superfluity I lack,
Most like the snail that daubs the wall and goes
Bearing its worthless all upon its back.
I want no farm such as Donato owes
At Cafaggiolo, but a strip of ground,
Where crab-apple, or pear, or fig-tree grows.
For even a head of garlic, I’ll be bound,
Is joy to him who toiled to make it grow.
Yet, what of that? My lands lie all around
Me here in pictured perspective: and though
I’m not Donato, yet I’ve won some fame
At painting trees and fields, which is, I trow,
As good as selling eggs. So in God’s name,
Paulo di Dono, be content to see
Beautiful lands on which thou hast no claim.
But oh! the pure delight ’twould be to me
To own one of these blackbirds on the wing,
Or nightingale, or wood-pecker, maybe.
No make-believe, a real living thing
To call my own and cherish day by day
In fact not fancy: one to fly and sing,
And comfort me now I am old and grey.’
