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 aery 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!
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