208 PROSE HALIEUTICS. 



Wliere the huge bolt will scarcely keep 



Its promise to confiding sleep, 



Till you have forced it to its goal 



In the bored brickwork's crumbling hole ; 



Where in loose flakes the whitewash peeling 



From the bare joints of rotten ceiling, 



Give token sure of vermin's bower. 



And swarms of bugs that bide their hour. 



Though bands of fierce mosquitoes boom 



Their tlireatening bugles round the room, 



To bed ! ere wingless creatures crawl 



Across the path from yonder wall. 



And shpper'd feet unheeding tread 



We know not what. To bed ! to bed ! 



What can those horrid sounds portend ? 



Some waylaid traveller near his end. 



From ghastly gash in mortal strife, 



Or blow of bandit's blood-stained knife ? 



No ! no ! they're bawlLag to the Virgin, 



Like victim under hands of surgeon ! 



From lamp-lit daub proceeds the cry 



Of that unearthly litany. . . . 



And now a train of mules goes by ! — 



One wretch comes whooping up the street 



For whooping's sake ! — And now they beat 



Drum after drum for market mass : 



Each day's transactions on the place. 



All things that go, or stay, or come. 



They herald forth by tuck of drum. — 



Day dawns ! a tinkling, tuneless bell, 



Wliate'er it be, has news to tell ; 



Then twenty more begin to strike 



In noisy discord, aU alike ; 



Convents and churches, chapels, shrines. 



In quick succession break the lines. 



Tin every gong in town at last 



Its tongue had loosed, and sleep is past. 



So much for nights ! New days begin. 



Which land you in another inn. — 



Oh ! he that means to see Crirgenti 



Or Syracuse, needs patience plenty ! 



