In an old villa garden past the walls.

My mother had led me thither, knowing naught,

And I, naught knowing, had wandered for a space

Among the boskage and the fragrant vines,

And, standing by a water-fount of stone

Listening the tinkle and the cool, wet splash

Of the thin drip, and thinking still of him

(For I went thinking of him all the day),

I heard the soft throb of a mandolin,

And next a voice, divinely sweet it seemed,