22

MY NURSE’S HOUSE

The house where my wet-nurse used to stay

stands silently facing the ancient Chapel,

looking down in a pensive way

from a hill where young goats like to gambol.

Through the sunlit window there you may

discover my birth city, swarming with people;

there’s a delightful view too of the bay

and the fields rewarding farmhands’ toil.

Here in my earliest years – I recall –

among the old cemetery’s crosses,

I played innocently at nightfall.

I lifted up to God my serene soul;

and from the house a sound of well-loved voices

reached me, and supper’s smell.