Among the Paeligni

Variation on a Theme by Gilbert Highet

In that calm provincial air

Noon struck out from every spire

And Sulmona's doves all flew,

Blue on white, and white on blue,

Startled, shaken, wheeling round

Down toward fountains, toward the ground

Where the poet's pedestal

Stood, not too majestical,

Still, a little more severe

Than we ought to find him here,

Hand on chin, and gazing down

At the tessellated stone,

Venus' clerk Ovyde, with these,

Venus' birds, around his knees.