Dark vines snaking the hillside where
The Sabines lived, where everything slants,
  Where a village clings to the hill
    As if retreating from a fire.

Where the road’s still winding deep
In the wood until it disappears:
  No gate, no keeper, but a path
    Edged neatly with white polished stones.

All lost—the garden and the mask
Of Silenus, mosaics of colored glass.
  The fountain’s mouth and bones of Christians
    Bleached by centuries of light.

But still the steep, unbroken hills
Around us and the fields below,
  And here the clearing where the wolf
    Once strayed to overhear the song.