Excerpt from The Kingdom The small Franciscan convent of San Damiano near Assisi lay bathed in peace and April sunlight. Above, the terraced fields on the slopes gleamed bright with bladed wheat beneath the dull grey Olives, up to the brown and purple steeps where rose the strong curves of the barren mountain; below, the luxuriant gardens Of the glens were rich with blossomed fruit trees, beans in flower and garlands Of the budding vines, down to the broad lap Of the fertile plain, which, with its bounding, billowy hills, shimmered in faint blue haze. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.