FAR FAREWELL TO ITALY. AREWELL to the Land of the South! Where the sunny valleys smile in light, And the piny mountains climb! Farewell to her bright blue seas! O, many and deep are the thoughts which crowd "6 Farewell to the Land of the South!" As the look of a face beloved, Was that bright land to me! It enchanted my sense, it sank on my heart In every kindling pulse I felt the genial air, For life is life in that sunny clime, "T is death of life elsewhere: Farewell to the Land of the South! The poet's splendid dreams Have hallowed each grove and hill, And the beautiful forms of ancient Faith Are lingering round us still. And the spirits of other days, Invoked by fancy's spell, Are rolled before the kindling thought, While we breathe our last farewell A long, a last adieu, Thou land of beauty and love and song, Alas for thy classic shore! Alas for thy orange and myrtle bowers! Anna Jameson. ITALY. Alban Hills. THE VILLA. UR villa, perhaps, you never have seen; OUR It lies on the slope of the Alban hill; Their dark stiff leaves of sombre green, And there are hedges all clipped and square, As carven from blocks of malachite, Where fountains keep spinning their threads of light, And statues whiten the shadow there. And, if the sun too fiercely shine, And one would creep from its noonday glare, Show their sharp pike-heads against the sky, Of light and mist, as in peace it sleeps,- William Wetmore Story. MONTE SACRO. THE Sacred Mount, Crowned with the citadel of Latin Jove, Hangs o'er Alba's Lake, and o'er the towers Older than Rome, their daughter. On its slopes Aricia smiles, and stately Tusculum. John Nichol. Amalfi. AMALFI. HERE would I linger, then go forth again; THERE And he who steers due east, doubling the cape, Discovers, in a crevice of the rock, The fishing-town, Amalfi. Haply there A heaving bark, an anchor on the strand, The time has been, When on the quays along the Syrian coast, 'T was asked and eagerly, at break of dawn, "What ships are from Amalfi ?" when her coins, Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime; From Alexandria southward to Sennaar, And eastward, through Damascus and Cabul And Samarcand, to thy great wall, Cathay. Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed; And every crime on every sea was judged According to her judgments. In her port |