Ethereal visions pass serene in prayer,

Their eyes aglow with sacrificial light; Phantoms of creeds long dead, their garments bright,

Drip red with blood of torture and despair.

In such an hour my spirit did behold

A woman wonderful. Unnumbered years Left in her eyes the beauty born of tears, And full they were of fatal stories old.

The trophies of her immemorial reign

The shadowy great of eld beside her bore; A broidery of ancient song she wore, And the glad muses held her regal train.

Still hath she kingdom o'er the souls of men;
Dear is she always in her less estate.

The sad, the gay, the thoughtful, on her wait, Praising her evermore with tongue and pen.

Stately her ways and sweet, and all her own;
As one who has forgotten time she lives,
Loves, loses, lures anew, and ever gives,—
She who all misery and all joy hath known.

If thou wouldst see her, as the twilight fails,

Go forth along the ancient street of tombs, And when the purple shade divinely glooms High o'er the Alban hills, and night prevails,

If then she is not with thee while the light

Glows over roof and column, tower and dome, And the dead stir beneath thy feet, and Rome Lies in the solemn keeping of the night,—

If then she be not thine, not thine the lot
Of those some angel rescues for an hour
From earth's mean limitations, granting power
To see as man may see when time is not.
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL.

ROME UNVISITED

THE corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the dear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.

And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.

O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,

Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!

O Roma, Roma, at thy feet

I lay this barren gift of song! For, ah! the way is steep and long That leads unto thy sacred street.

OSCAR WILDE.

ROME

ROME, on thine air I cast my soul adrift,
To soar sublime; do thou, O Rome, receive
This soul of mine and flood it with thy light.

Not curiously concerned with little things
To thee I come; who is there that would seek
For butterflies beneath the Arch of Titus?

Do thou but shed thine azure round me, Rome, Illumine me with sunlight; all-divine

Are the sun's rays in thy vast azure spaces.

They bless alike the dusky Vatican,
The beauteous Quirinal, and ancient there
The Capitol, amongst all ruins holy.

And from thy seven hills thou stretchest forth Thine arms, O Rome, to meet the love diffused, A radiant splendour, through the quiet air.

The solitudes of the Campagna form

That nuptial-couch; and thou, O hoar Soratte,
Thou art the witness in eternity.

O Alban Mountains, sing ye smilingly
The epithalamium; green Tusculum
Sing thou; and sing, O fertile Tivoli!

Whilst I from the Janiculum look down

With wonder on the city's pictured form— A mighty ship, launched toward the world's dominion.

O ship, whose poop rising on high attains
The infinite, bear with thee on thy passage
My soul unto the shores of mystery!

Let me, when fall those twilights radiant
With the white jewels of the coming night,
Quietly linger on the Flaminian Way;

Then may the hour supreme, in fleeing, brush
With silent wing my forehead, while I pass
Unknown through this serenity of peace,

Pass to the Councils of the Shades, and see
Once more the lofty spirits of the Fathers
Conversing there beside the sacred river.

GIOSUÉ CARDUCCI.
Tr. M. W. Arms.

ROME

A HIGH and naked square, a lonely palm;
Columns thrown down, a high and lonely tower;
The tawny river, ominously fouled;
Cypresses in a garden, old with calm;

Two monks who pass in white, sandaled and cowled ;

Empires of glory in a narrow hour

From sunset unto starlight, when the sky
Wakened to death behind St. Peter's dome:
That, in an eyelid's lifting, you and I
Will see wherever any man says "Rome."

ARTHUR SYMONS.

HILLS OF ROME

SHE, whose high top above the starres did sore,
One foote on Thetis, th' other on the Morning,
One hand on Scythia, th' other on the More,
Both heaven and earth in roundnesse compassing;
Iove fearing, least if she should greater growe,
The Giants old should once againe uprise,

Her whelm'd with hills, these Seven Hills, which be

nowe

Tombes of her greatnes which did threate the

skies: