REGGIO (RHEGIUM)

ON IBYCUS

RHEGIUM, whose feet Trinacria's straitened sea
Laves ever, verge extreme of Italy,
Honoured be thou in song for having laid
Under thy leafy elms' embowering shade
The dust of Ibycus, the bard beloved,
The bard of Love, who all its joys had proved;
Mantle his grave with ivy,-round it plant
Reeds, to send forth the shepherd's rural chant.

UNCERTAIN.

Tr. W. Hay.

REGGIO

AND shouldst thou doubt the visible prophecies
Of Nature, in her forms embodying
Imaginative dreams, when the sun lies

On Reggio's shore, go mark its ruins fling
Their shadows on the stream, till gathering,
Embattled towers rise slowly from the deep,
Pillars and castled walls, gates opening

On serried armies, marshalled horse that leap Along the flying plains, and charging squadrons

sweep.

And cliffs cloud-capped, deep vales, white herds

far seen,

And shepherds with their flocks, and mountains

bare,

Looking repose: lo! in the silvery sheen

Floating above the wave, they melt to air,
Reflection but of ruins! woven there

From mist and shadow, but they finger forth
Truths that oracular Nature doth declare
To thee, fallen Italy! regenerate birth
Thus shall be thine from death, freedom and pris
tine worth.

JOHN EDMUND READE.

THE RIVER BUSENTO

THE GRAVE IN THE BUSENTO

BY Cosenza, songs of wail at midnight wake Busento's shore,

O'er the wave resounds the answer, and amid the vortex' roar!

Valiant Goths, like specters, steal along the banks with hurried pace,

Weeping over Alaric dead, the best, the bravest of his race.

Ah! too soon, from home so far, was it their lot to dig his grave,

While still o'er his shoulders flowed his youthful ringlets' flaxen wave.

On the shore of the Busento ranged, they with each other vied,

As they dug another bed to turn the torrent's course aside.

In the waveless hollow turning o'er and o'er the sod, the corse

Deep into the earth they sank, in armour clad,

upon his horse.

Covered then with earth again the horse and rider

in the grave,

That above the hero's tomb the torrent's lofty plants might wave.

And, a second time diverted, was the floor conducted back,

Foaming rushed Busento's billows onwards in their wonted track.

And a warrior chorus sang, "Sleep with thy honours, hero brave!

"Ne'er shall foot of lucre-lusting Roman desecrate thy grave!"

Far and wide the songs of praise resounded in the Gothic host;

Bear them on, Busento's billow, bear them on from

coast to coast!

AUGUST VON PLATEN.

Tr. Alfred Baskerville.

TARANTO (TARENTUM)

TARENTUM

AND next Tarentum's bay,

Named, if report be true, from Hercules,
Is seen; and opposite lifts up her head
The goddess of Lacinia; and the heights
Appear of Caulon, and the dangerous rocks
Of Sylaceum. Then far off we see
Trinacrian Ætna rising from the waves;
And now we hear the ocean's awful roar,
The breakers dashing on the rocks, the moan
Of broken voices on the shore. The deeps
Leap up, and sand is mixed with boiling foam.
"Charybdis!” cries Anchises; "lo, the cliffs,
The dreadful rocks that Helenus foretold!
Save us, bear off, my men! With equal stroke
Bend to your oars!" No sooner said than done.
With groaning rudder Palinurus turns
The prow to the left, and the whole cohort strain
With oar and sail, and seek a southern course.
The curving wave one moment lifts us up
Skyward, then sinks us down as in the shades

Of death. Three times amid their hollow caves