THE RIVER ARNO

BY THE ARNO

THE oleander on the wall

Grows crimson in the dawning night, Though the gay shadows of the light Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,

And bright the blossoms overhead,

But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,

The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almost scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.

The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon,

Before across the silent lawn

In sea-green mist the morning steals, And to love's frightened eyes reveals The long white fingers of the dawn

Fast climbing up the eastern sky

To grasp and slay the shuddering night, All careless of my heart's delight,

Or if the nightingale should die.

OSCAR WILDE.

VALLOMBROSA

VALLOMBROSA

THICK as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,

High overarched, embower.

JOHN MILTON.

VALLOMBROSA

AND Vallombrosa, we went to see

Last June, beloved companion,—where sublime The mountains live in holy families,

And the slow pine-woods ever climb and climb Half up their breasts; just stagger as they seize Some gray crag,-drop back with it many a time,

And straggle blindly down the precipice!

The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June-day, knee-deep, with dead beechen leaves,

As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick, And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves Are all the same too: scarce they have changed

the wick

On good St. Gualbert's altar, which receives

The convent's pilgrims; and the pool in front Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait The beatific vision, and the grunt

Used at refectory, keeps its weedy state,
To baffle saintly abbots, who would count
The fish across their breviary, nor 'bate

The measure of their steps. O waterfalls
And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare,
That leap up, peak by peak, and catch the palls
Of purple and silver mist, to rend and share
With one another, at electric calls

Of life in the sunbeams,-till we cannot dare
Fix your shapes, learn your number! we must

think

Your beauty and your glory helped to fill

The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink,
That he no more was thirsty when God's will
Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link
By which he drew from Nature's visible

The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this,
He sang of Adam's Paradise and smiled,
Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is
The place divine to English man and child;—
We all love Italy.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

VALLOMBROSA

English wanderer, where Etruria sings to thee
Songs of mountain and of forest fair,

Each clear stream with its beech-leaf burden brings to thee

Days long flown, wherein Milton wandered there.

Scenes youth lit for his ardour and his purity Age raised up when his outer eye was dim: Vallombrosa, thy name through all futurity Blends sweet tones with a sweeter tone from him. ERNEST MYERS.