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:

Upon her head he heapt Mount Saturnal
Upon her bellie th' antique Palatine,
Upon her stomacke laid Mount Quirinal,
On her left hand the noysome Esquiline,

And Cælian on the right: but both her feete
Mount Viminal and Aventine doo meete.

JOACHIM DU BELLAY.

Tr. Edmund Spenser.

MONTE CAVALLO.

YE, too, marvellous twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo

Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement,

Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces,

Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,

O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas,

Are ye

Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you,

Will the brief form have sufficed, that a pope has up on the apex

set

Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?

And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious

marble,

Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,

Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and

Bacchus,

Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims,

Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian pontiff,

Are ye also baptised? are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven?

Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern!

Am I to turn me for this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

THE CÆLIAN HILL

Of all the seven which Rome doth boast,
(Fair hills and nobly crowned!)

I love the Cælian Hill the most,
And think it holy ground.

"T was here the deacon Laurence died,
And here was Gregory's cell;

The heart by honors sorely tried
Remembered it right well ;—

And as his pious envoys bore
The British cross on high,

He, like a sailor turned from shore,
Looked backward with a sigh,

And though he held within his hand
The Church from east to west,
He thought of all the Christian land
This Cælian Hill the best.

I cannot tell, I know not why,

But Rome from thence doth wear
Peculiar brightness in the sky
And beauty in the air.

A dreamy light is in the trees,
The winding walks are still,
And quietly the perfumed breeze
. Creeps o'er the Cælian Hill.

As tranquil convents faintly chime
The passing hours of prayer,
They give the only hints that time
Has marked its progress there.

The martyr's home, the saint's retreat, Have filled the place with rest,

The centuries with silent feet

Have touched its leafy crest;

And Gregory, rising from his sleep,
Himself would scarcely know
That past of his was buried deep
A thousand years ago!

BESSIE RAYNER PARKES.

THE RUINES OF ROME

I

THOU stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest,

And nought of Rome in Rome perceivst at all, These same olde walls, olde arches, which thou

seest,

Olde palaces, is that which Rome men call.

Beholde what wreake, what ruine, and what wast,
And how that she, which with her mightie powre
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herselfe at last;
The pray of Time, which all things doth devowre!
Rome now of Rome is th' onely funerall,
And onely Rome of Rome hath victorie;
Ne ought save Tyber hastning to his fall
Remaines of all: O worlds inconstancie!

That which is firme doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting doth abide and stay.