the floor with her dazzling and beautiful feet, and, while he gazed, she was gone. Yet still he gazed; and, snatching up a bracelet which she had dropt in her flight, “ Then she is earthly!” he cried. 6. But whence could she come? All innocence, all purity, she must have wandered in her

sleep.” 214

When he arose, his anxious eyes sought her everywhere; but in vain. Many of the young and the gay were abroad, and moving as usual in the light of the morning; but, among them all, there was nothing like her. Within or without, she was nowhere to be seen; and, at length, in his despair he resolved to address himself to his hostess.

“Who were my nearest neighbors in that turret ?”

66 The Marchioness de * and her two daughters, the ladies Clara and Violetta ; the youngest beautiful as the day!" 66 And where are they now?"

They are gone; but we cannot say whither. They set out soon after sunrise."

At a late hour they had left the pavilion, and had retired to their toilet-chamber, a chamber of oak richly carved, that had once been an oratory, and, afterwards, what was no less essential to a house of that antiquity, a place of resort for two or three ghosts of the family. But, having long lost its sanctity, it had now lost its terrors; and, gloomy as its aspect was, Violetta was soon sitting there alone. "Go,” said she to her sister, when her mother withdrew for the night, and her sister was preparing to follow, “go, Clara. I will not be long." And down she sat to a chapter of the Promessi Sposi 23 But she might well forget her promise, forgetting where

She was now under the wand of an enchanter;

and she read and read till the clock struck three, and the taper flickered in the socket. She started up as from a trance; she threw off her wreath of roses; she gathered her tresses into a net; 26 and, snatching a last look in the mirror, her eyelids heavy with sleep, and the light glimmering and dying, she opened a wrong door, a door that had been left unlocked; and, stealing along on tip-toe, (how often may Innocence wear the semblance of Guilt !) she lay down as by her sleeping sister; and instantly, almost before the pillow on which she reclined her head had done sinking, her sleep was as the sleep of childhood.

When morning came, a murmur strange to her ear alarmed her. What could it be ? - Where was she ? - she looked not; she listened not; but, like a fawn from the covert, up she sprung and was gone.

It was she, then, that he sought; it was she who, so unconsciously, had taught him to love; and, night and day, he pursued her, till in the Cathedral of Perugia he discovered her at a solemn service, as she knelt between her mother and her sister among the rich and the poor.

From that hour did he endeavor to win her regard by every attention, every assiduity that love could dictate; nor did he cease till he had won it, and till she had consented to be his : but never did the secret escape from his lips; nor was it till some years afterwards that he said to her, on an anniversary of their nuptials, “ Violetta, it was a joyful day to me, a day from which I date the happiness of my life; but, if marriages are written in heaven," and, as he spoke, he restored to her arm the bracelet which he had treasured up so long, "how strange are the circumstances by which they are sometimes brought about; for, if you had not lost yourself, Violetta, I might never have found you.”

ROME.

I AM in ROME! Oft as the morning-ray
Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry,
Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me
And from within a thrilling voice replies,
Thou art in ROME! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;
And I spring up as girt to run a race !

Thou art in ROME! the city that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;
The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (what but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by the river-side ?)
Grew into everything; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Not like the merchant with his merchandise,
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring,
But ever hand to hand and foot to foot,
Through nations numberless in battle-array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them all.

Thou art in Rome! the city, where the Gauls, Entering at sunrise through her open gates, And, through her streets silent and desolate, Marching to slay, thought they saw gods, not men; The city, that, by temperance, fortitude, And love of glory, towered above the clouds, Then fell - but, falling, kept the highest seat,

And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe,
Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild,
Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age,
Her empire undiminished. There, as though
Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld
All things that strike, ennoble 217 — from the depths
Of EGYPT, from the classic fields of GREECE,
Her groves, her temples — all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flocked thither to abide eternally,
Within those silent chambers where they dwell,
In happy intercourse ? And I am there!
Ah! little thought I, when in school I sate,
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live
To tread the APPIAN,218
Of monuments most glorious, palaces,
Their doors sealed up and silent as the night,
The dwellings of the illustrious dead - to turn
Toward TIBER, and, beyond the city-gate,
Pour out my unpremeditated verse
Where on his mule I might have met so oft
HORACE himself 219 — or climb the PALATINE,
Dreaming of old EVANDER and his guest,
Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence,
Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness; 2.0 and inscribe my name,
My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf,
That shoots and spreads within those very walls

Where VIRGIL read aloud his tale divine,
Where his voice faltered and a mother wept
Tears of delight ! 221

But what the narrow space
Just underneath? In many a heap the ground
Heaves, as if Ruin in a, frantic mood
Had done his utmost. Here and there

Here and there appears,
As left to show his handiwork not ours,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,
A wall of some great temple.

It was once,
And long, the centre of their universe,222
The FORUM -- whence a mandate, eagle-winged,
Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost. .
The
very

dust we tread stirs as with life
And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur.

We are come, Are now where once the mightiest spirits met In terrible conflict; this, while RoME was free, The noblest theatre on this side heaven !

Here the first BRUTUS stood, when o'er the corse Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud Burst like a god. Here, holding up the knife That ran with blood, the blood of his own child, VIRGINIUS called down vengeance. But whence spoke They who harangued the people; turning now 223 To the twelve tables,224 now with lifted hands To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape In the unclouded azure shone far off

, And to the shepherd on the Alban mount Seemed like a star new-risen ? 223 Where were ranged In rough array, as on their element,