canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You may see these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers,-lithe monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of the pine wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. VENICE VENICE, thou Siren of sea cities, wrought By mirage, built on water, stair o'er stair, Of sunbeams and cloud shadows, phantom-fair, Ocean of dreams! Thou hast no dream so rare I THE NIGHTINGALE WENT a-roaming through the woods alone, And heard the nightingale that made her moan. Hard task it were to tell how dewy-still Were flowers and ferns and foliage in the rays Of Hesper, white amid the daffodil Of twilight flecked with faintest chrysoprase; But as I stood and listened, on the air Arose another voice, more clear and keen, That startled silence with a sweet despair, And stilled the bird beneath her leafy screen: The star of Love, those lattice boughs between, Grew large and leaned to listen from his zone. I went a-roaming through the woods alone, The voice, methought, was neither man's nor boy's, Resounds from angel choirs in unison, I went a-roaming through the woods alone, I went a-roaming through the woods alone, I went a-roaming through the woods alone, But in my heart and in my brain the cry, The wail, the dirge, the dirge of Death and Love, Still throbs and throbs, flute-like, and will not die, Piercing and clear the night-bird's tune above,— The aching, anguished wild swan's note, whereof The sweet sad flower of song was overblown. I went a-roaming through the woods alone, And heard the nightingale that made her moan. |