From the proud mart of Pisa,
Queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's1 triremes

2

Heavy with fair-hair'd slaves;
From where sweet Clanis 3 wanders
Through corn and vines and flowers;
From where Cortona 4 lifts to heaven
Her diadem of towers.

Tall are the oaks whose acorns
Drop in dark Auser's 5 rill;

Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
Of the Ciminian 6 hill;

1 Marseilles.

Trireme -a vessel of three benches of oars, first built by the Corinthians. The ancients had their two, three, four, and five-benched galleys, and among the vessels framed in Phoenicia and sent to Babylon for Alexander the Great, we find some of thirty oars. The masts of the galleys were not fixed, but raised only when the sail was to be used. The principal weapon of the galley was the strong beak of brass or iron (rostrum) fixed to its head. The object therefore in an attack was, either first to bring the rostrum to bear directly against the enemy's broadside, or, if that could not be effected, by an oblique impulse to dash away some of his oars. By the success of the former movement a galley was often sunk, by that of the latter it became unmanageable until the oars could be replaced, and gave the opportunity for the more decisive attack with the beak. Hence the importance of oars in action by them alone could attacks be made, warded, or avoided in every direction.

3 Clanis, the river Chiana, which gives its name to the valley through which it runs.

Cortona retains its original circuit of Etruscan walls, though repaired in several places.

5 Auser, a river of Etruria, which falls into the Arno. 6 Viterbo is situated at the foot of Mount Cimino, whose dense forests formed a barrier of Etruria against Rome.

Beyond all streams Clitumnus 1
Is to the herdsman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves
The great Volsinian mere. 2

But now no stroke of woodmen
Is heard by Auser's rill;
No hunter tracks the stag's green path
Up the Ciminian hill;
Unwatch'd along Clitumnus

Grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharm'd the water-fowl may dip
In the Volsinian mere.

The harvests of Arretium 3,
This year, old men shall reap;
This year, young boys in Umbro 4

Shall plunge the struggling sheep;

A river near Spoleto, formerly celebrated for the whiteness of the flocks that grazed on its banks, and now for the beautiful little Corinthian temple which stands on the acclivity of a bank overlooking its crystal waters near their source, so beautifully described by Lord Byron :

And on thy happy shore a Temple still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild declivity of hill,

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails

Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. • Bolsena, supposed to be the ancient Volscinium, is seated on the magnificent lake of the same name, celebrated, in the time of Pliny, for its floating islands. When destroyed by the Romans it contained two thousand statues: the present town does not contain more than fifteen hundred inhabitants! 3 Arezzo, celebrated for its red embossed pottery.

Umbro, a river (Ombrone) near which the Etruscan city Rusellæ was situated.

And in the vats of Luna1,

This year, the must shall foam
Round the white feet of laughing girls,
Whose sires have march'd to Rome.

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who alway by Lars Porsena
Both morn and evening stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty

Have turn'd the verses o'er,

Trac'd from the right on linen white
By mighty seers of yore.

And with one voice the Thirty
Have their glad answer given:
"Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena;
Go forth, belov'd of Heaven;
Go, and return in glory

To Clusium's royal dome;

And hang round Nurscia's altars 2

The golden shields of Rome."

MACAULAY.

THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD.

YE hermits blest, ye holy maids,

*

Who talk with God in shadowy glades,
Free from rude care and mirth;

1 Luna, on the Macra, the boundary of Etruria. Its ruins are still to be seen near Sarzana. The Carrara marble was shipped from this port, and was thence called Luna marble by the Romans. The ancient walls of Luna were built of solid blocks of white marble.

An Etruscan goddess, held in the highest veneration.

To whom some viewless teacher brings
The secret love of rural things,

The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale,

The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale:

Say, when in pity ye have gaz'd

On the wreath'd smoke afar,

That o'er some town, like mist uprais'd,
Hung, hiding sun and star,
Then, as ye turn'd your weary eye

To the green earth and open sky,

Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel?

But Love's a flower that will not die
For lack of leafy screen,

And Christian hope can cheer the eye
That ne'er saw vernal green;

Then be ye sure that love can bless
Even in this crowded loneliness,
Where ever-moving myriads seem to say,
Go

thou art nought to us, nor we to thee
away!

There are in this loud stunning tide

Of human care and crime,

With whom the melodies abide

Of th' everlasting chime;

Who carry music in their heart

Through dusty lane and wrangling mart,

Plying their daily task with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

KEBLE.

THE FIRE-FLY.

THERE is an insect, that, when evening comes,
Small though he be, scarcely distinguishable,
Like evening clad in soberest livery,

Unsheaths his wings and thro' the woods and glades
Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels,
Blazing by fits as from excess of joy,

Each gush of light a gush of extacy;
Nor unaccompanied; thousands that fling
A radiance all their own, not of the day,
Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn,
Soaring, descending.

1

In the mother's lap Well may the child put forth his little hands, Singing the nursery-song he learnt so soon, And the young nymph, preparing for the dance By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry, "Come hither; and the shepherds, gathering round, Shall say, Floretta emulates the night, Spangling her head with stars."

Oft have I met

This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves
My path no longer glimmer'd; oft among
Those trees, religious once and always green,
That yet dream out their stories of old Rome
Over the Alban2 lake; oft met and hail'd,

There is a song to the lucciola in every dialect of Italy. Lake Albano. The present town of Albano stands at a short distance from the lake, about fifteen miles from Rome, and is built on the site of Pompey's villa. It consists chiefly of one long street, inhabited by the Roman nobles. On the banks of the lake is Castel Gandolfo, the country residence of the Pope. The ilexes, or evergreen oaks, which shade the walk from this place to Albano, are some of the largest in Italy.