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(From Italy)
HARK! from dark Nemi’s plantain-woods, where twining | |
| The tendrilled vine the branches clasps along, | |
| Where glows through olives the bright cactus shining, | |
| Echo the sounds of laughter and of song! | |
| Lo, trooping forth, wild-flowers their hair among, | 5 |
| Albano’s dark-browed daughters! from their eyes | |
| Joy flashing lightning, a Bacchante throng: | |
| Forms such as danced beneath Idalian skies, | |
| Or trod the flowery fields of golden Arcadies. | |
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| It is Gensano’s flower-fête! the streets shine | 10 |
| Strewn o’er with irises of living blue, | |
| Galaxied thick with star-eyed jessamine, | |
| And the rose shedding its rich lustre through: | |
| We tread on living tapestry whose hue | |
| Mocks the faint rainbow, an Hesperian shore | 15 |
| Its glory darkening on the aching view: | |
| Yet hath Art wrought on that mosaic floor | |
| Religion’s pictured forms that call ye to adore; | |
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| There glows Madonna with her Son, o’erhung | |
| Their brows with lilies: hark! song fills the air, | 20 |
| Winged infants lead the choir with censers swung: | |
| Shedding flower-odors from their raven hair, | |
| With white veils floating from their shoulders bare, | |
| Frascati’s daughters elevate above | |
| The sacred Host: Religion watches there, | 25 |
| Her spirit still with olden fable wove, | |
Wedding great Nature thus, bride-like, with human love.
END OF VOL. I. | |
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