| |
| ACROSS the broad Campagna fell | |
| The softly dropping rain, | |
| Obscured the hills I love so well, | |
| And blotted out the plain. | |
| |
| As those gray mists came sweeping by, | 5 |
| I seemed to see the ghosts | |
| Of gallant Roman cavalry | |
| Ride rallying to their posts. | |
| |
| The best of Rome was buried here, | |
| Yet lonely is the way! | 10 |
| No living race esteems it dear,— | |
| No pilgrim comes to pray. | |
| |
| The nameless tombs are overthrown | |
| And open to the air, | |
| And scarce the very race is known | 15 |
| Of nobles resting there. | |
| |
| A dreary double file of graves | |
| That stretch across the land,— | |
| The thick wild grass above them waves, | |
| A fence on either hand; | 20 |
| |
| And, quivering o’er the traveller’s head, | |
| The long electric wires | |
| Wail faint and sweet about the dead | |
| A dirge which never tires. | |
| |
| Pale shades that walk the Elysian groves | 25 |
| Would chant with tones like these, | |
| Whose minor music softly moves | |
| Responsive to the breeze. | |
| |
| When homeward bent at twilight hours | |
| A yearning thrills through me;— | 30 |
| That long dim line of distant towers, | |
| Like mountains seen at sea! | |
| |
| How oft it rises in my heart, | |
| A vision soft and gray, | |
| But never rendered yet by art,— | 35 |
| Rome from the Appian Way! | |
| |
