Hail to ye, cornfields and vineyards famous for the old Falernian! Hail to ye, golden orange-groves of Mola di Gaeta! Hail to ye, sweet shrubs and wild flowers, omnis copia narium, that clothe the mountain-skirts of the silent Lautulae! Shall we rest at the Volscian Anxur,--the modern Terracina,--where the lofty rock stands like the giant that guards the last borders of the southern land of love?
Away, away! and hold your breath as we flit above the Pontine Marshes.

Dreary and desolate, their miasma is to the gardens we have passed what the rank commonplace of life is to the heart when it has left love behind.
Mournful Campagna, thou openest on us in majestic sadness.

Rome, seven-hilled Rome! receive us as Memory receives the way-worn; receive us in silence, amidst ruins! Where is the traveller we pursue?
Turn the hippogriff loose to graze: he loves the acanthus that wreathes round yon broken columns.

Yes, that is the arch of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem,--that the Colosseum! Through one passed the triumph of the deified invader; in one fell the butchered gladiators.

Monuments of murder, how poor the thoughts, how mean the memories ye awaken, compared with those that speak to the heart of man on the heights of Phyle, or by thy lone mound, grey Marathon! We stand amidst weeds and brambles and long waving herbage.