But Cainà waits for him our life who ended": These were the accents uttered by her tongue. Since I first listened to these souls offended,

I bowed my visage, and so kept it till

"What think'st thou ?" said the bard; when I unbended,

And recommenced: "Alas! unto such ill

How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstasies, Led these their evil fortune to fulfil!" And then I turned unto their side my eyes, And said, "Francesca, thy sad destinies Have made me sorrow till the tears arise. But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, By what and how thy love to passion rose, So as his dim desires to recognize? Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes Is to remind us of our happy days

In misery, and that thy teacher knows. But if to learn our passion's first root preys Upon thy spirit with such sympathy,

I will do even as he who weeps and says.
We read one day for pastime, seated nigh,

Of Lancilot, how love enchained him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue
All o'er discolored by that reading were:
But one point only wholly us o'erthrew;
When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,
To be thus kissed by such devoted lover,
He who from me can be divided ne'er
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over.

Accursed was the book and he who wrote!
That day no further leaf we did uncover.
While thus one spirit told us of their lot,
The other wept, so that with pity's thralls
I swooned as if by death I had been smote,
And fell down even as a dead body falls."

Dante. Tr. Lord Byron.

Rivers of Italy.

RIVERS OF ITALY.

BETWEEN the higher and inferior sea

The long-extended mountain takes his way; Pisa and Aucon bound his sloping sides, Washed by the Tyrrhene and Dalmatic tides; Rich in the treasure of his watery stores, A thousand living springs and streams he pours, And seeks the different seas by different shores. From his left falls Crustumium's rapid flood, And swift Metaurus red with Punic blood; There gentle Sapis with Isaurus joins, And Sena there the Senones confiues; Rough Aufidus the meeting ocean braves, And lashes on the lazy Adria's waves; Hence vast Eridanus with matchless force, Prince of the streams, directs his regal course; Proud with the spoils of fields and woods he flows, And drains Hesperia's rivers as he goes.

His sacred bauks, in ancient tales renowned,

First by the spreading poplar's shade were crowned;
When the sun's fiery steeds forsook their way,
And downward drew to earth the burning day;
When every flood and ample lake was dry,
The Po alone his channel could supply.
Hither rash Phaeton was headlong driven,

And in these waters quenched the flames of heaven.
Nor wealthy Nile a fuller stream contains,
Though wide he spreads o'er Egypt's flatter plains;
Nor Ister rolls a larger torrent down,

Sought he the sea with waters all his own;
But meeting floods to him their homage pay,
And heave the blended river on his way.

These from the left; while from the right there come
The Rutuba and Tiber dear to Rome;

Thence slides Vulturnus' swift descending flood,
And Sarnus hid beneath his misty cloud;
Thence Lyris, whom the Vestin fountains aid,
Winds to the sea through close Marica's shade;
Thence Siler through Silernian pastures falls,
And shallow Macra creeps by Luna's walls.

Lucan. Tr. Nicholas Rowe.

ON

Riviera.

RIVIERA DI PONENTE.

N this lovely Western Shore, where no tempests rage and roar,

Over olive-bearing mountains, by the deep and violet

sea,

There, through each long happy day, winding slowly on

our way,

Travellers from across the ocean, toward Italia journeyed we,

Each long day, that, richer, fairer,

Showed the charming Riviera.

There black war-ships doze at anchor, in the Bay of Villa-Franca ;

Eagle-like, gray Esa, clinging to its rocky perch, looks

down;

And upon the mountain dim, ruined, shattered, stern, and grim,

Turbia sees us through the ages with its austere Roman frown,

While we climb, where cooler, rarer,

Breezes sweep the Riviera.

Down the hillside steep and stony, through the old streets of Mentone,

Quiet, half-forgotten city of a drowsy prince and time, Through the mild Italian midnight, rolls upon the wave the moonlight,

Murmuring in our dreams the cadence of a strange Ligurian rhyme,

Rhymes in which each heart is sharer,
Journeying on the Riviera.

When the morning air comes purer, creeping up in our

vettura,

Eastward gleams a rosy tumult with the rising of the

day;

Toward the north, with gradual changes, steal along

the mountain-ranges

Tender tints of warmer feeling, kissing all their peaks of gray;

And far south the waters wear a

Smile along the Riviera.

Helmed with snow, the Alpine giants at invaders look defiance,

Gazing over nearer summits, with a fixed, mysterious

stare,

Down along the shaded ocean, on whose edge in tremulous motion

Floats an island, half transparent, woven out of sea and

air;

For such visions, shaped of air, are

Frequent on our Riviera.

He whose mighty earthquake-tread all Europa shook with dread,

Chief whose infancy was cradled in that old Tyrrhenic

isle,

Joins the shades of trampling legions, bringing from remotest regions

Gallic fire and Roman valor, Cimbric daring, Moorish guile,

Guests from every age to share a

Portion of this Riviera.

Then the Afric brain, whose story fills the centuries with

its glory,

Moulding Gaul and Carthaginian into one all-conquering band,