Think of this place in the dreary gloom
Of an autumn twilight, when the sun
Hiding in banks of clouds goes down,
And silence and shadow are coming on;
White mists crawl, — one lurid light

Glares from the west through a broken cloud, -
Rack hurries above, the dubious night
Is creeping along with its spectral crowd;
Would it, I ask, be a startling sight
To meet a ghost here than in a shroud?

One of the thousand murdered men

Who have stained the blasted soil with blood?
Does the lupine get its color then

From some victim pashed to death in the mud?
Has the yellow ginestra the hue of the gold
From the traveller here in terror torn?
Was yon bird but a sprite, singing so bold,
That in life a maiden's form had worn,
And at night steals back in its shape of old
To haunt the darkness pale and forlorn?

Look at that castle whose ruins crown
The rocky crest of yonder height,
Still frowning over the squalid town,
That cowers beneath as if in affright.

From his eyry there to glut his beak
The robber swooped to his shuddering prey,
And the ghosts of the past still haunt the peak
Though robber and baron have passed away.

And, hark! was that the owl's long shriek,
Or a ghost's that flits through the ruins gray?

"T is blood and gold wherever I gaze,
Aud tangled brambles, stiff and gray,
A scowling, ugly, terrified place,
A spot for murder and deadly fray.
On such a barren, desolate heath,
When shadows were deepening all around,
The sisters weird before Macbeth
Rising, hovered along the ground,

And echoed his inward thought of death,
And vanished again behind a mound.

William Wetmore Story.

Ravenna.

DANTE.

ANTE am I, - Minerva's son, who knew

With skill and genius (though in style obscure) And elegance maternal to mature

My toil, a miracle to mortal view.

Through realms tartarean and celestial flew
My lofty fancy, swift-winged and secure;
And ever shall my noble work endure,
Fit to be read of men, and angels too.

Florence my earthly mother's glorious name;
Step-dame to me, whom from her side she thrust,
Her duteous son: bear slanderous tongues the blame;
Ravenna housed my exile, holds my dust;

My spirit is with Him from whom it came,
A Parent envy cannot make unjust.

Giovanni Boccaccio. Tr. Francis C. Gray.

RAVENNA.

WEET hour of twilight! in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Where the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along: The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly

From a true lover, - shadowed my mind's eye.

Lord Byron.

I

DE FOIX'S MONUMENT AND DANTE'S TOMB.

CANTER by the spot each afternoon

Where perished in his fame the hero-boy, Who lived too long for men, but died too soon

For human vanity, the young De Foix! A broken pillar not uncouthly hewn,

But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,

While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid;
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid

To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column. The time must come when both, alike decayed,

The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death or Homer's birth.

Lord Byron.

RAVENNA.

'TIS morn, and never did a lovelier day

Salute Ravenna from its leafy bay:

For a warm eve and gentle rains at night
Have left a sparkling welcome for the light,
And April, with his white hands wet with flowers,
Dazzles the bride-maids, looking from the towers :

Green vineyards and fair orchards, far and near,
Glitter with drops; and heaven is sapphire clear,
And the lark rings it, and the pine-trees glow,
And odors from the citrons come and go,

And all the landscape-earth and sky and sea Breathes like a bright-eyed face, that laughs out openly.

"T is nature, full of spirits, waked and loved. E'en sloth, to-day, goes quick and unreproved; For where's the living soul-priest, minstrel, clown, Merchant, or lord -- that speeds not to the town? Hence happy faces, striking through the green Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen; And the far ships, lifting their sails of white Like joyful hands, come up with scattered light, Come gleaming up, true to the wished-for day, And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay.

THE PINE FOREST OF RAVENNA.

A HEAVY spot the forest looks at first,

Leigh Hunt.

To one grim shade condemned, and sandy thirst,
Checkered with thorns, and thistles run to seed,
Or plashy pools half covered with green weed,
About whose sides the swarming insects fry
In the hot sun, a noisome company;

But, entering more and more, they quit the sand
At once, and strike upon a grassy land,
From which the trees as from a carpet rise
In knolls and clumps, in rich varieties.