HE

Rimini (Ariminum).

CÆSAR AT RIMINI.

E spoke; and on the dreadful task intent,
Speedy to near Ariminum he bent;

To him the Balearic sling is slow,

And the shaft loiters from the Parthian bow. With eager marches swift he reached the town, As the shades fled, the sinking stars were gone, And Lucifer the last was left alone.

At length the morn, the dreadful morn arose,
Whose beams the first tumultuous rage disclose:
Whether the stormy south prolonged the night,
Or the good gods abhorred the impious sight,
The clouds awhile withheld the mournful light.
To the mid Forum on the soldier passed,
There halted, and his victor ensigns placed :
With dire alarms from band to band around,
The fife, hoarse horn, and rattling trumpets sound.
The starting citizens uprear their heads;
The lustier youth at once forsake their beds;
Hasty they snatch the weapons, which among
Their household gods in peace had rested long;
Old bucklers of the covering hides bereft,
The mouldering frames disjoined and barely left;
Swords with foul rust indented deep they take,
And useless spears with points inverted shake.
Soon as their crests the Roman eagles reared,
And Cæsar high above the rest appeared,

Each trembling heart with secret horror shook,
And silent thus within themselves they spoke.
O hapless city! O ill-fated walls!

Reared for a curse so near the neighboring Gauls!
By us destruction ever takes its way,

We first become each bold invader's prey;

O that by fate we rather had been placed
Upon the confines of the utmost east!

The frozen north much better might we know,
Mountains of ice, and everlasting snow.

Better with wandering Scythians choose to roam,
Than fix in fruitful Italy our home,

And guard these dreadful passages to Rome.
Through these the Cimbrians laid Hesperia waste;
Through these the swarthy Carthaginian passed;
Whenever fortune threats the Latian states,
War, death, and ruin enter at these gates.

Lucan. Tr. Nicholas Rowe.

RIMINI.

"THE land where I was born sits by the seas,

Upon that shore to which the Po descends, With all his followers, in search of peace. Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en From me, and me even yet the mode offends. Love, who to none beloved to love again

Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, That, as thou seest, yet, yet it doth remain. Love to one death conducted us along,

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.

ETWEEN the higher and inferior sea

BETW

The long-extended mountain takes his way; Pisa and Ancon 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 confines; 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 banks, 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.

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,