As lake-boats seek their twilight coves,
And flocks their fold at night,
I languish for the grots and groves
Where still each nymph and naiad roves
Who taught my youth delight.
How wild the wind-swept waste of furze !
How shrill the killdee’s call!
Yet there I know how warmly stirs
The breeze among the gossamers
Which fleck the tufted wall.
The far peaks don their caps of snow
For winter’s long repose,
But, browning on the slopes below,
The tangled olives nod, and glow
The crimson coquelicots.
Sweet Arno ! As the light of shrines
On some lone wayside gleams,
So from the circling Apennines
The memory of thy valley shines
The beacon of my dreams.
Charles J. Bayne.