VII.

When I beheld this tickle trustles state Of vaine worlde’s glorie, flitting to and fro, And mortall men tossed by troublous fate In restless seas of wretchednesse and woe, I wish I might this wearie life foregoe, And shortly turn into my happie rest, Where my free spirit might not anie moe Be vext with sights that doo her peace molest. And ye, faire ladie, in whose bounteous brest All heavenly grace and vertue shrined is, When ye these rymes doe read, and vow the rest, Loath this base world, and thinke of heaven’s bliss; And though ye be the fairest of God’s creatures, Yet thinke that Death shall spoyle your goodly features. _Translation of_ EDMUND SPENSER. FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 1304–1374.

THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME.

Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men. The long, knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of rivers that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of moldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black stone, four square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, vailing its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners passing from a nation’s grave.

JOHN RUSKIN.

THE WAVE OF LIFE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

“Whither, thou turbid wave? Whither, with so much haste, As if a thief wert thou?”

“I am the Wave of Life Stained with my margin’s dust; From the struggle and the strife Of the narrow stream I fly To the sea’s immensity, To wash me from the slime Of the muddy banks of Time.” _Translation of_ H. W. LONGFELLOW. CHRISTOPH TIEDGE, 1752–1840.

MUTABILITY.

From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sinks from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, that royally did wear Its crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

[Illustration: [Pastoral Scene]]