As thús I heard, two glittering swords unsheathed
Were thrown into the midst, and a loud voice
Proclaimed the Cesar's mercy to that one
Óf the two culprits, whether son or father,
Who should the other slay in single fight,
Thére in the présence of assembled Rome.
Cold hórror chilled my blood as I beheld
Fáther and són, at the same instant armed,
Brándish the weapons:
"Hold," I cried, "hold, hold"
And woke, and found me in the Coliseum,
Seated upon the ruined, crumbling Podium,
Before me and on either side Christ's chapels
And kneeling worshippers, overhead the cross.
I knów not, Ítaly, whether thou art fairest
Ín thy blue sky, translucent lakes, broad rivers,
Thy pébbly half-moon bays and hoary headlands,
Thine irrigated vales of pasture green,

Thy mantling vines, tall cypresses, gray olives,
Thy stone-pines, hólmoaks dark, and laurels noble,
Ór in the intérior of thy marble halls

Where every pillar, every flag 1 tread on,
Has félt Bramante's or Palladio's chisel,
And every wall and every ceiling glows
Fresh with the tints of Raphael or Guercino;

But well I know that where thou shouldst be fairest

Thou art most foul; in all the sweet relations

Of life domestic, Italy! thou art naught:
Thou know'st no happy fireside, no tea table;
About the móther, in the evening, never
Gáther the children whether sons or daughters;
No book is read, no family instruction;
Th' example of the father leads the son
To the Casino and the coffeehouse,

The mother, seated on her throne the sofa,

Receives all day long the seductive homage
Óf her obedient, courteous, gay cicisbeo,

And seés not, or cares nót to see, which way,
Or whether more than one way, roves the husband.
The daughters, to the convent sent, learn plain
And fancy work, a little music, spelling,
Less writing, and no counting but to know
Upon the rosary how many beads,
Hów many Saint's-days in the calendar,
And on the satin frock to be presented
To the Madonna on her Son's birthday..
How many spangles will have best effect.
Ah, Ítaly! thou that so chaf'st against

A fóreign yoke, so kick'st against the pricks,
Ere into thy long-unaccustomed hands.

Thou ták'st the government of thyself, first teach
Óne of thy sóns to govern well himself

Ánd his own house; the social virtues
Precéde, not follow, the political;
An independant State 's created by,

Ére it creátes, good husbands, parents, children.

Between me and my home lies many an Alp
With mány a toilsome, rugged, steep ascent,
And sheer descending, dizzy precipice,
And mány a chasm, and awful, black abyss,
Ravine and fissure in the splintered mountain,
Tó be crossed over on the insecure

And crázy footing of half-rotten plank
Móssgrown and slippery with the drizzling spray
Óf the loud roáring cataract beneath..

From my youth úp I've loved thee, Switzerland;
At school, in college loved thee; of thee dreamed
While ón mine ears the lecturer's dry theme

Unfructifying fell, or in my hand

Forgót and useless lay dissector's knife;

And when at last the college Term went by,
And the damp foggy days and long dark nights
Gave way to joyous July's glowing sun,

With what a light, elastic heart I threw
My knapsack on my shoulder, in my hand
My wánderer's staff took, and set out to scale
Thy snowy mountains, thy green valleys tread,
Drink thy free air and feel myself a man!
Lonely my wanderings then, my sole companions
The river and the breeze, the cloudy rack,
Or some stray goat, or sheep that to my hand,
Expécting salt, came bleating; later years
Brought me a cómrade; a coeval youth,
Woóer like me of Nature, by my side

Stép for step taking with me, the long way,

The day tempestuous or the evening's gloom
Cheered with sweet interchange of thoughts congenial.
Upón this mossy bank we sat together,
Twenty five yéars ago this very day,

And watched September's mitigated sun

Go down, as now it goes, behind yon Stockhorn;
From Mérligen's white steeple on our left
Rest rést, ye weary! even as now was tolling;
And high above, high high above, the horn

Of Morgenberg, the Jungfrau's frozen-cheeks

And Mönch's and Eigher's glowed, as now, bright vermeil Únder the last kiss of departing Day;

Before us in the mirror of the lake

The Niésen pyramid, point downward, trembled,
And down below the point the crescent moon

And, lówer still, gray evening's silver star
Their únpretentious, mingled light as now...

Were wide and wider every moment spreading
O'er the subaqueous heaven's fast waning blue;
Hére on this bánk we sat opposite the Niesen,
My friend and I, that calm September evening,
Plánning our journey for the following year
Up yónder Simmenthal to well loved Leman;
Bút to my friend, alas! no following year
Came éver; to his fatherland returned.
An early grave received him, and for years
Long years thou 'st been to me a stranger, Thun!
And thy sweet, plaeid lake, and Simmenthal,
And well loved Leman. With the more delight
Albeit subdued, I myself changed meanwhile,
View from this well known bank the unchanged prospect,
Mountain and lake, blue sky and star and moon,
And snów rosetínged by the same setting sunbeams.
Áh, that insénsitive nature so should live
While every thing that feels so dies and changes!
Yet lét me not complain, for out of death,
Death only, comes new life, and if my youth's
And manhood's friends lie in their sepulchres,
I've hére beside me sitting on this bank
The friend of my declining years, my daughter,
Sharing the toils and pleasures of my travel
And from me learning early to despise

The brilliancy of cities, and to seek
Léss on the horse's back and in the carriage
Than from the use pedestrian of her limbs
In daily journies over hill and valley
Bódily vigor; more the mind's adornment

In observation and comparison,

With her own eyes and ears and head and hands,
Of wonder-working Nature's ways and means,
Thán in the formal, cold accomplishments

Of fashionable boardingschool or college
Skilled to inculcate fundamental errors
As fúndamental truths, and in the name
Of reason, virtue and religion teach.
Gróss superstition, immorality,

And how to reason ill and falsely judge.
But faded from the Jungfrau's highest snows

And Mönch's and Eigher's, day's last roseate tint;
The moón, grown yellower, 's sinking fast behind
The darkening Niesen; and no more a lone
Spángle of silver on gray Evening's brow
Shines Hésperus, but brightest of the bright
Diamonds that sparkle in Night's jewelled crown -
Come cóme, my child, let 's hasten to the hamlet;
Mind well thy steps; the night 's dark, the way rocky:
Good night, sweet lake, we meet again tomorrow.

Walking from PETERZELL (CANTON ST. GALL, SWITZERLAND) by the Lakes of THE FOUR FOREST CANTONS, SARNEN, and THUN to FALKAU in the BLACK FOREST, BADEN; Sept. 16 to Octob. 7, 1854.

WRITTEN UNDER A PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI FAMED FOR HAVING SPOKEN WITH FLUENCY TWENTY SEVEN LANGUAGES.

WHAT a wonder of wisdom, it has often been said,
Mezzofánti with twenty seven tongues in one head!
Greater wonder of wisdom I vów I don't mock

Mezzofánti with twenty seven keys for one lóck..

Walking from ARGENTHAL to SIMMERN (RHENISH PRUSSIA); Octob. 29, 1854.