Here the bright olive's phantom branches glow,
There the plump fig sucks sweetness from the soil.
Mid odorous flowers that through the Zodiac blow,
Returning tenfold to man's leisured toil,
Hesperia's fruit hangs golden. High in air,
The vine runs riot, spurning human care.

And flowers of every hue and breath abound,
Charming the sense; the burning cactus glows,
Like daisies elsewhere dappling all the ground,
And in each cleft the berried myrtle blows.
The playful lizard glides and darts around,
The elfin fireflies flicker o'er the rows

Of ripened grain. Alien to pain and wrong,

Men fill the days with dance, the nights with song.

Alfred Austin.

BENEAT

THE AZURE GROTTO.

I.

ENEATH the vine-clad slopes of Capri's Isle,
run down to the margin of that sea

Whose waters kiss the sweet Parthenope,
There is a grot whose rugged front the while
Frowns only dark where all is seen to smile.
But enter, and behold! surpassing fair

The magic sight that meets your vision there,
Not heaven! with all its broad expanse of blue,
Gleams colored with a sheen so rich, so rare,
So changing in its clear, translucent hue;
Glassed in the lustrous wave, the walls and roof

Shine as does silver scattered o'er the woof

Of some rich robe, or bright as stars whose light Inlays the azure concave of the night.

II.

You cannot find throughout this world, I ween,
Waters so fair as those within this cave,
Color like that which flashes from the wave,
Or which is steeped in such cerulean sheen
As here gleams forth within this grotto's screen.
And when the oar the boatman gently takes
And dips it in the flood, a fiery glow,
Ruddy as phosphor, stirs in depths below;
Each ripple into burning splendor breaks,
As though some hidden fires beneath did lie
Waiting a touch to kindle into flame,
And shine in radiance on the dazzled eye,
As sparkling up from wells of light they came,
To make this grot a glory far and nigh.

Charles D. Bell.

THE GROTTO AZZURO.

ANY an archéd roof is bent

MANY Over the wave,

But none like thine, from the firmament
To the shells that at thy threshold lave.
What name shall shadow thy rich-blue sheen,
Violet, sapphire, or ultramarine,

Beautiful cave?

Blue, - all blue, - may we not compare it
With heaven's hue,

With the pearl-shell, with burning spirit,
Or with aught that is azure too?
No! for in ghostly realms alone
Is the like of thy lustre shone,
Cave of blue !

Less of earth than the spirit-world,
Morning ne'er

Waters of thine with its dews impearled,

Nor sunrise crimsoned the concave here; But evening in thee hath, as grandly glooms The twilight which thy one star illumes, A rival sphere.

And that star the great eye of heaven
Watching thee

Waxes and wanes with morn and even,
Beams as the skies beyond may be;

Resting on thy horizon's rim

Steadfast, but burning bright and dim
Changefully.

On thy huge dome and cathedral aisles,
Loftier far

Than man's monuments, Capri piles
Island rocks, which mountains are.

Gleams through the flood thy spangled floor,
As light streams in by thine open door
On rock and spar.

The world without by that sole portal
May enter in;

And therefore sacred to shapes immortal

For classic ages thy halls have been. Sailing along from the lessening skylight, Let us from the deepening twilight Its secrets win.

Mermaids, mantled in mazarine,
Fancy sees;

The ocean-sirens, and her, their queen,
Of music-charméd memories.

Still breathes the ancient Parthenope,
O'er waters of modern Napoli
Her melodies.

Blue, blue, -- beautiful and intense,
Everywhere:

Spirits, or some one spirit immense,

Breathing and burning in the air;

Making an ardent presence felt,
Till the rocks seem as like to melt
In the glare!

No! they may emit no heat,
Those prisoned beams.

At noontide, in thy coolness sweet,
The glowing Italian summer dreams,
And the limpid and sparkling lymph
Bath of beauty, in form of nymph,
Well beseems.

World of wonders and strange delights,
Submontane sea,

Bowers of branching stalactites,
Islands of lapis lazuli,

And waves so clear, and air so rich,

That, gazing, we know not which is which, –
Adieu to thee!

To bathe the burning brow is sweet
In such baptism,

Often to find out truth's retreat,

In sparkling grotto, in cool abysm;
So shall deep quiet thy soul imbue,
And melt into one harmonious hue
The garish prism!

-

William Gibson.

Capua.

CAPUA.

CAPUA was supposed to take its name from being the caput, or head city, of the southern Etruscan confederacy.

IRST of old of Oscan towns!

FIRST

Prize of triumphs, pearl of crowns;

Half a thousand years have fled,

Since arose thy royal head,

Splendor of the Lucumoes.