Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/156

 Pegasus.—The weeping willows tremble in the wind. How like a snake the road winds along the hill-side, by ruinous mounds and olive woods, all illumined by the red evening sunlight. A picturesque little town lies below us, and the peasants, full of life, are thronging the road. There is poetry in these hills! Come hither, thou who canst sing of it! Place thyself upon my back! My poets in the carriage there sit and are quite lazy. We career onward in this still starlight night, past cyclopean masses of brickwork, where ivy hangs like a garment over caves where lurks a bandit—onwards, past the confused mass of groves where Cicero fell by the dagger of an assassin. Between hedges of laurel and glittering lemon trees we approach his villa: to-night we shall dream in Mola di Gaeta.

The Post-horses.—That has been a cursed bit of a road! How we will eat, how we will drink, if the oats are but good! We will hope they may have fresh water there, and that we may each find an empty stall!