Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/190

 His voice dropped; the tears came into his closing eyes as though he looked on the dead face of a familiar friend.

He felt the home sickness of the exile, of the wanderer who knows not where to lay his head.

The glory was gone from the city.

Its greatness was but as a ghost that glided through its deserted streets calling in vain on dead men to arise.

The rough red sail of the fishing boat was alone on the waters once crowded with the silken sails of gilded galleys; the toad croaked and the stork made her nest where the lords of Gonzaga had gone forth to meet their brides of Este or of Medici; Virgil, Alboin, great Karl, Otho, Petrarca, Ariosto, had passed by here over this world of waters and become no more than dreams; and the vapours and the dust together had stolen the smile from Giulio's Psyche, and the light from Mantegna's arabesques. On the vast walls the grass grew, and in the palaces of princes the winds wandered and the beggars slept. All was still, disarmed, lonely, forgotten; left to a silence like the silence of the endless night of death. Yet it was dear to him; this sad and stately city, waiting for