Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/158

138 And while the clouds besiege the vales below,

Keeps the clear heaven and doth with sunshine glow.

To the June stars that circle in the skies

The dainty roofs of that tall villa rise.

Hence do the seven imperial hills appear;

And you may view the whole of Rome from here;

Beyond, the Alban and the Tuscan hills;

And the cool groves and the cool falling rills,

Rubre Fidenæ, and with virgin blood

Anointed once Perenna's orchard wood.

Thence the Flaminian, the Salarian way,

Stretch far broad below the dome of day;

And lo! the traveller toiling towards his home;

And all unheard, the chariot speeds to Rome!

For here no whisper of the wheels; and tho'

The Mulvian Bridge, above the Tiber's flow,

Hangs all in sight, and down the sacred stream

The sliding barges vanish like a dream,

The seaman's shrilling pipe not enters here,

Nor the rude cries of porters on the pier.

And if so rare the house, how rarer far

The welcome and the weal that therein are!

So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,

You half imagine all to be your own.