Now, We Tracked A Piece Of The
Old Road, Above The Ground; Now Traced It, Underneath A Grassy
Covering, As If That Were Its Grave; But All The Way Was Ruin.
In
the distance, ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant course
along the plain; and every breath of wind that swept towards us,
stirred early flowers and grasses, springing up, spontaneously, on
miles of ruin.
The unseen larks above us, who alone disturbed the
awful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen,
clad in sheepskins, who now and then scowled out upon us from their
sleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the desolate
Campagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me of
an American prairie; but what is the solitude of a region where men
have never dwelt, to that of a Desert, where a mighty race have
left their footprints in the earth from which they have vanished;
where the resting-places of their Dead, have fallen like their
Dead; and the broken hour-glass of Time is but a heap of idle dust!
Returning, by the road, at sunset! and looking, from the distance,
on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost feel (as I had
felt when I first saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would never
rise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world.
To come again on Rome, by moonlight, after such an expedition, is a
fitting close to such a day.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 211 of 268
Words from 57818 to 58074
of 73541
