Near At Hand Are A Few Ancient Walls Of
Reticulated Masonry In Strangely Leaning Attitudes, Peopled By Black
Goats; On The Ground I Picked Up Some Chips Of Amphorse And Vases, As
Well As A Fragment Of The Limb Of A Marble Statue.
The site of this
pillar, fronting the waves, is impressively forlorn.
And it was rather
thoughtful, after all, of the despoiling Bishop Lucifero to leave two of
the forty-eight columns standing upright on the spot, as a sample of the
local Doric style. One has fallen to earth since his day. Nobody would
have complained at the time, if he had stolen all of them, instead of
only forty-six. I took a picture of the survivor; then wandered a little
apart, in the direction of the shore, and soon found myself in a
solitude of burning stones, a miniature Sahara.
The temple has vanished, together with the sacred grove that once
embowered it; the island of Calypso, where Swinburne took his ease (if
such it was), has sunk into the purple realms of Glaucus; the corals and
sea-beasts that writhed among its crevices are en-gulphed under mounds
of submarine sand. There was life, once, at this promontory. Argosies
touched here, leaving priceless gifts; fountains flowed, and cornfields
waved in the genial sunshine. Doubtless there will be life again; earth
and sea are only waiting for the enchanter's wand.
All now lies bare, swooning in summer stagnation.
Calabria is not a land to traverse alone.
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