A DREAM OF ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, 18 November 1920, Page 33

A DREAM OF ROME.

A earn of Roma on the plain, A dream of Tibur .on the hill! ’ hen field are lash’d with winter rain, Ami winter skies are gray and chill: • AVhen all the woods have ne’er a song And Northern nights are drear and ’long! I dream of Roma on the plain ,/ Vlbh , rlant sunshine in her skies; ■ Of all the guileless children train Deep shades of summer in their’eyes; And elder folk with children’s ways On lightsome, heartsome holidays. I think of rambles long ago Beneath the cool Borghese trees; Of mirth that came in sparkling flow In nooks where oft we sat at ease Of incense wafted ’mong the flowers, And music from the Pincian bowers. A dream of Tibur on the hill! I sit in fancy where we oft Used sit, when woodland choirs grew still Upon the Sabine slopes aloft, ’ And o’er the worn Campagna’s breast Clazo homeward by the burnish'd West. Or down by Vesta’s hoary fane, 1 pass through caverns deep and cool, U here torrents eager for the plain Leap thiind’ring to the frightened pool— W hero often in the bygone days A\e clambered down abysmal ways. 1 dream of Roma on the plain; Of lonely Tibur on the hill; AU years that were not spent in vain (Tho’ shaded oft by pain and ill) or all the blissful memories Of storied fields and sunny skies. Of pray’rful work and mirthful rest, In sacred haunts where saints have trod Of friends the kindest, noblest, best That sweetest earthly gift of God All these; and one great prize far sought, Surpassing speech, surpassing thought. Rev. J. Has sax.