Sospiri di Roma Author:William Sharp Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FOUNTAIN OF THE ACQUA PAOLA". Not where thy turbid wave Flowing Maremma-ward, Moves heavily, Tiber, Through Rome the Eternal, Not there her music, not the... more »re her joy is: But rather where the tall pines On the Janiculum heights Sing their high song, with deeper therein, like an echo Heard in a mountain-hollow where cataracts break, A sound as of surge and of foaming: Yes, there where the echoing pines Whisper to high wandering winds The rush and the surge and the splendour Where the Acqua Paola thunders Into its fount gigantic, With noise like a tempest cleaving With mighty wings The norland forests. From dayspring, yellow and green And gray as a swan's breastfeather, To sunset's amber and gold And the white star of dusk, And through the moonwhite hours Till only Hesperus hangs His quivering tremulous disc O'er the faint-flushed forehead of Dawn All hours, all days, forever Surgeth the singing flood, With chant and paean glorious, With foam and splash and splendour, A music wild, barbaric, That calleth loud over Rome, Laughing, mocking, rejoicing: The sound of the waves when Ocean Laughs at the vanishing land And, fronting her shoreless leagues, Remembers the ruined empires That now are the drift and shingle In cavernous hollows under Her zone of Oblivion, Silence that nought shall break, Eternal calm. Foam, spray and splendour Of rushing waters, Gray-blue as the pale blue dome That circleth the morning star While still his fires are brighter Than the wan white fire of the moon. Foam, spray, and surge THE FOUNTAIN OF THE ACO.UA PAOLA Of rushing waters! O the hot flood of sunshine Yellowly pouring Over and into thee, jubilant Fountain: Thy cataracts filled With van...« less