For while, above, Frost reigns as king,
Below prevails the warmth of Spring.

In Tremezzina's sheltered bay
The wintry storms forget to rave;
Without,--the white caps and the spray,
Within,--a shore with scarce a wave,--
A favored spot where tempests cease,
And Heaven whispers, "Here is Peace."

Across the water's purple bloom
Bellagio, bathed in sunset light,
Surmounts the twilight's gathering gloom
With glistening walls of pink and white,--
The wraith of some celestial strand,
The fringe of an enchanted land.

My sweet-voiced fountain softly sings
Its good-night lyric to the lake;
A skiff glides by on slender wings
With scarce a ripple in its wake;
And pleasure-boats, their canvas furled,
Float idly in an ideal world.

The swan-like steamers come and go;
The ruffled water finds its rest;
The snow-peaks catch a ruddy glow
From crimsoned cloudlets in the west;
And, trembling on the tranquil air,
Steals forth the vesper-call to prayer.

Oh, peerless strand! I yearn no more
To mingle with the maddened throng;
Enough for me this wave-kissed shore,
The vesper-bell, the fountain's song,
The sunlit sail, the Alpine glow,
And storied towers of long ago.

Between me and the world's unrest
The lake's broad leagues of water lie;
Above my wave-protected nest
Serenely bends a cloudless sky;
And homeward from life's stormy sea
The dreams of youth come back to me.

DELIO PATRI

(Inscription on an altar-fragment, found on the Island of Lake Como,
1910, and belonging formerly to a temple of Delian Apollo,--the "Delian
Father,"--which no doubt existed there.)

Once more Lake Como's storied isle
Reveals the Roman past!
Again a stone of classic style
The spade hath upward cast;
How can such relics thus endure
Two thousand years of sepulture?

More eagerly than those who toil
For nuggets of mere gold,
We seize and rescue from the soil
This monument of old,--
An altar-fragment, much defaced,
Yet on whose surface words are traced.

With reverent hands we cleanse from grime
The legend chiselled there,
Which now, triumphant over time,
Still proves the sculptor's care,
Engraved when on this wave-girt hill
The Pagan gods were potent still.

'As on their own peculiar page
The fingers of the blind
Decipher truths of every age,
As mind communes with mind,
So, one by one, these letters spell
A name the ancient world knew well.

For "Delio Patri" heads the lines
Inscribed upon this st