one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself is soft, like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?"

But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not
often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and
practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to
bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the _Terra di
Lavoro_, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of
Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents
of mankind--"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread"--is scrupulously
observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these
frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful
of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink
water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal
in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more
potent than a draught of _mezzo-vino_, the weak sour wine of the country.
A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables
is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival,
whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only _gran' signori_ of
boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of
toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the
coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in
the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying
hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is
not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by
soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it
would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous
existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this
little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts
of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. Th