grades, amid statues, urns, vases, fountains, reservoirs, camellias in
bloom mingled with laurel and myrtle and laurustinums covered with
creamy flowers, cypresses tall as cathedral spires, ilex avenues, and
broad straight walks between huge walls of box: the whole space was
filled with the song of nightingales, the tinkle of falling water, with
whiffs of aromatic shrubs and the breath of hidden roses and violets;--a
princely garden, a royal pleasaunce, but in exquisite disorder and
neglect; the shrubbery too thick and straggling, the flowers straying
beyond their rightful boundaries, the statues stained and moss-grown,
the balusters entangled in clinging luxuriance, the fountains dripping
through fern and maiden-hair--Nature supreme, as one always sees her in
this land of Art. It was the Villa d'Este, famous these three hundred
years for its fountains and cypresses. Nor did the wonder cease when we
forsook this enchanting spot for the mountain-road which overhangs the
great ravine. Opposite, backed by mountains, rose the crags topped by
the clustering town and all its towers, arches, niches, battlements,
bridges, long lines of classic ruins, and on the edge of the abyss the
perfect little temple of the Sibyl; rushing down from everywhere the
waterfalls, one great column plunging at the head of the gorge, and
countless frolic streams, the _cascatelle_, leaping and dancing
from rock to rock through mist and rainbow and extravagance of emerald
moss and herbage, down among sea-green, silvery olives, finally sliding
away, between softer foliage and verdure, through the valley into the
plain--the immense azure plain, with its grand symphonic harmonies of
form and color. O land of dreams fulfilled, of satisfied longing! when
across these thousands of miles I recall your entrancing charm, your
unimaginable beauty, I sometimes wonder if you were _not_ a dream,
if you have any place in this real existence, this lower earth: are you
still delighting other eyes with the rapture of your loveliness, or were
you only an illusion, a vision, which vanishes like the glow of sunset