"The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along, The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learn'd from this example not to fly From a true lover--shadow'd my mind's eye "Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart. Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay, Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns!" That "sweet hour of twilight" in the Pineta is the most precious hour of the day, when far off across the marsh softly, softly comes the Ave Maria.... "_O tu rinnovellata itala gente da le molte vite rendi la voce "de ta preghiera, la campana squilli ammonitrice, il campanil risorto canti di clivo in clivo a la campagna Ave Maria. "Ave Maria! Quando su l'aure corre l'umil saluto, i piccioh mortali scovrono il capo, curvano la fronte Dante ed Aroldo_" [Illustration: TO PORTO CORSINI] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ravenna, A Study, by Edward Hutton