_In the midnight hour when the moon hangs low And the stars beam forth with a mystic glow; When the mermaids float on the rolling tide And Neptune entangles his beaming bride,-- It is there in that phosphorescent wave I would gladly sink in an ocean grave-- To rise and fall with the songs of the sea And live in the chant of its memory._ _Around the world my form should sweep-- Part of the glorious, limitless deep; Enmeshed by fate in some coral cave, And rising again to the topmost wave, That curls in beauty its snowy spray And kisses the light of the garish day; Ah! there let me drift when this life is o'er, To be tossed and tumbled from shore to shore!_ I clapped my hands intensely at the rendition of the poem, and echo from her rocky caves sent back the applause, while the sea gulls in their circling flight, screamed in chorus to the voice of echo and the eternal roar of old ocean. At sunrise we sailed away into the land-locked waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where man for a million years has loved, lived, fought and died among beautiful, blooming islands that nestle on its bosom like emeralds in the crown of immortality. We passed along the coast of Spain to Cape Nao, in sight of the Balearic Islands, on to Barcelona, to the mouth of the river Rhone, and up to the ancient city of Avignon. In and around this city popes, princes and international warriors lived in royal style; but they are virtually forgotten, while Petrarch, the poetic saint and laureate of Italy, is as fresh in the memory of man as the day he died--July 18th, 1374, at the age of seventy. William and myself remained all night in the Lodge House of the Gardens of "Vacluse," the hermit home of the sighing, soaring poet, who pined his life away in platonic love for "Laura," who married Hugh de Sade, when she was only seventeen years of age, and presented the nobleman ten children as pledges of her homespun affection. And this is the married lady who Petrarch, the poet, wasted his sonnets upon, and was treated in fact as we were told by the "oldest inhabitant" of Avignon, with supercilious contempt. Boccaccio and Petrarch were intimate friends, and both of these passionate poets lavished their love on "married flirts," who give promise to the ear and disappointment to the heart. I could see that while Shakspere reveled deep in the mental philosophy of Petrarch, and even plucked a flower from his rustic bower, he had no sympathy with lovesick swains, and as we signed our names in the Lodge House book, he wrote this: