A thousand flow'rs, enamelling the fields, Declare the presence of returning spring; A various harvest smiling Ceres yields, And all the groves with vocal music sing. Earth, air, and sea th' enchantment of the clime, Revived that young elation of the breast When Hope, undaunted, saw the form of Time In Fancy's gay, deluding colours drest, And though those visions are for ever fled Which in the morning of existence rose, And all the false and flatt'ring hopes are dead That vainly promised a serener close. I'll snatch the joys which spite of fate remain To cheer life's darkness with a transient ray, And oft in vivid fancy roam again Through these blest regions when I'm far away. [2] The Temple of Venus stands upon the shore of the Bay of Baiae. [Page Head: THE AQUEDUCTS] Rome, May 13th, 1830 {p.362} _11th._--Walked about visiting to announce my return, and found nobody at home. Hired a horse and rode with Lovaine till near eight o'clock; rode by the Via Sacra two or three miles along the Street of Tombs--very interesting and curious--and then cut across to the ruin of an old villa, where an apartment floored with marble has lately been discovered, evidently a bath, and a very large one; on to Torlonia's _scavo_ and under the arches of the Claudian aqueduct. Nothing at Rome delights and astonishes me more than the aqueducts, the way they stretch over the Campagna--[3] As some earth-born giants spread Their mighty arms along th' indented mead. And when you approach them how admirable are their vastness and solidity--each arch in itself a fabric, and the whole so venerable and beautiful. After all my delight at Naples I infinitely prefer Rome; there is a tranquil magnificence and repose about Rome, and an indefinable pleasure in the atmosphere, the colouring, and the ruins, which are better felt than described. We lingered about the aqueducts till dark, but there is hardly any twilight here; the sun sets, and in half an hour it is night. Almost everybody is gone or going, but the heat can't have driven them away, for it is perfectly cool. [3] The Claudian aqueduct, which is the grandest, and whose enormous remains form the great ornament of the Campagna, was begun by Caligula, and finished by Claudius. The structure of the arches is exactly like those of the Coliseum. The first aqueduct was built by Appius Caecus, the censor, the same who laid down the Via Appia, 310 B.C.