“Thou speakest and thy voice’s soul, yielding languidly to the gentle breeze, floats out over the caressing waves, and sails to strange shores. It sails smiling in a tepor of setting sunlight, into the solitudes: white birds fly between sky and sea, green islands pass by, the temples on their rocky summits dart rays of Parian whiteness in the rosy sunset, the cypresses on the shores tremble, and the thick myrtles send forth their odour. The smell of the salt breezes wanders afar, and mingles with the slow singing of the sailors, whilst a ship within sight of the harbour peacefully furls its red sails. Maidens come down from the acropolis in long procession, and they have beautiful white peplums, they bear garlands on their heads, in their hands they have branches of laurel, they extend their arms and sing. His spear planted in the sand of his fatherland, a man leaps to earth, glittering in arms: is he perchance Alcæus come back from war to the Lesbian virgins.” To see the charming way in which Carducci can blend history with nature, we must turn in the same volume to the poem entitled “Sull’ Adda.” “Flow through the red fires of evening, flow, blue Adda: Lydia on the placid stream, with tender love, sails towards the setting sun. Behold, the memorable bridge fades behind us: the airy spring of the arches yields to the distance and sinks to the level of the liquid plain that widens and murmurs.” And then the poet, in musical verse, traces the history of the battles between the Romans and barbarians; speaks of the “pale Corsican who passed the dubious bridge amid lightnings, bearing the fate of two centuries in his slight and youthful hand”; and in contrast with the smoke and clang and blood of battle we have the recurrence of the verse representing Lydia floating through the fires of evening towards the setting sun: “Beneath the Olympic smile of the air the earth palpitates: every wave glows and rises trembling, swelling with radiant love.” The smell of youthful meadows rises from either bank, the great trees sign to the skiff as it passes, and, descending from the trees and rising from the flowering hedges, the birds follow through the gold and rosy streaks (of sky and water), mingling joyful loves. Between rich meadows the Adda flows on to lose itself in the Eridano; the untiring sun sinks to its setting. “O sun, O flowing Adda!” exclaims the poet, “the soul floats through an elysium behind thee; where will it and mutual love lose themselves, O Lydia? I know not; but I would lose myself now far from men, in Lydia’s languid glance, where float unknown desires and mysteries.”