Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1863-04-10
The Roman Campagna.

| hs''N
lies the Campagna Of Rome, and nothing
can be more rich and varied, with every
kind of beauty--sometimes as around
Ostia, flat as an American prairie, with
miles Of caani and reeds rusling in the
wind, fields of exquisite feathery grasses
waving TO and fro, and forests Of tall,
golden-trunked stone-pines posing their
spreading umbrellas Of rich green high in
the air, and weaving murmurous roof
against the sun sometimes drear, mys-
terious and melancholy, as in the deso-
late stretes between Civita Vecchia and
Rome, with lonely hollows and hills
without habitation, where sheep and
oxen feed, and the wind roams over tree
less aud deserted slopes, and silence
makes its home sometimes rolling like
an inland sea whose waves have sudden
| ly been checked and stiffened, green
with grass, golden with grain, and gra.
cious with myriads Of wild flowers,
where scarlet poppies blaze over acres
and acres, and pink-friled daisies cover
The vast meadows, and pendant vines
STROUD the picturesque ruins of antique
villas, aqueducts and tombs, or droop
from towers and iortresses.
Such is the aspect of the Agro Roma
no, or southern portion of the Campagna
extending between Rome and Albano.
1t is picture wherever you 60. The land,
which is of deep, rich loan that repays
hundred fold the rich toll of the farmer,
does not wait for the help of man, but
bursts into spontaneous vegetation and
everywhere laughs into flowers. Here
is pasturage for millions of cattle, and
and grain fields for continent, that now
in wild and untutored beauty bask ia the
Italian sun, crying shame on their neg.
lectlul owners. Over these long, un-
fenced slopes one may gallop on horse
back for miles without hindranee, thro'
meadows of green smoothness On fire
with scarlet poppies--oyer hills crowned
with ruins that insist ON being painted,
so exquisite are they in form and color
with their background Of purple noun
tains-down valleys Of pastoral quiet,
where great tufa caves open into subter-
ranean galleries leading beyond human
ken; or one may linger in lovely seelu-
ded groves of ilexes and pines, or track
the course of swift streams overhunc by
dipping willows, and swerying here and
there through broken arches Of antique
bridges smothered in green or wander
through hedges heaped and topping ov-
er with rich luxuriant foliage, twined to-
gether by wild vetehes, honey-suckles,
and every species of
towering vine or sit beneath the shad-
ows of ivy covered aqueducts, listening
o the song OF hundreds Of larks far up
n the air, and gazing through the lofty
lrches into wondrous deeps OF vioIet-col-
,red distances, or Iazily watching focks
'f wild sheep as they crop the smooth
slopes guarded by the faithful Watchdog.
Every where are deep brown banks of
earth which makes the strong
Roman cement, and quarries of tua and
ravertine with unexplored galleries and
honeycombing for miles the
Whole Campagna. Dead generations
lie under your feet wherever you tread.
The place is haunted by ghosts that out
lumber by myriads the living, and the
ir is filed with tender sentiment Of
adness which makes the beauty of the
'orld about you more touching.-W1L-
lam w. STORY.