312 TBE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



warm shadows about the names of lovers long since forgot or 

 dead, wrought upon the tablet leaves of aloes or of cactus. 

 There mesembrianthemums shine still, sunned over as of old 

 with rayed discs of red and yellow, while basking lizards at your 

 approach rustle away under the leaves. Lean over the low 

 parapet wall and watch the waves dash in white foam against the 

 jagged rocks below. The old cliff blooms out into cistus and 

 spikes of purple stocks j midway the sea-birds scream and play 

 above the little fishing-boats, tossing like fairy nut-shells on the 

 crisp blue summer sea. From the sunny Mediterranean and that 

 narrow strip of hanging garden, dream on into the black cypress 

 shades of Tuscany. 



In all Italy the land of flowers, the garden of the world 

 there are no gardens more stately, nor any nobler cypress-trees, 

 than at Villa d'Este of Tivoli. 1 In the spring, by the straight 

 smooth ways under the ilexes and cypresses, all day the golden 

 gloom is made rosy where ever and anon red Judas-trees 

 shower down their bloom. Marble stairs lead up through terraced 

 heights to paved walks under the Palazzo walls. There the air 

 is faint with rich fragrance of the orange-trees. The lofty spires 

 of ancient cypresses reach up above the topmost terrace; far 

 below in the garden, between their dark ranks sparkle the up- 

 springing fountains. Beyond, above the tallest cypresses, rise 

 brown crumbling walls of the old town, piled up with open loggie 

 and arched gates and overshadowing roofs : and high over these, 

 great barren hills crowned with ruined fortresses and shattered 

 keeps. To the west rolls out the ocean of the wide Campagna, 

 undulating far away where Rome is lost in the sunset. Dream 

 on, until you sigh with the wondrous sweetness of Rome herself 

 in the wild wood-garden of the Vatican, where in April days ten 

 thousand odorous cyclamen flowers, flush with crimson all the 

 moss beneath the trees. Dream on, till you see once more the 

 swaying of the tall pines and bathe your steps in tracts of flowery 

 grass in the green Pamphili Doria, and watch the mystic fountain, 

 most like the form of an inconstant spirit, like a pale blue-robed 

 1 See Illustration in Appendix. 



