JUNE 357 



never dead. When all the birds are faint with the hot 

 sun and hide in cooling trees, a voice will run from 

 hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead. That is the 

 grasshopper's.' 



For associations with the South, there is nothing in 

 the way of sounds to equal the sad call of the little 

 night -owl — or aziola, as the Italians call it. The fol- 

 lowing colloquial poem of Shelley's, if not a gem 

 amongst his lyrics, expresses the tender affection we 

 must all feel for this little bird : 



'Do you not hear the aziola cry? 

 Methinka she must be nigh, ' 



Said Mary, as we sate 

 In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought ; 

 And I, who thought 

 This aziola was some tedious woman, 



Ask'd, ' Who is Aziola?' How elate 

 I felt to know that it was nothing human, 



No mockery of myself to fear or hate ! 

 And Mary saw my soul. 



And laughed and said, ' Disquiet yourself not ; 

 'Tis nothing but a little, downy owl.' 



Sad aziola I many an eventide 



Thy music I had heard 

 By wood and stream, meadow and mountainside. 

 And fields and marshes wide, — 

 Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 



The soul ever stirr'd; 

 Unlike, and far sweeter than them all. 

 Sad aziola ! from that moment I 

 Loved thee and thy sad cry. 



One of my first inquiries on my arrival in Florence 

 was about an old villa that in my time belonged to a 

 rich Eussian. They said it was all swept away and the 

 treasures gone to St. Petersburg. The reason this villa 

 made so deep an impression on me was that there I saw 



