190 STORM AND WINTER. 
gigantic Lombard corbeille, that great nursery of fruits and flowers 
where Virgil listened to his song. The land has in nowise changed ; 
now, as then, the Italian, an exile from his home, the sad cultivator of 
another’s fields,* the durus arator, pursues the nightingale. The 
useful insect-devourer is proscribed as an eater of grain. Let him 
cross then, if he can, the Adriatic, from isle to isle, despite the winged 
corsairs, which keep watch on the very rocks; he will arrive perhaps 
in the land ever consecrated to birds—in genial, hospitable, bountiful 
Egypt—where all are spared, nourished, blessed, and kindly welcomed. 
Still happier land, if in its blind hospitality it did not also shelter 
the murderer. The nightingale and dove are gladly entertained, it is 
true, but no less so the eagle. On the terraces of sultans, on the bal- 
conies of minarets, ah, poor traveller, I see those flashing dreadful 
eyes which dart their gaze this way. And I see that they have 
already marked thee ! 
Do not remain here long. Thy season will not last. The de- 
structive wind of the desert will dry up, and destroy, and sweep 
away thy meagre nourishment. Not a gnat will be left to sustain 
thy wing and thy voice. Bethink thyself of the nest which thou 
hast left in owr woods, remember thy European loves. The sky was 
gloomy, but there thou madest for thyself a sky of thine own. Love 
was around thee ; every soul thrilled at thy voice ; the purest throbbed 
for thee. There is the real sun, there the fairest Orient. True light 
is where one loves. 
* This was written before the annexation of Lombardy to the new italian kingdom. 
