THE RADIOLARIA 87 



And Epomeo's head was lit, 

 With the first rays of new-born sun, 

 And Ischia, nobler than our dreams, 

 Uprose before our wondering eyes. 

 Above, mantled in its own loveliness, 

 Calling us sweetly from the bay 

 Up to its gentle, vine-clothed heights, 

 Sat radiant Casamicciola. 



How thou and I the glad days spent 

 Thou knowest well. And now ? 

 Now all is ruin and decay, 

 A ghastly tomb. "We'll let it rest. 

 Think rather of the linked lives 

 We spent, and the whole joy of earth. 

 That never more will gladden us 

 While sun and stars gleam overhead. 

 What was it opened then our hearts ? 

 What was it forged the golden chain ? 

 It was — thou know'st it well, comrade — 

 The sailing on that magic night." 



"YeSj dear reader, whenever I let these verses 

 and their splendid truth vibrate again in my soul 

 — and how often and how gladly I do it ! — I have 

 to say. Such days thou shalt never know again — 

 such happy entrance into another's heart. And 

 what a heart it was that bared itself to me with all 

 it hid and would soon reveal ! We were in a caf6 

 at Naples, a copy of the Allgemeine Zeitung lying 

 between him and me. It was in the best part of 

 the spring of 1859. We both reached for it, and 

 told our names, and the friendship was begun, 

 *You must excuse me,' Haeckel said, 'I have to 

 go to Ischia to-night by the market-boat.' ' To 

 Ischia? That's good: I am going there myself. 



