How many others,
in their pursuit of what has seemed to them the substance, have failed
to discover, perhaps too late, that they were following a flitting
shadow,--while I, favored mortal, in my chase of a dream, stumbled upon
the greatest real good of my whole life!
* * * * *
THROUGH THE FIELDS TO SAINT PETER'S.
There's a by-road to Saint Peter's. First you swing across the Tiber
In a ferry-boat that floats you in a minute from the crowd;
Then through high-hedged lanes you saunter; then by fields and sunny
pastures;
And beyond, the wondrous dome uprises like a golden cloud.
And this morning,--Easter morning,--while the streets were thronged
with people,
And all Rome moved toward the Apostle's temple by the usual way,
I strolled by the fields and hedges,--stopping now to view the
landscape,
Now to sketch the lazy cattle in the April grass that lay.
Galaxies of buttercups and daisies ran along the meadows,--
Rosy flushes of red clover,--blossoming shrubs and sprouting vines;
Overhead the larks were singing, heeding not the bells a-ringing,--
Little knew they of the Pasqua, or the proud Saint Peter's shrines.
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