Anna H. Drury

“ We see the white-robed messengers come down upon the earth!
If to us no mystic pages may unroll the lore of ages,
Yet nature’s gracious teaching is for us as well as you;
And I saw Rome’s truest glory, beyond all song or story,
Where her sunset showed its crimson - her sky its deep, dark blue.
I have trod the wide Campagna (the Piazza, too, di Spagna) ,
In the fair Borghese Gardens I have scampered at my will;
I have drunk of Trevi’s fountain, I have seen Socrate’s mountain,
And watched St. Peter’s throned in light, from the famed Pincian Hill. ”

“ Where the springtide glows like summer and the winter smiles like spring;
Where the moonbeams fall so whitely, where the fountains play so brightly,
And everywhere, for praise or prayer, you hear the church-bells ring. ”

“ I think, in spite of cavils, a well-bred dog who travels
May prove a better traveller than some who hold him cheap;
If he takes discomfort coolly, responds to kindness duly,
And when there’s nothing else to do goes quietly to sleep. ”