The Sisters of Albano by Mary Shelley — Read

"And near Albano's scarce divided waves / Shine from a sister valley; -- and afar / The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves / The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war, / ‘Arms and the Man,' whose re-ascending star / Rose o'er an empire; but beneath thy right / Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar / Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight / The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. "

It was to see this beautiful lake that I made my last excursion before quitting Rome. The spring had nearly grown into summer, the trees were all in full but fresh green foliage, the vinedresser was singing, perched among them, training his vines: the cicada had not yet begun her song, the heats therefore had not commenced; but at evening the fireflies gleamed among the hills, and the cooing aziola assured us of what in that country needs no assurance -- fine weather for the morrow. We set out early in the morning to avoid the heats, breakfasted at Albano, and till ten o'clock passed our time in visiting the Mosaic, the villa of Cicero, and other curiosities of the place. We reposed during the middle of the day in a tent elevated for us at the hilltop, whence we looked on the hill-embosomed lake, and the distant eminence crowned by a town with its church. Other villages and cottages were scattered among the foldings of mountains, and beyond we saw the deep blue sea of the southern poets, which received the swift and immortal Tiber, rocking it to repose among its devouring waves. The Coliseum falls and the Pantheon decays -- the very hills of Rome are perishing -- but the Tiber lives forever, flows forever, and forever feeds the land-encircled Mediterranean with fresh waters.