We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves
like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine
Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunder-clouds,
casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To
westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz,
flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been
called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus and
thistle, embroider it with patterns infinite and intricate beyond the
power of art. They have already mown the hay in part; and the billowy
tracts of greyish green, where no flowers are now in bloom, supply a
restful groundwork to those brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_.
These are like praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of
a mosque whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the
mowers flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss
masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway sideways
from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, there
stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising their
heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their horns and
dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's colouring. This is
the breadth and magnitude of Rome.
Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber and
S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine Hills,
we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames where he had
perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, grew slowly
into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, turbid river,
in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This changeful
mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to valley, hill and
lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean
above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the clouds are floating.
Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride upon a sea-horse, and
followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery waves. The orange
deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The
blue above grows fainter, and the moon and stars shine stronger.
Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for
Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left;
suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of
plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in
the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting water.
The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this scene. No
painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both luminaries
tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes they
sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here and
there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft of shrubs upon
the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor of the West. The
last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey monochrome, faintly
silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and woods all floating in
aerial twilight. There is no definition of outline now. The daffodil of
the horizon has faded into scarcely perceptible pale greenish yellow.
We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry
past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni.