Towards democracy

At Mentone 433

At Mentone

HY speak ye not, ye beautiful lands and seas, Hung like a magic curtain in the light? What dumbness holds you, O divine vast Earth?

Ye stretches of smooth bare rock, dotted with cactus and aloe, Rising so bold in the sun, from your deep dark gorges below ; Ye pine woods on the mountain flanks; And ye, ye terraces of endless labor, planted with vine ; and lemon and the abounding olive, With peasant cots and cabins here and there, and cisterns where the frogs croak night and day; Why speak ye not, why speak ye not? Why with that strange prophetic glance of yours Hang ye in heaven there, magic lands and seas, Nor say the word we wait for?

The Campanile and red roof of the village church show

/- out seaward against the sky-line; and the cypresses stand sentinel in the cemetery on the hill above;

The borage-flowers beneath the lemon branches catch

the hues of sea and sky ; runnels of water sparkle through the

. grass by the pathside ; the scent of orange-bloom is in the air;

Far back into the valleys stretch the gray shade and

| gloom of the oliye-yards ; and the narrow tumbled alleys of the

mountain-villages are like huge rock-burrows of human beings ;