Day Eighteen

A shout-out to Dr. Talbot and my Siena peeps. I have been to olive-silvery Sirmio and it is breathtaking.

Frater Ave Atque Vale

by Alfred Tennyson

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!

So they row'd, and there we landed–‘O venusta Sirmio!'

There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,

Came that ‘Ave atque Vale' of the Poet's hopeless woe,

Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen-hundred years ago,

‘Frater Ave atque Vale'–as we wander'd to and fro

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below

Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!