trace the street of tombs into the far distance, not only by the ruins
that line it on both sides, but also by its borders of grass of a
darker green and greater luxuriance than the pale, short, sickly
verdure of the Campagna; just as you can trace the course of a
moorland stream along the heather by the brighter vegetation which its
own waters have created. Myriads of flowers gleam in their own
atmosphere of living light, like jewels among the rich herbage, so
that the feet can hardly be set down without crushing scores of them:
the _Orchis rubra_ with its splendid spike of crimson blossoms, the
bee and spider orchises in great variety, whose flowers mimic the
insects after whom they are named, sweet-scented alyssum, golden
buttercups and hawkweeds, Roman daisies, larger and taller than the
English ones, with the bold wide-eyed gaze you see in the Roman
peasant-girls, scarlet poppies glowing in a sunshine of their own,
like flames in the heart of a furnace, vetches bright azure and pale
yellow, dark blue hyacinths, pink geraniums, and "moonlit spires of
asphodel," suggestive of the flowery fields of the immortals. My
footsteps along the dusty road continually disturbed serpents that
wriggled away in long ripples of motion among the tall spears of the
grass; while green and golden lizards, sunning themselves on the hot
stones, disappeared into their holes with a quick rustling sound at my
approach. The air was musical with a perfect chorus of larks, whose
jubilant song soared above all sorrow and death to heaven's own gate;
and now and then a tawny hawk sailed swiftly across the horizon. Huge
plants of gray mullein towered here and there above the sward, whose
flannel-like leaves afforded a snug shelter to great quantities of
wasps just recovering from their winter torpor. On the very tombs
themselves there was a lavish adornment of vegetable life: snow-white
drifts of hawthorn and honeysuckle wreaths waved on the summits of
those on which a sufficient depth of soil had lodged; the wild