Monte Cassino Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads
       &nbsp Unheard the Garigliano glides along;—
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
       &nbsp The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
       &nbsp Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
       &nbsp Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface
       &nbsp Was dragged with contumely from his throne;
Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace
       &nbsp The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade
       &nbsp Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed
       &nbsp Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
       &nbsp Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light
Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown
       &nbsp Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night.

Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets
       &nbsp The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played,
And dreamed perhaps the dreams, that he repeats
       &nbsp In ponderous folios for scholastics made.