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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Milan

Milan

By Ausonius (c. 310–395)

Translated by Joseph Addison

MILAN with plenty and with wealth o’erflows,

And numerous streets and cleanly dwellings shows;

The people, blessed with nature’s happy force,

Are eloquent and cheerful in discourse;

A circus and a theatre invites

The unruly mob to races and to fights.

Moneta consecrated buildings grace,

And the whole town redoubled walls embrace;

Here spacious baths and palaces are seen,

And intermingled temples rise between;

Here circling colonnades the ground enclose,

And here the marble statues breathe in rows:

Profusely graced the happy town appears,

Nor Rome itself her beauteous neighbor fears.