MESSINA DECEMBER MCMVIII.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9337, 5 January 1909, Page 5

MESSINA DECEMBER MCMVIII.

Of Mediaeval and Antique renown, What battles and , fierce sieges hast

thou seen! What Races have possessed thee—

and have been! From that far time the lonians

reared thy town About the Pelasgian village by the

shore. Within the sheltering Sickle (A) of

thy bay; Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, are no

more; Normans, Freuoh, Spaniards, each

in turn held sway, And now Pelasgians hold thee as

before: But whate’er the flag above thy

towers unfurled. Always was thine the commerce, of the World, Unto the speechless horror of this

dlav,. When that Eartli(B) terror,not before

unknown, Which pinioned neath the iEetnean Mount doth groan, Hath of a sudden, as of old, again In the convulsive spasms of his pain Thy walls, and marts, and temples toppled o’er: What human anguish tingles to the

sky 1 , . , , Dead in thy ruins one hundred thousand lie, ' . Speechless and stark, so live but just before! ' . God stay them where no man can be their stay! And thou, a part of Hellas in her prime, Survival of a great heroic time. From out thy ruins rise as heretof°re, „ Nor with the vanished Peoples pass aWay ’ A.Y.T.

A.—Messina originally called “The Sickle” from the shape of its The fabled monster Typhoeus, whose breath and convulsive agonies were supposed to account for the fires and earthquakes of uEtaa.