In the years of his London exile, Gabriele Rossetti remembered his hometown with these words:
Ancient Town Hall of the Romans
Where I first saw the light of day.
You, who adorn the beach of the Frentani
With the Adriatic before you and joyful hills around,
And to show the merit of your children
You crowned yourself with a garland of Palladium.
Faint shores, whose reflection, whose whisper
I now only feel and see through inner images,
Where the vivid blue of a beautiful sky,
The sapphire of a beautiful sea once reflected in me.
Beautiful fields where the rising and falling day
Offers, like emeralds and pearls, herbs and dewdrops,
The high Appennine crowned with clouds,
Whose sides grazed flocks of woolly sheep.
Uplands where, as a child, I played,
Where, as an adult, I sang of shady valleys,
Farewell forever: Before my eyes,
You will never come again: farewell forever!
