Frater Ave Atque Vale

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!
So they rowed, and there we landed--"O venusta Sirmio!"
There to me through all the groves of olive in the summer glow,

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,
Came that " Ave atque Vale" of the poet's hopeless woe,
Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago,
"Frater Ave atque Vale"--as we wandered to and fro
Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below
Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!
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