ABSTRACT
The villa, as Mary S. described it, was situated on the very over-hanging brow of a low hill at the foot of a range of higher ones a vine-trellised walk, a Pergola, it is called in Italian, led from the hall door to a summer-house at the end of the garden, which Shelley made his stud a slight ravine, with a road in its depth, divided the garden from the hill, on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este, whose dark massive wall gave forth an echo, and from whose ruined crevices, owls and bats flitted forth at night, as the crescent moon sunk behind the black and heavy battlements. As Mary S's note on the Poems of 1818 confirms, the moon was a waxing crescent soon after her arrival at Este; but with a new moon on September the night sky would have been empty when the lines were written- as no doubt the imagery emphasises.
