University of Virginia Library

Where am I? What am I about? you ask,
And scold me well that all this summer long
I have not written. Let me make amends
And cry, Peccavi! (if that makes amends,)
Acknowledge all my sins, and, chief of them,
Pure laziness, for which full well you know
I have so strong a talent that almost
It might be called a genius. All these days
I have done nothing—nothing more at least
Than trees and grass and weeds, that simply bask
In the warm sunshine, drink the evening's dew,
And grow and feed upon the air, unplagued
By any thought of work, that fatal gift
The Devil forced on man in Paradise.

Shame! you will cry, to whom pure laziness
Is half a sin, and work the gift of God.
And yet, to lie full length upon the grass
And let the soul and sense take in the sky
While the thoughts wander, drifting here and there
Aimless as thistle downs, is what you need;
Fallow, dear Frank, long, lazy, fallow times
The mind must have, even as the richest soil,
Else harvest shows at last a meagre crop.

But to cease preaching, which I know you hate,
And so do I. Now let me answer you:
Where am I? Far away from busy towns,
From clack of work, and eager, senseless talk,
And noise, and what men call Society—
Deep in the Apennines, in a convent lone
Perched on a high and breezy mountain shelf;
A silent, serious, solitary place,
Where lazy peace and meditation live,
And careless let the worrying world go by.

Behind it stretches up a noble grove,
Where heavy-foliaged chestnuts, rich in shade,
Spread their broad-fingered hands of dark, cool green;
And spiny burrs, that soon will drop and burst
And in their white cells show their ambered fruit.
Here many a day, stretched upon some green knoll,
Resting my head upon their tortuous roots,
I gaze upon the landscape far below,
Or watch the busy life of hurrying ants,
Or listen to the song of wandering birds,
Idle as I am, with no task to do,
Or upward gaze into the world of leaves
Fretted against the clear blue sky above,
Lulled by the infinite hum of insect life
That swarms and wheels and quivers in the sun.
A noble life indeed! I hear you sneer.
Well, each must live his life. You yours, I mine;
You noise, toil, wrestling fierce with life delight,
Me self surrender unto nature's moods,
The silences in which the spirit grows,

But I forget,—I'll preach no more. Besides,
You'll never understand. Now to go on
With my description of this place. Beyond,
Still further back, a forest of dark pines
Sloping its jagged spears climbs serried up
And crowns with feathered edge the mountain's crest;
And here, upon a carpet of soft brown
When the whim takes me I for miles can walk.
'T is my cathedral, through whose lofty aisles
There steals an ever whispering sigh of prayer.

These shelter the old convent from the north
When in the winter Boreas storms at it,
And raging comes with both hands full of hail,
Blowing his trumpets. But 't is summer now,
And they are peaceful, fragrant solitudes.

Now southward turn your eyes, and look below.
There sleeps a vast fair valley, veiled in haze,
Through which a silvery river winds its way
And flashes in the sunshine. Here and there
Are little villages and castled heights
And columns faint of upward rising smoke,
All noiseless as a picture where the world,
Toil as it may, from here looks calm and still.
At times a distant contadina's song,
The lowing of far herds, the bleat of sheep,
The bark of dogs, comes softened up to us:
Else, all is silent. O'er the valley's verge,
Far-off, the mountains rise against the sky,
With purple shadows and stray gleams of sun,
Quivering with opal tints and shifting lights,
Like the pearl lining of an ocean shell,
Or the quick hues that haunt the dove's full neck,—
A valley dim and beautiful and faint
As the ideal dream of Rasselas!

We are too high for vineyards, but below,
Mingling among the flattened olives' tops
That evenly deploy up many a slope,
Trained upon canes they corrugate the ground,
Or swing from tree to tree their rich festoons
And fill their lucent skins with liquid sun.
One vineyard on the right, a half-mile down,
This convent owns,—for how all winter long
Would our monks live without their own good wine?
Trust them for that, they know when wine is good!
And trust them too to choose the best of sites
For air, health, light, to found their convent on.

Near by, a village hangs upon a cliff,
Gray as the cliff itself; and from afar
Seems like a cluster of quaint natural rocks
Shoveled at random down the mountain side.
Above, a ruined castle domineers,
Where once great lords and ladies lived and laughed,
And fought, loved, danced, long centuries ago,
That are but dust now—and their crumbling courts
Where once glad voices rang and pageants passed,
Are dreary lairs of vermin and of filth
Haunted by hooting owls and silent ghosts.

The convent in itself is grim and gray,
With solid walls that might resist a siege;
Its corners buttressed; all its windows small
Save one, high arched, to give the chapel light.
This chapel seen within is high, white, chill;
Each side the altar a cadaverous saint,
And over it, behind the candlesticks,
A black madonna wearing on her breast
A bleeding heart with circling daggers stabbed.
But what of all is mostly prized is kept
Behind the altar in a gilded chest:
A ghastly mummy of its special saint,
Fearful to look upon, but, I am told,
Endowed with mighty and miraculous powers.

There are some twenty monks here, that is all;
Each with his cold bare cell that opens out
From a long, whitewashed, sounding corridor,
Each with its crucifix and colored print.

We all dine in the old refectory,—
A spacious room,—and while we take our food
A brother, mounted in a pulpit thrust
From out the wall, monotonously reads
The life of some old saint, or homily.
The kitchen is superb, vaulted above,
While in the centre, raised above the floor,
A sort of quaint and columned temple stands,
Where one a whole ox easily could roast.

How came I here? you 'll ask—no matter how—
I am here. I had certain ways and means,
That is my secret, which I shall not tell,

The monks are friendly. All of them, of course,
Narrow of mind and fixed like flints in chalk
In matters of religion, doctrine, faith
(Almost in fact as obstinate as you).
But all are kindly, some of them, indeed,
Gay, jolly, joking; some a little grim;
Some, but a very few, and first of all
The abbot, studious, learned in their way,
Though curiously bounded in their thoughts.

Well! here I stay with them, and the days pass—
So smoothly pass, I almost think at times
I will become a monk, and leave the world
To rattle on without me as it will.
(Oh! I can hear you say “Just like you too.”)
We have a sunny garden cloistered round,
Where it is pleasant to pace to and fro
Beneath the arches, pondering many things.
Fixed in its centre is a great round well
O'erarched with iron ribs, whose jangling chains
Let down its copper buckets to a vast
Deep cistern, where a cold and constant stream,
Drawn from a wild gorge in the mountain side,
With hollow, soothing gurgle ever pours.
Around it spreads the garden, more for use
Than beauty planted, yet it has its charm.
Here are no rare exotics, all the flowers
Are common flowers that own a homely name.
Sunny nasturtiums, glowing marigolds,
Clustered sweet-williams, plots of pansies sweet,
Nodding their faces old in gay mob-caps;
Cockscombs with flaming crests, and spicy pinks,
Larkspurs with adder-tongues, and roses wild
That blossom by the wall, where rooted clings
A tortuous fig-tree bulging into fruit,
Or a chance caper shoots its plumy flowers.
Here, too, are all the herbs: sweet marjoram,
Sweet basil, thyme, mint, sage, and slender spires
Of fragrant lavender, and malva pale;
In the square, central plots, round cabbages
Squat on the ground, and artichokes sprawl out,
And rank potatoes rear their poison blooms,
And flower-de-luces, valued by the monks
Not for their splendid flowers, but for their roots.
Here, too, tall rows of climbing beans and peas
Trail from high poles, and hang their swelling pods,
And down the central walk, their broad, round disks
Fringed with gold leaves, are stately sunflowers ranged.

Before the cloisters stand at intervals
Great vases filled with orange-trees, that show
Through dark green polished leaves their golden fruit,
And with their blossoms fill the fragrant air.

Here the monks wander idly up and down,
Each with his breviary in his hand,
Well-thumbed and greasy, its long ribbon mark
With pendant medals hanging from its leaves,—
Now reading and now gazing blankly round
With wandering eyes, and ever moving lips,
And crossing of the breast at intervals,
As they recite their daily offices.
Great heavens! I wish at times I could believe
With blind, dull faith like theirs, and cease to think.
For, after all, what do we know at last
With all our thinking? And what matters it
If two and two make four, or five, or six?
Life's sphinx-like riddle all have failed to guess,
Alike the wisest sage and veriest fool.

When the sun burns too hotly, I retreat
To the old library, where all is still,—
Nay, almost dead,—its shelves piled up with books
Gathered so many a century ago,
So old, so void of life, they almost seem
Coffins of perished thought, and this lone room
The cemetery where they lie at rest.

Here shimmers in through dimmed and dusty panes
A veiled and shadowy light; the silent air
Is musty with the smell of folios huge,
Quartos and parchments old and rotting wood;
So still, so strangely still, is all the place,
One scarce would start to see some peaceful ghost
Come stealing softly in and fade away.
One constant occupant alone there is
Besides the ghosts, who from these folios here
Finds nourishment,—the ever-boring worm.

Here I have sat how many a quiet hour!
Communing with the dead, whose hoarded thoughts
And idle dreams and fancies, swift and fine,
Have long outlived the brains that nourished them,
And, as it were, across the chasm obscure
That yawns between us, stretched my spirit forth
To wander with them through far paths of thought
And silent ways of vanished centuries.
These dead books make no noise, and argue not,
As once their authors did, perchance, in life,
And if they weary you, you turn from them
Without excuse, knowing you wound them not.

Here you may read, lay down your book, and dream,
Sleep if you will, wake, and then doze again,
No one objects, and no one interrupts.
Mostly the room is empty, though at times
A sandaled monk will slowly shuffle in,
At times, the rector from the village near
Will enter, lift his black tricornered hat,
Salute me, gravely take his pinch of snuff,
Wipe with his checkered handkerchief his nose,
Then roll it up and fold it to a square,
And this accomplished seat himself to read.
The droning fly that drums against the pane
Makes silence almost silenter. Poor fool!
Why does he long for air, for light, for heaven?
Why do I ask? Are we not all the same?
Who is content in life's most spacious room,
Nor beats the window opening to the sky?
And beats it like the foolish fly, in vain.

The good old abbot, studious in his way,
Has taken a fancy to me, as I think,
And many a talk we have of men, books, things,
The prospects of the harvest and the wine,
The weather, Dante, the Atlantic vast,
That frightens him in thought, the Pope, the king,
Colombo, Vashintoni, Nuova Yorck.

Here, as I sat one pleasant summer day
When the soft air was fragrant with the breath
Of the warm earth, and all its happy flowers
That through the casement wafted now and then
A whiff that made me lay aside my book
And set me dreaming of the days of yore,
When you and I were young, and life was new,
The old abbot entered and broke up my dream,
Offered his usual pinch of snuff, and said,
“I see these old books interest you much,
But what perhaps may interest you more
Are our old manuscripts, and palimpsests,
And parchments of the past, that ages gone
Our fathers stored away. We ought, in truth,
To arrange and catalogue them, for who knows
What they may be; but the time lacks, time lacks,
Life is so short. Well, well! but with God's aid
Later perhaps we may,—who knows, who knows?

“Here, look! They 're in this closet. If you like,
Search into them and see what you can find.
Once we could boast a rare collection here,—
Ages ago,—but in the unlearned times
Our brothers used to cut these parchments up
As covers for their sermons, and from some
Scraped as they could the ancient writing off
(For parchment then was dear) to write upon.
Sometimes I fear—or so 't is said—they spoiled
Old manuscripts for which the world would pay
Who knows how much? Well, well! what would you have?
We are all mortal men, all make mistakes;
So patience, patience! Some may still be left,—
And then our brothers meant to do no wrong,
So we must pardon them. What would you have?
Who knows? their sermons may have saved a soul,
And one soul saved is worth a world of books.”

So saying, from his desk he took a key,
Opened the closet door, and smiling said,
“What a confusion! Really, on my word,
We must find time to put some order here,
This is disgraceful! (Here he snuffed again.)
Brother Anselmo must be told of this,
I'll speak to him to-day—this is too bad!
But there 's the bell, so I must leave you now.
You will not come to prayers with us? ah, well!
There is the key, take it and rummage there,
And close and lock the closet when you 've done.”

So saying, he left me. 'T was as he had said,
A dire confusion, parchments sewn, unsewn,
Some tied together carelessly, some loose,
Tumbled and torn, and scattered here and there,
All yellow, grim, defiled, and deep in dust.

At first I scarcely liked to take them up,
So soiled they were, but putting in my hand
I pulled one bundle out and beat it well
To free it from it worms, and dust, and filth,
Then took it to my table, cut the cord,
And set myself to see what I had found.

'T was an odd medley of old manuscripts,
Quite unrelated, in no order ranged
Of author, age, or subject. Some of these
Were palimpsests (so called) of Pagan times,
That is, old parchments, whence the ancient text
Had been effaced so as to serve again
For other writings of a later date.
Yet, spite of all, the shadowy early texts
Still faintly showed, the ink having sunk so deep
It could not utterly be washed away.
The later texts were mostly homilies,
Or monkish sermons void of interest,
But black and clear as all the first were dim;
Still, when the new were writ between the lines
Of the old texts, even these with patient care
One could at times decipher; even at times
A practiced eye could read them easily.

Besides these palimpsests were manuscripts
Of yellowed paper, written out first hand,—
More modern far, but yet some centuries old.
The greater part were rubbish, such as bills,
Convent accounts, receipts, and catalogues,
With lame and pompous verses interspersed,
Writ in dog-Latin, for the festal day
Or funeral day of some old abbot dead.
As weak in grammar as profuse in praise,
Claiming that all the virtues known to man
Had, heaven descended, come to crown his life.

Here, too, were letters written as 't would seem
By learned men, who to this convent's calm,
Tired of the world and all its bustling ways,
Had come to rest awhile their weary heads,
Or far from noise to ponder, study, write.
Some of their manuscripts, forgotten, lost,
Or thrown away perhaps, being first drafts
(Or so, at least, the erasures seemed to show),
Were left behind by them, and still preserved.
And these that eyes for centuries had not seen
I puzzled out, mostly of little worth,
Saving as glimpses into human hearts
And hopes and fears that time will never change.

Of these old palimpsests and manuscripts
But few I could decipher, and of these
I send you six to serve as specimens.
If they amuse you, I can send you more.

Ah, had I only had the luck to find
Some of those precious writings lost so long,
Sought for so long in vain for many an age:
The missing books of Tacitus; the songs
Of hapless Sappho; of Euripides,
Æschylus, Sophocles, one single act,
One single scene of their lost tragedies;
One poem wrecked upon the strand of Time
That stirred the heart and soul of ancient days;
One letter writ by Egypt's wondrous queen
To Antony at Rome, or Pericles
To fair Aspasia; or one careless sketch
By Zeuxis, Phidias, or Apelles drawn,
Or, what I covet even more than these,
Stern Agrippina's diary and life,
Writ by herself, recording all her thoughts,
Deeds, passions,—all the doings of old Rome,
Swarming around her, rife with scandals, crimes,
Joys, struggles, triumphs,—all the portraits sharp
Of men and women as they lived, talked, loved,—
Not as in History's limbo they appear,
Mere names and ghostlike shadows, but alive,
Fierce, restless, human,—what a book to find!

But no such luck was mine—ah, no indeed!
Yet, let me not complain; such happy luck
Hath never fallen yet on mortal man.
I should not dare to let the abbot know
What I did find, or even let him guess
What dangers in those parchments may be hid.
Even these I send would shock the good old man,—
Or some at least. How could he ever dream
His convent closet held such skeletons?