 | The Door of Humility |  |
65
ITALY
67
XXVI
i
Upon the topmost wheel-track steep,The parting of two nations' ways,
Athwart stone cross engraven deep,
The name “Italia” greets the gaze!
ii
I trembled, when I saw it first,With joy, my boyish longings fed,
The headspring of my constant thirst,
The altar of my pilgrim tread.
iii
Now once again the magic word,So faintly borne to Northern home,
Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard
Beneath some universal dome.
68
iv
The forests soften to a smile,A smile the very mountains wear,
Through mossy gorge and grassed defile
Torrents race glad and debonair.
v
From casement, balcony and door,Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine,
And sun-bronzed faces bask before
Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine.
vi
Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steersTake, like their lords, no heed of time.
Hark! now the evening star appears,
Ave Maria belfries chime.
vii
The maidens knit, and glance, and sing,With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress,
And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring,
Seem burgeoning into tenderness.
69
viii
On waveless lake where willows weep,The Borromean Islands rest
As motionless as babe asleep
Upon a slumbering Mother's breast.
ix
O Land of sunshine, song, and Love!Whether thy children reap or sow,
Of Love they chant on hills above,
Of Love they sing in vale below.
x
But what avail the love-linked hands,And love-lit eyes, to them that roam
Passionless through impassioned lands,
Since they have left their heart at home!
70
XXVII
i
Among my dreams, now known as dreamsIn this my reawakened life,
I thought that by historic streams,
Apart from stress, aloof from strife,
ii
By rugged paths that twist and twineThrough olive slope and chesnut wood
Upward to mediæval shrine,
Or high conventual brotherhood,
iii
Along the mountain-curtained trackRound peaceful lake where wintry bands
Halt briefly but to bivouac
Ere blustering on to Northern lands;—
71
iv
Through these, through all I first did see,With me to share my raptures none,
That nuptialled Monica would be
My novice and companion:
v
That we should float from mere to mere,And sleep within some windless cove,
With nightingales to lull the ear,
From ilex wood and orange grove;
vi
Linger at hamlets lost to fame,That still wise-wandering feet beguile,
To gaze on frescoed wall or frame
Lit by Luini's gracious smile.
vii
Now, but companioned by my pain,Among each well-remembered scene
I can but let my Fancy feign
The happiness that might have been;
72
viii
Imagine that I hear her voice,Imagine that I feel her hand,
And I, enamoured guide, rejoice
To see her swift to understand.
ix
Alack! Imagination mightAs lief with rustic Virgil roam,
Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight
At Pliny's philosophic home;
x
Hear one majestically traceRome's world-wide sway from wattled wall,
And read upon the other's face
The omens of an Empire's fall.
73
XXVIII
i
Like moonlight seen through forest leaves,She shines upon me from afar,
What time men reap the ripened sheaves,
And Heaven rains many a falling star.
ii
I gaze up to her lofty height,And feel how far we dwell apart:
O if I could, this night, this night,
Fold her full radiance to my heart!
iii
But She in Heaven, and I on earth,Still journey on, but each alone;
She, maiden Queen of sacred birth,
Who with no consort shares her throne.
74
XXIX
i
What if She ever thought She sawThe self within myself prefer
Communion with the silent awe
Of far-off mountains more than Her;
ii
That Nature hath the mobile graceTo make life with our moods agree,
And so had grown the Loved One's face,
Since it nor checked nor chided me;
iii
Or from the tasks that irk and tireI sought for comfort from the Muse,
Because it grants the mind's desire
All that familiar things refuse.
75
iv
How vain such thought! The face, the form,Of mountain summits but express,
Clouded or clear, in sun or storm,
Feebly Her spirit's loftiness.
v
Did I explore from pole to pole,In Nature's aspect I should find
But faint reflections of Her soul,
Dim adumbrations of Her mind.
vi
O come and test with lake, with stream,With mountain, which the stronger be,
Thou, my divinest dearest dream,
My Muse, and more than Muse, to me!
76
XXX
i
They tell me that Jehovah speaksIn silent grove, on lonely strand,
And summit of the mountain peaks;
Yet there I do not understand.
ii
The stars, disdainful of my thought,Majestic march toward their goal,
And to my nightly watch have brought
No explanation to my soul.
iii
The truth I seek I cannot find,In air or sky, on land or sea;
If the hills have their secret mind,
They will not yield it up to me:
77
iv
Like one who lost mid lonely hillsStill seeks but cannot find his way,
Since guide is none save winding rills,
That seem themselves, too, gone astray.
v
And so from rise to set of sun,At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze,
I but behold the face of One
Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays.
vi
What know I that She doth not know?What I know not, She understands:
With heavenly gifts She overflows,
While I have only empty hands.
vii
O weary wanderer! Best foregoThis questioning of wind and wave.
For you the sunshine and the snow,
The womb, the cradle, and the grave.
78
XXXI
i
How blest, when organ concords swell,And anthems are intoned, are they
Who neither reason nor rebel,
But meekly bow their heads and pray.
ii
And such the peasants mountain-bred,Who hail to-day with blithe accord
Her Feast Who to the Angel said,
“Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!”
iii
Downward they wind from pastoral height,Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers,
To wend to shrine more richly dight,
And bring their gift of wilding flowers;
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iv
Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs,And lay these at Her statue's base,
Who never, deem they, intercedes
Vainly before the Throne of Grace.
v
Shall I, because I stand apart,A stranger to their pious vows,
Scorn their humility of heart
That pleads before the Virgin Spouse,
vi
Confiding that the Son will ne'er,If in His justice wroth with them,
Refuse to harken to Her prayer
Who suckled Him in Bethlehem?
vii
Of all the intercessors bornBy man's celestial fancy, none
Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn,
Lowly and lone, as She hath done.
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viii
The maiden faithful to Her shrineBids demons of temptation flee,
And mothers fruitful as the vine
Retain their vestal purity.
ix
Too trustful love, by lust betrayed,And by cold worldlings unforgiven,
Unto Her having wept and prayed,
Faces its fate, consoled and shriven.
x
The restless, fiercely probing mindNo honey gleans, though still it stings.
What comfort doth the spirit find
In Reason's endless reasonings?
xi
They have no solace for my grief,Compassion none for all my pain:
They toss me like the fluttering leaf,
And leave me to the wind and rain.
81
XXXII
i
If Conscience be God's Law to Man,Then Conscience must perforce arraign
Whatever falls beneath the ban
Of that allotted Suzerain.
ii
And He, who bids us not to swerve,Whither the wayward passions draw,
From its stern sanctions, must observe
The limits of the self-same Law.
iii
Yet, if obedient Conscience scanThe sum of wrongs endured and done
Neither by act nor fault of Man,
They rouse it to rebellion.
82
iv
Life seems of life by life bereftThrough some immitigable curse,
And Man sole moral being left
In a non-moral Universe.
v
My Conscience would my Will withstand,Did Will project a world like this:
Better Eternal vacuum still,
Than murder, lust, and heartlessness!
vi
If Man makes Conscience, then being goodIs only being worldly wise,
And universal brotherhood
A comfortable compromise.
vii
O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod!O groans of fratricidal strife!
Who will explain the ways of God,
That I may be at peace with life!
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viii
The moral riddle 'tis that haunts,Primeval and unending curse,
Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts
A Heaven-created Universe.
ix
Yet whence came Life, and how begin?Rolleth the globe by choice or chance?
Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in
This prison-house of ignorance!
| The Door of Humility | |