Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where the Styrian mountains rise
Close to Mariazell, lies
Buried in a pinewood brake
A most beautiful green lake.
Lizard's back is not so green
As its soft and tremulous sheen;
Hermit's home on Athos' hill
Cannot be a place more still.
Blissful Covert! there is not
Like that Styrian lake a spot
That I know by land or sea,
Whose unsleeping memory
Works so potently in me.

'Tis good to have a nook of earth
To be with us in our mirth,
And to set a haunt apart
To be household in the heart,
A local shrine, whence gentle sorrow
Hope and soothing thought may borrow;
And which may be every hour
In the light, or shade, or shower,

Or the stillness, or the wind,
Or the sunset, as the mind
Would the light within should vary,
A true mental sanctuary.
What may hallow grief, but thought
And soft feeling closely wrought?
For the heart, which in its pain
Can the outer world disdain,
And the kind earth which we tread,
How shall it be comforted?
And that pensive being, mirth,
If it be untied from earth,
Is a wanton, dreamy thing,
Like a pine-tree's murmuring.

Styria is a wondrous land,
Special work of beauty's hand,
Where amidst the tranquil pines
Many a green lake meekly shines,
And upon its bosom glasses
All the slumberous dark masses
From the mighty firwoods thrown,
And white steep, and sunny cone.
For the forest murmurings,
And for lawnlike openings
Where in shady belts of trees
Nestle the lone villages,
For sweet brooks and ruined halls
And romantic waterfalls,
And a colouring so bright
That the land is green by night,
And for echoes waking round
When the convent bell shall sound,
For unwonted woodland grace
Styria is a wondrous place:

And it is the nook of earth
That is with me in my mirth,
A real Eden, whence I borrow
Food for song and calm for sorrow.

Most I love that placid lake,
Buried in the pinewood brake.
There the little pool is laid
Quiet in the lisping shade,
Mountain water in a cup
To the blue skies looking up,
With the bubbles brightly beading
All the gleamy surface, speeding
Up like silver fish where'er
Earthy springs mount to the air.

There the little pool was laid
Quiet in the pinewood shade,
When the Roman hosts were come
To these woods of Noricum.
Emperors rose and tribunes fell,
Earth was governed ill or well;
There was famine, there was war,
And sedition's dreadful jar,
And man's lot became so dreary
That the earth grew old and weary.
Were it not for her free mirth
Men would make a slave of earth.
But this way there came no breath
Of calamity or death.
They pierced not through the pinewood brake
To the little Styrian lake.
All the changes which it saw
Were by the harmonious law
And the sweetly pleading reasons
Of the four and fair-tongued seasons.

Pearly dawn and hazy noon,
And the yellow-orbèd moon,
And the purple midnight, came
Through those very years the same.
The lake had all its own free will,
So it was translucent still;
For the summer day was fair,
When the white-banked clouds were there,
And the bright moths in the air;
And the thunder cleared away
For the evening's slanting ray,
And the thrushes in the rain
Sang with all their might and main
To the young ones in their home:
What recked they of mighty Rome?
Not a moth or bird did shine
Brighter there for Constantine.
Blessed earth! O blessed lake!
Shut within thy pinewood brake,
Angels saw thee in thy glee,
Of the Roman Empire free!

Then romantic days came on:
Nature still as calmly shone
On the fragrant pinewood shade
Where the Styrian lake was laid.
Earl with belt and knight with spur,
These made no unwonted stir
In the green and glossy deep,
Nor woke the echoes from the steep.
And if ever highborn maid
To the river did unlade
Her sad heart of freight of love,
When could songs hard fortune move?
Yet the stream forgot the wail
Ere it passed the sunken vale,

Where the little tremulous lake
Sparkles in the hollow brake.
And the merry hunting-horn,
Speaking in the cold white morn,
Bore not on its ringing breath
Tidings of the newborn Faith.
Yet methinks 'twere not unmeet
To believe a trouble sweet,
Like a new soul, found its road
Into that retired abode,
Somewhat of a murmuring
Through the pine-boughs vibrating,
When they caught the harmless swell
Of the earliest convent bell.
If sound have one human birth
Blending wholly with the earth,
Rising, growing, near of far,
With no other sound at war,
Which can sorrow or rejoice
Like a natural earthborn voice,
Natural as the breezes blowing,
Pastoral as the oxen lowing,
'Tis the undulating swell
Of the woodland abbey bell.

2.THE LEGEND.

So eleven ages fled
Since the Lord rose from the dead,
Maker of this little lake,
Moth and bird and pinewood brake,

To redeem the sons of earth
And give to them a better birth,
Not without the element
From the earth's own bosom sent,
Thus to heighten and to bless
Our old mother's loveliness,
From her surface to unweave
All the ravelled web which Eve,
Name her with a tender thought!
Hath o'er field and forest wrought,
To enrich her with a dower
Of true sacramental power.
Not without her blameless gifts
Jesus her lost children lifts
To a nature all divine,
Better, dearest earth! than thine.
So eleven ages passed,
While the pines their shadow cast,
Making summer noonday cool
By the green sequestered pool.

Hither for the love of Mary
Came a gentle Missionary,
With an image of black wood
From an ancient limetree hewed,
Shaped for her, the Mother mild,
Blessed Mary with her Child.
With the Image to the dell
Came the gift of miracle,
Shrined within a sylvan Cell.

Far away mid cultured bowers
Rose St. Lambert's convent towers,
The martyred Saint, who bravely stood
Against King Pepin; and his blood,

By the lewd Alpais slain,
Ran in Liege street like rain.
Out from yon Cistercian home
This kind-mannered Monk hath come
With St. Mary and her Child
So to hallow the green wild.
Not the moon when she o'ertops
Lofty Seeberg's ragged copse,
Clearing all the dusky pine,
In the starry sky to shine,
Hunting with her arrowy beam
Open spots in Salza's stream,
Where at times it may emerge
Scarce beyond the forest's verge,
Not the stealthy breath of spring
Up the woodlands murmuring,
Drawing after it a veil
Of thin green across the dale,
Like an Angel's robe behind,
Still, or stirred by odorous wind:
Not so welcome, moon or spring,
For the quiet gifts they bring;
Advents though they be of bliss,
They bear not a boon like this,
Blessed Mary and her Son
Deep into the woodlands gone,
One poor monk, a beadsman lowly,
With gilt vessels rude but holy,
And a power of miracle
Shed into the whispering dell,
Lodged within and screened apart
In the forest's dusky heart.

Now amid the woodmen nigh
Marriage is a blissful tie,

And around the infant's birth
Is a light of Christian mirth,
And the monk can breathe a breath
On the anxious face of death.
Life is drawn within a ring
Of most peaceful hallowing.
To the Mother and the Maid
These rude men their breasts unlade,
Seeking to her Son for aid.
Like the valley's evening mist
By the pensive sunset kissed,
Charities and virtues rise
With all household sanctities,
While meek hymns and praises flow
From the hermitage below;
And the little bell is rung
When the blessed Mass is sung,
All, a blameless incense, given
From the pinewoods into Heaven,
From the shaggy Styrian dell
Of St. Mary of the Cell.

Thou wert not unstirred, dear lake!
Though perchance thou didst not wake
From the sleep wherein the wind
Doth thy green depths seem to bind,
Sighing sweetly, softly, sadly,
Sighing sometimes almost gladly,
As the pinetree only sighs,
Maker of earth's elegies:
Thou wert not unstirred that day,
When upon thy marge at play
First a Christian child was seen,
White as snowwreath on a green,
Pure as nature's self, and bright
With a more abounding light.

Let the gentle memory
Of the plain monk honoured be,
He who for the love of Mary
Hither came a missionary,
A devout and nameless being
To the Styrian forests fleeing,
To baptize the woodmen rude
In this shady solitude,
And to add a better mirth
To the glory of the earth.
Holy monk! thy good deeds shine
Above peer or palatine,
Gleaming through the crowded past
With a radiance calm and chaste,
Like a steady, pensive star,
By itself, and brighter far
Than the sparkling ruddy ring
Round the name of some old king.
Yet thy quiet name is gone
In the shadow of some throne,
Lost amid the jewelled throng,
All embalmed in unwise song.
Let the pageant pass away,
There is thy domestic ray;
There art thou—a lily-flower
In a most unthought-of bower.
Or a very fragrant tree,
Which we smell but cannot see,
Buried in the tangled wood,
Scenting all the neighbourhood.

Thou, a man of simple ways,
Never could'st have joyless days;
Thou, a man of simple wants,
Must have loved the sylvan haunts.

Ever to thy spirit stealing
With a touch of heavenly feeling.
Oft I doubt not by this lake,
Forcing through the pinewood brake,
Thou didst spend the twilight dim,
Chanting some rough latin hymn,
Hallowing the evening air
With devout half-spoken prayer.
Mists upon the mighty hills
And the alder-belted rills,
Chirping bird and lowly flower,
And the rainbow in the shower,
And the air when it receives
Incense from the withered leaves,
And the pinetrees in the sun,
And the green lake at the noon
Imaging the empty moon,
Whose unfreighted orb is white
For the lack of yellow light;—
Like the Church whose Lord must go
Ere she can reflect the glow
Of His glory, deep and vast,
In her bridal bosom cast,
So the moon all day must bide
For an evening Whitsuntide:—
All this common tranquil round,
This sweet ring of sight and sound,
Did of old belong to thee,
And to-day belongs to me;
And it soothed thy wrinkled brow
And thy heart thou knew'st not how.
Ah kind-mannered monk! I seem,
As in some strong-featured dream,
To come nigh and spend an hour
With thee in this Styrian bower;

So much hath the blissful thought
Of thy doings in me wrought.
Centuries are yielding things:
Unity of spirit brings
Land to land, and year to year,
And old generations near.
Thus I walk o'er this green land
Through the forests hand in hand
With the simple Missionary,
Who for love of Mother Mary
Was content apart to dwell
With her Image in his cell.

And thus for full a hundred years
Simple joys and simple fears
Compassed some Cistercian brother,
Beadsman to the blessed Mother;
Till it chanced that far away
In the drear Moravia,
Margrave Henry dreamed a dream,
Where the Mother-Maid did seem
To heal him of his sore disease
In a cell amid green trees,
And the visionary lines,
Pictured Styria's rocks and pines,
And the Margrave saw the lake,
And the open pinewood brake.
So he came with trusting soul,
And St. Mary made him whole.
Costly Church with tower and bell
Rises in the sylvan dell,
Arching o'er the antique cell.
Now in long and gorgeous line
Emperors crowd unto the shrine,

Peers and ladies and proud kings
Kneel there with their offerings;
Silken banners, bright and brave,
Through the dusky pinewoods wave,
And the peasants of far lands
Come with wild flowers in their hands,—
All come here to Mary's haunt
With a sorrow or a want.
Yet I ween the shaggy dell
Witnessed worthier miracle,
When the woodmen of the place
Were transformed by inward grace;
And from their wild manners grew
Flowers that feed on heavenly dew;
And soft thoughts and gentle ways
Could beguile their rugged days.
Love of Mary was to them
As the very outer hem
Of the Saviour's priestly vest,
Which they timorously pressed,
And whereby a simple soul
Might for faith's sake be made whole.

3.CHURCH MATINS.

Oh how beautiful was dawn
On the Styrian mountain lawn,
When the lights and shadows lay
Where the night strove with the day!
From my window did I look
Upon Salza's glimmering brook,

And the valley dark and deep,
And the ponderous woods asleep;
And I saw the little lake
Like a black spot in the brake.
And the silver crescent moon
Of the greenwood month of June,
Hanging o'er a mountain top
Seemed her downward course to stop,
And to look around in wonder
At the landscape brightening under.
In the sky there was a light
Which was not a birth of night,
A stealthy streak, and pearly pale,
Like a white transparent veil;
And there came a chilly breeze,
Like the freshness of the seas,
As though hills and woods on high
Now were breathing heavily;
And among the woodlands wide
Here and there a wild bird cried.
Where the dewy alders grow
I could hear the oxen low;
But the echo that did follow
Was a sound more dead and hollow
Than the leaping voice that fills
Daylight skies and daylight hills.
On the pastures was a light
Which was neither day nor night,
And the dusky frowning wood
Still in moonlight shadows stood.
But a mist o'er Salza's bed
Hovered like a gossamer thread;
And I saw the glorious scene
Every moment grow more green,—

Day encroaching with sweet light
On the fairy-land of night.
I remember well that dawn
On the Styrian mountain lawn.

Blessed be the God who made
Sun and moon, and light and shade,
Balmy wind and pearly shower,
Forest tree and meadow flower,
And the heart to feel and love
All the joys that round us move!
Blessed be the Angels bright,
Ordering the pomp aright,
Ministrants of winds and showers,
Ruddy clouds and sunset hours,
With fair robe and busy wing
The mute figures marshalling,
Like a ceremonial thing!
Blessed be the Cross that draws
From the earth by dreadest laws
Sparkling streams that cleanse and shine,
Making little babes divine,
And the grape's red blood, and bread
Laid upon the Altar dread;
Symbols, more than symbols, urns
Where a Heavenly Presence burns,
Veils that hide from loving eyes
Jesus in His strange disguise,
Making earth to be all rife
With a supernatural life.

Sweet into the morning dim
Rose the happy pilgrim's hymn,
As he caught from distant height,
In the grey uncertain light,

The early flush of summer morning
Upon Mariazell dawning.
From the Salza's shady bed,
From the mountain's rocky head,
From the earthy path that shines
Down the steep and through the pines,
From the meadow-lands below
Like a very stream doth flow
The sweet song and plaintive greeting
Of the weary pilgrims meeting;
“All hail in thy sylvan tent,
“Mary, fairest Ornament!”

Mother Mary! 'tis a thing
Soothing as the breath of spring,
In the quiet time to hear
This wild region far and near
With the very accents swell
Of the blessed Gabriel.
'Tis a wonder and a grace
In this uncouth pinewood place,
Mid white rocks and gloomy trees
And old Noric fastnesses,
To look forth and calmly listen,
While above the pale stars glisten;
And to hear the grateful song
Of the gentile pilgrim-throng,
The old angelic greeting, given
To the Virgin Queen of Heaven.
What are ages, what is time
To a ritual thus sublime?
How shall distance or decay
Make or mar eternal day?
For a heavenly word once spoken
Is an everlasting token,
Still by time or space unbroken;

And through weary centuries,
Quivering on the very breeze,
Word divine and angel breath
Hover to the ear of faith,
Finding souls which they may win,
And meek hearts to enter in.
I see Mary rapture-bound,
And the lily-flowers around,
And the smooth and spotless bed,
And the Angel overhead,
And the open casement where
Blows the fresh and virgin air,
And Our Lady, mute and pale,
Listening to the strange “All Hail.”
And I hear—years hinder not—
Angel accents on the spot;
Hark! the Styrian vale is ringing
With the gentile pilgrims singing.

Breaking on the quiet dell
Slowly swings the heavy bell,
And the organ breathes a sound
Into all the pine woods round.
What a trouble of delight
There hath been the livelong night!
Mariazell! thou hast seen
Sleepers few this night, I ween.
One by one the pilgrims throng,
Coming in with plaintive song;
And in many a gaudy shed
Beads and Crosses are outspread.
Like the stars that one by one
Come to shine when day is done,
Still they flock with merry din,
From the valley of the Inn,

From the Ennsland green and deep,
And the rough Carinthian steep,
From the two lakes of the Save,
And the blythe rich banks of Drave,
And the Mur's rock-shadowed floods,
That shy hunter of the woods,
From the low Dalmatian sea,
And the sea-like Hungary,
And where Danube's waters pass
By Belgrade through the morass,
From Bavaria's sandy dells,
And the smooth Bohemian fells,
From Würzburg and from Ratisbon,
Linz and Passau they have gone;
And St. John of Prague hath sent
Worshippers to Mary's tent,
Where she waits her serfs to bless
In the Styrian wilderness.
Still they pass unheeded by;
From the village every eye
Goes with eager anxious look
Up the Salza's tumbling brook:
No white banners yet have showed
On the great Vienna road;
In the pauses of the ringing
They can hear no far-off singing,
And the signal hath not fired,
And the youthful groups are tired.
Yet 'twas whispered overnight
They'd leave Annaberg ere light.

Pomp of crowds and festal noise
Are not numbered in my joys;
So I sought the little lake
And the lonely pinewood brake.

The sweet day was clouded over,
And the thunder seemed to hover
O'er the dark, unruffled flood,
And the silent neighbourhood.
Scarce a creature seemed to stir
In that wilderness of fir.
Not a note of singing bird
In the tangled dell was heard:
And the forest lands did wear
A dark robe of lurid air.
On the mountains there did press
A grim dullhearted silentness.
Peace was round me, and a calm,
Yet without the soothing balm
Shed on us by earth and sea
In their true tranquillity.
Swarms of moths from out the brake
Fluttered all across the lake,
And the leaping fishes made
Dreary splashes in the shade,
Where an ancient pinetree throws
O'er the pool its drooping boughs.
Where the marge was strewn all over
With a tapestry of clover,
The dull skies appeared to lower
On the mute and blameless flower;
All the soft and pleasant brightness
Like a breath passed from its whiteness;
As the soul of man whose beauty
Fades, when the timid sense of duty
Passes forth with hasty wing,
Like a wronged and banished thing.
From the ragged trees on high,
From the mirky, swaying sky,

From the summit, white and tall,
With its black pine coronal,
A darksome power of gloom did fall,
Weighing on the little lake,
Hushing all the pinewood brake,
Tarnishing each radiant sight,
Sheathing all the gay green light,
Deadening every summer sound,
To a drowsy tingling bound.
Beauty strove, and strove again,
And the summer strove in vain.
Over lake and pines and all
Was a very funeral pall.
Can it be a curse doth lurk
In the heart of earth at work?
Yet in that translucent deep
Furtive beauty seems to creep,
Like a stealthy sunbeam winding
Through the ocean-depths, and finding
Creatures in them, meek and bright,
Whom to gladden with its light.

Thus doth earth for ever bless
True hearts with her loveliness,
Stealing to them in the storm
With some fair and happy form,
Uttering still some joyous sound
In a bleak and joyless ground,
Planting moss and brilliant grass
In the heart of a morass.
Light within the lake doth move
When there is no light above,
And the sunshine which should glow
In the blue skies, works below,
As far down as eye can follow
In the green transparent hollow,

Streaking it with silvery shoot,
As though sunbeams could take root
In the lake with lawless mirth,
And so shine upwards to the earth.
Thou alone, dear earth! of all
Art a blameless prodigal!
When the heaven above is dull,
And thy yearning heart is full
Of a wish to solace one
Who into thy fields hath gone
To take comfort from thy gladness
Or courage from thy patient sadness,—
When the cheerless heaven above
Will not aid thee in thy love,
Thou some inner light canst win
As though from a heaven within.
Could I think that still at work
The primal curse in thee did lurk?
Shall a thought of curse come night,
When I hear that Christian cry?
Hark! at last the joyous song
Of Vienna's pilgrim throng:
“All hail in thy sylvan tent,
Mary, fairest Ornament!”

Tarries the procession still?
See! it winds along the hill,
Like a snake of green and gold
In the sunshine all unrolled,
Or coiling round a mossy tree,
Fearful and yet fair to see.
Thus the bright and bending throng
Slowly draws itself along,
Swayed by modulating song.

Mitred prelates at its head
Upon flowers and sweet flags tread.
Gifts from kings of foreign lands,
Banners worked by royal hands,
And a hundred shining things,
Peer's or peasant's offerings,
Move along the uneven ground,
While the distant thunders sound.
'Ere I reached them I could hear,
Filling all the forest near,
“Mariazell! schönste Zier!”—
Plaintive burden, that will quiver
In my spell-bound ear for ever.

My dear land! I thought of thee;
And I thought how scantily,
In what thrifty rivulets,
Faith's weak tide among us sets.
And I looked with tearful eyes,
With an envious surprise,
Upon that huge wave that passed,
On the Styrian highlands cast
With a mighty, sea-like fall
From the Austrian capital.

O'er twelve hundred kneelers there
Hangs a veil of odorous air,
Rising up in thin blue spires
From the swinging censer-fires.
And through all the gloomy pile,
Like a river down each aisle,
With a strong and heavy flowing
Are the pealing organs blowing;
And the banners rich and brave
On the current lightly wave,

Like the willow bough that quivers
On the bosom of the rivers.

While the mighty hymns were swelling
I passed from out the sacred dwelling,
With full heart and burning thought;
So much had the ritual wrought,
That I scarcely could control
The strong impulse of my soul
To fall down and weep outright
At the great and solemn sight.
When from that full house of prayer
I passed into the open air,
Ah! did ever sweet surprise
From old objects so arise
With a strange, bewildering power,
As in that most thrilling hour?

In the western porch I stood
Amid mountain wastes and wood,
And the hollow tolling thunder,
And the misty valleys under,
Cloud-strewn forests with stray gleams,
And the alder-belted streams,
In the rain the pinewoods singing,
With a rustling whisper ringing,—
Nature filling all the senses
With her blameless influences.
For the rocky foaming floods
And the wet and dripping woods
Fresher and more fragrant are
Than the incense-loaded air.
Mid this glory I am free,
Mother-Maid! to think of thee,
And with fervent faith to trace,
In this dusky sylvan place,

Footprints of true miracle
Wrought within the savage dell,
And the work, blest Mother Mary!
Of thine ancient missionary.
When the crowd have left the shrine,
Then the season shall be mine;
Then shall silent Aves swell
In a heart that loves thee well,
A heart that owes its life to thee,
A slave whom Mary hath set free.

I cannot pray amidst a crowd,
Nor with organs pealing loud,
Nor with chains upon my sense
From ritual magnificence.
Ever fair forms like tyrants bind
With spells the currents of my mind.
Sweet sights and sounds my spirit fill,
And ritual beauty leads me still
A passive victim at its will.
The creature of all outward shows,
My heart into the pageant throws
Its ardent self, and dreamily
Floats out as on a sunny sea.
When the Church with functions bright
Wraps calmer spirits in delight,
I am rather proud of God,
Than humbly at His footstool bowed;
And mid the beautiful display
I feel and love but cannot pray.
I would fain be lone with God,
Else are all my thoughts abroad.
Quiet altars, Jesus there,
Mary's image meek and fair,
Silent whispering twilight round,—
These make consecrated ground!

Better still with holy poor
Scattered on the wide church-floor.
With the tinkling beads they tell,
And whispers scarcely audible.
Shame on myself! upon my breast
So lightly doth God's presence rest,
So little inward turned my soul,
So much beneath the eye's controul,
That holy pomp and pageant rare
Only make poetry spoil prayer.

4.MARGARET'S PILGRIMAGE.

Now why weep ye by the shrine,
Ye two maidens? Wherefore twine
Roses red and sprigs of pine,
With a busy absent air,
Round the pilgrim-staffs ye bear?
From Vienna with high heart
Ye set forward to take part
In the pilgrimage of grace
To St. Mary's sylvan place,—
Three fair sisters, loveliest three
In the pilgrim company.
See! encased in many a gem
Mary with her diadem,
And, sweet thought! the Mother mild
Lifts on high her holy Child:
As the pensive artist thought
So hath he the limewood wrought.

Why stand ye thus sorrow-bound,
While the train is kneeling round?
And the little Margaret too,
With her eyes of merry blue,
Wherefore is she not with you?
And the staff she was so long
In selecting from the throng
In the Graben, weeks ago
'Ere the flowers began to blow,
And then took it to be blessed
At Saint Stephen's by the priest,—
Hath it failed her, faint and weary,
In some Styrian pinewood dreary?
Ah! she felt the dogstar rage,
And she fain her thirst would swage—
It was her first pilgrimage—
At a cold and brilliant spring
By the wayside murmuring.
Ah sweet child! bright, happy flower!
She was broken from that hour.
They have left her on the steep
Of green Annaberg asleep.
With crossed hands upon her breast
Her choice staff is lightly pressed.
Margaret will awake no more,
Save upon a calmer shore.

Oh what can the sisters say
To the couple far away?
What will the old burgher do,
Since those eyes of merry blue,
The truest sunlight of his home,
Never, never more can come?
See! they sing not, but they gaze
Deep into the jewelled blaze,

And the thought within them swells,—
Mary hath worked miracles!
And they weep and gaze alway,
As though they were fain to say,
“Mother Mary, couldst thou make
Gretchen from her sleep awake?”

Thus often fares it upon earth
With a long-expected mirth:
And when hope is strained too much,
Lo! it shivers at the touch.
Even from a holy rite
There may fade the cheering light,
When for long its single thought
Deep within the heart hath wrought.
This will sometimes quell the ray
Even of an Easter Day.
Deem not thou no grace is there,
Though the rite seem cold and bare,
Though it be a weary thing,
A dull, and formal offering.
It may lodge a light within,
Wrestling with the shades of sin,
And like frankincense may be
To think of in our memory.

When the gay procession passed
I knew not what sad cloud was cast
On these sisters, sorrow-laden,
By the death of that fair maiden.
When it drew itself along,
As one creature, bright and strong,
All instinct with life and song,
Like a child I did not think
That each bending joint and link
Of the sinuous pageant could
Be real hearts of flesh and blood,

Fountains of true hopes and fears,
With ebb and flow of smiles and tears,
Each a separate orb that moves
In a sphere of pains and loves.
To mine eye it did but seem
As a very fluent dream,
And it filled me with a sense
Of joy, and not of reverence.

Ah! to many this great world
Is a pageant thus unfurled,
Banners waving in the air,
Catching sunlight here and there,
O'er uneven places swaying,
Or in quiet woods delaying,
Everywhere fresh shapes displaying,
As the clouds their forms unbind
To new figures in the wind;
And aye man's voiceful destinies,
Like the surge of meeting seas,
Are to them but some wild song
Breathing from the gilded throng.
Thus do idle poets stand
Lonely on the tide-ribbed sand,
Watching the bright waters roll
As a beauty without soul,
Knowing nothing of the worth
Of a human woe or mirth,
Or of that true dignity
Which in love and sorrow lie.
And the books they write are all
But a mute processional,
Lifeless rubrics, canons dull
Of the bright and beautiful,
Formal wisdom, without stir
Of passion-tempered character,

Or imperial instincts meeting,
Or a hot heart in it beating.
But the masters of true song,
Who would sway the various throng,
Must in the procession walk,
To their fellow-pilgrims talk,
Weep or smile on every thing
With a kindly murmuring,
And that murmur so shall be
An immortal melody.

Sisters twain! though now ye sorrow,
Ye shall have a calmer morrow;
Mariazell shall become
In long years a placid home
For remembrances, and tears
Which spring not out of pains or fears;
And this pilgrimage that seems
Broken up like baffled dreams,
Then shall be a very haunt
For your spirits when they want
Of soft feeling deep to drink:
It shall be a joy to think
How the merry Margaret sleeps
Mid the Styrian pinewood steeps,
Safe with childhood's sinless charms
In her Mother Mary's arms.

5.EARTH'S VESPERS.

Once more went I to the lake,
Buried in the pinewood brake.
Through the parting clouds the light
Of the afternoon was bright.
Beautiful and gay and green
On my pathway was the scene,—
Gorges full of writhing mist
By the silver sunbeams kissed,
And the mountains all displayed
In a marvellous light and shade.
Close before us there was one,
Clear and tranquil in the sun,
And another on whose breast
Clambering mist-wreaths paused to rest,
And a third along whose side
Snowy cloudbanks seemed to ride,
And like a belt to rock and shine
In a long and level line:
And one there was, veiled all over
With thin mists which seemed to hover
On the mountain-top, and throw
Silky threads from bough to bough;
'Twas lighted up and very fair,
And transparent as the air,
And within it rose the hill
Clothed with sunlight, green and still.
And the booming of the bells
And the hymn that came in swells

Mingled kindly with the mirth
Of the jubilant old earth.
In the lake and in the heaven
Gloom and beauty now had striven;
Changed were all things on the shore,
For the strife at length was o'er.
Mists in serpentine array
Coiled upon the treetops lay;
Truthful symbols did they seem
Of darkness giving way to gleam,
Drawing off in that sweet hour
The outskirts of his vanquished power.

Beauty on the hills was standing,
In the very lake expanding
With a pure and sparkling green;
And the savage pinewood scene
Did the afternoon embrace
With a calm and softening grace.
Stillness was in all her veins,
Earth's thanksgiving after rains,
Tuneful as the stormy praise
Of wild woods on windy days,
Or the benedicite
Of the angry purple sea.
Not a single sound was heard,
Save the voice of one shy bird,
And the woodman's axe on high,
And the drowsy sheepbell nigh.
There was not a fall of wind
From the clover to unbind
Odors that lay fettered there,
And to shed them on the air.
Ruddy-armoured perch did press
To the margin motionless.

And the summer afternoon,
Holding court that day of June,
Throned herself with lustre mild
On the blissful Styrian wild.

O how often have I known
Quiet thought herself enthrone,
After tempests, on my mind
Without any breathing wind
Of sweet language, which could bind
In the bonds and links of song
All the glorious regal throng,
Kindled fancy's courtier crowd,
Which came o'er me like a cloud:
Times of quiet thought they are,
Like this very bright mute air,
Filling as a soul the lake
And the odorous pinewood brake,
With the calm and speechless scene
Passive in the sunny green.
They are fancy's afternoons,
Shadows of her leafy Junes,
Shedding, where the heart is calm,
New power in the quiet balm.
Though he fret at fruitless hours
Spent in rapture's voiceless bowers,
Yet the poet oft must bless
His passive spirit's silentness,
As the future salient spring
Of true minstrel murmuring.

Song is an exile from above,
Like a wanderer in love,
Falling both by land and sea
Into strangest company,

Ruling, wheresoever thrown,
With a sweet will of its own.
Fancy, like the earth, hath dew,
Keeping green the spirit's hue,
Falls of moisture which renew
Hearts that falter and grow weary
From the sense that life is dreary,—
With such freshness that the glory
Of our thoughts is never hoary.

There are sabbaths in the mind,
Which in deepest quiet bind
Love and passion and the world
With its glowing landscapes furled,
When the song of vernal bird
Like a common sound is heard,
When the sun and wind and shower
And the rainbows have no power,
And the forest and the lake
Can no inward echo wake.
Memories of smiles and tears
Treasured up in other years,
Sorrow suffered, actions done,
Self-restraints by patience won,
Rights of grief and rights of love,
Things which once the soul could move
With a deeper ebb and flow
Than the freeborn occeans know,
Now are dull and nerveless things,
Like a forest's murmurings
Falling on the unpleased ear
Of a listless traveller.
And from all things there hath passed
Powers they once might have to cast

Shadows, from whose tender gloom
We might free, as from a womb,
Truths that shall outlive the tomb.

Yet shall true-born poet deem
Mental sabbaths but a dream,
Languor, and a falling back
Of the weary soul for lack
Of high hope and strength of wing
In such thin air hovering?
Shall he call such quiet time
Faintings after moods sublime,
As though rapture's light could scathe
Spirits, like a fit of wrath?
Mystery and loveliness
Gender no such wild excess;
Mirth and beauty lay not waste
Flowery paths where they have passed.
In such times of inward sinking
Fancy may perchance be drinking
Waters in some holier spirit,
Out of earth, in Heaven, or near it.
True it is that a sweet spring
Cannot be a self-born thing;
It must have a leafy place
Or a mountain's rocky face.
Its beginning and its going,
And the surety of its flowing
Not a single, rainy day,
Nor at seasons, but alway,—
These depend on other things,
The green covert whence it springs,
And the weeping clouds of heaven
Out of which the rain is given,

And the ponderous old hills,
The treasuries of crystal rills.

So the spirit of sweet song
Not entirely doth belong
Unto him who hath been bidden
To let it flow through him unchidden,
And to keep its fountain hidden.
How should he know all the causes
Of its gushes and its pauses,
How it visits the well-head
Whence it is replenishèd,
What it hears, or what it sees,
How it hath its increases?
Where and whensoe'er it goes,
This one thing the poet knows,
That the spirit, wake or sleeping,
Is not now beneath his keeping.

For, if it should leave him not,
Whence are its fresh pulses got?
After all this seeming dulness,
Whence the beam, the burst, the fulness,—
When the dark and bright of life,
Involutions of its strife,
And the duties complicate
Of this heavy mortal state,
And the gold and purple maze
Which the past is, to our gaze
Looking into other days,
And the passions which have rent
Worse than warring element,
Earth's fair surface where we dwell,—
All within the spirit swell,
And burst from us loud and strong,
Claiming utterance in song.

Whence except from out of heaven
Are the moulds of greatness given,
And the beautiful creations,
And the song-like visitations
Of high thoughts, wherewith we borrow,
Grandeur out of love and sorrow,
When the weight of men's distresses
On our solemn spirit presses,
With a sound in its recesses,
When our fellow-mortals call,
And we own a kindred thrall
In responses musical,
When the mystery of things
From our tortured spirit wrings
Those loud wails of melody,
As from eagles in the sky?

Whence the fragrant under-growth,
Which is springing nothing loth
All around us every hour
With fresh moss and modest flower,
In our fancy's stillest bower,
And those lowlier sweetnesses
Borne to us on every breeze?

After dulness what a thing
Is our heart's awakening,
When a scattering of dew
Unawares makes all things new,
As a bunch of cold wet flowers
On our brow in feverish hours!
Like an unimprisoned boy,
Heaviness encounters joy
In the face of an old mountain,
In the splash of an old fountain,

In the sun and wind and rain,
Like things lost and found again;
Till we own we never know
Common blooms that round us blow,
Common treasures strewn about us,
Close at hand, and scarce without us.
Whence are all these wakenings given,
If it be not out of heaven?
That the might in poet's breast
Wholly in himself doth rest,
Wholly from himself doth come,
As though he could be the home
Of the beautiful bright throng
He but weaveth into song—
Were a creed to disenchant
Music's best and holiest haunt,
And to leave on land or sea
Not a home for minstrelsy.

Beauty is a thing that grows,
Like love or grief; and who knows
If in dulness and in calm
Fancy does not gather balm
In far fields that bud and swell
With spiritual asphodel?
O how beautiful is quiet
After fancy hath run riot,
Waking love and waking mirth
Over all the sleepy earth!
O how beautiful to look
On kind eyes, as on a book,
Reading love that hath been beaming
All the while our hearts were teeming
With unearthly thoughts and visions,
Floating in with sweet collisions!

And how beautiful a thing
Is our dull life's welcoming,
When we learn, while we were ranging,
That household earth hath not been changing,
And that houses, trees, and faces,
Are not wildly shifting places,
That there are domestic blisses,
Which the studious spirit misses,
Still a common human heart,
Though we were awhile apart!
O there is a gracious fulness
In this very seeming dulness,
When the littleness of life
Is more welcome than its strife,
Or we in wise moods confess
That strife is but a littleness!
There is not a choicer bower
Than the spirit, in the hour
When peace cometh after power;
And what hath the earth of beauty
Like the calms that follow duty?

This hath been a day of joy
Much too simple for alloy,
One pure day that well may shine,
Like stars amid the twilight pine.
Now behold! the tranquil power
Of the summer-evening hour
Is enthroned upon the spot;
And the pageant cometh not
With the gauzy purple veil
Of the English twilight pale,
But winds o'er all the forest scene
With a light of faint blue green,

To a thousand pinetops yielding
Somewhat almost of a gilding.
There is meaning in the face
Of the lake and woodland place.
Something heavenly there must be
In such deep tranquillity.
With meet prayer and gratitude
I went from out the solitude;
And to Mariazell wending,
Up the pine-clad steep ascending,
I beheld the dark clouds drooping,
Once more to the mountains stooping.
Yet along the ridges dim
Lay a luminous gold rim,
Such as makes me think the while
That beyond in brightest smile
Lies a very radiant shore
I have visited before,
In my boyhood, or in gleams
Shed on my far-travelled dreams.

The one woodless mountain too
Was of brilliant golden hue,
And its precipices hoary
Touched with sunset's mellow glory.
From a hollow white-mouthed cave
Rose a symbol, calm and grave,—
A broken rainbow—whose bright end
In the cavern did descend,
With mute stationary mirth,
Like a very growth of earth.
The dark clouds now a moment hover—
They descend—the pomp is over!

For the day's exceeding beauty
There must be returns of duty,

And to Christ who thus hath given
Sights and sounds in earth and heaven,
We must answer at the last
For the pageantry now past.
Hark! how plaintively they sing;—
Never was on natural thing
A more touching commentary
Than the pilgrim's Ave Mary!