 | The last night of Pompeii |  |
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THE FAREWELL OF THE CHRISTIANS.
PANSA.
“Alone, in darkness, on the deep,
Spirit of Love! redeemed by thee,
While fear its watch o'er ruin keeps,
Thy grace our sign and shield, we flee.
The billows burst around our barque,
The death streams roll and burn behind—
Thy mercy guides our little ark,
Thy breath can swell or hush the wind.
Thy footsteps ruffled not the wave
When drowning voices shrieked for aid—
The cavern'd billow yawn'd—a grave—
“Be still!” it heard Thee and obeyed!
From idol rites and tyrant power,
Now o'er the midnight sea we fly—
Be with us through our peril's hour!
Saviour! with Thee we cannot die!
Spirit of Love! redeemed by thee,
While fear its watch o'er ruin keeps,
Thy grace our sign and shield, we flee.
The billows burst around our barque,
The death streams roll and burn behind—
Thy mercy guides our little ark,
Thy breath can swell or hush the wind.
Thy footsteps ruffled not the wave
When drowning voices shrieked for aid—
The cavern'd billow yawn'd—a grave—
“Be still!” it heard Thee and obeyed!
From idol rites and tyrant power,
Now o'er the midnight sea we fly—
Be with us through our peril's hour!
Saviour! with Thee we cannot die!
MARIAMNE.
“To men a mocked and homeless stranger,
Thy truth, love, grace and goodness blest
The world, whose first gift was a manger,
Whose last, the Cross! no down of rest
Thy truth, love, grace and goodness blest
The world, whose first gift was a manger,
Whose last, the Cross! no down of rest
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Pillowed, O Christ! thy holy head,
No crown, but thorns, Thy temples wreathed,
Yet Thou the Death King captive led,
And through the tomb a glory breathed!
The scorner all Thy love reviled,
Thy path was pain, thy kingdom, shame,
Yet sorrow on thine aspect smiled,
E'en Death revered Thy deathless name!
The bittern moans where Zion stood,
The serpent crawls where nations trod—
Be with us on the mountain flood!
Fill our dim hearts with light from God!
No crown, but thorns, Thy temples wreathed,
Yet Thou the Death King captive led,
And through the tomb a glory breathed!
The scorner all Thy love reviled,
Thy path was pain, thy kingdom, shame,
Yet sorrow on thine aspect smiled,
E'en Death revered Thy deathless name!
The bittern moans where Zion stood,
The serpent crawls where nations trod—
Be with us on the mountain flood!
Fill our dim hearts with light from God!
THE MAIDEN OF POMPEII.
“The flame, that wrapt my childhood's bowers,
Revealed Thee to my darkened mind;
Thee whom e'en sybils, seers and powers
Of Night in Delphi's grove divined;
With the dim glimpse of shadowed thought,
They saw the Atoner's form of light,
Yet pale doubt sighed o'er visions wrought,
The idol world still walked in night.
Now paymm dreams of dread no more,
The feigned response, the magi's charms,
O'erawe and on my spirit pour
The torturer's spells, the tomb's alarms.
Revealed Thee to my darkened mind;
Thee whom e'en sybils, seers and powers
Of Night in Delphi's grove divined;
With the dim glimpse of shadowed thought,
They saw the Atoner's form of light,
Yet pale doubt sighed o'er visions wrought,
The idol world still walked in night.
Now paymm dreams of dread no more,
The feigned response, the magi's charms,
O'erawe and on my spirit pour
The torturer's spells, the tomb's alarms.
197
On starlight wings, through blooming air,
Hope unto heaven bears human love;
Doubt, grief, lone tears, remorse, despair
Haunt not the soul's own home above.
My chill heart cheered by thoughts like these,
Far from my ruined bowers I roam;
Thy love lights up the midnight seas,
Thy smile is earth's most heavenly home!
Hope unto heaven bears human love;
Doubt, grief, lone tears, remorse, despair
Haunt not the soul's own home above.
My chill heart cheered by thoughts like these,
Far from my ruined bowers I roam;
Thy love lights up the midnight seas,
Thy smile is earth's most heavenly home!
THE OLD CHRISTIAN.
“Dimmer, like hoary years that bring
Life's winter, wanes the volcan's glare;
Destruction furls his meteor wing,
Watching the desert of despair!
Now far before the æolian Isles
Send up their vassal fires, but still,
Where fair Trinacria's Hybla smiles,
Darkness sits throned on ætna's hill.
Soon, by Sicilia's whirlpool streight,
Our barque shall seek the Ionian sea,
And o'er blue Adria, pagan hate
To Rhætian hills hunt not the free!
The sun, with beams that bloom, shall soar,
And vineyard, vale, hillside and grove,
Sea, mountain, meadow, isle and shore
Bask in voluptuous lights of love.
Life's winter, wanes the volcan's glare;
Destruction furls his meteor wing,
Watching the desert of despair!
Now far before the æolian Isles
Send up their vassal fires, but still,
Where fair Trinacria's Hybla smiles,
Darkness sits throned on ætna's hill.
Soon, by Sicilia's whirlpool streight,
Our barque shall seek the Ionian sea,
And o'er blue Adria, pagan hate
To Rhætian hills hunt not the free!
The sun, with beams that bloom, shall soar,
And vineyard, vale, hillside and grove,
Sea, mountain, meadow, isle and shore
Bask in voluptuous lights of love.
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Yet darker ruin must descend,
Which man alone on man may rain,
And locust king and harlot fiend
With the heart's wrecks strew mount and plain.
Away! the grave's wild shadows swim
O'er my pale eve of autumn days;
Away! the wild to harp and hymn
Like sphere-voiced choirs, shall breathe, O Christ! Thy love and praise!”
'T is summer's tenderest twilight, and the woods
Glow like an inner glory of the mind,
And rills, veining the verdure, and among
Vines, rose-lipp'd flowers and odorous shrubs in mirth
And music dancing, purl from fountains known
But to the gnomes and kobalds of the Alps—
Mysterious springs, o'er which eternal night
Watches and weeps in solitude, her tears
Mingling, at last, with the green ocean deeps.
Brightness and beauty, love and blessedness
Breathe on each other's bosoms, while afar,
From jagged cliffs the torrent cataract
Hymns the Omnipotent; and from the brows
Of desolate peaks ice-diademed, which thought
Alone may climb, the mountain avalanche,
Which man alone on man may rain,
And locust king and harlot fiend
With the heart's wrecks strew mount and plain.
Away! the grave's wild shadows swim
O'er my pale eve of autumn days;
Away! the wild to harp and hymn
Like sphere-voiced choirs, shall breathe, O Christ! Thy love and praise!”
'T is summer's tenderest twilight, and the woods
Glow like an inner glory of the mind,
And rills, veining the verdure, and among
Vines, rose-lipp'd flowers and odorous shrubs in mirth
And music dancing, purl from fountains known
But to the gnomes and kobalds of the Alps—
Mysterious springs, o'er which eternal night
Watches and weeps in solitude, her tears
Mingling, at last, with the green ocean deeps.
Brightness and beauty, love and blessedness
Breathe on each other's bosoms, while afar,
From jagged cliffs the torrent cataract
Hymns the Omnipotent; and from the brows
Of desolate peaks ice-diademed, which thought
Alone may climb, the mountain avalanche,
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Vast Ruin, falls and with it ruin bears.
All else is loneliness, beauty and love,
Peace and a hallowed stillness, and the souls
Of the lone mountain dwellers, in the hush
Of solitude and nature's majesty,
Partake the sanctity and power around.
The sunbow o'er precipitated floods—
The ice-lakes, and ravines where chaos dwells
And desolation; flowers beneath snow-hills,
Where the great sun looks wan—the mightiest pines,
Rooted in chasms, that o'er the unfathomed gorge
Hang, wave and murmur—vales of paradise,
That smile upon suspended horror—all
With memories and oracles and dreams,
Time's hopes, eternity's imaginings,
Infinity's vast grandeur, the meek love
Of birthplace home,—the boundlessness of power,
The holiness of earth's reliance—fill
The awed and yet exultant intellect!
Flowered fields and harvests bloom around the door
Of a lone forest cottage, and amidst
The Eden of the wild a hoary head
Is lifted and the wan lips move in prayer.
Around, three beings kneel in thought o'erawed,
All else is loneliness, beauty and love,
Peace and a hallowed stillness, and the souls
Of the lone mountain dwellers, in the hush
Of solitude and nature's majesty,
Partake the sanctity and power around.
The sunbow o'er precipitated floods—
The ice-lakes, and ravines where chaos dwells
And desolation; flowers beneath snow-hills,
Where the great sun looks wan—the mightiest pines,
Rooted in chasms, that o'er the unfathomed gorge
Hang, wave and murmur—vales of paradise,
That smile upon suspended horror—all
With memories and oracles and dreams,
Time's hopes, eternity's imaginings,
Infinity's vast grandeur, the meek love
Of birthplace home,—the boundlessness of power,
The holiness of earth's reliance—fill
The awed and yet exultant intellect!
Flowered fields and harvests bloom around the door
Of a lone forest cottage, and amidst
The Eden of the wild a hoary head
Is lifted and the wan lips move in prayer.
Around, three beings kneel in thought o'erawed,
200
Vesper responses breathing from high hearts,
The ordeal of the paynim sternly proved—
And Echo whispers in the clefted rocks.
From meek adorings and communing love,
Then rose they, not as worshippers arise
In latter days of evil, with proud eyes
And minds revenge corrodes, but violet-like,
And gentle as the dawn breath of sweet May,
Patient, serene and robed in holy thoughts.
Dayspring and dewbeam, thus, year after year,
Dawned and departed, and the seasons had
Their own peculiar joys in Pansa's home.
And there—the Roman Convert's testament—
The storm-nursed heritors of Faith, blasphemed,
Throned Liberty on Alpine pinnacles,
And bade her temple be the Switzer hills.
There in love worshipped, there with hoar hairs died
The Christians, but the deathless spirit Rome
Gave to her son, and Mariamne's heart,
Bequeathed—in Freedom and God's holy Law,
With tyrant Wrong warred through Guilt's thousand years.
The ordeal of the paynim sternly proved—
And Echo whispers in the clefted rocks.
From meek adorings and communing love,
Then rose they, not as worshippers arise
In latter days of evil, with proud eyes
And minds revenge corrodes, but violet-like,
And gentle as the dawn breath of sweet May,
Patient, serene and robed in holy thoughts.
Dayspring and dewbeam, thus, year after year,
Dawned and departed, and the seasons had
Their own peculiar joys in Pansa's home.
And there—the Roman Convert's testament—
The storm-nursed heritors of Faith, blasphemed,
Throned Liberty on Alpine pinnacles,
And bade her temple be the Switzer hills.
There in love worshipped, there with hoar hairs died
The Christians, but the deathless spirit Rome
Gave to her son, and Mariamne's heart,
Bequeathed—in Freedom and God's holy Law,
With tyrant Wrong warred through Guilt's thousand years.
| The last night of Pompeii | |