The White Pilgrim and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

What came we forth to see? a fair or race?
Some hero fêted by an eager crowd?
Or would we do some favoured princeling grace,
That thus we herd so close, and talk so loud?

Pushing and struggling, fighting, crushing, shouting,
What are these motley gazers here to seek,
Like merry-makers on a summer outing?
'Tis but the services of Holy Week.

The Eternal City swarms with eager strangers
From every quarter of the busy earth;
Who fill the temples like the money-changers,
And say some prayers—for what they may be worth.

In never-ending tide of restless motion,
They come to burn, in fashion rather odd,
The incense of their polyglot devotion,
Before the altars of the Latin God.

As flock the Londoners to Epsom Races,
Or form a “queue” to see the newest play,
So do the pilgrim-tourists fight for places
Before the chapels in their zeal to pray.

From holy place to holy place they flit,
To “do” as many churches as they can;
And humbly kneeling, for the fun of it,
They climb the ladder of the Lateran.

Here some fair maid, her Heavenward journey steering,
Where by Swiss bayonets the way is barred,
Nor Law, nor Pope, nor Antonelli fearing—
Breaks through the lines of the astonished guard.

In customary suit of solemn black,
With string of beads and veil à l'Espagnole,
She means to “see it all;” to keep her back
Would be to peril her immortal soul.

There a slim youth, while all but he are kneeling,
Through levelled opera-glass looks down on them,
When round the Sistine's pictured roof is pealing
Our buried Lord's majestic Requiem.

For him each storied wonder of the globe is
“The sort of thing a fellow ought to see;”
And so he patronised Ora pro nobis,
And wanted to encore the Tenebræ.

Stranger! what though these sounds and sights be grandest
Of all that on Earth's surface can be found?
Remember that the place whereon thou standest,
Be thy creed what it may, is holy ground.

Yet I have gaped and worshipped with the rest—
I, too, beneath St. Peter's lofty dome
Have seen, in all their richest colours dressed,
The golden glories of historic Rome;

Have heard the Pontiff's ringing voice bestow,
'Mid cheering multitudes and flags unfurled,
Borne by the cannon of St. Angelo,
His blessing on the “City and the World;”

Have seen—and thrilled with wonder as I gazed—
Ablaze with living lines of golden light,
Like some fire-throne to the Eternal raised,
The great Basilica burn through the night;

Have heard the trumpet-notes of Easter Day,
Their silver echoes circling all around,
In strange unearthly music float away,
Stones on the lake translated into sound;—

Yet would I wander from the crowd apart,
While heads were bowed and tuneful voices sang,
And through the deep recesses of my heart
A still small voice in solemn warning rang.

“Oh vanity of vanities! ye seem,
Ye pomps and panoplies of mortal state,
To make this text the matter of your theme,
That God is little, and that Man is great.

“Is this parade of the world's wealth and splendour
The lesson of the simple Gospel-word?
Is this the sacrifice of self-surrender
Taught by the lowly followers of the Lord?

“Do we, who broider thus the garment's hem,
Think of the swaddling-clothes the child had on?
Grace we the casket, to neglect the gem?
Forget we quite the manger for the throne?”

While thus in moralising mood I pondered,
I turned me from the hum of men alone;
And, as my vagrant fancy led me, wandered
Amid the maze of monumented stone.

The crowd their favourite lions now forswore,
Left galleries and ruins in the lurch;
The cicerone's glory was no more,
For all the world was gathered in the church

So at my will I strayed from place to place,
From classic shrines to modern studios—
Now musing spellbound, where Our Lady's face
In nameless godhead from the canvas glows.

Now, from the still Campagna's desolate rise,
I saw the hills with jealous clasp enfold
The lingering sunlight, while the seaward skies
Paled slowly round the melting disc of gold;

Now gazed, ere yet on dome and tower had died
The glory of the Roman afterglow,
Over the map-like city lying wide,
Half-dreaming, from the Monte Mario.

Traveller, do thou the like; and wouldst thou learn
How Rome her faithful votaries enthralls
With all the memories that breathe and burn
Within the magic circle of her walls,

Leave pomp of man and track of guide-led tourist,
And drink of history at the fountain-head;
For living minds and living things are poorest
In that vast mausoleum of the dead.

There, where the stately Barberini pile
Like some new Nimrod's fabric heav'nward climbs,
Enduring monument of Christian guile,
By outrage wrested from the Pagan times;

Where lulled and drowsy with the distant hum,
The sentinel keeps watch upon the town,
And from the heights of old Janiculum
On Father Tiber's yellow face looks down;

Where in their southern grace the moonbeams play
On Caracalla's tesselated floors,
And rescue from the garish light of day
The Colosseum's ghostly corridors;

Where Raphael and all his great compeers
Art's form divine in giant-mould have cast,
The very air is heavy with the years,
The very stones are vocal of the past.

Still, as we saunter down the crowded street,
On our own thoughts intent, and plans, and pleasures,
For miles and miles, beneath our idle feet,
Rome buries from the day yet unknown treasures.

The whole world's alphabet, in every line
Some stirring page of history she recalls;
Her Alpha is the Prison Mamertine,
Her Omega, St. Paul's without the Walls.

Above, beneath, around, she weaves her spells,
And ruder hands unweave them all in vain:
Who once within her fascination dwells,
Leaves her with but one thought—to come again.

So cast thine obol into Trevi's fountain—
Drink of its waters—and, returning home,
Pray that by land or sea, by lake or mountain,
“All roads alike may lead at last to Rome.”

Easter, 1869.

The Madonna of Foligno.

“Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini.”