Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

[Possibly, one of those numerous facezie, common about Rome during the ‘Ages of Faith.’ Thence, after the Reformation, it may have found its way into Germany; being there caught up, and used as a weapon of offence by the zeal of the Reformed Pulpits; which, in the vehement and clumsy handling of it, contrived (as it would seem) to convert the fool's feather into the leaden sword. Thus it reaches us at last distorted and transformed. Hence the serio-comic, half grotesque, and altogether incongruous character of it.]

I.

The whole day long had been wild and warm,
With a heavy forewarning of what was to come.
There had been, indeed, no such horrible storm
For many a year, men say, in Rome.
I remember it burst just after the close
Of the day when the dead Pope was laid in the Dome
Of St. Peter; taking his last repose,
To the grief of all good Christendom.

Here, before I am further gone with his story,
It is fit I should mention that, when he died,

108

He was of a good old age; grown hoary
In wearing the white robe, well descried
By sinner, and saint, and catechumen,
Judex gentium, mundi lumen!
Of a truth, he had sat so long in Rome,
Sat so long in Peter's chair,
Ruling the world, that he was come
To keep his power apart from care.
His hairs were few, and white
With the hoar of many years:
His eyes were filmy, and weak,
And humid, and heavy, and wan:
And all the look of the man
Was as dull, and feeble, and bleak
As the watery blunt starlight,
And thin snow, of a north March night,
When its wearied face appears
Bathed cold in a clammy grey,
Before the sluggish season clears
Earth's winter rubbish away.
Yet Winter's wine-cup cheers
The dull heart of his discontent,
While the joy of his jolly hearth endears
His home in the frosty element:
And, whatever the fretful folk may say,
This Pope was a pleasant Pope, and a gay,
For what should trouble his merriment?
There's many a text, . . . and this comes pat,

109

‘Dominus me lætificat,’
And ‘Filii hominum usquequo
Gravi corde?’ David, too,
Sayeth in the psalm ‘In Deo
Exultabo', also ‘meo
In corde tu lætitiam
Dedisti.’ Saith he, ‘Dormiam
In pace.’ Where's the harm of that?
So (since it is better to laugh than weep)
Leaving the wolf to look after the sheep,
Whilst ever the stormy nobles raved,
And the wickedness ran over in Rome,
And sinners, grown stout, refused to be saved,
Save now and then by a martyrdom,
He smiled, and, warming his heart with wine,
Daily, gaily quaff'd the cup.
Albeit there were some who seem'd to opine,
By their sullen faces and doggerel verses,
That the cup so quaff'd was fill'd with curses,
Averring, as their spleen dictated,
That, to claim the price of its filling up
With the much-wrong'd blood of His bruisèd Vine
The dreadful unseen Vintager waited
Aware at the gate. But we all of us know
The Devil is apt to quote Scripture so:
And what harm if still, as those famous keys
Of the double world's appointed porter,
From the good man's girdle hung at their ease,

110

While the days grew chillier, darker, shorter,
The cellar key in the cellar door
(More nimble than each of those rusty twins)
Daily, gaily, all the more
Made music among the vaults and bins?

II.

For oh, what a paradise was there,
Set open by that kindly key!
Joyous, gentle, debonair,
The soul of every grape that dwells
By Tuscan slopes, o'er Umbrian dells,
Or else, where, oft, in azure air,
Round serene Parthenope
Witless wandering everywhere,
Drunken sings the sultry bee,
Or where, purpling tombs of kings,
Castel d' Aso's violet springs:
Montepulciano, the master-vine;
Chiante, that comforts the Florentine;
With many a merry-hearted wine
From Dante's own delicious vale,
Whose sweetness hangs, in odours frail
Of woods and flowers, round many a tale
Of tears, along the lordly line
Of the scornful Ghibeline,
— Dante's vale, and Love's, and mine,
The pleasant vale of the Casentine!

111

Nor lack'd there many and many a train
Of kingly gifts,—the choicest gain
Of terraced cities over the sea:
The fiery essence of fierce Spain,
The soul of sunburnt Sicily,
The Frankish, Rhenish, vintage, all
The purple pride of Portugal,
—Whole troops of powers celestial,
The slayers of sullen Pain!
O what spirits strong and subtle!
Whether to quicken the pulses' play,
And dance the world, like a weaver's shuttle
To and fro in the dazzling loom
Where Fancy weaves her wardrobe gay;
Or soften to faintness, sweet as the fume
From silver censers swung alway
To music, making a mellow gloom,
The too intrusive light of the day.
Some that bathe the wearied brain,
And untie the knotted hair
On the pucker'd brows of Care;
Soothe from heavy eyes the stain
Of tears too long represt; make fair
With their transcendent influence
Fate's frown; or feed with nectar-food
The lips of Longing, and dispense
To the tired soul despair'd-of good:
Others that stir in the startled blood

112

Like tingling trumpet notes intense,
To waken the martial mood.
By the mere faint thought of it, well I wis
Such a heaven on earth were hardly amiss;
And I hold it no crime to set it in rhyme
That I think a man might pass his time
In company worse than this.

III.

But, however we pass Time, he passes still,
Passing away whatever the pastime,
And, whether we use him well or ill,
Some day he gives us the slip for the last time.
Even a Pope must finish his fill,
And follow his time, be it feast time or fast time.
As it happen'd with this same Pope. No doubt
What sleep was his after that last bout,
When he could not wake! so they laid him out.
‘He is gone,’ they said, ‘where there's no returning.
Of the college who is the next to come?’
Then they set the bells tolling, the tapers burning,
And bore him up into Peter's dome.

IV.

And that day the whole world mourn'd with Rome.

V.

Now, after the organ's drowning note

113

Grew hoarse, then husht, in his golden throat,
And the latest loiterer, slacking his walk,
Cast one last glance at the catafalk,
And, passing the door, renew'd his talk
As to that last raid of Prince Colonna,
—‘What villages burn'd? and what hope of indemnity?’
The Beauty from Venice (or was it Verona?)
With the nimbus of red gold hair, God bless her!
And who should be the late Pope's successor?
I say—that, as soon as the crowd was gone,
And never a face remain'd in sight,
As the tapers were brightening in chapels dim,
Just about the time of the coming on
And settling down of the ghostly light,
The sudden silence so startled him
That the dead Pope rose up.

VI.

And, first, he fumbled, and stretch'd his hand,
Feeling for the accustom'd cup;
For the taste of the wine was yet in his mouth;
And, finding it not, and vext with drouth,
Feebly, as ever, he call'd out.
For a Pope . . . what need has a Pope to shout,
Whose feeblest whisper from land to land
Is echoed, east, west, and north, and south?
But, no one coming to his command,
He rubb'd his eyes, and look'd about,

114

And saw, thro' a swimming mist, each face
Of his predecessors, gone to Grace
Many a century ago,
Sternly staring at him so
(From their marble seats, a mournful row)
As who should say ‘Be cheerful, pray!
‘Make the best of it as you may:
We are all of us here in the same sad case:
Each in his turn, we must one by one die,
Even the best of us—
God help the rest of us!
Your turn, friend, now. Make no grimace.
Consider sic transit gloria mundi!’

He began to grow aware of the place.

A settling strangeness more and more
Crept over him, never felt before,
As he stept down to the marble floor.
He look'd up, and down, above him, and under,
Fill'd with uncomfortable wonder.
What should persuade him that he was dead?
A horrible humming in the head?
A giddy lightness about the feet?
Last night's wine, and this night's heat!
Where were the Saints and Apostles, each
With the bird or beast that belongs to him,
Each on a cushion of cloud,—no film,

115

But solid and smooth like a pale-colour'd peach;
In a holy hurry the hand to reach
Down to him out of the glory dim
Where the multitudinous cherubim,
With wingèd heads, and wonderful eyes
Wide open, are watching in due surprise
How Heaven puts on its holiday trim
To welcome a Pope when he dies?
He could guess by the incense afloat on the air
Some service not yet so long o'er
But what he might have slept unaware,
Nor yet quite waked. What alone made him fear
Was that draperied, lighted, black thing there,
Not quite like a couch, and too much like a bier.
But anyhow ‘Wherefore linger here?’
And, pushing the heavy curtain by
That flapp'd in the portal, the windy floor
Sucking its flat hem sullenly,
He pass'd out thro' the great church door.

VII.

So forth, on the vacant terrace there,
Overlooking the mighty slope
Of never-ending marble stair,
'Twixt the great church and the great square,
Stood the dead Pope.
On either side glade heap'd on glade
Of colossal colonnade,

116

Lost, at last, in vague and vast
Recesses of repeated shade
By those stupendous columns cast;
In midst of which, as they sang and play'd,
(Fire and sound!) the fountains made
Under the low faint starlight, laid
Not far above their splendours bright,
Fresh interchange of laughters light,
Mixt with the murmur of the might
Of royal Rome which, dim in sight,
Revelling under the redness wide
Of lamps now winking from hollow and height,
With a voice of pride on every side
Lay ready to receive the night.

VIII.

Thus, all at once, and all around,
The silence changed itself to sound
More horrible than mere silence is,
—The sound of a life no longer his.
Fresh terror seized him where he stood;
Or the fear that follow'd him, shifting ground,
Fresh onslaught made; and he rested afraid
To call or stir, like a sick owl, stray'd
From a witches' cave back again to the wood
Wherein, meanwhile, the noisy brood
Of little birds, with lusty voice,
Made free of his presence, begin to rejoice,

117

And he halts in alarm lest, perchance, if he cries out,
Those creatures, fit only to furnish him food,
Already by liberty render'd loquacious,
Picking up heart, and becoming audacious,
Should forthwith fall to pecking his eyes out.

IX.

Indeed, one might fairly surmise
From the noise in the streets, the shouts and cries,
That all the men and women in Rome,
From the People's Gate to St. Peter's Dome,
Tho' clad in mourning, each and all,
Were making the most of some festival:
Walking, driving, talking, striving,
Each with the rest, to do his best
To add to the tumult; each contriving
To make, in pursuit of his special joys,
Something more than the usual noise.
Since it is not every day in the week
That one Pope dies, and another's to seek.
Such an event is a thing to treasure:
For a general mourning's a general meeting,
—A sort of general grief-competing,
Which leads, of course, to a general greeting,
(Not to mention the general drinking and eating)
That is quite a general pleasure.

118

X.

The universal animation,
In a word, you could hardly underrate.
So much to talk of, so much to wonder at!
The Ambassadors, first, of every nation,
Representing the whole world's tribulation,
Each of them grander than the other,
In due gradation for admiration;
How they lookt, how they spoke, what sort of speeches?
What sort of mantles, coats, collars, and breeches?
Then, the Cardinals, all in a sumptuous smother
Of piety, warm'd by the expectation
Which glow'd in the breast of each Eminent Brother
Of assuming a yet more eminent station,
—Much, he hoped, to each Eminent Brother's vexation.
And then, the Archbishops, and Bishops, and Priors,
And Abbots, and Orders of various Friars,
Treading like men that are treading on briars,
Doubtful whom, in the new race now for the State run,
They should hasten to claim as their hopeful patron.
The Nobles, too, and their Noble Families,
Prouder each than the very devil,
Yet turn'd, all at once, appallingly civil,
And masking their noble animosities
For the sake of combining further atrocities:
And, after each of the Noble Families,
Each Noble Family's faithful Following;
Who, picking their way while the crowd kept holloaing,

119

Stuck close to their chiefs, and proudly eyed them,
Much the same as each well-provender'd camel eyes,
In the drouthy desert, when groaning under
Their pleasing weight of public plunder,
The dainty despot boys that ride them.
A host, too, of Saints, with their special religions,
And patrons, of rival rank and station;
Which, as they pass'd, the very pigeons
On the roofs uproused in a consternation;
Being deckt in all manners of ribbons and banners,
Painted papers, and burning tapers
Enough to set in a conflagration
The world, you would think by the fume and flare of them,
And the smoky faces of those that had care of them;
All marching along with a mighty noise
Of barking dogs, and shouts, and cheers,
Brass music, and bands of singing boys,
Doing their best to split men's ears.

XI.

The excitement was certainly justifiable.
The more so, if, having fairly computed
The importance, necessity, and function
Of a Pope, as divinely instituted,
You consider the fact, which is undeniable,
That, when deprived of its special pastor,
The whole of earth's flock, without compunction,
Must consider itself consign'd to disaster.

120

For, if the world, say,
Could go on as it should,
Doing its duty, fair and good,
Missing no crumb of its Heavenly food,
For even a week or a day
In the absence of Heaven's Representative,
Might it not be assumed from any such tentative
Process, if this each time succeeded,
That a Pope, on the whole, is hardly needed?
And that, if it should ever befal
That Heaven might be pleased, after due delay,
Its Viceroy on earth to recall,
And abolish that post, just as good and as gay
The world would go on in the usual way
Without a Pope at all?

XII.

To this Pope however, yet upon earth,
Who, tho' dead, knew what a live Pope is worth,
That sight was somewhat provoking:
Millions of men, all jostling, joking,
As merry as so many Prodigal Sons,
Having kill'd and roasted their fatted calf,
And enjoying the chance to quaff and laugh;
And yet not one of those millions
Who seem'd aware of the dead Pope there,
Or even very much to care
What had become of His Holiness,

121

How he must feel now, or how he might fare;
Who, all the while, was nevertheless
Sole cause of the general joyousness.
This was certainly hard to bear.
His hand he raised: no man lookt to it.
His finger: not a knee was crookt to it.
He raised his voice: no man heeded it.
He gave his blessing: no man needed it.
'Twas the merest waste of benevolence,
Since the holiday went on with or without him.
He might have been to all intents
The golden Saint stuck up on the steeple,
Who is always blessing a thankless people,
Nobody caring a button about him.
Bless, or curse, neither better nor worse
For a single word that he said,
On its wonted way a world perverse
Went onward, nobody bowing the head
Either for hope, or yet for dread.

XIII.

Then the dead Pope knew that he was dead.

XIV.

He walk'd onward—no man stopping him,
Ever onward—no lip dropping him
A salve: nobody making way

122

For the Pope to pass, as the Pope pass'd on
Thro' that rude irreverent holiday:
Till the streets behind him, one by one,
Fell off, and left him standing alone
In the mighty waste of Rome's decay.
Meanwhile, the night was coming on
Over the wide Campagna:
Hot, fierce, a blackness without form,
And in her breast she bore the storm.

I never shall forget that night!
You might tell by the stifling stillness there,
And the horrible wild-beast scent on the air,
That all things were not right.

XV.

On Mount Cavi the dark was nurst,
And the Black Monks' belfry towers above:
Then, vast, the sea of vapour burst
Where forlorn Ferretian Jove
Hears only the howlet's note accurst
Mid his fallen fanes no more divine:
And from the sea to the Apennine:
And swift across the rocky line
Where the blighted moon dropp'd first
Behind Soracte, black and broad
Up the old Triumphal Road,
From Palestrino post on Rome,

123

Nearer, nearer, you felt It come,
The presence of the darksome Thing!
As when, dare I say, with outstretcht wing,
By some lean Prophet summon'd fast
To punish the guilt of a stiff-neckt king,
Over the desert, black in the blast,
On Babylon, or Egypt red,
The Angel of Destruction sped.

Earth breathed not, feigning to be dead:
While the whole of Heaven overhead
Was overtaken unaware,
First here, then there, then everywhere.
Into the belly of blackness suckt,
Sank the dwindling droves of buffaloes
That spotted the extreme crimson glare:
Then the mighty darkness stronger rose,
Swallowing leagues of lurid air,
And cross'd the broken viaduct,
Flung forth in dim disorder there
Like the huge spine-bone of the skeleton
Of some dead Python, left to obstruct
The formless Night-hag's filmy path:
Thence on, by the glimmering creeks and nooks
Where the waterflats look sick and white,
Putting out quite the pallid light
Of the yellow flowers by the sulphur brooks,
That make a sullen brimstone bath

124

For the Nightmare's noiseless hoof:
And, leaving the quench'd-out east aloof,
The plague, from Tophet vomited,
Struck at the west, and rushing came
Right against the last red flame,
Where in cinders, now, the day,
Self-condemn'd to darkness, lay
With all his sins upon his head
Burning on a fiery bed,
Helpless, hopeless, overthrown.

XVI.

Now, to all the world it is well known
How the Devil rides the wind by night:
Doing all the harm he can
In the absence of Heaven's light
To the world's well-order'd plan,
And with murrain, mildew, blight,
Or thunder blue, or hailstone white,
Marring the thrift of the honest man,
Which much doth move his spite.

XVII.

Certainly, he was out that night,
What time the fearful storm began.
For lo! on a sudden, left and right,
The heaven was gash'd from sky to sky,

125

Seam'd across, and sunder'd quite,
By a swift, snaky, fork-tongued flash
Of brightness intolerably bright;
As, ever, the angry Cherub, vow'd
To vengeance, fast thro' plunging cloud
Wielding wide his withering lash,
That wild horseman now pursued:
Who lurk'd, his vengeance to elude,
In deep unprobèd darkness still.

Forthwith, the wounded night 'gan spill
Great drops: then fierce—crash crusht on crash—
As it grieved beneath each burning gash,
The darkness bellow'd; and outsprang
Wild on the plain, whilst yet it rang
With thunder, the infernal steed,
And dash'd onward at full speed,
Blind with pain, with streaming mane,
And snorting nostril on the strain,
Where, dasht from off his flanks, the rain
Thro' all the desolate abyss
Of darkness, now began to hiss.

XVIII.

And here (for this story is scatter'd about
The world in dozens of different shapes)
One writes . . . . Some Lutheran lean, I doubt,
Who, nameless, thus from shame escapes.

126

—Lies thrive and flourish by the score:
Take this for what 'tis worth, no more:—

“Out leaping from that riven rack
Of cloud, where night was boiling black,
And so escaping, as God will'd,
While, for a time, the storm was still'd,
Satan beheld the face he knew,
Amoris actus impetu.
And to the Shepherd gone astray
Grimly the black goats' Goatherd said
‘Service for service! on their way
To me full many hast thou sped:
And, since it is a stormy night,
Lest thou shouldst lose thine own way quite,
(For how shouldst thou the right way know
Who seek'st it out the first time now?)
Content am I thy guide to be.
Nor marvel that 'tis known to me,
The way to Heaven. For who but I
Makes half the ways there, that men try?
Moreover, there's no jolly sin
Which those I lead may not take in,
If they themselves can pass the gate
Whereat, of course, we separate.
For all the members of my flock
Come furnisht with Indulgences
In proper form—a goodly stock!

127

'Tis but to pick and chuse from these.
Paid for they are; and, signo hoc,
Well paid, if Peter will but please
That wicket to unlock.’”

XIX.

A spiteful fable. Best to own
The truth can ne'er by us be known.
But alas! for any poor ghost of a Pope
In such a night to be doom'd to grope,
Blind beneath the hideous cope
Of those black skies without a star,
For the way to where the Blessèd are!
And, if the Evil One, himself,
Was his conductor thro' the dark;
Or, if, dislodged from its sky-shelf
Some cloud was made his midnight bark;
Or if the branding bolt, that rent
The skies asunder, hew'd for him
Thro' that disfeatured firmament,
Beyond the utmost echoing brim
Of thunder-brewage, and the black
Unblissful night, some shining track
Up to the Sapphire Throne, where throng
The Voices crying ‘Lord, how long?’
While the great years are onward roll'd
With moans and mutterings manifold;
I know not, for it was not told.

128

XX.

It would seem, however, all texts agree
(And this should suffice us at anyrate)
In assuming for certain that, early or late,
The dead Pope got to the Golden Gate
Where the mitred Apostle sits with the key,
—Peter, whose heir upon earth was he.
And further than this to speculate
I, for one, do not feel justified.
Tho' a fact there is, I am bound to state:
A renegade Monk avers he descried
In a vision that very night,
When the storm was spending its fiercest hate
(—And what he saw, so much the sight
Impress'd him, he wrote as soon as he woke:
—Was it a dream, or a wicked joke?)
What pass'd before That Gate.

XXI.

Now, since, after the fashion then in vogue,
He wrote it in form of a dialogue,
Not averring, as he did, the dream to be true,
In all else, as he wrote it, I write it for you:

VOICE OUTSIDE THE GATE.
“Peter, Peter, open the Gate!

129

VOICE WITHIN.
I know thee not. Thou knockest late.

FIRST VOICE.
Late! yet, Peter, look, and see
Who calleth.

SECOND VOICE.
Nay, I know not thee.
What art thou?

FIRST VOICE.
Peter, Peter, ope
The Gate!

SECOND VOICE.
What art thou?

FIRST VOICE.
The dead Pope.

SECOND VOICE.
The Pope? what is it?

FIRST VOICE.
In men's eye
Thy successor, late, was I.
What was thine was given to me.

130

SECOND VOICE.
Martyrdom and misery?

FIRST VOICE.
Nay, but power to bind and loose.
In thy name have I burn'd Jews
And heretics, and all the brood
Of unbelief . . .

VOICES FAR WITHIN.
Avenge our blood,
Lord!

FIRST VOICE.
And in thy name have blest
Kings and Emperors; confest
Earth's Spiritual Head, while there
I sat ruling in thy chair.

VOICES FAR WITHIN.
Woe! because the kings of earth
Were with her in her wicked mirth!

FIRST VOICE.
In thy name, and for thy cause,
I made peace and war, set laws
To lawgivers . . .

131

VOICES FAR WITHIN.
And all nations
Drunk with the abominations
Of her witchcraft!

FIRST VOICE.
In thy name,
And for thy cause, to sword and flame
I gave sinners; and to those
That fear'd the friends, and fought the foes,
Of him from all mankind selected
To keep thy name and cause respected,
Riches and rewards I gave,
And the joy beyond the grave.

VOICES FAR WITHIN.
Souls of men, too, chaffering lies,
Did she make her merchandise.

FIRST VOICE.
By all means have I upheld
Thy patrimony—nay, 'tis swell'd.

VOICES FAR WITHIN.
For herself she glcrified
In the riches of her pride.

132

FIRST VOICE.
Wherefore, Peter, ope the Gate!
If my knocking now be late,
Little time, in truth, had I
—I, the Pope, who stand and cry!
For other cares than those that came
Upon me, in thy cause and name,
Holding up the heavy keys
Of Heaven, and Hell.

SECOND VOICE.

If so, if these
Thou hast in keeping, wherefore me
Callest thou? Thou hast the key.
Truly thou hast waited late!
Open, then, thyself, The Gate.”

And here the Monk breaks off, to state,
With befitting reflections by the way,
With what great joy the Pope, no doubt,
Soon as he heard the stern voice say
Those words, began to search about
Among his garments, for the key;
Which, strange to say, 'twould seem that he
Had not bethought him of before.
And how that joy, from more to more,
Wax'd most (the historian of his dream
Observes, as he resumes the theme)

133

“When, after search grown desperate,
A key he found,—just as his need
Seem'd at the worst,—a key, indeed!
But, ah vain hope! for, however the Pope
Tried the key in the fasten'd Gate,
Turning it ever with might and main
This way, that way, every way at last,
Forwards—backwards—round again—
Till his joy is turn'd to sheer dismay at last,
And his failing force will no longer cope
With the stubborn Gate,—it declines to ope.
A key, indeed! but not, alas,
The Key.”

Who shall say what key it was?
The Monk, who here, I must believe,
Is laughing at us in his sleeve,
(Like any vulgar story-teller,
Fabling forms to vent his spleen)
Surmises that it must have been
The key of the Pope's own cellar.