The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton ::

Along the coast of those bright seas,
Where sternly fought of old
The Pisan and the Genoese,
Into the evening gold
A ship was sailing fast,
Beside whose swaying mast
There leant a youth;—his eye's extended scope
Took in the scene, ere all the twilight fell;
And, more in blessing than in hope,
He murmured,—“Fare-thee-well.

“Not that thou gav'st my fathers birth,
And not that thou hast been
The terror of the ancient earth
And Christendom's sole Queen;

But that thou wert and art
The beauty of my heart:—
Now with a lover's love I pray to thee,
As in my passionate youth-time erst I prayed;
Now, with a lover's agony,
I see thy features fade.

“They tell me thou art deeply low;
They brand thee weak and vile;
The cruel Northman tells me so,
And pities me the while:
What can he know of thee,
Glorified Italy?
Never has Nature to his infant mouth
Bared the full summer of her living breast;
Never the warm and mellow South
To his young lips was prest.

“I know,—and thought has often striven
The justice to approve,—
I know that all that God has given
Is given us to love;
But still I have a faith,
Which must endure till death,
That Beauty is the mother of all Love;
And Patriot Love can never purely glow
Where frowns the veilèd heaven above,
And the niggard earth below.

“The wealth of high ancestral name,
And silken household ties,
And battle-fields' memorial fame,
He earnestly may prize
Who loves and honours not
The country of his lot,
With undiscerning piety,—the same
Filial religion, be she great and brave,
Or sunk in sloth and red with shame,
A monarch or a slave.

“But He who calls this heaven his own,
The very lowliest one,
Is conscious of a holier zone,
And nearer to the sun:
Ever it bids him hail,
Cloud-feathered and clear pale,
Or one vast dome of deep immaculate blue,
Or, when the moon is on her mid-year throne,
With richer but less brilliant hue,
Built up of turkis stone.

“The springing corn that steeped in light
Looks emerald, between
The delicate olive-branches, dight
In reverend gray-green;
Each flower with open breast,
To the gale it loves the best;

The bland outbreathings of the midland sea,
The aloe-fringed and myrtle-shadowed shore,
Are precious things,—Oh, wo the be
Must they be mine no more?

“And shall the matin bell awake
My native village crowd,
To kneel at shrines, whose pomp would make
A Northern city proud?
And shall the festival
Of closing Carnival
Bid the gay laughers thro' those arches pour,
Whose marble mass confronts its parent hill,
—And I upon a far bleak shore!
My heart will see them still.

“For though in poverty and fear,
Thou think'st upon the morrow,
Dutiful Art is ever near,
To wile thee from all sorrow;
Thou hast a power of melody,
To lull all sense of slavery;
Thy floral crown is blowing still to blow,
Thy eye of glory ceases not to shine,
And so long as these things be so,
I feel thee, bless thee, mine!”

WRITTEN IN PETRARCH'S HOUSE AT ARQUA,

AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.

Petrarch! I would that there might be
In this thy household sanctuary
No visible monument of thee:

The Fount that whilom played before thee,
The Roof that rose in shelter o'er thee,
The low fair Hills that still adore thee,—

I would no more; thy memory
Must loathe all cold reality,
Thought-worship only is for thee.

They say thy Tomb lies there below;
What want I with the marble show?
I am content,—I will not go:

For though by Poesy's high grace
Thou saw'st, in thy calm resting-place,
God, Love, and Nature face to face;

Yet now that thou art wholly free,
How can it give delight to see
That sign of thy captivity?

FEELINGS EXCITED BY SOME MILITARY MANŒUVRES AT VERONA.

What is the lesson I have brought away,
After the moment's palpitating glee?
What has this pomp of men, this strong array
Of thousands and ten thousands been to me?
Did I find nothing but the vision gay,
The mere phenomenon that all could see?
Did I feel nothing but the brute display
Of Power,—the show of centred energy?
Trembling and humbled, I was taught how hard
It is for our strait minds at once to scan
The might of banded numbers, and regard
The individual soul, the living Man;
To use mechanic multitudes, and yet
Our common human feelings not forget!

MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS, ON VENICE.

I.

“The ruler of the Adriatic, who never was infant nor stripling, whom God took by the right hand and taught to walk by himself the first hour.”— Landor.

Walk in St. Mark's, the time, the ample space
Lies in the freshness of the evening shade,
When, on each side, with gravely darkened face,
The masses rise above the light arcade;
Walk down the midst with slowly-tunèd pace,
But gay withal,—for there is high parade
Of fair attire and fairer forms, which pass
Like varying groups on a magician's glass.

From broad-illumined chambers far within,
Or under curtains daintily outspread,
Music, and laugh, and talk, the motley din
Of all who from sad thought or toil are sped,
Here a chance hour of social joy to win,
Gush forth,—but I love best, above my head
To feel nor arch nor tent, nor anything
But that pure Heaven's eternal covering.

It is one broad Saloon, one gorgeous Hall;
A chamber, where a multitude, all Kings,
May hold full audience, splendid festival,
Or Piety's most pompous ministerings;
Thus be its height unmarred,—thus be it all
One mighty room, whose form direct upsprings
To the o'er-arching sky;—it is right good,
When Art and Nature keep such brotherhood.

For where, upon the firmest sodden land,
Has ever Monarch's power and toil of slaves
Equalled the works of that self-governed band,
Who fixed the Delos of the Adrian waves;
Planting upon these strips of yielding sand
A Temple of the Beautiful, which braves
The jealous strokes of ocean, nor yet fears
The far more perilous sea, “whose waves are years?”

Walk in St. Mark's again, some few hours after,
When a bright sleep is on each storied pile,—
When fitful music, and inconstant laughter,
Give place to Nature's silent moonlight smile:
Now Fancy wants no faery gale to waft her
To Magian haunt, or charm-engirded isle,
All too content, in passive bliss, to see
This show divine of visible Poetry:—

On such a night as this impassionedly
The old Venetian sung those verses rare,
“That Venice must of needs eternal be,
For Heaven had looked through the pellucid air,
And cast its reflex in the crystal sea,
And Venice was the image pictured there ;”
I hear them now, and tremble, for I seem
As treading on an unsubstantial dream.

Who talks of vanished glory, of dead power,
Of things that were, and are not? Is he here?
Can he take in the glory of this hour,
And call it all the decking of a bier?
No, surely as on that Titanic tower
The Guardian Angel stands in æther clear,
With the moon's silver tempering his gold wing,
So Venice lives, as lives no other thing:—

That strange Cathedral! exquisitely strange,—
That front, on whose bright varied tints the eye
Rests as of gems,—those arches, whose high range
Gives its rich-broidered border to the sky,—
Those ever-prancing steeds!—My friend, whom change
Of restless will has led to lands that lie
Deep in the East, does not thy fancy set
Above those domes an airy minaret?

Dost thou not feel, that in this scene are blent
Wide distances of the estrangèd earth,
Far thoughts, far faiths, beseeming her who bent
The spacious Orient to her simple worth,
Who, in her own young freedom eminent,
Scorning the slaves that shamed their ancient birth,
And feeling what the West could be, had been,
Went out a Traveller, and returned a Queen?

“Ich hörte einen blinden Sänger in Chioggia, der sang, Venedig sey eine ewige Stadt; der Himmel hätte sich im Meer gespiegelt und sein Widerschein wäre Venedig.”—Platen.

The Campanile.

II.

The Golden Book
Is now unwritten in, and stands unmoved,
Save when the curious traveller takes down
A random volume, from the dusty shelf,
To trace the progress of a bruited name;
The Bucentaur
Is shattered, and of its resplendent form
There is no remnant, but some splintered morsel,
Which in his cabin, as a talisman,
Mournfully hangs the pious Gondolier;
The Adrian sea
Will never have a Doge to marry more,—
The meagre favours of a foreign lord
Can hardly lead some score of humble craft

With vilest merchandize into the port,
That whilom held the wealth of half a world.
Thy Palaces
Are bartered to the careful Israelite,—
Or left to perish, stone by stone, worn down
In desolation,—solemn skeletons,
Whose nakedness some tufts of pitying grass,
Or green boughs trembling o'er the trembling wall,
Adorn but hide not.

And are these things true,
Miraculous Venice? Is the charm then past
Away from thee? Is all thy work fulfilled,
Of power and beauty? Art thou gatherèd
To the dead cities? Is thy ministry
Made up, and folded in the hand of Thought?
Ask him who knows the meaning and the truth
Of all existence;—ask the Poet's heart:
Thy Book has no dead tome for him,—for him
Within St. Mark's emblazoned porticoes,
Thy old Nobility are walking still;—
The lowliest Gondola upon thy waters
Is worth to him thy decorated Galley;
He never looks upon the Adrian sea
But as thy lawful tho' too faithless Spouse;
And when, in the sad lustre of the moon,
Thy Palaces seem beautifully wan,
He blesses God that there is left on earth
So marvellous, so full an antidote,

For all the racks and toils of mortal life,
As thy sweet countenance to gaze upon.

The Libro d'Oro, the Venetian “Peerage. ”

III.

LIDO.

I went to greet the full May-moon
On that long narrow shoal
Which lies between the still Lagoon
And the open Ocean's roll.

How pleasant was that grassy shore,
When one for months had been
Shut up in streets,—to feel once more
One's foot-fall on the green!

There are thick trees too in that place;
But straight from sea to sea,
Over a rough uncultured space,
The path goes drearily.

I passed along, with many a bound,
To hail the fresh free wave;
But, pausing, wonderingly found
I was treading on a grave.

Then, at one careless look, I saw
That, for some distance round,
Tomb-stones, without design or law,
Were scattered on the ground:

Of pirates or of mariners
I deemed that these might be
The fitly-chosen sepulchres,
Encircled by the sea.

But there were words inscribed on all,
I' the tongue of a far land,
And marks of things symbolical,
I could not understand.

They are the graves of that sad race,
Who, from their Syrian home,
For ages, without resting-place,
Are doomed in woe to roam;

Who, in the days of sternest faith,
Glutted the sword and flame,
As if a taint of moral death
Were in their very name:

And even under laws most mild,
All shame was deemed their due,
And the nurse told the Christian child
To shun the cursèd Jew.

Thus all their gold's insidious grace
Availed not here to gain
For their last sleep, a seemlier place
Than this bleak-featured plain.

Apart, severely separate,
On the verge of the outer sea,
Their home of Death is desolate
As their Life's home could be.

The common sand-path had defaced
And pressed down many a stone;
Others can be but faintly traced
I' the rank grass o'er them grown.

I thought of Shylock,—the fierce heart
Whose wrongs and injuries old
Temper, in Shakspeare's world of Art,
His lusts of blood and gold;

Perchance that form of broken pride
Here at my feet once lay,—
But lay alone,—for at his side
There was no Jessica!

Fondly I love each island-shore,
Embraced by Adrian waves;
But none has Memory cherished more
Than Lido and its graves.

IV.

Oh Poverty! thou bitter-hearted fiend!
How darest thou approach the Beautiful?
How darest thou give up these Palaces,
Where delicate Art in wood and marble wove
Its noblest fancies, with laborious skill,
To the base uses of the artizan?
How darest thou defile with coarsest stores,
And vermin's loathsome nests, the aged walls,
Whence Titian's women burningly looked down
On the rich-vested pomp that shone below?
Is nothing sacred for thy hand, no names,
No memories,—thou bold Iniquity!
Shall men, on whose fine brows we recognize
The lines of some great ducal effigies,
Which frown along St. John's cathedral aisles,
With hearts as high as any of their fathers,
Sink silent under thy slow martyrdom,
Leaving their children, Liberty's just heirs,
Children like those that Gianbellini painted,
To batten on the miserable alms,
The sordid fragments of their country's wealth,
Doled out by servants of a stranger king?

Is there no engine of compassionate Death,
Which with a rapid mercy will relieve
This ancient city of its shamèd being?
Is War so weary that he cannot strike
One iron blow, that she may fold her robe
About her head, and fall imperially?
Is there no eager earthquake far below,
To shiver her frail limbs, and hurl her down
Into the bosom of her mated sea?
Or must she, for a lapse of wretched years,
Armless and heartless, tremble on as now,
Like one who hears the tramp of murderous foes,
Unseen, and feels them nearer, nearer still;—
Till round her Famine's pestilential breath,
Fatally closing, to the gloom of Time,
She shall, in quivering agony, give up
The spirit of that light, which burnt so long,
A stedfast glory, an unfailing fire?
Thus ran the darkling current of my thoughts,
As one sad night, from the Rialto's edge,
I looked into the waters,—on whose face
Glimmered the reflex of some few faint stars,
And two far-flitting lamps of gondoliers,
That seemed on that black flat to move alone,
While, on each side, each well-known building lost
Its separate beauty in one dark long curve.

The Venetian Pantheon of S. Giovanni e Paolo.

e.g. In the refectories of the Redentore and Frari.

V.

City, whose name did once adorn the world,
Thou might'st have been all that thou ever wert,
In form and feature and material strength,
Up from the sea, which is thy pedestal,
Unto thy Campanile's golden top,
And yet have never won the precious crown,
To be the loved of human hearts, to be
The wise man's treasure now and evermore.—
Th' ingenious boldness, the creative will,
Which from some weak uncertain plots of sand,
Cast up among the waters, could erect
Foundations firm as on the central ground,—
The art which changed thy huts to palaces,
And bade the God of Ocean's temples rise
Conspicuous far above the crystal plain,—
The ever-active nerve of Industry,
That bound the Orient to the Occident
In fruitful commerce, till thy lap was filled
With wealth, the while thy head was girt with power;
Each have their separate palm from wondering men,
But the sage thinker's passion must have source
In sympathy entire with that rare spirit
Which did possess thee, as thy very life,—
That power of union and self-sacrifice,

Which from the proud republics of old time
Devolved upon thee, by a perfect faith
Strung to a tenfold deeper energy.
Within thy people's mind immutable
Two notions held associate monarchy,
Religion and the State,—to which alone,
In their full freedom, they declared themselves
Subject, and deemed this willing servitude
Their dearest privilege of liberty.
Thus at the call of either sacred cause,
All wealth, all feelings, all peculiar rights,
Were made one universal holocaust,
Without a thought of pain,—thus all thy sons
Bore thee a love, not vague and hard defined,
But close and personal, a love no force
Could take away, no coldness could assuage.
Thus when the noble body of Italy,
Which God has bound in one by Alps and sea,
Was struggling with torn heart and splintered limbs,
So that the very marrow of her strength
Mixed with the lavished gore and oozed away,—
Town banded against town, street against street,
House against house, and father against son,
The servile victims of unmeaning feuds,—
Thou didst sustain the wholeness of thy power,—
Thy altar was as a domestic hearth,
Round which thy children sat in brotherhood;—
Never was name of Guelf or Ghibelline

Writ on thy front in letters of bright blood;
Never the stranger, for his own base ends,
Flattered thy passions, or by proffered gold
Seduced the meanest of thy citizens.—
Thus too the very sufferers of thy wrath,
Whom the unsparing prudence of the state,
For erring judgment, insufficient zeal,
Or heavier fault, had banished from its breast,
Even they, when came on thee thy hour of need,
Fell at thy feet and prayed, with humble tears,
That thou wouldst deign at least to use their wealth,
Though thou didst scorn the gift of their poor lives.

Prime model of a Christian commonwealth!
Thou wise simplicity, which present men
Calumniate, not conceiving,—joy is mine,
That I have read and learnt thee as I ought,
Not in the crude compiler's painted shell,
But in thine own memorials of live stone,
And in the pictures of thy kneeling princes,
And in the lofty words on lofty tombs,
And in the breath of ancient chroniclers,
And in the music of the outer sea.

As in the instance of Antonio Grimani, who was living in exile at Rome at the time of the league of Cambray. He had been condemned for some error in fighting against the Turks. When Venice was in distress, he offered all his private fortune to the state. After her victory he was not only recalled, but elected Doge some years later.

THE VENETIAN SERENADE.

When along the light ripple the far serenade
Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid,
She may open the window that looks on the stream,—
She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream;
Half in words, half in music, it pierces the gloom,
“I am coming—Stalì—but you know not for whom!
Stalì—not for whom!”

Now the tones become clearer,—you hear more and more
How the water divided returns on the oar,—
Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair?
Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare?
Oh! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view,
“I am passing—Premì—but I stay not for you!
Premì—not for you!”

Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear,
Then awake not, fair sleeper—believe he is here;

For the young and the loving no sorrow endures,
If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours;—
May, the next time you listen, your fancy be true,
“I am coming—Sciàr—and for you and to you!
Sciàr—and to you!”

[_]

The Venetian words here used are the calls of the gondoliers, indicating the direction in which they are rowing. Sciare is to stop the boat.

FROM GÖTHE.

Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,
And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;
Thus on the Great Canal through life we are swaying and swimming
Onward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.

A DREAM IN A GONDOLA.

I had a dream of waters: I was borne
Fast down the slimy tide
Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn
Stretched out on either side,—
Save where from time to time arose
Red Pyramids, like flames in forced repose,
And Sphynxes gazed, vast countenances bland,
Athwart that river-sea and sea of sand.

It is the nature of the Life of Dream,
To make all action of our mental springs,
Howe'er unnatural, discrepant, and strange,
Be as the unfolding of most usual things;
And thus to me no wonder did there seem,
When, by a subtle change,
The heavy ample byblus-wingèd boat,
In which I lay afloat,
Became a deft canoe, light-wove
Of painted bark, gay-set with lustrous shells,
Faintingly rocked within a lonesome cove,
Of some rich island where the Indian dwells;
Below, the water's pure white light
Took colour from reflected blooms,

And, through the forest's deepening glooms,
Birds of illuminated plumes
Came out like stars in summer night:
And close beside, all fearless and serene,
Within a niche of drooping green,
A girl, with limbs fine-rounded and clear-brown,
And hair thick-waving down,
Advancing one small foot, in beauty stood,
Trying the temper of the lambent flood.

But on my spirit in that spicèd air
Embalmed, and in luxurious senses drowned,
Another change of sweet and fair
There passed, and of the scene around
Nothing remained the same in sight or sound:
For now the Wanderer of my dream
Was gliding down a fable-stream
Of long-dead Hellas, with much treasure
Of inworking thoughtful pleasure;
While the silver line meanders
Through the tall pink oleanders,
Through the wood of tufted rushes,
Through the arbute's ruby-bushes,
Voices of a happy hymn
Every moment grow less dim,
Till at last the slim caïque
(Hollowed from a single stem
Of a hill-brow's diadem)

Rests in a deep-dented creek
Myrtle-ambushed,—and above
Songs, the very breath of Love,
Stream from Temples reverend-old,
Porticoes of Doric mould,
Snow-white islands of devotion,
Planted in the rose and gold
Of the evening's æther-ocean;—
O joyant Earth! belovèd Grecian sky!
O favoured Wanderer—honoured dreamer I!

Yet not less favoured when awake,—for now,
Across my torpid brow
Swept a cool current of the young night's air,
With a sharp kiss, and there
Was I all clear awake,—drawn soft along
There in my own dear Gondola, among
The bright-eyed Venice isles,
Lit up in constant smiles.—
What had my thoughts and heart to do
With wild Egyptain bark, or frail canoe,
Or mythic skiff out of Saturnian days,
When I was there, with that rare scene to praise,
That Gondola to rest in and enjoy,
That actual bliss to taste without alloy?

Cradler of placid pleasures, deep delights,
Bosomer of the Poet's wearied mind,

Tempter from vulgar passions, scorns and spites,
Enfolder of all feelings that be kind!
Before our souls thy quiet motions spread,
In one great calm, one undivided plain,
Immediate joy, blest memories of the dead,
And iris-tinted forms of hope's domain,
Child of the still Lagoons!
Open to every show
Of summer sunsets and autumnal moons,
Such as no other space of world can know,—
Dear Boat, that makest dear
Whatever thou com'st near,—
In thy repose still let me gently roam,
Still on thy couch of beauty find a home;
Still let me share thy comfortable peace
With all I have of dearest upon Earth,
Friend, mistress, sister; and when death's release
Shall call my spirit to another birth,
Would that I might thus lightly lapse away,
Alone,—by moonlight,—in a Gondola.

ON THE MAD-HOUSE AT VENICE.

“I looked and saw between us and the sun
A building on an island, such an one
As age to age might add, for uses vile,
A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile;
And on the top an open tower, where hung
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung,—
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue;
The broad sun sank behind it, and it tolled
In strong and black relief. ‘What we behold
Shall be the Madhouse and its belfry tower,’
Said Maddalo.”
Shelley.

Honour aright the philosophic thought,
That they who, by the trouble of the brain
Or heart, for usual life are overwrought,
Hither should come to discipline their pain.
A single convent on a shoaly plain
Of waters never changing their dull face
But by the sparkles of thick-falling rain
Or lines of puny waves,—such is the place.
Strong medicine enters by the ear and eye;
That low unaltering dash against the wall
May lull the angriest dream to vacancy;
And Melancholy, finding nothing strange,
For her poor self to jar upon at all,
Frees her sad-centred thoughts, and gives them pleasant range.

TO ---

WRITTEN AT VENICE.

Not only through the golden haze
Of indistinct surprise,
With which the Ocean-bride displays
Her pomp to stranger eyes;—
Not with the fancy's flashing play,
The traveller's vulgar theme,
Where following objects chase away
The moment's dazzling dream;—

Not thus art thou content to see
The City of my love,—
Whose beauty is a thought to me
All mortal thoughts above;
And pass in dull unseemly haste,
Nor sight nor spirit clear,
As if the first bewildering taste
Were all the banquet here!

When the proud Sea, for Venice' sake,
Itself consents to wear
The semblance of a land-locked lake,
Inviolably fair;
And in the dalliance of her Isles,
Has levelled his strong waves,
Adoring her with tenderer wiles,
Than his own pearly caves,—

Surely may we to similar calm
Our noisy lives subdue,
And bare our bosoms to such balm
As God has given to few;
Surely may we delight to pause
On our care-goaded road,
Refuged from Time's most bitter laws
In this august abode.

Thou knowest this,—thou lingerest here,
Rejoicing to remain;
The plashing oars fall on thy ear
Like a familiar strain;
No wheel prolongs its weary roll,
The Earth itself goes round
Slower than elsewhere, and thy soul
Dreams in the void of sound.

Thy heart, by Nature's discipline,
From all disdain refined,
Kept open to be written in
By good of every kind,
Can harmonise its inmost sense
To every outward tone,
And bring to all experience
High reasoning of its own.

So, when these forms come freely out,
And wonder is gone by,
With patient skill it sets about
Its subtle work of joy;
Connecting all it comprehends
By lofty moods of love,—
The earthly Present's farthest ends,—
The Past's deep Heaven above.

O bliss! to watch, with half-shut lid,
By many a secret place,
Where darkling loveliness is hid,
And undistinguished grace,
To mark the gloom, by slow degrees,
Exfoliate, till the whole
Shines forth before our sympathies,
A soul that meets a soul!

Come out upon the broad Lagoon,
Come for the hundredth time,—
Our thoughts shall make a pleasant tune,
Our words a worthy rhyme;
And thickly round us we will set
Such visions as were seen,
By Tizian and by Tintorett,
And dear old Giambellin,—

And all their peers in art, whose eyes,
Taught by this sun and sea,
Flashed on their works those burning dyes,
That fervent poetry;
And wove the shades so thinly-clear
They would be parts of light
In northern climes, where frowns severe
Mar half the charms of sight.—

Did ever shape that Paolo drew
Put on such brilliant tire,
As Nature, in this evening view,—
This world of tinted fire?
The glory into whose embrace,
The virgin pants to rise,
Is but reflected from the face
Of these Venetian skies.

The sun, beneath the horizon's brow
Has sunk, not passed away;
His presence is far lordlier now
Than on the throne of day;
His spirit of splendour has gone forth,
Sloping wide violet rays,
Possessing air and sea and earth
With his essential blaze.

Transpierced, transfused, each densest mass
Melts to as pure a glow,
As images on painted glass
Or silken screens can show.
Gaze on the city,—contemplate
With that fine sense of thine
The Palace of the ancient state,—
That wildly-grand design!

How 'mid the universal sheen
Of marble amber-tinged,
Like some enormous baldaquin
Gay-chequered and deep-fringed,

It stands in air and will not move,
Upheld by magic power,—
The dun-lead Domes just caught above—
Beside,—the glooming Tower.

Now a more distant beauty fills
Thy scope of ear and eye,—
That graceful cluster of low hills,
Bounding the western sky,
Which the ripe evening flushes cover
With purplest fruitage-bloom,—
Methinks that gold-lipt cloud may hover
Just over Petrarch's tomb!

Petrarch! when we that name repeat,
Its music seems to fall
Like distant bells, soft-voiced and sweet,
But sorrowful withal;—
That broken heart of love!—that life
Of tenderness and tears!
So weak on earth,—in earthly strife,—
So strong in holier spheres!

How in his most of godlike pride,
While emulous nations ran
To kiss his feet, he stept aside
And wept the woes of man!

How in his genius-woven bower
Of passion ever green,
The world's black veil fell, hour by hour,
Him and his rest between.

Welcome such thoughts;—they well atone
With this more serious mood
Of visible things that night brings on,
In her cool shade to brood;
The moon is clear in heaven and sea,
Her silver has been long
Slow-changing to bright gold, but she
Deserves a separate song.

The perfect transparency and rich colour of all objects, and their reflections, in southern countries, for some short time after sunset, has an almost miraculous effect to a northern eye. Whenever it has been imitated in art, it has been generally pronounced unnatural or exaggerated. I do not remember to have ever seen the phenomenon so astonishingly beautiful as a Venice, at least in Italy.

TO THE MOON OF THE SOUTH.

Let him go down,—the gallant Sun!
His work is nobly done;
Well may He now absorb
Within his solid orb
The rays so beautiful and strong,
The rays that have been out so long
Embracing this delighted land as with a mystic song.

Let the brave Sun go down to his repose,
And though his heart be kind,
He need not mourn for those
He leaves behind;
He knows, that when his ardent throne
Is rolled beyond the vaulting sky,
The Earth shall not be left alone
In darkness and perplexity.

We shall not sit in sullen sorrow
Expectant of a tardy morrow,
But there where he himself arose,
Another power shall rise,
And gracious rivalry disclose
To our reverted eyes,

Between the passing splendour and the born,
Which can the most our happy world adorn.

The light of night shall rise,—
Not as in northern skies,
A memory of the day, a dream
Of sunshine, something that might seem
Between a shadow and a gleam,
A mystery, a maiden
Whose spirit worn and sorrow laden
Pleasant imaginations wile
Into a visionary smile,
A novice veiled in vapoury shrouds,
A timid huntress, whom the clouds
Rather pursue than shun,—
With far another mien,
Wilt Thou come forth serene,
Thou full and perfect Queen,
Moon of the South! twin-sister of the Sun!

Still harboured in his tent of cloth of gold
He seems thy ordered presence to await,
In his pure soul rejoicing to behold
The majesty of his successor's state,—
Saluting thy ascent
With many a tender and triumphant tone
Compassing in his celestial instrument,
And harmonies of hue to other climes unknown.

He, too, who knows what melody of word
May with that visual music best accord,
Why does the Bard his homage now delay?
As in the ancient East,
The royal Minstrel-Priest
Sang to his harp that Hallelujah lay
Of the Sun-bridegroom ready for his way,
So, in the regions of the later West
This blessed even-tide,
Is there no Poet whose divine behest
Shall be to hail the bride?

A feeble voice may give an earnest sound,
And grateful hearts are measured not by power,
Therefore may I, tho' nameless and uncrowned,
Proffer a friendly tribute to thy dower.
For on the midland Sea I sailed of old,
Leading thy line of narrow rippled light,
And saw it grow a field of frosted gold,
With every boat a Shadow in the Bright;
And many a playful fancy has been mine,
As I have watched the shapes thy glory made,
Glimpsing like starlight through the massive pine,
Or finely-trellised by mimosa shade;
And now I trace each moment of thy spell,
That frees from mortal stain these Venice isles,
From eve's rich shield to morn's translucid shell,
From Love's young glow to Love's expiring smiles!

We gaze upon the faces we hold dear,
Each feature in thy rays as well defined,
As just a symbol of informing mind,
As when the moon is on them full and clear;
Yet all some wise attempered and subdued,
Not far from what to Faith's prospective eyes
Transfigured creatures of beatitude
From earthly graves arise.

Those evenings, oh! those evenings, when with one,
Then the world's loveliness, now wholly mine,
I stood beside the salient founts that shone
Fit frontispiece to Peter's Roman shrine;
I knew how fair were She and They
In every bright device of day,
All happy as a lark on wing,
A singing, glistening, dancing thing,
With joy and grace that seemed to be
Of Nature's pure necessity;
But when, O holy Moon! thy might
Turned all the water into light,
And each enchanted Fountain wore
Diviner beauty than before,
A pillar of aspiring beams,
An ever-falling veil of gleams,—
She who in day's most lively hour
Had something of composing power
About her mirthful lips and eyes,—

Sweet folly making others wise,—
Was vested with a sudden sense
Of great and grave intelligence,
As if in thy reflex she saw
The process of eternal law,
God's conscious pleasure working out
Through all the Passion, Pain, and Doubt;—
And thus did She and Thou impart
Such knowledge to my listening heart,
Such sympathies as word or pen
Can never tell again!

All spirits find themselves fulfilled in Thee,
The glad have triumph and the mourning balm:
Dear God! how wondrous that a thing should be
So very glorious and so very calm!
The lover, standing on a lonely height,
Rests his sad gaze upon the scene below,
Lapt in the trance of thy pervading glow,
Till pleasant tears obscure his pensive sight;
And in his bosom those long-smothered flames,
The scorching elements of vain desire,
Taking the nature of thy gentle fire,
Play round the heart in peace, while he exclaims,
“Surely my Love is out somewhere to-night!”

Why art thou thus companionable? Why
Do we not love thy light alone, but Thee?

Is it that though thou art so pure and high,
Thou dost not shock our senses, as they be?
That our poor eyes rest on thee, and descry
Islands of earth within thy golden sea?
Or should the root be sought
In some unconscious thought,
That thy fine presence is not more thine own
Than are our soul's adorning splendours ours?—
Than are the energies and powers,
With which reflected light alone
Illuminates the living hours,
From our own wells of being brought,
From virtue self-infused or seed of life self-sown?
Thus with ascent more ready may we pass
From this delightful sharing of thy gifts
Up to the common Giver, Source, and Will;
And if, alas!
His daily-affluent sun-light seldom lifts
To thankful ecstasy our hearts' dull mass,
It may be that our feeble sight
Will not confront the total light,
That we may love, in nature frail,
To blend the vivid with the pale,
The dazzling with the dim:
And lo! how God, all-gracious still
Our simplest fancies to fulfil,
Bids us, O Southern Moon, thy beauty hail,
In Thee rejoicing and adoring Him.

PICTURES IN VERSE.

I. PICTURE BY GIOV. BELLINI, IN THE CHURCH OF THE REDENTORE AT VENICE.

THE VIRGIN.
Who am I, to be so far exalted
Over all the maidens of Judæa,
That here only in this lonely bosom
Is the wonder-work of God revealèd?
Oh! to think this little, little infant,
Whose warm limbs upon my knees are resting,
Helpless, silent, with his tender eyelids,
Like two pearl-shells, delicately closèd,
Is informed with that eternal spirit,
Who, between the Cherubim enthronèd,
Dwells behind the Curtain of the Temple!
I can only gaze on him adoring,
Fearful lest the simple joy and passion
Which my mother-love awakes within me,
Be not something bold and too familiar
For this Child of Miracle and Glory.

100

TWO ANGELS.
(PLAYING ON INSTRUMENTS.)
We and the little cheerful goldfinch,
Perched above that blessèd seat,—
He above and we below,—
We with voices and sweet viols,
He with chirping voice alone,—
Glorify the happy Mother,
Glorify the holy Child.
Now that our great heavenly Master
Has put on this wondrous semblance
Of a humble mortal infant,
We, the Angels of his presence,
Are become as simple children,
And beside him watch, admiring
All his innocence and beauty,
Lulling him to downy slumbers
With remembrances of Heaven.

THE CHILD JESUS.
I seem to be asleep,—I seem to dream,—
But it is Ye, Children of fallen Man,
Who dream, not I. Though I am now come down,
Out of the Waking of Eternal Truth,

101

Here born into the miserable Dream
Of your poor Life, still I must ever wake,
For I am Love, and if ye follow me,
Ye too will wake;—I come to lead the way.

II. THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. CHRISTINA,

BY VINCENZO CATENA, IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA MATER DOMINI, AT VENICE.

ST. CHRISTINA.
(KNEELING.)
I knew, I knew, it would be so,
That, in this long-expected hour,
Thou would'st not leave me, Christ, my Lord!
My poor blind-hearted enemies
Have brought me here to die,—even here,
In this my old delight, the Lake
Of dear Bolsena; they have tied
About my weak and slender neck
A ponderous millstone, that my frame
May be dragged down to surest death
Within that undulating tomb.
The stone is there,—the cord is there,

102

But the gross weight I cannot feel,
For round me, even while I pray,
Beautiful-wingèd childly shapes
Are gathering, smiling glorious smiles.
With what deep looks of sympathy
They dwell upon me! with what care
Some raise the cord, some raise the stone,
So that it cannot sway me down.
O my soul's lover! Saviour Christ! take this earnest of thy grace,
Assured that I shall lay aside
The coil of this tormented flesh,
Without a thought of fear or pain,—
That, when this mortal shell is cast
Into the stifling element,
That instrument of my distress
Will, at thy blessèd will, be changed
Into the very air of Heaven.

CHORUS OF ANGELS.
Sister Christine, sweetest Sister,
Know you not from whom we come?
See, we kneel around you kneeling,
Offering kind and loving duty,
All we can to soothe your suffering,

103

All we can to make you glad!
Ah! we see you look with wonder,
That our small and tender hands
Can raise up this heavy stone,
Without show of pain or labour:
Do you believe then,
That, because our long gold hair,
And our rosy-rounded faces,
And our laughing lips and eyes,
And our baby-moulded limbs
Are like those of earthly children,
We have not the strength, the glory, and the power,
Which our Father gives unto his dear ones,—
Which he will give to you, most happy Christine,
For you have loved him?

CHRIST.
(ABOVE, SPEAKING TO AN ANGEL.)
Angel! to thee is given the noble charge
To bear this martyr-mantle perfect-white
To my dear daughter Christine there below;
That she, when clothed thus worthily, may pass
From the hard triumph of her prison-life
To the embraces of essential Love.

104

ANGEL.
(KNEELING, AND HOLDING THE MANTLE.)
Burning with delight, I haste
This high mission to perform,—
But it is an awful task,
Even for an Angel's hands,
Such a power of God to hold,
As the sign of Martyrdom.

III. JESUS AND JOHN CONTENDING FOR THE CROSS.

BY SIMEONE DA PESARO; IN THE COLLECTION OF THE SEMINARY AT VENICE.

THE CHILD JOHN.
(TRYING TO TAKE THE CROSS OUT OF THE HAND OF JESUS
Give me the Cross, I pray you, dearest Jesus!
Oh! if you knew how much I wish to have it,
You would not hold it in your hand so tightly:
Something has told me,—something in my heart here,
Which I am sure is true,—that if you keep it,—
If you will let no other take it from you,—

105

Terrible things, I cannot bear to think of,
Must fall upon you; show me that you love me:
Am I not here to be your little servant,
Follow your steps and wait upon your wishes?
Why may I not take up the heavy plaything,
And on my shoulder carry it behind you?
Then, I am older, stronger too, than you are;
I am a child o' the desert and the mountains;—
Deep i' the waste, I shouted at the wild bees,—
They flew away, and left me all the honey:
Look at the shaggy skin I've tied about me;
Surely, if Pain or any other evil
Somewhere about this mystery be hidden,
I am the fittest of the two to suffer!

THE CHILD JESUS.
(HOLDING THE CROSS FIRMLY.)
Ask me not, my gentle brother,—ask no more, it must not be:
In the heart of this poor trifle lies the secret unrevealed
Which has brought me to this world, and sent you to prepare my way.
In the long and weary woodland, where your path of life will lead,

106

Thousand, myriad, other Crosses you will find on every side;
And the same eternal Law that bids me take this chiefest one,
Will be there to give you many, grievous as your strength can bear;
But in vain would you and others sink beneath the holy load,
Were I not with mine before you, Captain of the Crucified;
I must be your elder Brother in the heritage of Pain;
I must give you to our Father,—I must fall for you to rise.

THE VIRGIN.
(WITH HER HAND ON THE CROSS.)

My soul is weak with doubt,—
What can I think or do?
To which of these dear children shall I yield
The object of their earnest looks and words?

Ah me! I see within
That artless wooden form,
A meaning of exceeding misery,
A dark, dark shadow of oncoming woe.

107

Oh! give it up, my child!
I see your bright eyes close,
Your soft fair fingers spattered all with blood,
Your cheeks dead pale;—throw down the horrid toy.

He grasps it firmer still!
I dare not thwart his hand;
For what he does, he does not of himself,
But in the Will of Him who sent him here.

And I, who labour blind
In this abysmal work,
Must bear the weight of dumb expectancy,
Of women first in honour and in woe!

IV. CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO PURGATORY.

BY GIORGIONE, AT VENICE.

The saving work for man is finishèd,
The kingdoms of the Earth and Air o'erthrown;
So now hath Christ come down among the dead,
Spoiling the Spoiler, to redeem his own.
What blessèd glory plays about that head
For those who here in fiery bondage groan,

108

Conscious their suffering never could atone
For Sin, till He that once had sufferèd.
And, lo! in patient melancholy state
The synod of the Patriarchs rests apart
Condemned, tho' sons of God by faith, to wait
In this dark place and solitude of heart,
Joyless and tearless, till this Christ should come
To bear them to their Father and their Home.

109

SIR WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN ST. PETER'S.

Eve's tinted shadows slowly fill the fane
Where Art has taken almost Nature's room,
While still two objects clear in light remain,
An alien pilgrim at an alien tomb.—

—A sculptured tomb of regal heads discrown'd,
Of one heart-worshipped, fancy-haunted, name,
Once loud on earth, but now scarce else renown'd
Than as the offspring of that stranger's fame.

There lie the Stuarts!—There lingers Walter Scott!
Strange congress of illustrious thoughts and things!
A plain old moral, still too oft forgot,—
The power of Genius and the fall of Kings.

The curse on lawless Will high-planted there,
A beacon to the world, shines not for him;
He is with those who felt their life was sere,
When the full light of loyalty grew dim.

110

He rests his chin upon a sturdy staff,
Historic as that sceptre, theirs no more;
His gaze is fixed; his thirsty heart can quaff,
For a short hour, the spirit-draughts of yore.

Each figure in its pictured place is seen,
Each fancied shape his actual vision fills,
From the long-pining, death-delivered, Queen,
To the worn Outlaw of the heathery hills.

O grace of life, which shame could never mar!
O dignity, that circumstance defied!
Pure is the neck that wears the deathly scar,
And sorrow has baptised the front of pride.

But purpled mantle, and blood-crimson'd shroud,
Exiles to suffer and returns to woo,
Are gone, like dreams by daylight disallow'd;
And their historian,—he is sinking too!

A few more moments and that labouring brow
Cold as those royal busts and calm will lie;
And, as on them his thoughts are resting now,
His marbled form will meet the attentive eye.

Thus, face to face, the dying and the dead,
Bound in one solemn ever-living bond,
Communed; and I was sad that ancient head
Ever should pass those holy walls beyond.

When Sir Walter Scott was at Rome, the year of his death, the history and localities of the Stuarts seemed to absorb all other objects of his interest. The circumstance of this poem fell within the observation of the writer.

111

THE ILLUMINATIONS OF ST. PETER'S.

I. FIRST ILLUMINATION.

Temple! where Time has wed Eternity,
How beautiful Thou art, beyond compare,
Now emptied of thy massive majesty,
And made so faery-frail, so faery-fair:
The lineaments that thou art wont to wear
Augustly traced in ponderous masonry,
Lie faint as in a woof of filmy air,
Within their frames of mellow jewelry.—
But yet how sweet the hardly-waking sense,
That when the strength of hours has quenched those gems,
Disparted all those soft-bright diadems,—
Still in the Sun thy form will rise supreme
In its own solid clear magnificence,
Divinest substance then, as now divinest dream.

112

II. SECOND ILLUMINATION.

My heart was resting with a peaceful gaze,
So peaceful that it seemed I well could die
Entranced before such Beauty,—when a cry
Burst from me, and I sunk in dumb amaze:
The molten stars before a withering blaze
Paled to annihilation, and my eye,
Stunned by the splendour, saw against the sky
Nothing but light,—sheer light,—and light's own haze.
At last that giddying Sight took form,—and then
Appeared the stable Vision of a Crown,
From the black vault by unseen Power let down,
Cross-topped,—thrice girt with flame:—Cities of men,
Queens of the Earth! bow low,—was ever brow
Of mortal birth adorned as Rome is now?

113

III. REFLECTION.

Past is the first dear phantom of our sight,
A loadstar of calm loveliness to draw
All souls from out this world of fault and flaw,
To a most perfect centre of delight,
Merged in deep fire;—our joy is turned to awe,
Delight to wonder. This is just and right;—
A greater light puts out the lesser light,—
So be it ever,—such is God's high law.
The self-same Sun that calls the flowers from earth
Withers them soon, to give the fruit free birth;—
The nobler Spirit to whom much is given
Must take still more, though in that more there lie
The risk of losing All;—to gaze at Heaven,
We blind our earthly eyes;—to live we die.

Translated by C. J. M`C.—

Tempio! che'l ciel con quest' angusto mondo
E 'l tempo coll' eternità mariti,
Di quai bellezze nuove il viso inondo
Or che mite e fral tu lo sguardo inviti!
Sorridòn sciolti sotto vel profondo
Quei tratti già da fermo sasso uniti,
Tela di luce sol ti fa giocondo,—
Sol di gemme, di fiamma, e' son vestiti.
Eppur che gioia nel pensier segreto
Che quando l' avide Ore e l' invidioso
Sol spegneran quel fregio, or si pomposo,
Tu non perciò vedrai a te rovina,
Ma sempre stai eterno e chiaro e lieto,
Or divin sogno, or realtà divina!

114

THE FIREWORKS.

FROM THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.

Play on, play on, I share your gorgeous glee,
Creatures of elemental mirth! play on,—
Let each fulfil his marvellous destiny,
My heart leaps up and falls in unison.
The Tower round which ye weave, with elfin grace,
The modulations of your burning dance,
Looks through your gambols with a grandsire's face,
A grave but not reproachful countenance;
Ye are the children of a festive night,
He is the mate of many an hundred years,—
Ye but attest men's innocent delight,
He is the comrade of their crimes and tears,—
Ye in your joy's pure prime will flare away,
He waits his end in still and slow decay.

115

ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE LADY GWENDOLIN TALBOT WITH THE ELDEST SON OF THE PRINCE BORGHESE.

Lady! to decorate thy marriage morn,
Rare gems, and flowers, and lofty songs are brought;
Thou the plain utterance of a Poet's thought,
Thyself at heart a Poet, wilt not scorn:
The name, into whose splendour thou wert born,
Thou art about to change for that which stands
Writ on the proudest work that mortal hands
Have raised from earth, Religion to adorn.
Take it rejoicing,—take with thee thy dower,
Britain's best blood, and Beauty ever new,
Being of mind; may the cool northern dew
Still rest upon thy leaves, transplanted flower!
Mingling thy English nature, pure and true,
With the bright growth of each Italian hour.

Rome, May 11th, 1835.

St. Peter's.

116

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS BORGHESE,

AT ROME, NOVEMBER, 1840.

Once, and but once again I dare to raise
A voice which thou in spirit still may'st hear,
Now that thy bridal bed becomes a bier,
Now that thou canst not blush at thine own praise!
The ways of God are not as our best ways,
And thus we ask, with a convulsive tear,
Why is this northern blossom low and sere?
Why has it blest the south but these few days?
Another Basilic, decked otherwise
Than that which hailed thee as a princely bride,
Receives thee and three little ones beside;
While the young lord of that late glorious home
Stands 'mid these ruins and these agonies,
Like some lone column of his native Rome!

S. Maria Maggiore, where the Borghese family are interred.

117

ROMAN RUINS.

How could Rome live so long, and now be dead?
How came this waste and wilderness of stones?
How shows the orbèd monster, so long fed
On martyr-blood, his bare and crumbling bones?
Did the strong Faith, that built eight hundred years
Of world-dominion on a robber's name,
Once animate this corse, and fervent seers
Augur it endless life and shadeless fame?
Stranger! if thou a docile heart dost bring
Within thee, bear a timely precept hence;
That Power, mere Power, is but a barren thing,
Even when it seems most like omnipotence;
The forms must pass,—and past, they leave behind
Little to please, and nought to bless mankind.

118

ON A SCENE IN TUSCANY.

What good were it to dim the pleasure-glow,
That lights thy cheek, fair Girl, in scenes like these,
By shameful facts, and piteous histories?
While we enjoy, what matters what we know?
What tender love-sick looks on us below
Those Mountains cast! how courteously the Trees
Raise up their branching heads in calices
For the thick Vine to fill and overflow!
This nature is like Thee, all-bright, all-mild;
If then some self-wise man should say, that here
Hate, sin, and death held rule for many a year,
That of this kindliest earth there's not a rood
But has been saturate with brother's blood,—
Believe him not, believe him not, my Child.

119

AN INCIDENT AT PISA.

“From the common burial-ground
Mark'd by some peculiar bound,
Beppo! who are these that lie
Like one numerous family?”

“They whose bodies rest within
This appointed place,
Signor! never knew of sin,
Only knew of grace.
Purified from earthly leaven,
They have mounted straight to heaven,
Without sorrow, without thrall,
Blessed children, angels all!”

“But that second space, with art
Fenc'd from all the rest apart,
Though from those sweet infants' bed
By a low wall separated—
Beppo! who are these, and why
To the others laid so nigh?”

120

“Signor! they who moulder here,
Be it wrong or right,
Shake with many a pang of fear
Passers-by at night:
Men of passion, vice, and pride,
Who in evil liv'd and died,
Unrepentant, unconfess'd,
By the sacraments unbless'd;
Though with these are mingled some
That deserv'd a better doom,
When by sudden death waylaid,
Ere their peace with God was made:
But why they who guiltless die
By those reprobates should lie,
Signor! the priest may know, not I.”

In these words the truth discerning,
Much I ponder'd, home returning,
Whether chance or wise design
Drew this thin dividing line,
Almost blending in this close
Old decay and young repose;
Almost laying side by side
Those who hardly liv'd and died,
And the wretched ones for whom
Life has been a very tomb.

Oh! if in our utmost need
Love has power to intercede—

121

If between us and our foes
Innocence may interpose—
May not they, who dare not claim
Pardon in the church's name,
By some sweet and secret law
From these little neighbours draw
Blessings such as nature gave
To the angel-ruffled wave;
Finding a Bethesda's worth
In this angel-planted earth?

122

NAPLES AND VENICE.

Overlooking, overhearing, Naples and her subject bay,
Stands Camaldoli, the convent, shaded from the inclement ray.

Thou, who to that lofty terrace, lov'st on summer-eve to go,
Tell me, Poet! what Thou seest,—what Thou hearest, there below!

Beauty, beauty, perfect beauty! Sea and City, Hills and Air,
Rather blest imaginations than realities of fair.

Forms of grace alike contenting casual glance and stedfast gaze,
Tender lights of pearl and opal mingling with the diamond blaze.

Sea is but as deepen'd æther: white as snow-wreaths sunbeshone
Lean the Palaces and Temples green and purple heights upon.

123

Streets and paths mine eye is tracing, all replete with clamorous throng,
Where I see and where I see not, waves of uproar roll along.

As the sense of bees unnumber'd, burning through the walk of limes,—
As the thought of armies gathering round a chief in ancient times,—

So from Corso, Port, and Garden, rises Life's tumultuous strain,
Not secure from wildest utterance rests the perfect-crystal main.

Still the all-enclosing Beauty keeps my spirit free from harm,
Distance blends the veriest discords into some melodious charm.

—Overlooking, overhearing, Venice and her sister isles,
Stands the giant Campanile massive 'mid a thousand piles.

Thou who to this open summit lov'st at every hour to go,
Tell me, Poet! what Thou seest, what Thou hearest, there below.

124

Wonder, wonder, perfect wonder! Ocean is the City's moat;
On the bosom of broad Ocean seems the mighty weight to float:

Seems—yet stands as strong and stable as on land e'er city shall,—
Only moves that Ocean-serpent, tide-impelled the Great Canal.

Rich arcades and statued pillars, gleaming banners, burnished domes,—
Ships approaching,—ships departing,—countless ships in harbour-homes.

Yet so silent! scarce a murmur winged to reach this airy seat,
Hardly from the close Piazza rises sound of voice or feet.

Plash of oar or single laughter,—cry or song of Gondolier,—
Signals far between to tell me that the work of life is here.

Like a glorious maiden dreaming music in the drowsy heat,
Lies the City, unbetokening where its myriad pulses beat.

125

And I think myself in cloudland,—almost try my power of will,
Whether I can change the picture, or it must be Venice still.

When the question wakes within me, which hath won the crown of deed,
Venice with her moveless silence, Naples with her noisy speed?

Which hath writ the goodlier tablet for the past to hoard and show,
Venice in her student stillness, Naples in her living glow?

Here are Chronicles with virtues studded as the night with stars,—
Records there of passions raging through a wilderness of wars:

There a tumult of Ambitions, Power afloat on blood and tears,—
Here one simple reign of Wisdom stretching thirteen hundred years:

Self-subsisting, self-devoted, there the moment's Hero ruled,—
Here the State, each one subduing, pride enchained and passion schooled:

126

Here was Art the nation's mistress, Art of colour, Art of stone—
There before the leman Pleasure bowed the people's soul alone.

Venice! vocal is thy silence, can our soul but rightly hear;
Naples! dumb as death thy voices, listen we however near.

127

CANNÆ.

Save where Garganus, with low-ridgèd bound,
Protects the North, the eye outstretching far
Surveys one sea of gently-swelling ground,
A fitly-moulded “Orchestra of War.”

Here Aufidus, between his humble banks
With wild thyme plotted, winds along the plain,
A devious path, as when the serried ranks
Passed over it, that passed not back again.

The long-horned herds enjoy the cool delight,
Sleeping half-merged, to shun the deep sun-glow,
Which, that May-morning, dazed the Roman sight,
But fell innocuous on the subtler foe.

We feel the wind upon our bosoms beat,
That whilom dimmed with dust those noble eyes,
And rendered aimless many a gallant feat,
And brought disgrace on many a high emprise.

128

And close beside us rests the ancient well,
Where at the end of that accursed day,
Apulian peasants to their grandsons tell,
The friend and follower of wise Fabius lay;

Here fainting lay, compelled by fate to share
Shame not his own,—here spurned the scanty time
Still left for flight, lest, living, he might bear
Hard witness to his colleague's generous crime.

I have seen many fields where men have fought
With mightier issues, but not one, I deem,
Where history offers to reflecting thought,
So sharp a check of greatness so supreme.

The battle was fought on the 21st of May, B.C. 216.

Vulturnus, a south-east wind, probably a local name.

The only localities preserved in the tradition are this large fountain, which goes by the name of the “Consul's Well,” and “The Place of Blood,” a farm-house on the other side of the river, where they say the Roman prisoners were massacred.

Abi, nuncia publice patribus urbem Romam muniant . . . . privatimque Fabio, L. Æmilium præceptorum ejus memorem extitisse, et vixisse, et adhuc mori; et tu me, in hac strage militum meorum, patere exspirare, ne ut reus inteream, causâque consulatus accusator collegæ existam, ut alieno rimine innocentiam meam protegam. Liv. xxii.

129

ON LEAVING ITALY,

FOR THE SUMMER, ON ACCOUNT OF HEALTH.

Thou summer-land! that dost put on the sun
Not as a dress of pomp occasional,
But as thy natural and most fitting one,—
Yet still thy Beauty has its festival,
Its own chief day,
And I, though conscious of the bliss begun,
Must turn away!

I leave thee in thy royalest attire
Of affluent life,—I leave thee 'mid thy wealth
Of sunlight gold and jewels of all fire,—
Led by the paltry care of weakened health
And fear of pain;
Who knows that I shall see, ere I expire,
Thy face again!

I almost could persuade me that too dear
My Northern-island birthdom has been bought,
The vantage-ground of intellect, the clear
And bright expanse of action and of thought,
If I am bound
To limit all the good my heart has sought
To that cold ground.

130

What is my gain that I can take and mesh
The Beautiful in Nature's deepest sea,
If I am bound the bondman of the flesh,
And must not float upon the surface free?
Why should these powers
Bring nothing but a burden ever fresh
Of yearning hours?

Why do we wish the things we do not dare?
Why do I tremble at my æstuous Soul
That would embrace the burning god, and there
Give up into the elemental whole
Its worthless frame,
Whose instincts guide me captive everywhere,
In grief and shame?

Oh! what a world of strifes of good and ill
Is this that we are cast in? Head and Heart,
Body and Spirit, Faculties and Will,
Nothing at peace, all sundered and apart;
Who would not shun
This war, if Death were sure to make him still,
Or make him One!

131

SWITZERLAND AND ITALY.

Within the Switzer's varied land,
When Summer chases high the snow,
You'll meet with many a youthful band
Of strangers wandering to and fro:
Through hamlet, town, and healing bath,
They haste and rest as chance may call,
No day without its mountain-path,
No path without its waterfall.

They make the hours themselves repay,
However well or ill be shared,
Content that they should wing their way,
Unchecked, unreckoned, uncompared:
For though the hills unshapely rise,
And lie the colours poorly bright,—
They mould them by their cheerful eyes,
And paint them with their spirit's light.

132

Strong in their youthfulness, they use
The energies their souls possess;
And if some wayward scene refuse
To pay its part of loveliness,—
Onward they pass, nor less enjoy
For what they leave;—and far from me
Be every thought that would destroy
A charm of that simplicity!

But if one blot on that white page
From Doubt or Misery's pen be thrown,—
If once the sense awake, that Age
Is counted not by years alone,—
Then no more grand and wonderous things!
No active happinesses more!
The wounded Heart has lost its wings,
And change can only fret the sore.

Yet there is calm for those that weep,
Where the divine Italian sea
Rests like a maiden hushed asleep
And breathing low and measuredly;
Where all the sunset-purpled ground,
Fashioned by those delicious airs,
Seems strewed with softest cushions round
For weary heads to loose their cares:

133

Where Nature offers, at all hours,
Out of her free imperial store,
That perfect Beauty their weak powers
Can help her to create no more:
And grateful for that ancient aid,
Comes forth to comfort and relieve
Those minds in prostrate sorrow laid,
Bidding them open and receive!

Though still 'tis hardly she that gives,
For Nature reigns not there alone,
A mightier queen beside her lives,
Whom she can serve but not dethrone;
For she is fallen from the state
That waited on her Eden-prime,
And Art remains by Sin and Fate
Unscathed, for Art is not of Time.

University of Virginia Library

MEMORIALS OF TRAVELS IN ITALY.

AN ITALIAN TO ITALY.