Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

It was upon a chill autumnal night,
Such as, full oft, our changeful climate sends,
While summer lingering, as in act to go,
Sojourns awhile amid September winds;—
On such a night, by ocean's moon-lit marge
I wandered, where upon the shelving sand
Billows in silvery succession broke
Incessantly, with their clear orisons
Mingling my last farewells. And in their sound,
Whose soft vibration hung upon the ear
Of midnight, memories of another world,
Dim echoes of the past, mysteriously
Blent with the vision of these latter days.
Methought upon a mist-enshrouded plain,
In wavy outline partially revealed,
Earth's mail-clad armies battled valiantly;
Ah me! in what unholy, godless strife,
What dissonance of feudal anarchy!

136

For knighthood, holiest ordinance of man,
The guardian sworn of Faith and Constancy,
Raged in tumultuous forgetfulness
Of virgin honour, and the name of Christ.
The Church (methought) of glory dispossessed,
Herself a very battle-field of strife,
Audibly mourned her failing unity,
A worldly priesthood, and the din unblest
Of jarring systems, the ambitious wrath
Of grasping princes, apostolic zeal
An empty name, by self-indulgent monks
And warrior priests indignantly forsworn.

O was it then a wild, unreal spell,
The phantasy of a disordered brain,
That dream of mediæval sanctity?
Sorrowing I gazed with half-averted eye,
When sudden on the gathering storm was laid
A potent incantation, and thy name,
O Rome, a gentle yet majestic voice,
Breathed o'er the unquiet nations, “Peace, be still!”
Earth heard and trembled; from her monarchs' grasp,
By merciful compulsion overawed,
Low fell the sceptre, impiously raised
To strike the crozier; Chivalry uprose,
A beautiful creation, new-baptized,

137

And cleansed from taint of earthliness impure
By reverence for our Lady; and the Church
Was felt once more, the sinner's healing balm,
The mourner's refuge, and the wanderer's home,
The worldling's dread, a quiet anchorage
Of troubled spirits, a reality
Magnificently present on the earth,
Signing her tinsel glories with the cross.
'Twas as the voiceless benediction laid
On the few kneelers at the lamp-lit shrine
Of some monastic chancel, watching there
All night before the blessed Sacrament,
The vouchsafed presence of the Holy One.

O Rome, most hallowed, most benignant power,
Do they not err, who deem thy gentle sway
A godless usurpation; who would fain
Blot thy remembrance from the blazoned scroll
Of the recorded past; who will not see
The vanquished perils, and the thwarted aims,
The sweet corrections and the heedful love
Owed to thy delegated Sovereignty,
A voice not uncommissioned to proclaim
The else unheeded mandates of the Church?

Nor therefore deem our common Lord dethroned,
Our Lord and hers, because at Mary's shrine,

138

In high ecstatic self-devotion wrapt,
The feudal warrior learnt to prize aright
The unselfish ardour of chivalric love.
To such, methought, a Saint of that dark age,
Dark to our earth-dimmed eyes, made clam reply;
“Who kneel to Mary, kneel to Mary's Son,
“And therefore to the Mother-Maid we cry,
“Because her Son is God; no rite profane,
“No goddess-worshipping idolatry
“Is ours; to Him due honour we accord
“Unlimited, unquestioning, entire,
“The perfect service of obedient love;
“To her such limited and mediate power
“As may befit a creature glorified,
“Brightest and purest of the white-robed band
“Who stand for aye before the throne of God,
“One who perchance may pour, and not in vain,
“An intercession for the little flock
“Purchased by Jesu's all-redeeming Blood.”