John Kenyon: Verses about Mysticism

'Argantyr! awake—awake—
Hervor bids thy slumbers fly.
Magic chords around thee break;
Argantyr! reply—reply.'


In vain had they striven—those Beldames three—
With all their might of grammarye,
And many a mutter and many a hum,
To make the Dead Man from his tomb forth come.
For they had vowed by force of spell,
The reason why I dare not tell,
To drag him once more to light of day,
And bring him far and far away
From that his silent house of clay
Which, ere he came there, in grave-clothes dress'd,
He had sighed for, so oft, for his home of rest.

'Away, away, ye Mumblers three!
Away, quoth the Wizard, and leave him to me!
Ay, leave him to me, and I'll play him a stave,
That, I warrant, shall force him to stir in his grave,
And fumble from 'neath his coffin lid,
And, up, follow me wheresoever I bid.'
'But first, ye old Hags! go bring me my viol,
Which from Living—nor Dead—brooked never denial.
And my bow, which I strang, to suit such song,
Of a drowned witch's locks, both lank and long.
And deep howsoever his grave it may be,
Were it deep as a well, he shall list him to me.'
They have tottered them back and brought him the viol
Which from Living—nor Dead—brooked never denial;
And they cower them close to witness the trial;

Grinning and gibbering 'Now we shall see
If he, with his stave, doeth better than we.'
And that magical viol, oh! how was it made?
From a gibbeted skull which the winds had flayed
Of its dark flowing locks and each crinkle of skin,
Brown-shiny without, and hollow within.
With eye-holes for sound-holes; with neck-bone for neck;
While the strings to bridge up 'twas the nose gave its wreck.
For, somehow or other, nose, mouth, brow and chin,
Each ghost of a feature chimed wond'rously in,
To fashion the form of that strange violin;
Which, looking its player full up in the face,
Would mock him, erewhile, with a wickéd grimace,
As much as to hint 'Ere 'tis long—in my place.'

Yet the Wizard—he bated no jot of his pride;
But smiled him in triumph the head-stone beside.
For he felt 'neath his bow the throb of the stave
All eager to summon the Dead from his grave.
Then thus to his mocker, 'To-day I sway thee;
Come to-morrow what will—'tis small matter to me.'
And he bade forth the song. Nor sad—nor slow—
Like prophet's, who, constrained to show,
Reluctantly denounceth woe;
But brisk, as in merriment on it did go,
And we knew he was gibing the sleeper below.
And we saw, ere 'twas long, the round turf upride,
And split in the middle and fall on each side;

And lo! on his feet the Dead Man stood!
First—pausing awhile, as in puzzled mood,
Then—followed wherever the Wizard would.
While those Beldames three, in hideous glee,
Shouted and laughed the sight to see.

Not alway from the lessons of the schools,
Taught evermore by those who trust them not,
Though in fine phrase tricked out, or bodied forth
In solid saw, spring forth the fairest fruits
Of wisdom or of duty. Spirits there are
Who, rather from the forms of outward nature—
Those teachers who in our dull colleges
Have never taken degree—rejoice to cull
Their doctrine; nutriment to grosser sense,
If alien, yet with finer essences

Not unassimilate! Such win their lore
Through many a sympathy, from 'stones, and trees,
And running brooks;' from every sound and thing;
Yea, from far less; from films of sounds and things;
The airiest shadow flitting o'er the mead;
The last thin whisper of the evening breeze;
The faintest hue that dies along the main.
Such thoughts dost Thou, beloved Moon, shed forth
For poets, which from them we gather up
Not scant; and I have had them of my own,
Gentle and fair, and, as I fain would deem,
Not unpoetic quite, though never stamped
With countermark of verse; I all unskilled
Of measure, or the thoughts themselves too swift
Or subtile for the workmanship of words
And yet, though woven of thy most delicate rays,
Or snatched, as might be, from quick-vanishing stars,
Twinkling and gone, not thence, would I believe,
Mere passing thoughts, but fitted to endure,
For profit of the meditative mind,
As yon sweet stars and Thou, fair Moon, endurest.
For I have loved Thee from my childhood up

Till now; from when, beneath far tropic skies,
Forth guided by my ancient Afran nurse,
Whose ebon face strange contrast made with Thine,
I first observed Thee; and, observing, wondered
If those, thy seeming features, nose and mouth,
And steadfast eyes, were really such as ours,
And asked of her, like wondering. Nor when
To these fair isles conveyed, a growing school-boy,
From forth our play-ground's narrow boundary,
I spied thee, 'mid blue ether, in thy freedom
Careering, even like the white-sailed ship
That sped me hither; or if I beheld thee,
When sultry summer-airs forbade to sleep,
Slanting, at midnight, through th' uncurtained window,
On the half-testered bed, uncurtained too,
Our youngster couch; not then could I withhold
To gaze upon Thee; pensive half—half glad,
I scarce knew which nor wherefore, with a vague
Unsatisfied delight. And as, in days
Ere chivalry was gone, some youthful knight,
Of high-born damsel, whom he ne'er might reach,
Enamoured, worshipped still her peerless beauty,
And dress'd his thoughts on hers, and thus imbibed

Civility with love; not less, fair Idol,
On thee I hung in thy removèd sphere,
And duly paid my visionary vows
To thy bright purity; nor was the soul,
E'en in those stripling-days, as now I deem,
Wholly by such communion unrefined.
Nor seldom did I win from thy sweet light
A more creative and less pensive joy;
Such joy as kindly Fancy oft will weave
For childhood; kindlier still, if she desert not
Our after-years. 'Twas when dim-floating clouds
Were hung in the still west, and there had hung
From hour of parted twilight. They had watched
The sinking Sun's last glory, and caught thence,
Around his golden garment clustering,
A passing radiance not their own; but now,
Though rayless, hueless, still they lingered here,
As in persisting love (so spirits, they say,
Will hover round loved spots); nor lingered here
In vain; for Thou didst bring a second day
Less bright than his; but not less beautiful.
Sun of the Midnight! Then those pallid clouds,

Each in its turn by thy soft light lit up,
Grew to a living dream-land. Earth and Sea,
In all their shows, were there, with semblances
Of man, or beast, or monster. Not an image
Through childhood's brain had flitted, won, perchance,
From tale of nurse or grandsire, or out-gleaned
From story-book, thumbed o'er and o'er again,
But there found type or home. What mattered it,
In that free hour, of tyrant pedagogue,
Or brute school-comrade, tyrant more than he;
Or grammar rule, perplexing easy speech;
Or cramp obdurate sum, tried ten times o'er
On the smeared slate? I recked not of them then—
I thought not of them! No discoverer
By land or sea, to cape or central range
Tacking his own proud name, to dream thenceforth
Of immortality;—no conqueror—
No! not the Norman, broadly parcelling
Among his mailèd knights and barons bold
New territory—was more lord than I
In that my flaky kingdom; free to give,
Make or unmake, at pleasure! Yon far cloud,
Floating like island in its sea of sky,

Should be the spot for Crusoe! There Saint George
Was fighting with the dragon, while below
Paced slowly Bunyan's Pilgrim with his staff!
There stood the magic steed, which whirled away
Young Calmaralzaman; there drove the bark,
Rapt fiercely by invisible force along,
To split, with Sinbad, on the loadstone shore!
But when came classic lessons, and all fresh
From lore of Tooke's Pantheon—a new world
Peopled with deity—I knew how thine,
In the far days of famed Antiquity,
Had been no slighted worship; glorious then
Of my new knowledge, and fantastical
As innocent childhood is, I longed to have been
The shepherd youth, of whom then first I read,
Endymion; Endymion, loved in Latmos!
(Ah! me, quaint shepherd, not of crook, but satchel,
And guessing, at that age, how much of love!)
And, in my foolishness, almost I craved
Those Pagan days again. Then would recur
The holy teachings of the primal book,
'The Sun to rule the day, and Thou the night,'

And wake to wiser musings. Mixture strange
Of sacred and profane! Yet each in turn
Struck its own chord, and made Thee dearer still.
Nor me when onward years had loosed at length
From 'prisonment of school-boy, and left free
To choose my own observatories, when
And where I willed, frank-breathing mountain-top
Or wide-viewed plain, did I less love thy light,
Sweet Moon; and, e'en amid the revelries
Of the mad city, when thy thoughtful beam
Hath met me, sliding slow from temple to tower,
Or pausing on the broad and silent street,
Beneath that pause more broad and yet more silent;
How oft hath the wild will of wayward youth
Received in Thee a monitor, not vain,
To calm and summon home. But if, far rather,
Thou wert seen planing o'er some lovely region,
From city remote, to thy attempering ray
More native; making its day-loveliness
Yet lovelier; softening with diffused beauty
Near plain; or making with long narrow line
The distant sea; or, slanted with soft step

Almost to earth, wert streaming light behind
Some ancient wood, more forward thence to fling
Its huge black outline; Thou thyself chance-spied
Through the tall stems; or else wert stealing down
The shadowy dingle, pensively to rest
By the hushed waters of some bosomed lake;
'Mid scene like this, to love most harmonised,
How dearer was thy presence! By such mirror,
(Mirror of Dian! aptly named by those
Who dwelt near Nemi's wooded wave,) how oft
Fixed have I stood to watch thy dream-like image,
And then upturned me from the soft reflection
To view thy very Self in the high heaven.
There wert Thou, with the same unaltered features
Which mocked my childhood; features still, indeed,
So Science tells, but features of a world,
Visible continents and circling seas,
With all their promontories. Trancèd thus,
(My childish fancies weaned, but love unbated,)
How fondly have I longed, how deeply yearned
To know Thee nearer; yearned to climb thy hills,
And thread thy peaceful valleys; there, perchance,

To meet some loved one lost; and well content,
With such sweet compensation, to forego
This native earth of ours, by folly and guilt
Too often marred; and yet, though often marred,
Beautiful still; and still more beautiful
That Thou, fair Moon! dost shed thy peace upon it.
That peace, how deep! this night of thousand stars,
That hide themselves abashed from the bold sun,
But hang, all fondly, on thy gentler brow—
How calm! Yet not o'er calmer skies alone,
Mild Moon! is thy dominion Thou dost sway
The very storm to obey thy peacefulness.
When winds are piping, and the chargèd clouds,
As if out-summoned by that warlike music,
First in black squadrons rush; then sternly muster
In sullen mass, on either side the heaven,
Like armies face to face, with space between;
'Tis then Thou glidest forth; like some pale nun,
Unhooded, whom a high and rare occasion
Wrests from her sanctuary, to interpose
In mortal quarrel, so Thou glidest forth,
And lookest thy mild bidding; and the winds

Are silent; and those close-compacted clouds,
Disbanding, fleet in tender flakes away,
And leave the world to thy tranquillity.
On such a night it was, so wildly fitful,
That Thou, Conductress of my way, didst lead me
To where the mighty mystery of Stonehenge
Broods o'er the silent plain, and with mute power
Rules the vast circuit of its sea-like space,
As Thou dost rule the sky. For many a mile
I journeyed, pondering on the days when Thou
Wert shining o'er the Druid; being to him
His Sun, his chronicler of months and years,
And sanctifier of his rites most holy!
And musing on the rites—the priest—all gone!
Thou and that lonely fane the sole abiders!
In my inmost spirit I felt how the dead Past
Controuls the living Present; binding awe
And melancholy, of high strain or low,
Not solely on the' imaginative mind,
That 'mid mere earthly precinct asks no home,
But e'en on fleshlier natures, which escape not
Foresight of their own doom, to vanish in turn.

So did I reach to where uprose those pillars
'Mid their sepulchral barrows; turfy tombs!
Which yet outlast the marble. At the first
All indistinctly visioned; but, ere long,
When Thou wert lucent in the open path
Which winds had swept before Thee, then I saw them
In their huge steadfastness; and felt their power
Unutterable, and in wonder stood!
Then too I longed to chase away those clouds
Which still were flocking round Thee, like the ghosts
Of fabled Orcus; and to question Thee
Of all the past; as the great Florentine,
Who saw the triple vision, reverently
Questioned mild Maro 'mid the dim sojourn.
Say, Moon! for Thou didst shine o'er Paradise
From the beginning; its sole light by night,
Thou and the stars; ere yet that other light
From the preventing sword with double tongue
Flamed at the gateway; and hast seen the shepherds
In old Chaldæa watchers of those stars,
And of thy nightly course, with each event
Of after-rolling time; say, who first planned
The mystic round of those gigantic columns?

Who dragged the masses from their yawning quarries,
And planted on such bases as might scorn
The earthquake, and uphung rock upon rock?
Are they, as some have dreamed, unconquered relics
Of a young world; survivors of the flood;
Reared by a first-born strength mightier than ours?
Or if indeed the work of men like us,
In what far cyele? Stood they here before
Elder Assyria, or ere Egypt was?
Before those pyramids, or ere the towers
Of Belus old? Or did they rise, thus rude,
And curl their uncouth ring in that same age
Which saw the fair-proportioned Parthenon,
In its first finish of Pentelic marble,
Outsparkle from the hand of Phidias?
Say, for Thou knowest; Thou hast seen of each
The birth and the old age; hast seen the rites
Of either worship, Pallas's or Thine;
Beheld thine oaken or her olive-wreath
Hung on each altar; and beholdest, now,
The vaunted wonder of each famous temple,
The Celtic circle and the Grecian frieze,
Both ruin-smote!

Was it, O Moon! in prescience
Of populous champaigns turned to pallid wastes;
And temples—fallen; and roofless palaces;
And monuments—men know not whose they were;
Making our solid earth seem but a play-place
For Mutability; was it for this
That Thou didst choose the undecaying sea
For thy peculiar realm? Towers, built like rocks,
Crumble and strew the region; forests old
Are treeless wastes; where hills, up-peaked, yawn now
Deep gulfs; such foot-marks Mutability
Leaves on the land. But, for the ocean-waves,
Myriads of sharp-keeled ships have cut athwart them
To their safe ports, and left behind no furrow;
Ten thousand gallant barks with all their trim
Have sunk, yet where they sunk remains no sign;
Tempest hath wrenched the Pharos from its rock,
And toppled down, with every tended light,
To gorge the surge they lit; Earthquake hath flung
Whole cities to the deep; yet o'er the fragments,
Acanthus, or volute, or fluted column,
Or causeway, clattering once with proud-horsed chariot,
It rolls as heretofore. This isle of ours

What if no Earthquake rend! yet change steals o'er it
Slowly, but surely; and, ere yet the half
Of our threescore-and-ten be past, we learn
The lesson. Nor alone the works of Man,
The long-trimmed avenue, or hall ancestral,
On which our youngling wonder loved to gaze,
Are sought for and are gone; yon very headland
Which now thy light is lifting from the waves,
Or struck by storm, or fretted by still frost,
Wears not the form it wore when, yet an urchin,
Timidly bold, I scrambled on its edge
Precipitous, and, warned a hundred times,
Would still gaze giddily down. And yet the waters
Are circling round its base, as seems, no other
Than those my childhood knew; and such, no doubt,
The woad-stained aboriginal beheld,
When his flat coracle from off his shoulder
He slipped upon them; such the unflinching Roman
Stemmed with the strong oar of his beakèd galley;
And such the more impetuous Norman blood
Swept through, to win a kingdom in a day.
Hence rightly didst Thou make the ocean-waves

Thine appanage; their very change constraining
To a vicissitude so fixed, that change
With them is but renewal.—Storm may smite them,
And flash their sprays all round, like wind-tost feathers,—
Still they re-plume their beauty; and, like Thee,—
Thou, waxing, waning; They, in ebb or flow—
Though ever changing are the same for ever.
Through what invisible controul Thou rulest
These willing waves, sublimer intellects
Have found and taught; and veneration waits
On their vast toils. But far-reached arguments
Of densities, and gravitating powers,
Mean distance—perigee, and apogee—
Forewarned eclipses—total or in part—
With each attraction, simple or combined,
Were never meant for hold unscientific
Of brain like mine; while lettered diagrams,
And algebraic symbols, line or cross,—
Strange as the shapes, which, in our Carib isle,
Rude Obi-wizard scrawls on hut or tree,
Or as demure astrologer erst traced
On vellum, when he sold the stars for gold—

These but perplex the more, like Cabala,
Searing the sense. Enough for me to know,
Through such chance-knowledge as mere hear-say brings,
And faith, if uninquiring yet sincere,
Enough for me to know, wide-ruling Moon!
That thine it is to lead the foam-edged surges
Along the shores; or up the sinuous harbour
Where ships ride inland, lifting their tall masts
Above the groves; or call them to the loch,
Whose briny inlet, winding from the main,
Tempts up the grampus 'mid the heathy hills.
Enough for me to know that Thou, no less,
Dost fill the curving horns of mightiest bay,
Whose indrawn waters are themselves a sea,
While kingdoms clasp it round. Or if I turn
From lore of book or chart to watch the billows
In-rolling from the deeps with joyous motion;
And catch their thousand faces glistening up
In thy clear light, and hear their thousand voices,
Like a whole people's at a jubilee;
Or if I see them, as I see them, now,
Beneath this calmest sky as smoothly spread,
And whitely, as an alabaster floor;

No touch of cloud and not a murmur on them;
E'en where they meet the shore scarce murmuring;
As all reposing in thy clement ray,
Yet ready to up-leap at thy least bidding;
Beholding this, what needs more formal warrant
From inky hand of gowned Philosophy
To prove that Thou art in full right their Queen?
And Queen Thou art in this thy realm of midnight,
And lovely as Queen-like; yet not lovely less
When Thou art lapsing on through either twilight,
Companion of the Evening or the Dawn.
For ever to the heart, which feeds on beauty,
The Evening and the Morning make the day;
Meridian Suns are mate-fellows of Earth,
But Morn and musing Eve consort with Heaven.
And ne'er did Dawn behold Thee lovelier yet,
Than when we saw Thee, one remembered day,
Thee and that brightest of all morning-stars,
Hang o'er the Adrian; not in thy full lustre,
But graceful with slim crescent; such as, erst,
Some Arab chief beheld in his own sky

Of purest, deepest azure; and so loved it,
So loved it, that he chose it for his symbol;
A peaceful symbol in a warlike banner!
And oft, I ween, in many a distant camp,
'Mid the sharp neigh of steeds, and clash of cymbals,
And jingle of the nodding Moorish bells,
When he hath caught that image o'er the tents,
Hath he bethought him of the placid hours
When Thou wert whitening his night-feeding flocks
On Yemen's happy hills; and then, perchance,
Hath sighed to think of war!
We too beheld Thee
With untired eye fixed upward; scarce regarding
(So deep the charm which Thou hadst wrapped around us)
Where reddening lines along the Eastward Sea
Spoke of the Sun's uprising. Up He rose,
From o'er the regions of the near Illyria,
Glorious, how glorious!—if less gladly hailed
As warning thy departure. Yet, some time,
Ye shone together; and we then might feel
How they, the ancient masters of that land,
The dwellers on the banks of Rubicon,
Who saw what we were seeing, uninstruct'

Of wiser faith, had, in no feigned devotion,
Bowed down to Thee, their Dian, and to Him,
Bright-haired Apollo! We too bowed our hearts,
But in a purer worship, to the One,
Who made, Alone, the hills and seas and skies,
And Thee, fair Moon, the Hallower of them all!
Well did that Sun fulfil his rising promise,
Showering redundant light, the live-long day,
O'er plain, and inland peak, and bluest sea;
And brightening the far mole, which Old Ancona
Hath reared upon the waves. Meanwhile thy form
(Faint and more faint, and, if might be, more fair;
And still, as near to lose Thee, loved the more)
Thinned to unseen. But as some morning dream,
Too sweet to part with, and which yet must fade
At touch of light, will oft unconsciously
Mix with the day, serener thoughts inweaving
Than sun-beams bring; or as some melody,
Closed on the ear, nor e'en by it remembered,
Will still its silent agency prolong
Upon the spirit, with a hoarded sweetness
Tempering the after-mood; e'en so didst Thou

Waft the bland influence of thy dawning presence
Over the onward hours.
Yet, Thou sphered Vestal!
If mine it were to choose me when to bend
Before thy high-hung lamp; and venerate
Thy mysteries; and feel, not hear, the voice
Of thy mute admonition; let it be
At holy vesper-tide, when nature all
Whispers of peace; if solemn less than night's,
More soothing still. Such season of the Soul
Obeys Thee best. For as the unwrinkled pool,
Stilled o'er by stirless Eve, will dimple under
The tiniest brushing of an insect's wing;
So, at that hour, do human hearts respond
To every touch of finer thought.
Such eve,
Such blessed eve was ours, when last we stood
Beside the storied shore of Gaëta,
Breathing its citroned air. Silence more strict
Was never. The small wave, or ripple rather,
Scarce lisping up the sand, crept to the ear
Sole sound; nor did we break the calm with movement,
Or sacrilege of word; but stayed in peace,

Of Thee expectant. And what need had been
Of voicèd language, when the silent eye,
And silent pressure of each linkèd arm,
Spokemore than utterance? Nay, whose tongue might tell
What hues were garlanding the western sky
To welcome thy approaching! Purple hues
With orange wove, and many a floating flake
Crimson or rose, with that last tender green
Which best relieves thy beauty. Who may paint
How glowed those hills, with depth of ruddy light
Translucified, and half etherial made,
For thy white feet to tread on? and, ere long—
Ere yet those hues had left or sky or hill,
One peak with pearling top confess'd thy Coming.
There didst Thou pause awhile, as inly musing
O'er realm so fair! And, first, thy rays fell partial
On many a scattered object, here and there;
Edging or tipping, with fantastic gleam,
The sword-like aloe, or the tent-roofed pine,
Or adding a yet paler pensiveness
To the pale olive-tree; or, yet more near us,
Were flickering back from wall reticulate'
Of ruin old. But when that orb of Thine

Had clomb to the mid-concave, then broad light
Was flung around o'er all those girding cliffs,
And groves, and villages, and fortress towers,
And the far circle of that lake-like sea,
Till the whole grew to one expanded sense
Of peacefulness, one atmosphere of love,
Where the Soul breathed as native, and mere Body
Sublimed to Spirit.
She, too, stood beside us,
Our human type of Thee; the Pure, the Peaceful,
The Gentle—potent in her gentleness!
And, as she raised her eyes to thy meek glory,
In the fond aspiration of a heart,
Which prized all beauty and all sanctity;
We saw, and loved to see, thy sainting ray
Fall, as in fondness, on her upturned brow,
Serene—like it. Alas! in how brief space
Coldly to glitter on her marble tomb!
She lies in her own land; far from the scene
Of that fair eve; but Thou, its fairer part,
Thou Moon! art here; and now we gaze on Thee
To think on Her; if still in sorrow, yet

Not without hope; and, for the time to come,
Though dear to us thy light hath ever been,
Shall love Thee yet the more for her sweet sake.

Once more that tomb hath opened! and She, who,
Companion of my wanderings as my life,
Thus far had listened to th' unfinished strain,
Shedding fond tears to hear a Sister's praise,
Now lies in death beside her. Fare thee well,
Thou faithful Heart! and Thou, dejected Song!
For now thy spell is broken—fare thee well.

Fair blows the breeze—depart—depart—
And tread with me th' Italian shore;
And feed thy soul with glorious art;
And drink again of classic lore.
Nor sometime shalt thou deem it wrong,
When not in mood too gravely wise,
At idle length to lie along,
And quaff a bliss from bluest skies.

Or, pleased more pensive joy to woo,
At twilight eve, by ruin grey,
Muse o'er the generations, who
Have passed, as we must pass, away.
Or mark o'er olive tree and vine
Steep towns uphung; to win from them
Some thought of Southern Palestine;
Some dream of old Jerusalem.

Come, Pilgrim-Friend! At last our sun outbreaks,
And chases, one by one, dawn's lingering flakes.
Come, Pilgrim-Friend! and downward let us rove
(Thy long-vow'd vow) this old Tiburtian grove.
See where, beneath, the jocund runnels play,
All cheerly brighten'd in the brightening day.
E'en in the far-off years when Flaccus wrote,
('Tis here, I ween, no pedantry to quote,)
Thus led, they gurgled thro' those orchard-bowers
To feed the herb—the fruitage—and the flowers.

Come, then, and snatch Occasion; transient boon!
And sliding into Future all too soon.
That Future's self possession just as brief,
And stolen, soon as given, by Time—the Thief.
Well! if such filching knave we needs must meet,
Let us, as best we may, the Cheater cheat;
And, since the Then, the Now, will flit so fast,
Look back, and lengthen life into the Past.

That Past is here; where old Tiburtus found
Mere mountain-brow, and fenc'd with walls around;
And for his wearied Argives reared a home
Long ere yon seven proud hills had dream'd of Rome.
'Tis here, amid these patriarch olive trees,
Which Flaccus saw, or ancestry of these;
Oft musing, as he slowly strayed him past,
How here his quiet age should close at last.

And here behold them, still! Like ancient seers
They stand; the dwellers of a thousand years.
Deep-furrow'd, strangely crook'd, and ashy-grey,
As ghost might gleam beneath the touch of day.
All strangely perforate too; with rounded eyes,
That ever scan the traveller as he hies:
Fit guardians of the spot they seem to be,
With centuries seen, and centuries yet to see.

Who treads this pallid grove, by moonlight pale,
Might half believe the peasant's spectre tale
Of Latian heroes old, that come to glide
Along these silent paths at even-tide;
Or Sibyl, wan with ghastly prophecy,
From her near fane, as whilom, wandering by.
But Morning, now, and sunny vines are here,
From tree to tree gay-gadding without fear;

Or else in verdant rope their fibres string,
As if to tempt the little Loves to swing;
Or, tricking silvery head and wrinkled stem
With tendril-curl, or leafy diadem;
A sportive war of graceful contrast wage,
The Grave and Gay—green Youth and hoary Age.
Hence we may feel Resounding Anio's shock,
As his full river thunders from his rock.
Yet mark! meanwhile adown its own small dell
How falls or winds each little cascatelle.

With no rude sound—with no impetuous rush;
But blandly—fondly—or by bank or bush.
Or floats in air; as when mild mermaid frees
(Or so they feign) her tresses to the breeze;
And careless, for a while, of coral bower,
Basks on the sunny sands till noontide's scorching hour.
How sweet! to have such gentle waters near;
Just soothing, ne'er disturbing eye nor ear.
Nor deem I those unblest, whom choice—or fate—
Leads to prefer the Lesser to the Great.

'Repose, thou better privilege than fame.'—
So felt, we know, the great historic name,
Mecænas; he who owned those villa-halls,
All stately once, tho' now but rifted walls.
And hither, wisely truant, oft would come,
Forth from the smokes, the toils, the strifes of Rome.
For, tho' defaced, discolour'd, broken, bow'd,
Yet were they then of gold and ivory proud.
Or far beyond what proudest wealth might do,
From thoughtful art a nobler triumph drew.

There, dark-hued urns, with mythic picture fraught,
Time's treasures! stood, from old Etruria brought;
Which even then had claim'd uncounted date,
When you great Rome was yet a struggling state.
Or marble vases there, in white array,
Beam'd back an added lustre to the day.
Or, better, when the gladly-welcom'd guest
Came to the banquet, rich with every zest,
From lamp of chisell'd bronze, adjusted light
Threw out some Phidian marvel on the night;
Evoking, heightening thus, in form or face,
Each subtler beauty or diviner grace.

Nor yet, when hours of feast had found their close,
Or jaded statesman sighed for short repose,
Was wanting, there, some well-befitting room,
Nor all-too bright, nor quite subdued to gloom,
Whose odoriferous cedar-shelves along
Fair scrolls were ranged; philosophy or song.
There, all our Lost might be. All Livy told,
(Where now?) and all Menander limned of old,
Fresh from the life; with sweet Simonides;
And glorious Sappho, —greater yet than These.

And then, perchance, you small and sinuous rill,
In open day now glittering down the hill,
Slid underground its tube-directed path,
To feed or sculptured fount or perfumed bath.
Their graceful rites, their gorgeous prides are gone;
Their proudest monument a crumbled stone!
Yet if the marble and the bronze decay,
Their storied memories fade not thus away;
But cluster still, tho' dying centuries toll,
Beadrolls for thought, and relics for the soul.

Hence here have bowed, thro' farthest tracts of time,
Genius and Lore, from every cultured clime.
And hence, no less, thro' many a countless year,
Like us, shall unborn pilgrims worship here.
And how may pilgrim stand on spot like this,
Nor feel what flitting wayfarer he is?
Here, where the joys, the griefs, the hopes, the fears,
The busy doings of three thousand years,
Since first Tiburtus made these hills his hold,
Have dreamed their dream, and mingle with the mould.
Men pass like cloud, or wave, or morning dew:
A thought nor very deep, nor very new.
Yet who, as here, shall find him, face to face,
In presence of that Mighty Commonplace,
And not imbibe the moral of the spot,
Accept the general doom—and murmur not?

Yet, if All die, there are who die not All;
(So Flaccus hoped), and half escape the pall.
The Sacred Few! whom love of glory binds,
'That last infirmity of noble minds,
'To scorn delights, and live laborious days,'

And win thro' lofty toil undying praise.
What if for These, now verging to the tomb,
As yet, nor laurels spread nor myrtles bloom;
Proud mortgagees they stand of Fame's estate,
And for the brave reversion bear to wait.
Nay, what tho' never from th' ungrateful soil
Green chaplets spring, for guerdon of the toil;
In calm content their avarice sublime
May well forego those unpaid debts of Time;
Who, e'en while clutching at the generous pelf,
Priz'd ever, most, the virtue for itself.

So go we musing on. But, as we go,
Just glimpse yon lizard frisking to and fro.
Now here—now there—now straightly fixed he lies;
Then turns him sudden in a mock surprise.
Give him this southern wall, this sprightly sun,
And Past and Future are to him as One.
Tell him of either, (for he loves to talk
With loiterer, pausing on his easy walk,)
Tell him of either, and, with eyes that glisten,
And head aslant, awhile he seems to listen,
Then jerks him merry off, as if to say,
'Good Sirs! for me sufficient is the day.'
So, should grave memories ever come to press
Life's present hour with thought of past distress;
Or future years o'erhang us, vague or dim,
Why, we may come and take a hint from him.
And who not thus delights him, who or what,
In such a clime, or animate or not?

These hill-side vines; this wide expanding plain;
These fields—of pasture, here; and there, of grain;
These twisted chesnuts, with their cheery green;
Yon darker cypress, spired above them seen;
Which, many a century, land-mark, there, hath stood,
Self-lifted obelisk, immortal wood;
Those aloes, that with sworded panoply
Still warn the pilgrim, who would dare too nigh;
Yon steeply climbing town; that rocky height;
Seem they not living in the living light?
For each grey flake hath faded from the view,
And all around is one Ausonian Blue.
Not the fresh dawn, not evening's tenderest hour,
Speak to the spirit with a deeper power.
As eye and heart strain up that azure air,
What light—what love—what fixedness is there!
Transient—we know—Eternal—let it seem!
With such blue sky we only ask to dream.

E'en he, (behold! him in that shaggy coat)—
Yon goat-herd, with his only browsing goat,
On the hill-slope; beside that humming stream;
This heaven above; how can he help but dream!
He ne'er was train'd in thronging city vast,
For some huge deck to shape the mighty mast;
To face, in ship, the deadly Afran breeze;

Or drop the anchor deep in Arctic seas,
Like our stern sons. Yet not for this despise,
Albeit in seeming vacancy he lies.
Not idle they the most, who idlest seem;
Nor lost are all the hours in which we dream.
In trade's dim workshops all unused to moil,
Small share is his of luxuries won by toil.
But luxuries he hath not unrefin'd,
That please, perchance, yet more his southern mind.

Mere idlesse pleases; as supine he lies,
And gazing upward thro' the blazing skies,
Wins shifting colours to his dazzl'd eyes;
Or red or azure. And delights to see
The brilliant mockeries as they come and flee;
And wonders, why? Or makes of each a gem,
Such as might grace a pontiff's diadem;
Ruby or sapphire. Strange to me—or you;
But, here, All love this dreamy 'Nought-to-do.'
Or by tradition's tongue, or ruin old,
Of his own land's great deeds hath he been told;
And asks himself, erewhile, with wishful pain,
Why may not those brave days return again?
And tho' still mingling in confusion quaint
Profane and Sacred; Warrior and Saint;
Yet each in turn hath taught him, if need were,
Like This, to suffer—or, like That, to dare.

Think too that These were they, whose flags, unfurl'd
Beneath Rome's eagle crest, once shook the world.
Yon peasant-girl, —you mark'd her where she stood,
In her just pride of conscious womanhood—
(Against yon column now she leans awhile,
Graceful, you'll own, as milkmaid by a stile.)
Behold her in her country's old costume;
Is lady statelier in a palace room?
Too poor, we know; perchance, too inly great,
The town's last mode to wish to imitate.
Barefooted—but with no submissive mien;
In beauty's regal right—a lawful queen.
Such type to Michael's chisel had given a law;
And Raphael's self but painted what he saw.
In region, where not oft the Dryad charms
Town-loving Signor to his woods and farms;

And palaces, within proud city shut,
But rarely neighbour on the peasant's hut;
(He'privileg'd—or doom'd—by lot of birth
To see, but seldom, these the Lords of earth
'Mid equals rear'd, what other should he be
But equal too—a freeman 'mid the free?
Our nobler civil rights to him unknown,
Yet all his social freedom—all his own.
But where wealth's stringent or out-doling hand
From point to point wide stretches o'er a land;
In power or bounty ever seen or felt,
Like lictor's fasces or an almsman's belt;
Tho' order hence, with all its blessings, flow, —
As fertilizing waters guided go—
Yet as, henceforth, we lose the stream that played
Thro' its own runnels, free and not afraid;

So there, by wealth or purchased or controlled,
Word—gesture—look—in native frankness bold—
Are quelled, like sprite, beneath the Wand of Gold.
Again—(prolix beyond the thing I ought,
You kindly bear, and let me speak my thought)
In land—where from the plough men rushed to arms,
Just saved a state, and then re-sought their farms—
I love these breathings free; these heads erect;
I love, in look and speech, this brave neglect.
With ancient memories they better suit
Than balanced phrases or observance mute.
Nay, for a spot like this seem least unmeet,
As in high natures Grand and Simple greet.
Is this the race down-dwindled to a weed?
A rotted trunk? or but a buried seed?

Which, if the storm should rise and floods up-tear
The shrouding soil, and give it back to air,
Shall sprout again; no longer matter brute;
But gladden'd with green leaves and its own glorious fruit.
Oh Italy! if fallen (as some delight
To say thou art), yet fallen from what vast height;
Oh Italy! thou land of memories dear,
Yet not for these alone we prize thee here;
But gladly take thee, with acceptive heart,
Not for thy 'hast been,' but for what thou art.
For who that knows thy seas of brightest wave,
Their shelving shores or rocky steeps that lave;
Thy lakes, 'mid mountains laid, in soft blue length,
Like Beauty guarded at the feet of Strength;
Thy landscape, seen at morn or evening hour,
Town—village—cresting chapel—arch or tower;

Rich art—rich nature—each on each that press,
Till the sense aches with very loveliness;
Thy corn with fruitage mixed; thy realms of vine,
For ever beauteous—if they droop, or twine;
Thy balmiest clime, which daily tasks can leaven
With bliss, from out the common air of heaven;
Man's natural bearing; woman's easy grace;
From very rags—in gesture and in face;
Thy dark-eyed childhood's ever-ready smile
Of playful innocence or playful wile;
Or knows thy human nature's better part,
Swift thought, swift feeling, and the kindly heart;
And knows, beside, what thousand pulses beat
To win thy glories back, with generous heat;
Who but for thee must fervent vows forecast,
And hope thy Future, while he dreams thy Past?
But now 'tis Mid-day! and the deep retreat
Of Anio's grot must shield us from the heat.

'Twas in such deep recess Salvator's touch
Won its dark truth, and Gaspar fed on such.
Lo! the rapt river along its channel'd ledge
Precipitous hurrying to that dizzy edge.
Now, for one breathless moment, high uphung,
Like curled sea-wave; then—forth, as foamy, flung.
Here—in long lance-like flakes—straight down; while, there—
As if were all uncoiled Medusa's hair,
The serpent-waters twirl and hiss in air.
Or else, in black and rocky cauldron bound,
For ever eddy round and round and round;
Wakening the thought, or sadden'd or sublime,
Of endless toil, or never-ending time.
All types from clashing waters—all are here;
All types and all emotions; sound and fear;

Pent agonies, that struggle for relief;
Free gushing tears; dishevelled locks of grief;
Mad angers; sullen pause; re-bursting ire;
With flood still swifter than pursuing fire.

Yet beauty too. But such as poets shed
Round the great vision of that snake-tress'd head,
Perplexing beauty—beauty wreathed with dread.
'Tis a great scene! Yet, not by it opprest,
We feel its greatness in a buoyant breast.
For (not as when some wild Helvetian flood
Dives down its sombre depth of piny wood)
Here, all around, hath Gladness flung her braid
Of green festoons, and scattered light and shade.

Or rather—if the word were fitlier won—
Not shade, but shadow—playmate of the sun.
Gloom glorified! as suits a southern clime;
And (bear the phrase) a Cheerfuller Sublime.
E'en far within the grot Light sports with Dark;
Here—a long arrowy streak; and there—a spark.
If disappearing, soon to re-illume;
Like festive fire-fly, glancing thro' the gloom;
Or old Venetian masquer, richly dight,
Who, 'neath his waxen torches' orange light,
With gems and spangles glitters on the night.
Who, Anio! that hath come, or soon or late,
To this thy shrine, but deems the day—a date;
Whence to recal at will, his whole life's length,
Thy voice—thy speed—thy beauty and thy strength?

Whether thou tinklest from some mountain-rest,—
Thy birth-place—where the eagle builds his nest;
Or cruel bandit plants him; thence to strain

His greedy vision o'er the cowering plain;
Or whether, wandered from thy native hills,
(As strong and stronger grown from clustering rills)
Thou pausest for a while in silent lake,

Where that she-wolf her passing thirst might slake,
Who (prowled to Tiber down and destined thus)
Suckled great Rome in infant Romulus;
Or holdest on by feudal tower, or hall
From Cæsars named, or nameless ruined wall;
Or by quaint villa; such as after days
For Este's princely line made pride to raise;
Where, many a time, thy rushing wave would roll
Intenser power o'er Ariosto's soul;
Brightening, thro' secret sympathies, the lay,
Which here he loved to weave (or so they say);

And which for aye—like thee—shall flow along
As wild—as smooth—as playful and as strong;
Whether thou speak of simple Sabine farms,
Or call, as now, to song—or art—or arms;
Be welcome every dream thou waftest down,
And every tale; but most of old renown.
Tell us of statesman—warrior—bard—or sage—
Wonder or love of many a famous age—
What time, by seas shut in and rocky strand,

And all-undreaming of the Roman brand,
Our Britain lay, a yet unhistoried land.
Hail and Farewell! Resounding Anio!
And now, Fair Stream! with milder current flow
On 'mid thy vines and pasture; till thou come
'Neath the proud walls of twice Imperial Rome.

Thence, with old Tiber, soon to sport thee free
'Mid the blue waters of the Tyrrhene sea.
Thou, Pilgrim-Friend! (we know) wert never one,
Mere idle praiser of the days foregone;

Nor striving still to shroud with poor pretence
Of classic feeling gap of week-day sense;
But ever, in thy wisdom, taking heed
That worthy life is made of daily deed.
And tho' (by shrewd Saint Stephen stolen, of late,
From converse of thy friends—to serve the state)
It thee befits to pay thy studious vow
To Hansard rather than to Livy—now;
Yet hence, methinks, 'tis joyance doubly sweet
In this, the dream-land of our youth to meet;
Together turn again the classic page,
And win us back our boyhood's loftier age;
And church and state for some brief weeks eschew;
And make again this Ancient World our New.
But, here, far back the scroll must be unroll'd;
Here, where ten centuries do not make the Old.

Where old they deem in antiquarian thought
Some work by Ancus or by Tarquin wrought.
That tunnel huge, or prison Mammertine;
Or old may grant the Fabian—Julian—line;
But half a Modern make our Constantine;
And, as they pass his structures, on their way,
Scarce note them—as but things of yesterday.
Small matter! Old or new, we'll list the while,
As Ciceroni teach us—or beguile.
And, if some tales for question seem to call,
In sifting Niebuhr's spite, accept them all.
Where Curtius leapt, believe the very spot;
Or muse with Numa in th' Egerian grot.
Yea—sweet for him, by parent doomed to court—
Unwilling suitor—ancient law-report;
Awhile to snatch him from the hated thrall
Of pleader's desk, or point-contesting hall;
And sweet, not less, for thee, who legislate,
To 'scape committee-room and dull debate;
Corn question—currency—and funded debt;
French marriage—and the treaty of Utretcht;
And leaving—not too long—our own dear land,
To hail—as we of late—the Belgic strand;
Thence, o'er their ill-laid rail, right glad to roll,—
Tho' shaken sore—to this Ausonian Goal.
Not stately Bruges might detain us, now,
Nor Meuse, soft-gliding 'neath her fortress'd brow;

More pleased some while to thrust from off the scene
Battles and sieges, Marlborough and Eugene.
Nay, prizing thee, old Legendary Rhine!
Less for thy legends than thy climbing vine.
Nor yet in famed Helvetia tarrying long,
Tho' there green vales and glittering mountains throng;
And We aye pleased to feel the bosom swell,
By Uris rock, at thought of William Tell.
But onward still our purposed way we take
O'er tall Gothard and by Locarno's lake;
Or climbing slow, or if in full career,
With Rome! Rome! Rome! in heart and eye and ear.
Still thirsting; till at last we came to stand,
Glad Exodites! in it—our Promised Land.

And what our Pisgah view? Crushed piles of state
The walls within; and dun and desolate
Campagna round; with bridge and tower destruct
By age or war; and ruined aqueduct
Athwart the fading twilight. And is this
A Forum? or a vast Necropolis?
Temples—for tombs; a nation's dust beneath;
With silence round, that fears almost to breathe;
And city-solitude, so strangely drear,
The Living seem to have no business—here.
If in some vineyard ground our step be stayed,
Awhile, beside the peasant's delving spade;
(Now—vineyard; once—Patrician's client court,
When that near Forum was a world's resort)
As up and up the rank black mould is cast,
The very earth seems odorous of the Past.

Each after each, behold in turn out-thrown
Tile—faded stucco—scrap of sculptured stone.
Anon—some shattered urn, or broken frieze;
Power—turned to skeleton! His fragments—These.
Ruins and fragments! Is it these that Ye
From your own thriving land come forth to see?
We answer, 'Yea;' these are the things that We
From our own thriving land come forth to see.
We come to see how ancient power may die,
And ponder on a realm's mortality.
Yet, seeing how survive the Good—the Just;
In goodness and in justice learn to trust.
We come, as in fond youth, to sympathize,
Thro' backward ages, with the Great and Wise;

And feel—as then—some throb thro' inner heart,
Where life's low interests claim no smallest part.
We come from restless plan and restless deed,
Ambition's instrument, or habit's need,
To find the Calm which generous leisures give,
And less in act than meditation live.
We come from wit's and jest's enlivening strife,
And all the dearer bliss of household life,
To feed on pensive thoughts; yet not the less
To win a pleasure from our pensiveness.
And if those grave and pensive thoughts (and such
Our case may be) should press the heart too much;
'Twere not so very far to find our way
Mid glorious art, that tells of no decay.
Where beams each high conception just the same
As when from Grecian chisel first it came.

Tho' mortal-born, of beauty that might mate
With archetype celestial increate.
Nay, beauteous more than in their glittering prime,
Tinged softly by the sun-set hues of Time.
Then, if some friend should come, with best intent,
To warn of hours all uselessly misspent;
He too may learn (nor is the lore abstruse)
That uselessness, like this, is noblest use.
That while the busy serfs of wealth and power
Fawn only on the Present's sordid hour,
(No lofty thought or back—or forward—cast)
We pluck our nobler Present from the Past.
Nor pause we there, but, starting forth anew,
From thence shape out a nobler Future too.
This long discourse hath led us far away
'Mid other themes from our Tiburtian day,

But now again, with renovated grace,
We bow before the Genius of the Place,
Full of the scene around; and all-intent,
As slow we travel up this steep ascent,
To win the passing pictures, as they rise
From present hour, or ancient memories.
For here, glance where eye may, or footstep fall,
Or new or old, 'tis picture—picture—All.
This structure near, mere peasant's dwelling-place,
Is not itself without some claim of grace.
Its terraced roof, square tower, and arching gate
To Art, long since, thro' picture consecrate.
For Creed of Art hath not alone to do
With reason'd faith, but with tradition too;
And Beauty's self we hold for most divine,
When Memory stands Priestess at her shrine.

Behold! its sunward wall. How all-ablaze
With one full glow of ripest, yellowest maize;
Whose rich-ribbed cylinders, in order strung,
Seem tassels, for some festal rite uphung.
Or each might be fit cresting ornament
For regal canopy, or warrior-tent.
No brighter hues hath Ceres in her horn;
No cheerier ever broke from saffron morn.
More golden—ne'er from furnace-fires were rolled
Than these, sun-wrought in vegetable gold.
Which almost might requite his absent ray,
Themselves a sun-shine for each clouded day.
While yon ripe gourds, that strew the court-yard floor,
Beam upward, each a mass of glittering ore.
But now, with these our rural splendours done,
And we, like them, full-saturate with sun;
How fresh it is, as, step by step, we mount,
To watch the gushings of that marble fount.

Its cistern—some antique sarcophagus;
(Here, Old and New for ever mingle—thus)
While its raised cup, whenceforth the Naiads toss
O'erbrimming wave, is fringed with greenest moss.
(For, in these lands comes oft from mere neglect,
What art long while might ponder to effect.)
Each pendent tuft, with sparkling spray bedript,
Seems it not emerald, with diamond tipt?
And then those female forms, with braided hair,
And heads erect, that classic urns up-bear;
(From forth whose shapely rims dewed vine-leaves drop;—
Thrust partly in, escaping lymph to stop.)
These, as around the cistern's edge they throng,
Say, might not These to Grecian Art belong?

Whoe'er from life's mere prose awhile would flee,
Should roam with us this land of reverie.
Where museful fancy needeth not the aid
Of cloister dim, or silent colonnade,
Or solitary shore, or moonlight glen,
But meets her visions 'mid the haunts of men;
And feels in broadest sun-light round her stream
From every waking fact some answering dream.
And how that lofty Past exalts the Now!
That churl—a Cincinnatus at the plough!
Yon kite, slow circling up the Blue—afar—
An augury! or be it peace or war.
Those very geese, out clamouring, one and all,
The Sacred Birds that saved the Capitol!
And lo! thro' yonder arch those oxen twain;
On slowly swaying that grape-loaded wain.

Right goodly creatures, beautiful to view!
Dark-hoofed—dark-maned—the rest of creamy hue;
With large soft eyes. All soft as Here's were,
('Tis Homer's simile, so we may dare)—
When their pride slept, and love alone was there.
Now, thro' the spacious court behold they go;
Now, pause beside the pillared portico.
With foliage drest, and that rich ruby freight,
Nay—draw they not, in sacrificial state,
A Bacchic offering to some temple's gate?
Mark the broad wheels—but two! That yoking bar,
Just as of old! No wain—but ancient car!
And they, above the piled up grapes who ride,
Their naked limbs with purpling vintage dyed,
The Fauns! And here, ere long, the rest shall be:
Look with poetic eyes and thou shalt see

Bacchante lithe; and jesting Satyr near;
With broad Silenus, staggering in the rear,
Tho' doubly propped; while gay goat-footed Pan
'Mid pipe and cymbal triumphs in the van.
Then that old Crone, with lifted tambourine,
Which still she smites; and some strange rhythm between,
Or, rather, mixed; while to the double sound
A dark-tress'd girl is dancing round and round,
That Crone, with hair unkempt, yet scarce uncouth,
(So well it suits) and that fore-thrusting tooth,
Keen—almost prescient—tooth of prophetess;
(A flitting fancy, which I may not press)
That Crone shall be our Sibyl! And that Girl,
Still hurried round and round in dizzier whirl;
With her wild eye almost to frenzy fired,
(Such look in Delphi had been held inspired)

And flashing locks, and every flashing limb,
She shall be Priestess! and that Song—the Hymn!
And wherefore, 'No?' Why may not this be chaunt
From Pythian tripod or Dodona's haunt?
For, as some stream, by ancient fragments hid,
From earthquake—flung; or mighty hill—down slid;
(That cumber, many a league, the valleys round

With huge grey rock or grass-grown earthy mound
Still holds its silent way 'neath all that hides,
Then at some far-off point once more outglides,
Another stream; another, yet the same;
E'en those, who quaff, may guess not whence it came;
No otherwise this mystic rhythm may flow,
Far winding on, from ages long ago;
Some Grecian chaunt, its secret course unknown,
And heard, at last, in region not its own.

Old customs die not, but sprout forth again;
The names distorted, while the things remain.
Fane, 'Church' baptized, sees new-named votaries vow,
And old Chief Augur is Prime Pontiff, now.
E'en Jove himself, Great Jove Capitoline,

Rules in strange semblance o'er a later shrine.
His twice-fused bronze transformed, by pious feint,
From Pagan Deity to Christian Saint.
At this you smile; and who would smile refuse?
But when the smile is o'er, 'twere well to muse.
Olympian Zeus, upon his golden throne;
Calm Pallas, glorious in her Parthenon;
Or rudest Sibyl, from her rocky cave,
Mid spiky aloes, issued forth to rave;
Or curling smokes, o'er Judah wont to rise
From bull or goat, in barbarous sacrifice;

These, for rank falsehoods, while the most eschew,
In stern contempt for Gentile and for Jew;
These, for imperfect truths, let us accept;
Instalments of the universal debt;
Acknowledgment, we know, far off and dim;
Yet, not the less, acknowledgment of Him,
'In every age, in every clime adored;
(So sang the bard,) Jehovah—Jove—or Lord.'
This preachment o'er, (which yet you mildly bear,
Of preachments all-impatient as you are),
Yon church, whence now intones the holy mass,
If so you please, we'll enter as we pass.
For churches here (with reverence be it said)
Are not too holy held for week-day tread.
But each, at will and unrebuked for wrong,
May come and muse their column'd aisles along:

And some high influence win, or grave delight
From picture, incense, or the chaunted rite;
Or find fit hour, as every passing day
Its joy or sorrow brings—to praise or pray.
But now with festal silks the shafts are bound,
And glittering fringes edge the arches round.
Of granites red, or cippolino grey,
Or carvings quaint, small sight for us—to-day.
We quarrel not. There are, we know, who hate,
Or half unchristian deem such pious fête.
Yet silvered Saints, and Virgin fancy-drest
For peasant-worshipper may be the best.
Rare entrance his, or none, thro' palace gate;
Be this his palace hall—his room of state.
Or let him bring his humble sorrows here,
Secure, at least, of one Great Listener's ear.

These types, so falsified, from earliest youth
Have been to him the very types of truth;
And his own toil hath helped the monthly dole
That gilds the shrine, and bids the organ roll.
Worships—like tastes—have each their power and tone;
Church ne'er was meant for Dilletant' alone.
And Christians, such as would all rites confine
To their own forms, are Christians none of mine.
Then spare him, Critic! as he kneels in this
His ill-drest fane, and loves for God's—and his.
'Of all the ills unhappy mortals know,
A life of wandering is the greatest woe.'
So thought Ulysses; but we think not so.
And blest it is, with pilgrim-staff in hand,
At our own will to roam each ancient land,

(Of which in school-boy volume first we read,
Yet never dared to hope our feet should tread)
And test with manhood's sense the dreams of youth,
Nor lose the vision, and yet win the truth.
If nature-led; to track with pleasant pains
Their mountain-wilds and cultivated plains.
If student; in some shy monastic crypt,
To try old text by new found manuscript.
If vowed to art; its each attempt explore,
From primal Ægypt, or the Xanthian shore,
To where in Greece it triumphed; deified
And deifying; then like mortal died.
In this bright land again to spring to life,
And strive again; scarce conquered in the strife.
But he who to the land, that sent him forth,
Brings back but this, brings product little worth.
Huge virtuoso—true! But driveller blind

Beside the larger soul—the deeper mind—
Which, learning man, hath learnt to love mankind.
Our hostel hold us now; not undistrest
By pleasant toil; for pleasures must have rest.
Here, sit—or sleep—or scrawl the pane—your fill;
Or rhyme—like me, (against Minerva's will!)
Who for sublimer flight nor bold nor strong,
May just achieve to journalize in song.
Yet for brief space. For now, it seems, we dine:
Lo! here, wild boar—and, here, Falernian wine;
With figs—ripe grapes—and rarest wheaten bread.
And who may tell but here the board was spread
For genial Flaccus and for Maro—thus—
Two thousand years ago, as now for us?
Just fancy! when they sat, as here we sit,
The frolic—and the wisdom—and the wit.

And here came he, the blood of ancient kings,
To find the joyance equal converse brings.
With them gay chatting, as the whim might be,
Of one's arch Phillis, one's sweet Lalage.
Or last year's visit to Bandusia's fount;
Or journey planned to yon Soractes' mount.
Or laughing back, with still-recurring glee,
Those sparkling days from Rome to Brindisi.
Here too the Cæsar might consort with them;—
His Purple laid aside and Diadem—
Well-pleased, amid their talk and easy cheer,
To glimpse his own great Rome—yet feel it not too near.
What glimpse (had glimpse been given) of years to come!
The conquering Goth; and that twice pillaged Rome.

Gone! eagles—banners—lances—lictors' rods;
The temples crumbling o'er their crumbled Gods.
All steadfast as they seemed, his ancient stock
Uprooted from their Capitolian rock.
The far-off realms, they swayed but with the sword,
Crouched at a swordless pontiff's slightest word.
Their mighty palace (of each glory reft,
Nor marble frieze, nor porphyry pillar left;
Nor floor, as once, with rich mosaic spread;
Nor hues cerulean arching overhead)
Roofless and void; and only, now, renowned
As larger ruin 'mid the ruins round.
The baths with rubbish choked; the fountains dry;
The green acanthus, as in mockery,
(And wild, as when by chance in wicker sown,
It gave, of old, its graceful hint to stone)
Wandering, at will, amid those very halls,
Where once 'twas carved for golden capitals.

Some lingering terrace but a loftier spot,
Whence to discern that his own Rome was not.
Thee, Flaccus! the self-promised not to die,
A kindlier star hath sped thy prophecy.
Or song itself fulfils its own desire;
Realms fade away, and dynasties expire;
Yet on from age to age sounds thine—with Maro's lyre.
But here, by rightful and peculiar lot,
Ye hover most, the Genii of the spot.
Of memory—vision—feeling—thought—a part;
Heard from each lip, or borne in every heart.
Brave bliss! What braver may to bard belong?
Save its own joy from self-requiting song.
Diverse the strains. Yet would we figure how
Together oft ye trod this favorite brow.

Not now in jocund converse, as of late,
But each his inner theme to meditate.
Thou, it might be, some polished lyric verse;
Now, fondly dallying; now, brightly terse.
Or precept, each with its own wisdom rife,
That models—here—a poem; there—a life.
Or else wouldst hie thee to the busy street,
To sketch some silly pride or grave conceit.
Then round to us the playful picture turn,
And bid us in that glass ourselves re-learn.
Meanwhile (so dream we on) the Mantuan Bard
To yon tall peak hath paced the silent sward.
Thenceforth to scan, in prospect calm and free,
The various plain, from hill to circling sea.

Pale region, now; with culture ill be-sped;
Then, one wide Georgic, bright beneath him spread.
Or, not unprompted by that far sea-line,
Would ponder o'er th' Eneian tale divine;
Till clear before him, and in perfect plan,
The Heroic Vision stood — 'Arms and the Man.'
Once more I move you (our third flask is done,
And lo! the shadows lengthen in the sun)
To view yon time-hued fane, at this soft hour,
When eye and spirit best may feel its power.
Laud we the Gods! No connoisseur is near,
With his clipp'd talk our frank delight to sear.
Who, while a thousand admirations crave,
Still harps and harps on arch and architrave;
And, vowed to his five orders, fain would school
Our kindling spirits with his three-foot rule.

Scarce more, if we might choose our time and place,
Here would we wish that nobler critic race,
Esthetical; who stand on tiptoe still,
And see far less with eyesight than with will.
Would-be discoverers, on vague voyage bent;
Interpreters 'of meanings never meant;'

Of the true creed, but whose ecstatic faith
O'erpasseth ever what the Gospel saith;
These, while the smaller critics tease or vex,
With their dim dreams disturb us—or perplex;
Or, if such comment sound not civil quite,
Daze out our clearness with their too much light.

Digressive thus, ere passing thoughts be gone,
I crave your leave, and idly ramble on,
(You still indulging) till I bring you near
Our famous temple—and behold it!—here.

Amid these varying tales of ruin old,—
Some, scantly gathered up; some, falsely told—
Sibyl's or Vesta's we may hardly tell:
But he, who first devised, devised it well,
Here, where it stands, with circling columns bound,
And placed—how calm! above the gulf profound,
To tame these rugged rocks—this torrent's stress—
With power of Beauty and of Gentleness.
So might we feign, some fair high-lineaged queen
Rules o'er a raging crowd with look serene.
So too, when some great Master hath designed
To paint in human form th' Eternal Mind;
And humbly dares essay that lofty brow,
Which holds the Past—the Future—and the Now;
Awhile we pause before his art severe;
Then, reverent bend; yet less in love than fear.

But when, ere long, around those awful brows
In graceful curve his cherub-group he throws;
Each with its little arms—beneath—above—
Outstretch'd to clasp, and childhood's look of love;
Behold! those awful brows no longer lower,
But Sense of Love hath soothed the Sense of Power.
So—Pilgrim-Friend! our pleasant day is sped:
'To-morrow, to fresh woods;' to-night, to bed.
Yet from these heights throw one more glance abroad,
And some few moments dream with dreamy Claude.
Beneath—are field and stream and lake and wood,
And site, where ancient city stands—or stood.
Around—the hills. That—here—in bay recede,
As if for nestling culture taking heed;
Or boldly—there—indent the level plain,
Like promontory pronged into the main.

As parts for other clime th' unwilling day,
See! how that far Campagna sinks away.
A sea of purpled land, now, seems to be;
Now, scarce distinguished from the purple sea.
E'en while we gaze, how vanish on the view
Each bright—each fair—each fading—faded—hue!
A pensive light, while aught of light remains;
Then—pensive veil for these Deserted Plains!