Than either, pent within her separate sphere,
Can oft with justice claim.
And not disdaining
Union with those primeval energies

To virtue consecrate, stoop ye from your height
Christian Traditions! at my Spirit's call
Descend, and, on the brow of ancient Rome
As she survives in ruin, manifest

Your glories mingled with the brightest hues
Of her memorial halo, fading, fading,
But never to be extinct while Earth endures.
O come, if undishonoured by the prayer,
From all her Sanctuaries Open for my feet
Ye Catacombs, give to mine eyes a glimpse
Of the Devout, as, mid your glooms convened
For safety, they of yore enclasped the Cross
On knees that ceased from trembling, or intoned
Their orisons with voices half-suppressed,
But sometimes heard, or fancied to be heard,
Even at this hour.

And thou Mamertine prison, Into that vault receive me from whose depth Issues, revealed in no presumptuous vision, Albeit lifting human to divine,

A Saint, the Church's Rock, the mystic Keys Grasped in his hand; and lo! with upright sword

Prefiguring his own impendent doom,

The Apostle of the Gentiles; both prepared
To suffer pains with heathen scorn and hate
Inflicted-blessed Men, for so to Heaven
They follow their dear Lord!

Time flows-nor winds,
Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course,
But many a benefit borne upon his breast
For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone,
No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth
An angry arm that snatches good away,
Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream
Has to our generation brought and brings
Innumerable gains; yet we, who now
Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely
To a chilled age, most pitiably shut out
From that which is and actuates, by forms,
Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact
Minutely linked with diligence uninspired,
Unrectified, unguided, unsustained,

By godlike insight. To this fate is doomed Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be Her conquests, in the world of sense made

known.

If to the future aught of good must come
Sounder and therefore holier than the ends
Which, in the giddiness of self-applause,
We covet as supreme. O grant the crown
That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous
staff

From Knowledge !- If the Muse, whom I have served

This day, be mistress of a single pearl
Fit to be placed in that pure diadem;
Then, not in vain, under these chesnut boughs
Reclined, shall I have yielded up my soul
To transports from the secondary founts
Flowing of time and place, and paid to both
Due homage: nor shall fruitlessly have striven,
By love of beauty moved, to enshrine in verse
Accordant meditations, which in times
Vexed and disordered, as our own, may shed
Influence, at least among a scattered few,
To soberness of mind and peace of heart
Friendly; as here to my repose hath been
This flowering broom's dear neighbourhood, the
light

And murmur issuing from yon pendent flood,
And all the varied landscape. Let us now
Rise, and to-morrow greet magnificent Rome.

II.

THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO AT ROME.

I SAW far off the dark top of a Pine
Look like a cloud-a slender stem the tie

That bound it to its native earth-poised high
'Mid evening hues, along the horizon line,
Striving in peace each other to outshine.
But when I learned the Tree was living there,
Saved from the sordid axe by Beaumont's care,
Oh, what a gush of tenderness was mine!
The rescued Pine-tree, with its sky so bright
And cloud-like beauty, rich in thoughts of home,
Death-parted friends, and days too swift in
flight,

Supplanted the whole majesty of Rome
(Then first apparent from the Pincian Height)
Crowned with St Peter's everlasting Dome.

COMPLACENT Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came.
Ne'er could the boldest Eulogist have dared
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame,
But for coeval sympathy prepared

Το greet with instant faith their loftiest claim.
None but a noble people could have loved
Flattery in Ancient Rome's pure-minded style:
Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;
He, nursed 'mid savage passions that defile
Humanity, sang feats that well might call
For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin's riotous

Hall.

VI.

PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN.

FORBEAR to deem the Chronicler unwise,
Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth,
Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth
Has spared of sound and grave realities,
Firmly rejects those dazzling flatteries,
Dear as they are to unsuspecting Youth,
That might have drawn down Clio from the skies
To vindicate the majesty of truth.

Such was her office while she walked with men,
A Muse, who, not unmindful of her Sire
All-ruling Jove, whate'er the theme might be
Revered her Mother, sage Mnemosyne,
And taught her faithful servants how the lyre
Should animate, but not mislead, the pen.

VII.

AT ROME.

THEY-who have seen the noble Roman's scorn
Break forth at thought of laying down his head,
When the blank day is over, garreted
In his ancestral palace, where, from morn
To night, the desecrated floors are worn
By feet of purse-proud strangers; they-who
have read

In one meek smile, beneath a peasant's shed,
How patiently the weight of wrong is borne;
They who have heard some learned Patriot

treat

Of freedom, with mind grasping the whole theme

From ancient Rome, downwards through that bright dream

Of Commonwealths, each city a starlike seat
Of rival glory; they-fallen Italy-
Nor must, nor will, nor can, despair of Thee!

While allured

From vale to hill, from hill to vale led on, We have pursued, through various lands, a long

And pleasant course; flower after flower has blown,

Embellishing the ground that gave them birth
With aspects novel to my sight; but still
Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the
dew

In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved,
For old remembrance sake. And oft-where
Spring

Display'd her richest blossoms among files
Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit
Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade
Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour,
The lightsome Olive's twinkling canopy-
Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush
Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet might

roam,

Whate'er assemblages of new and old,
Strange and familiar, might beguile the way,
A gratulation from that vagrant Voice
Was wanting;-and most happily till now.

For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile,
High on the brink of that precipitous rock,
Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth
It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
By a few Monks, a stern society,
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,

Dead to the world and scorning earth-born joys,

Nay-though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove,

St Francis, far from Man's resort, to abide
Among these sterile heights of Apennine,
Bound him, nor, since he raised yon House,
have ceased

To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules
Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live;
His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline,
Doth sometimes here predominate, and works
For earth through heaven, for heaven, by
By unsought means for gracious purposes;
changeful earth,

Illustrated, and mutually endeared.

Rapt though He were above the power of

sense,

Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart
Of that once sinful Being overflowed
On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements,
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections; and with beast and bird
(Stilled from afar-such marvel story tells--
By casual outbreak of his passionate words,
And from their own pursuits in field or grove
Drawn to his side by look or act of love
Humane, and virtue of his innocent life)
He wont to hold companionship so free,
So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight,
As to be likened in his Followers' minds
To that which our first Parents, ere the fall
From their high state darkened the Earth with

fear,

Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers.

Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see
Upon a pine-tree's storm-uprooted trunk,
Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised,
Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed
By the joint pressure of his musing mood
And habit of his vow. That ancient Man-
Nor haply less the Brother whom I marked,
As we approached the Convent gate, aloft
Looking far forth from his aerial cell,
A young Ascetic-Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike he was-
If they received into a conscious ear
The notes whose first faint greeting startled me,
Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy
My heart-may have been moved like me to
think,

Ah! not like me who walk in the world's ways,

On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One
Crying amid the wilderness, and given,
Now that their snows must melt, their herbs

and flowers

Revive, their obstinate winter pass away,
That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo,
Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies
To carry thy glad tidings over heights
Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole.

Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet
Bird!

If that substantial title please thee more,
Farewell!--but go thy way, no need hast thou
Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower
To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear,
Thee gentle breezes waft or airs that meet
Thy course and sport around thee softly fan-
Till Night, descending upon hill and vale,
Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence,
And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.

XV.

AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came bereft, And seeking consolation from above; Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left To paint this picture of his lady-love: Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve? And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing So fair, to which with peril he must cling, Destroy in pity, or with care remove. That bloom-those eyes-can they assist to bind

Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease

How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave

For such a One beset with cloistral snares.
Father of Mercy! rectify his view,
If with his vows this object ill agree;
Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue
Imperious passion in a heart set free :-
That earthly love may to herself be true,
Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.
XVII.

AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF
CAMALDOLI.

WHAT aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size
Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate,
By panting steers up to this convent gate?
How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered
eyes,
Dare they confront the lean austerities
Of Brethren who, here fixed, on Jesu wait
In sackcloth, and God's anger deprecate
Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies?
Where mingle, as for mockery combined,
Strange contrast !-verily the world of dreams,
Things in their very essences at strife,
Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes
That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,
Meet on the solid ground of waking life.

In the flower-besprent meadows his genius we

trace

Turned to humbler delights, in which youth might confide,

That would yield him fit help while prefiguring that Place

Where, if Sin had not entered, Love never had died.

When with life lengthened out came a desolate time,

And darkness and danger had compassed him round,

With a thought he would flee to these haunts of his prime,

And here once again a kind shelter be found.
And let me believe that when nightly the Muse
Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill,
Here also, on some favoured height, he would
choose

To wander, and drink inspiration at will

Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind

Had a musical charm, which the winter of age And the changes it brings had no power to unbind.

And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to part,

While your leaves I behold and the brooks they will strew,

And the realised vision is clasped to my heart. Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may In Forms that must perish, frail objects of

UNDER the shadow of a stately Pile,

The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the
while,

I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurell'd Dante's favourite seat. A throne,
In just esteem, it rivals: though no style
Be there of decoration to beguile

The mind, depressed by thought of greatness flown.

As a true man, who long had served the lyre,
I gazed with earnestness, and dared no more.
But in his breast the mighty Poet bore
A Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire.
Bold with the thought, in reverence I sate
down,

And, for a moment, filled that empty Throne.

XX.

BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT FLORENCE. THE Baptist might have been ordain'd to cry Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein

His Father served Jehovah; but how win
Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy
The obstinate pride and wanton revelry
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin
And folly, if they with united din
Drown not at once mandate and prophecy?
Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert,
thence

To Her, as to her opposite in peace,
Silence, and holiness, and innocence,
To Her and to all Lands its warning sent,
Crying with earnestness that might not cease,
"Make straight a highway for the Lord-re-
pent!"

XXI.

AT FLORENCE.-FROM MICHAEL ANGELO.

RAPT above earth by power of one fair face,
Hers in whose sway alone my heart delights,
I mingle with the blest on those pure heights
Where Man, yet mortal, rarely finds a place.
With Him who made the Work that Work
accords

So well, that by its help and through his grace I raise my thoughts, inform my deeds and words,

Clasping her beauty in my soul's embrace.
Thus, if from two fair eyes mine cannot turn,
I feel how in their presence doth abide
Light which to God is both the way and guide;
And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn,
My noble fire emits the joyful ray
That through the realms of glory shines for
aye.

AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT IN THE
APENNINES.

YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects,
Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects:
If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide-
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste!
Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye-full often spurned as weeds-
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall--