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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 if^a«
 
 MEMORIALS OF MANY SCENES.
 
 MEMORIALS OF MANY SCENES. 
 
 By 
 
 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLIV.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AVD EVANS, PRINTKRS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 
 CONNOP THIRLWALL, 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S, 
 
 THESE MEMORIALS OF MANY SCENES 
 
 ARE DEDICATKD 
 
 HIS GRATEFUL PUPIL AND ATTACHED FRIEND. 
 
 7S54G7
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, my contemporary and friend, has 
 
 enjoined some brother Poet — 
 
 " To learn to write his random rhymes 
 Ere they he half-forgotten, 
 Nor add and alter many times 
 Till all he ripe and rotten " — 
 
 and, acting on the latter part of this advice (as I have done, 
 perhaps too frequently, on the former), I republish with very 
 little alteration the poems, whose composition was so pleasant 
 a labour to me in travelling through, or sojourning in, the 
 bright countries of the South of Europe, and which, under 
 other titles, have already been offered to the sympathy of 
 other wayfarers. 
 
 The "Memorials of a Tour in Greece" were published 
 ten years ago ; and thus, though chargeable with the inaccu- 
 racies of an inexperienced writer, they were so far nearer the 
 source of the classical associations of educated youth, and so 
 far likely to be impregnate with a purer and stronger feeling 
 of the worth and interest of that country and its history, than
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 is perhaps compatible with the diversified studies and ex- 
 panding objects of maturer years. 
 
 The Italian poems express a very different tone of 
 thought, and one which a short time ago could have hoped 
 for little sympathy in this country. Now, indeed, I may 
 expect more fellow-worshippers in St. Peter's than in the 
 Parthenon ; and if I have since been enabled, by additional 
 research and freer speculation, to realise a more perfect 
 Catholicity, I can only plead the influence that the ancient 
 centre of so much faith and so much power exercised over 
 my imagination, and the conviction that the impression thus 
 made was, on the whole, salutary and truthful. 
 
 The " Other Scenes " have been recorded as they pre- 
 sented themselves to my mind — some of them long ago — 
 some almost yesterday ; they take the low position of 
 Occasional Poems, and can only acquire an interest from 
 something beside and beyond themselves ; in the present 
 abundance of excellent and interesting poetry, they would 
 hardly have been for the first time obtruded on the public ; 
 but some of them may, by this time, have found friends who 
 would be glad to see them again. 
 
 LoNDO^f, 
 
 July, 1844.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 rAOB 
 
 THE SENSE OF TRAVEL .... 1 
 
 THE ELD ......... 7 
 
 CORFU .... ..... 11 
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO . . . . . . . 14 
 
 THE RETURN OF ULYSSES ...... 22 
 
 GRECIAN SUNSET 25 
 
 A GRECIAN THUNDER-STORM . .... 26 
 
 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK . . . . . . 27 
 
 TEMPE ......... 34 
 
 OLTMPUS 37 
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS ..... 40 
 
 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYL^ . . . , . 48 
 
 THE MAID OF RHAMNUS 52 
 
 GREEK RELIGION 53 
 
 MARATHON 59 
 
 THE CONCENTRATION OF ATHENS . . . . 60
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PKLASGIAN AND CYCLOPEAN WALLS 
 
 WRITTEN AT MYCENA; ...... 
 
 O.N A GROTTO A.ND WARM SPRING AT THE HEAD OF THE 
 GULF OF LEPANTO 
 
 CORINTH 
 
 MODERN GREECE ...... 
 
 AN ITALIAN TO ITaLY ...... 
 
 WRITTEN IN Petrarch's house at ari4Ua . 
 
 FEELINGS EXCITED BY SOME MILITARY MANCEUVKES AT 
 VERONA 
 
 meditative fragments, on venice 
 
 the venetian serenade ..... 
 
 from gothe . 
 
 a dream in a gondola 
 
 on the mad-house at venice .... 
 
 to . written at venice 
 
 ode to the moon of the south 
 
 pictures in verse ...... 
 
 the martyrdom of st. christina 
 
 jesus and john contending for the cross . 
 
 Christ's descent into purgatory 
 
 to giovanni bellini ...... 
 
 to raffael ....... 
 
 the im.mortality of rome ..... 
 
 the papal benediction ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 61
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN 
 
 ST. PETER'S ....... 131 
 
 THE ILLDMINATIONS OF ST. PETER'S .... 133 
 
 THE FIREWORKS FROM THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO . . 136 
 
 ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE LADY GWENDOLIN TALBOT 
 
 WITH THE ELDEST SON OF THE PRINCE BORGHESE 137 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS BORGHESE . . . 138 
 
 ROMAN RUINS . . . . . ■ • .139 
 
 ANTIQUES 1^0 
 
 ON A SCENE IN TUSCANY 142 
 
 TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 143 
 
 AN INCIDENT AT PISA ...... 146 
 
 NAPLES AND VENICE ....... 148 
 
 CANNiE . . . . • ■ • • .153 
 
 ON LEAVING ITALY, FOR THE SUMMER, ON ACCOUNT OF 
 
 HEALTH 155 
 
 SWITZERLAND AND ITALY . . . . . .157 
 
 THE DEATH OF DAY .....•• 163 
 
 ON A RUINED CASTLE, NEAR THE RHINE . . . 165 
 
 ON THE JUNGFRAU BY MOONLIGHT . . . . . 1C6 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE TYROL . . 167 
 
 SALZBURG 168 
 
 THE RIVER TRAUN . . . . . • .171 
 
 MONT BLANC 1'3 
 
 ON THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE, AT PARIS . . 174
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IMPRESSION, ON RETURNING TO ENGLAND . . . 176 
 
 TO AN ENGLISH LADY, WHO HAD SUNG A ROMAN BALLAD 177 
 
 ON REVISITING CAMBRIDGE, AFTER A LONG ABSENCE ON 
 
 THE CONTINENT 178 
 
 THE SAME 179 
 
 ON COWPERS GARDEN AT OLNEY 180 
 
 ROCHE ROCK, CORNWALL 181 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY 182 
 
 THE CAVE OF THE DYING DEER, ON THE BANKS OF 
 
 ULLSWATER 183 
 
 ELYSIAN FIELDS AT LOWTHER, IN WESTMORELAND . 186 
 
 ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN, AT FROME, IN SOMER- 
 SETSHIRE 188 
 
 LONDON CHURCHES 190 
 
 CLIFDEN, IN CUNNEMARA 193 
 
 THE SUBTERRANEAN RIVER, AT CONG .... 195 
 
 "ONE MOMENT MORE BEFORE THAT FATAL LEAP " . 197 
 
 VALENTIA 198 
 
 THE ENVOY 203
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE SENSE OF TRAVEL. 
 
 TO 
 
 Hast thou not read the wild but all-true story 
 Of the brave Pilgrim and his Georgian bride, 
 
 Pietro* and Maani, who in glory 
 
 And cloudless joy went wandering side by side '? 
 
 Now by the Turcoman's ferocious hordes 
 Guarded, and tended with religious care, 
 
 Now proudly feasted at the imperial boards 
 Of Isfahan and Shiras, peerless pair ! 
 
 * Pietro deUa VaUe, il PeUegrino, commenced his strange wanderings 
 in 1614. The chivalry of his character, his singular marriage, and the 
 novelty of the world he opens to Europe in all truth and simplicity, make 
 these volumes most agreeable reading. 
 
 B
 
 2 THE SENSE OF TRAVEL. 
 
 What was to them the peril and the toil, 
 The shifting troubles of that novel way 1 
 
 They were together, and no power could soil 
 The pure love-calm that at their spirits lay : — 
 
 Till envious Death forbade the further sight 
 Of that rare interchange of bliss and pain, 
 
 And nations lost a wonder and delight. 
 
 Which never might refresh their souls again. 
 
 But though thus late, why should'st not Thou and I, 
 Before our lives' short seasons downward tend, 
 
 Renew that long-extinguished memory, 
 
 My falcon-eyed, my falcon-hearted Friend ? 
 
 It is a high vocation, to go out 
 
 Upon the daedal Earth, and watch the sun 
 Rise above unknown hills, and wide about 
 
 Strange plains extend our sight's dominion : — 
 
 Through scenes, which to the habitants of each 
 Are worlds distinct, as if they planets were, 
 
 And ever-varying moods of garb and speech, 
 
 To pass light-winged, and free as birds of air ; — 
 
 To live whole years in some short span of days, — 
 To feel new wisdom falling, like a dew. 
 
 Upon our passive temples, and the maze 
 Of life unravel with a ready clue !
 
 THE SENSE OF TRAVEL. 
 
 When close before us spreads some famous land, 
 How well we think ! how faithfully we know ! 
 
 Imagination lays her regal hand 
 
 On Memory's shoulder, and she dare not go : — 
 
 For then the Soul can best its ear apply, 
 Piercing our daily path's discordant sound, 
 
 To that low-paced, long-echoing, melody, 
 
 To which the Earth, in its pure prime, went round. 
 
 Such generous ends will surely energise 
 
 Thy flower-frail form, till it becomes so strong, 
 
 That in dark ways and under sternest skies. 
 Serene and fearless thou wilt move along ; 
 
 And Nature's shapes and each historic place 
 Fresh earnest of their inner life will find, 
 
 Taking the mould of thy supernal grace. 
 And lucid with the light of thy clear mind. 
 
 B 2
 
 GREECE.
 
 •• Greece and her foundations are 
 Ruilt below the tide of war, 
 Kased on the crystalline sea 
 Of Thought and its Eternity."— Shkllev.
 
 THE ELD, 
 
 "Tome . . . 
 Pushed from his chair of regal heritage, 
 The Present is the vassal of the Past."— Tennyson. 
 
 Oh, blessed, blessed be the Eld, 
 
 Its echoes and its shades, — 
 The tones that from all time outswelled, 
 
 The light that never fades ; — 
 The silver-pinion'd memories, 
 
 The symbol and the tale, — 
 The soul-enchased melodies 
 
 Of merriment or bale. 
 
 Oh, glory ! that we wrestle 
 
 So valiantly with Time, 
 And do not alway nestle 
 
 In listlessness or crime :
 
 THE ELD. 
 
 We do not live and die 
 
 Irrevocably blind, 
 But raise our hands and sigh 
 
 For' the might we left behind. 
 
 Each goodly sign and mystic letter, 
 
 That angel-haunted books unfold, — 
 We cherish more, — we know them better, 
 
 When we remember they are old ; 
 And friends, though fresh, and hale, and cheerly. 
 
 And young, as annals hold, 
 Yet, if we prize them very dearly, 
 
 We love to call them old. 
 
 Yon scented shrub, — T passed it by, 
 
 The youngling of the breeze ; 
 I sat me, sad and soberly. 
 
 Beneath those ancient trees. 
 Whose branches, dight in summer pall. 
 
 Their gloom in moaning wore ; 
 For' they told me of the Eld and all 
 
 The mystery of yore. 
 
 And in the gusts, I thought they pitied 
 
 The falling of the young, — 
 The fair, the subtle-witted. 
 
 Fine limb, and honeyed tongue ; —
 
 THE ELD. 
 
 As man, from birth to funeral, 
 Were but a tragic mime, — 
 
 And, they the kinsman Hneal 
 Of the good and olden prime. 
 
 I saw the hoary bulk of ocean 
 
 A' couching on the shore. 
 With a ripple for its motion, 
 
 And a murmur for its roar ; 
 I gazed, but not as on the dead. 
 
 But as if Death were held 
 In awe, by a thing that slumbered 
 
 In the deep and silent Eld. 
 
 The golden school of Eld is rife 
 
 With many a God-sent ray. 
 And jewel-gleams of perfect life, 
 
 Hereditary day ! 
 Alas ! we cannot quite awake, — 
 
 But when we feel we dream, 
 That hour, our heart is strong to shake 
 
 The falsities that seem. 
 
 For our bark is on the angle 
 Of a wide and bending stream. 
 
 Whose bosky banks entangle 
 The eye's divergent beam ; —
 
 10 THE ELD. 
 
 The ridgy steeps hide in the way, 
 Whither the stream is quest, 
 
 As on a lake, the mirror 'd day 
 Repeats its waveless rest. 
 
 How know we, when so clearly still, 
 
 Where its nether fountains be ? 
 That it welleth in a viewless hill. 
 
 And passeth to the sea ? 
 The tide beneath us, — where it welled 
 
 Dull sense regardeth not, — 
 But it was once the tide of Eld, 
 
 And we liave not all forgot. 
 
 Great Art hath bound a diadem. 
 
 Upon his front serene, 
 Whose every pure and charmed gem 
 
 Bedews him with its sheen ; 
 And thus, — nor deem it wildly new. 
 
 Nor slur of idle tongue, — 
 But true, as God's own words are true. 
 
 The Eld is alway young ; — 
 
 Young as the flush of all-blue light. 
 
 Or eve's imperial eyes, 
 And he who worshippeth aright. 
 
 Shall aye be young and wise.
 
 CORFU. 11 
 
 And gentle as the virgin dove 
 That primal chaos quelled, 
 
 With Nature for his ladie-love, 
 The daughter of the Eld. 
 
 Sept. 20th, 1832. 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 " It is an isle under Ionian skies, 
 Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise."— Shblley. 
 
 Thou pleasant Island, whose rich garden-shores 
 
 Have had a long-lived fame of loveliness*, 
 
 Recorded in the historic song, that framed 
 
 The unknown Poet of an unknown time. 
 
 Illustrating his native Ithaca, 
 
 And all her bright society of isles, — 
 
 Most pleasant land ! To us, who journeying come 
 
 From the far west, and fall upon thy charms, 
 
 Our earliest welcome to Ionian seas, 
 
 Thou art a wonder and a deep delight, 
 
 Thy usual habitants can never know. 
 
 * 2;ts|'''i» i^amvrty. — Odyss. vii. 79.
 
 12 CORFU. 
 
 Thou art a portal, whence the Orient, 
 
 The long-desired, long-dreamt-of. Orient, 
 
 Opens upon us, with its stranger forms, 
 
 Outlines immense and gleaming distances. 
 
 And all the circumstance of faery-land. 
 
 Not only with a present happiness, 
 
 But taking from anticipated joys 
 
 An added sense of actual bliss, we stand 
 
 Upon thy cliffs, or tread the slopes that leave 
 
 No interval of shingle, rock, or sand. 
 
 Between their verdure and the Ocean's brow, — 
 
 Whose olive-groves (unlike the darkling growth. 
 
 That earns on western shores the traveller's scorn) 
 
 Can wear the grey that on their foliage lies, 
 
 As but the natural hoar of lengthened days, — 
 
 Making, with their thick-bossed and fissured trunks, 
 
 Bases far-spread and branches serpentine. 
 
 Sylvan cathedrals, such as in old times 
 
 Gave the first life to Gothic art, and led 
 
 Imagination so sublime a way. 
 
 Then forth advancing, to our novice eyes 
 How beautiful appears the concourse clad 
 In that which, of all garbs, may best befit 
 The grace and dignity of manly form : 
 The bright-red open vest, falling upon 
 The white thick-folded kirtle, and low cap
 
 CORFU. 13 
 
 Above the high-shorn brow. 
 
 Nor less than these, 
 With earnest joy, and not injurious pride, 
 We recognise of Britain and her force 
 The wonted ensigns and far-known array ; 
 And feel how now the everlasting Sea, 
 Leaving his old and once imperious Spouse, 
 To faint, in all the beauty of her tears, 
 On the dank footsteps of a mouldering throne. 
 Has taken to himself another mate, 
 Whom his uxorious passion has endowed. 
 Not only with her antique properties. 
 But with all other gifts and privilege, 
 Within the circle of his regal hand. 
 
 Now forward, — forward on a beaming path, 
 But be each step as fair as hope has feigned it, 
 For me, the memory of the little while. 
 That here I rested happily, within 
 The close-drawn pale of English sympathies. 
 Will bear the fruit of many an after-thought, 
 Bright in the dubious track of after-years.
 
 14 
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 
 
 The range of rocks which forms the " Leucadian Promon- 
 tory," on one side shelving to the sea's brink and clothed with 
 greenish heather, on the other fearfully precipitous and of the 
 purest chalk, reminds you much more forcibly of the dread with 
 which of old they filled the approaching mariner *, than of 
 their anti-erotic powers of purgation. The Temple of Apollo, 
 which stood near its extremity, seems to have had reference 
 to both these purposes. Even when the edifice no longer re- 
 mained to receive the offerings and adjurations of the trembhng 
 seamen, a record of the religion of the place was left ; and, in 
 these late days, Kendrick mentions that lie saw the sailors cast 
 obols into the sea to propitiate the present power. It is also 
 no bad illustration of the different ways in which faith sways 
 the minds of men, that, with regard to the more marvellous 
 function of this sacred shore, lovers, in the cooler stage of 
 Grecian mythology, no longer undertook the ordeal leap, but 
 wei'e content to court the favour of the god by the same safe 
 method of pecuniary oblation. The origin and meaning of the 
 fable itself is most obscure. The gods did not make the 
 miracle, but found it there ; Jupiter used it with infallible 
 success : — this was all Apollo could tell Venus about it, when 
 she asked him the reason of the immediate cessation of her 
 love for Adonis, on leaping from this rock into her native 
 element, — and we cannot be expected to know more. But the 
 
 * Fonnidatus nautis. Vir yEn. iii. 272.
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 15 
 
 mystery is greatly increased when the experiment passes from 
 divine to mortal adventurers ; for that any one of merely 
 human capabilities could jump from any part of this line of 
 cliff, without being dashed to pieces against the rocks below by 
 the fall itself and the raving surge seems quite impossible, 
 even though the devotee were winged or feathered with all the 
 skill of mechanical art. Sappho, the half-goddess, is the 
 first mortal on record who made the trial, and her attempt 
 is followed by that of many of less noble fame of both sexes 
 with various success. In her legend, which is fresh among 
 the people, Phaon is of course the King of the island, and the 
 Poetess a foreign Queen. He slights her passion, and she 
 wanders over the hills in agony of heart ; heedless of her steps 
 she falls over the precipice. Another version makes her a 
 " duchessa," to account in a popular way for the Venetian 
 name of the " Doge's Point " (Capo Ducato), which the pro- 
 montory now bears. Perhaps the adjoining bay and village of 
 "Basilike" may have some connexion with the memory of 
 Queen Artemisia, another heroine of "the leap ;" and the 
 ancient worship of the sun-god have something to do with the 
 selection of " St. Elias," as the saint peculiarly reverenced in 
 the island, in the same manner as Bellerophon speeding his 
 northward flight in quest of the Chimsera has, in its heraldic 
 distinction, assumed the form of" St. George " on horseback. 
 
 The mariners were all asleep, 
 
 Save one half-dreaming at the stern, 
 Who gently bade me upward turn 
 
 My eyes, long gazing on the deep. 
 The wind had stol'n away, — our skiff 
 
 Eested, as if its sails were furled, 
 Upon the tide which softly curled 
 
 Around a triple-breasted cliff,
 
 16 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 
 
 Whose st(?eps, in mistiest day-time bright, 
 Were almost above nature white, 
 
 Bare-fronted to the westering moon, 
 
 For the autumn night had past its noon. 
 
 I prayed that not a soul might wake, — 
 
 To be left utterly alone, — 
 That not the faintest human tone, 
 
 The silence of that time might break ; 
 When, — as of old the alien maids. 
 
 Who sanctified Dodona's shades, 
 Drew out the tale of human fate. 
 
 From sounds of things inanimate, 
 Wont with inclined ear to listen, 
 
 Where branches rock or fountains rise. 
 Till high intelligences glisten 
 
 In their intense Egyptian eyes, — 
 So I began, in that light breeze. 
 
 Glancing along those noted seas, 
 To trace a harmony distinct, 
 
 A meaning in each change of tone. 
 And sound to sound more strangely linkt, 
 
 Than in my awe I dared to own : — 
 But when in clearer unison 
 
 That marvellous concord still went on, 
 And, gently as a blossom grows, 
 
 A frame of syllables uprose,
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 17 
 
 With a delight akin to fear 
 
 My heart beat fast and strong, to hear 
 Two murmurs beautifully blent, 
 
 As of a voice and instrument, — 
 A hand laid lightly on low chords, — 
 
 A voice that sobbed between its words. 
 
 " Stranger ! the voice that trembles in your ear. 
 You would have placed, had you been fancy-free. 
 
 First in the chorus of the happiest sphere. 
 The home of deified mortality : 
 
 " Stranger, the voice that trembles here below. 
 While in your life, enjoyed a fame so loud. 
 
 That utmost nations listened to its flow, 
 
 And of its presence the old Earth was proud : 
 
 " Stranger, the voice is Sappho's, — weep, oh ! weep. 
 That the soft tears of sympathy may fall 
 
 Into this prison of the sunless deep, 
 Where I am laid in miserable thrall. 
 
 " Not of my mortal pride, my mortal woe 
 
 Would I now speak ; — there is no gentle maid, 
 
 Nor youth kind-hearted, but has sighed to know, 
 What was my love and how it was repaid !
 
 18 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 
 
 " I had dear friends, who wept with bitter tears, 
 To watch my spirit's stream, which else had run,. 
 
 In fulness and delight, its course of years. 
 Wasted and parched by that relentless sun. 
 
 " Of this far rock, and its miraculous power. 
 
 They heard, emmarvelled, and with sedulous prayer 
 
 Conjured me not to lose one precious hour, 
 But seek the cure of all my misery there. 
 
 " ' The Gods,' they argued in their fond esteem, 
 ' Love their harmonious daughter far too well, 
 
 Not to pour forth on her diseased dream 
 The benediction of that soothing spell. 
 
 '' ' When many a one, whose name will never shine 
 On after ages, there has found release. 
 
 How shall not she, already half divine, 
 Claim the same gift of spiritual peace ? ' 
 
 " I told them, ' Thousands in that chilly deep 
 
 Might find relief from their weak hearts' annoy : — 
 
 Venus herself might try the counselled leap, 
 And rise oblivious of her hunter-boy ; 
 
 " ' The mystery of the place might moderate 
 The authentic passion of imperial Jove, 
 
 But did they hope for me that common fate, 
 They could know nothing of a Poet's love.'
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 19 
 
 " But vain my words ; — the tender-cruel hand 
 Of blinded friendship guided me away, — 
 
 I would have died in my own Lesbian land, 
 Not in these regions of the waning day ! 
 
 " Thus here all bootless adorations paid, 
 
 I dared the height of this tremendous shore ; 
 
 What were your agonies, ye hope-betrayed ! 
 When to your bosoms I came back no more ? 
 
 " Of the mysterious pass, that leads through death, 
 From life to life, I must not speak to thee ; 
 
 Enough that now I breathed another breath, 
 Beyond the portals of mortality. 
 
 " A stream received me, whose sethereal flow 
 Came to my senses like a perfumed sigh, 
 
 From the rich flowers that shed their light below, 
 And bowed their jewelled heads as I passed by. 
 
 " And opposite a tide of sound was driven, 
 That made the air all music, and from far 
 
 Glimmered bright faces through a dead-gold heaven, 
 As in an earthly night star follows star. 
 
 " At last I came to a gigantic gate, 
 
 That opened to a steep-ascending lawn, 
 
 Whence rose a Temple, whose white marble state 
 Was fused into that gold and purple dawn. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A DRBAM OF SAPPHO. 
 
 " Sisterly voices were around me chanting, 
 
 ' Hail ! Thou whom Song has numbered with the blest, 
 From fear, and hope, and passion's feverish panting, 
 
 Pass to thy crown, a Muse's glorious rest.' 
 
 " Entranced I entered, — but there stood between 
 Me and the fane, a queenly form and stem, 
 
 Upon whose brow, in letters all of sheen, 
 
 I saw the ancient name of Themis burn. ^ 
 
 " She laid her hand on mine, it felt so cold, 
 
 She asked me, ' Whether I, whose soul had earned 
 
 This highest Heaven, now felt serene and bold ; ' 
 Then I into my conscious self returned. 
 
 " She asked me, ' Whether all that heart-distress. 
 In which my yielding womanhood had erred 
 
 From this my Goddess-state with bitterness 
 
 And shame was seen ; ' I answered not a word. 
 
 " Then, piercingly, she asked me ' Whether He, 
 Before whose charms I prostrated so low 
 
 My woman's worth, my Poet's dignity. 
 
 Was clear forgot ;' — I answered slowly, 'No.' 
 
 " Strange strength was in me ; with consummate scorn, 
 I spoke of ' That Apollo, who could deem. 
 
 That by his magic leap, the true love-lorn 
 Could wake to bliss, as from a troublous dream.'
 
 A DREAM OF SAPPHO. 21 
 
 " I said, ' The promised peace, the calm divine, 
 
 The cold self-power, and royalty of will, 
 Or there, or elsewhere, never could be mine. 
 
 For I was Sappho, — Phaon's Sappho still.' 
 
 " There was dead blackness on the golden sky, 
 There was dumb silence in the resonant air. 
 
 But still I cried aloud in agony, 
 
 ' Heaven was not Heaven, if Phaon was not there.' 
 
 " With arms upraised, and towering looks averse, 
 
 That fearful Being uttered, — ' Be it so. 
 Blessing thou v?ilt not, thou shalt have a curse ; 
 
 High bliss thou wilt not, thou shalt have deep woe. 
 
 " ' Thou hast defiled the Gods' most choicest dower. 
 
 Poesy, which in chaste repose abides, 
 As in its atmosphere ; — that placid flower 
 
 Thou hast exposed to passion's fiery tides ; 
 
 " ' Within the cold abyss, degraded, lone, 
 
 Beneath the rock whose power thou hast blasphemed, 
 From thy Parnassian, long-expectant, throne. 
 
 Lie banished, till by some new fate redeemed.' 
 
 " When \vill that new fate be 1 I linger on, — 
 I know not what I wish ; Oh ! tell me, thou 
 
 That weep'st for one thou wouldst have smiled upon. 
 Dear Stranger, tell me where is Phaon now ?"
 
 22 THE RETURN OF ULYSSES. 
 
 Here paused the Voice, and now, methought, I spoke, 
 But what I know not ; for there passed a shock 
 
 Throughout my senses, Hke a Hghtning-stroke ; 
 I started to my feet ; — the tall white Rock 
 
 Walled the far waste of silent sea, the morn 
 
 Light- lined the East, on grey -white wings upborne. 
 
 THE RETURN OF ULYSSES. 
 
 The identity of Ithaca and Thiike is satisfactorily demon- 
 strated by Sir W. Gell, and other writers. There still remains, 
 too, in the minds of the islandei's, the legendary remembrance 
 of the wandering king and the faithful wife, who weaves and 
 spoils her web for very sorrow and distraction. The localities 
 are (juite as recognisable as could be expected : — a Grotto was 
 discovered a few years ago by the shepherds, just above the 
 shore of the deep bay (Ai^eVos iro\v0ev6ios), which bears a 
 faithful likeness to the Homeric portrait of the cave of the 
 nymphs. It is beautifully hung with stalactites, which are 
 evidently the " distaffs " of its divine inhabitants, and its floor 
 is strewn with fragments of votive amphoi'se and other relics 
 of ancient worship. 
 
 In another part of the island is a Fountain, still called 
 " Melanndron." Now the cattle of Eumreus come to the fount 
 of Arethusa to drink the " black water ; " and as this is still 
 the common drinking-place of all the neighbouring cattle, the 
 name has probably come down from the Homeric times. 
 
 As to the house of Ulysses, two sites of ancient cities are 
 clearly to be traced, the one on the Eagle-height ( "Aitco), near
 
 THE RETURN OF ULYSSES. ' 23 
 
 the narrowest part, the other to the north of the western coast, 
 still called the city (St^z/ttoAj or n6\is) ; but I should not 
 hesitate to take the former for the more important, if not elder 
 one, and, consequently, the most likely to have been the dwell- 
 ing of the Chief of the Republic of the Islands. But any such 
 detailed and special identification as that attempted by Gell is 
 fantastical ; and some correspondence between the description 
 and the plan of the remains, proves nothing more than a 
 generic similarity between the dwellings of nearly the same 
 age in the same country. 
 
 The Man of wisdom and endurance rare, 
 
 A sundry-coloured and strange-featured way, 
 
 Our hearts have followed ; now the pleasant care 
 Is near its end, — the oars' sweet-echoed play, 
 Falls on the cliffs of Ithaca's deep bay ; — 
 
 The enemy, on whose impetuous breast 
 The hero rode undaunted, night and day, 
 
 (Such was Minerva's power, and Jove's behest) 
 
 Scorns the inglorious strife and lays his wrath to rest. 
 
 And how returns the tempest-tossed 1 his prows 
 
 Gay-garlanded, with grand triumphal song 1 
 Leaps he upon the strand, and proudly vows 
 
 Dire vengeance unto all who did him wrong ? 
 
 Not so ; for him, all force and passion strong, 
 And fretful tumult, for a while are o'er, — 
 
 He is borne gently, placidly, along, 
 And laid upon his own beloved shore, 
 Even as a wearied child, in quiet sleep once more I
 
 24 THE RETURN OF ULYSSES. 
 
 There is no part of that archaic Lay, 
 
 That strikes with such resistless power on me, 
 As this pure artist-touch, this tender ray, 
 
 A perfect-simple light of poesy ; 
 
 Not the nice wiles of chaste Penelope, — 
 Not the poor pining dog that died of joy, — 
 
 Not the grey smoke the wanderer yearned to see. 
 Whose wavings he had traced, a careless boy, 
 Sweet as they are, for me this preference can destroy. 
 
 Where the " stone distaff's " of the nymphs of old. 
 Still make rich tracery in the sacred Cave, — 
 
 Where peasants the dark-shadowed Fountain cold, 
 Hail by the name the Poet found or gave. 
 Where on the Eagle-height the walls out-brave 
 
 All time, and only the full-fruited vine 
 
 Trails o'er the home, — it may be o'er the grave. 
 
 Of Him for whom these memories combine, — 
 
 Rest} care-worn mortal ! rest, and let his sleep be thine.
 
 25 
 
 GRECIAN SUNSET. 
 
 The modern Greek phrase for the setting of the sun is 
 " Ba(Ti\fv€i 6 ^\ios,'' " the sun reigns," or " the sun is a king." 
 One interpretation of this expression was given me, viz., that 
 in the vesper antliem beginning with the words, " 'O Kvpios 
 BaaiXeiJei," " the Lord reigns," the action was transferred to 
 the sun itself, in the same feeling as the " Ave Maria " is the 
 synonym of the close of an Italian day. Another explanation 
 I have formed into the following lines. 
 
 In perfect Kingliness now reigns the Sun ; 
 
 At morn, as one who girds himself for speed, 
 A Hero prompt to do a mighty deed, 
 
 And not to rest until the deed be done, 
 He rose : — at noon he wore the guise of one, 
 
 Who feels the purpose that his will decreed 
 Half-perfect, and goes onward to his meed. 
 
 Stronger than were his labour just begun ; 
 And now his aim attained, his triumph known, 
 
 In conscious dignity he mounts his throne 
 Of golden air, and ere the eve can spread 
 
 Her pale-rose veil above his royal head. 
 No courtier clouds around him, to the bed 
 
 Of a victorious rest, he passes all alone.
 
 20 
 
 A GRECIAN THUNDER-STORM. 
 
 The Thunder came not with one awful pulse, 
 
 When the wide Heaven seems quaking to its heart, 
 
 But in a current of tumultuous noise, 
 
 Crash upon crash, — a multitudinous clang 
 
 Of cymbals beating in the low-hung clouds, — 
 
 And every shortest interspace filled up 
 
 With echoes vivid as their parent sounds. 
 
 The lightning came not in one flash of light, 
 
 Soon yielding to the darkness, (which ere long 
 
 Is routed by another winged blaze,) 
 
 But with no pause, and swaying to and fro, 
 
 As if the common air was turned to flame. 
 
 So mused I, from this hot and furious scene 
 
 Drawing a timely lesson of calm Truth, 
 
 So, — when great nations are awake at heart, 
 
 And rise embattled, from an ancient sleep 
 
 Sudden aroused by some consummate deed 
 
 Of reckless tyranny, or glad to stand 
 
 For heir-loom rights, familiar liberties, 
 
 Through pain and loss and terror, unto death, — 
 
 Should be the expression of their energies, — 
 
 Earnest, intense, impassioned as you will, 
 
 But with no pause ; the fruit is Victory,
 
 27 
 
 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 
 
 Of the famous cities of antiquity, comparatively few have 
 saved from the " dark backward and abyss of Time " any 
 testimonies to the splendour of their temples, political edifices, 
 or private dwellings ; the only marks, not only of their great- 
 ness, but of their very existence, are commonly walls and 
 sepulchres. Similar has been the fate of many men and 
 masses of men in the moral world, the general events of whose 
 being have taken no hold on the remembrance of posterity, 
 and who owe their historic life solely to their energies of 
 resistance, and the peculiar circumstances of their destruc- 
 tion. Of this class is the story of the Republic of Suli, whose 
 establishment is said to have originated with a few goatherds, 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century *, but may, in 
 all likelihood, be as ancient as the forced occupation of the 
 most retired and most defensible positions, both of Rou- 
 melia and the Peninsula, by " Palikari," genuine sons of old 
 Greece, who, in the transference of their country from master 
 to master, have remained, down to our time, individually free, 
 
 * The notion of its connexion with the " Selli " of Homer, (II. xvi. 
 233,) has been disclaimed, and disproved by Peravos. (Ilist. of Suli.) 
 He supposes this people to have transmitted their name to the village 
 of " Sello," at the foot of Olympus, between " Helasson " and " Vlakoli- 
 vathoB." The root of the word is probably in the language or tradition 
 of the mountain Greeks ; there is both a Suli and a Kako-Suli in the 
 north of Attica.
 
 28 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 
 
 and have won at this eleventh hour the reward of the strife 
 
 of ages. 
 
 That this clan of raoiintain-niaraudcrs should, with so few 
 peculiarities of manners and conduct, and a sphere of action 
 so limited, have gained for themselves, in the common course 
 of things, an especial and enduring fame, and have become an 
 integral part of the history of later Europe, is highly impro- 
 bable, and I think the whole cause of the distinction will be 
 found in the aggressive measui'es of AH Pasha, and the con- 
 sequent intensity of passion with which they were encountered 
 on the part of the Suliots. The determined will to destroy 
 on the one side, aroused a will as determined to defend on 
 the other ; and as long as we confine our admiration to 
 this exertion and the deeds it produced, nothing can be 
 more just ; but when we apply to the series of events which 
 led to the annihilation of the whole tribe the feelings with 
 which we in general regard the relations of oppressor and 
 victim, of unauthorised violence and resisting innocence, we 
 misapprehend the plain facts of the case. The Suliot cha- 
 racter and method of life seem to have differed from that 
 of the other robber inhabitants of the Grecian mountains, 
 in nothing but the excess of their predatory activity, the 
 rash impartiality with which they conducted their Klcphtic 
 enterprises, and, something more of social organisation and 
 sympathies, the necessary consequence of their firm occupa- 
 tion of so large a district. At the time of the appointment of 
 All to the office of Dervenji Pasha of Northern Greece, whose 
 first duty was to establish free and safe passage on all the 
 roads, they are said to have been possessed of sixty-six vil- 
 lages. Sujiposing the greater number were merely con- 
 quered by their ai'ms, and added little to their actual force, 
 yet the population was always sufficient to number 1000 or 
 1500 muskets. M. Pouqucvillc is, at least, an unobjectionable 
 authority on this subject, when he is compelled to lay aside 
 his most inveterate prejudices, and own the legitimacy of the
 
 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 29 
 
 Pasha's attempts to repress their outrages. " Pillaging alike 
 friends and foes, they carried their imprudence so far as to 
 embroil themselves with the chiefs of the armatolis, and even 
 with the Turks of Thesprotia. All commercial intercourse 
 was interrupted in Lower Albania. The defiles were no longer 
 passable without numerous escoi'ts, which were often defeated 
 by these audacious mountaineers." This statement explains 
 the active assistance afforded by the Greek armatohs (or self- 
 constituted militia), in the expedition against these Greek 
 outlaws, and makes it clear that the identification of the cause 
 of Suli with that of Gi-eek liberty is abundantly fanciful, at 
 the same time that it shows the necessity for compulsory 
 measures. Treachery, the diplomacy of such men as AH, 
 was first tried to effect the submission of the republic, and 
 when this was met by equal cunning and inflexible courage 
 and utter scorn, we cannot be surprised at the determination 
 of the tjTant to avenge his insulted pride at any cost of life, 
 treasure, or crime. " In this contest," says Lord Byron, 
 " there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better 
 days of Greece." The first attack was repelled with an en- 
 thusiasm, against which superiority of physical force was 
 nothing-worth, which unsexed the weakness of womanhood, 
 and, aided by rare advantages of position, gave the child who 
 could roll down a stone upon the climbing or flying foe the 
 power of a warrior. The nine years' peace, the fruit of this 
 marvellous victory, was followed by a three years' war, con- 
 ducted on the one side with all the exertion of the most 
 vigorous mind in the history of the modern Mahommedan 
 world, supported by a wide and absolute authority, and on the 
 other by an unflinching struggle almost against hope in the 
 mass of the people, which would possibly have vanquished, in 
 the end, a force whose very excess of numbers was a confu- 
 sion and embarrassment, had not individual perfidy opened 
 the otherwise impenetrable passes.
 
 30 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 
 
 Your phrases are good and your promises fair, 
 Your heart may respond to the meaning they bear, 
 Such things may seem just to your nature and name, 
 To us they are baseness, and folly, and shame. 
 
 I ask you would Nature have planted us there, 
 Where Earth's farthest region is bounded by air. 
 Where the great Eagle pauses in wonder to see 
 That the race he contemns as exalted as He, — 
 
 Where corn never waves, and the diligent flock 
 Tracks out the scant grass that is sprent on the rock, 
 Where the clouds fold about us in darkness and dew, 
 Had she meant us to live and have feelings, like you ? 
 
 She gave you your cities, your pleasures, and arts. 
 Your fairly-built homes, and your populous marts, 
 Your paths o'er the ocean, your science, and lore, — 
 She gave us our Freedom and gave us no more ! 
 
 But not the half-freedom, that makes the half-slave. 
 The guard of the timid, the curb of the brave, 
 A freedom of charter, and rights, and decree, — 
 But the Freedom with which our fathers were free. 
 
 To be free to exist, — for evil or good, — 
 
 Like the wolf in the brake, or the hawk in the wood, 
 
 To follow our instincts, and bend not in awe 
 
 To a chance-begot king, or the phantom of law ;
 
 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 31 
 
 To be free to fall down on the wealthier land, 
 With musket at back and dagger in hand, 
 And use the sole right that we own or we know, 
 The right of the strongest, wherever we go ; 
 
 Here take our creed, we are Klephts if you will. 
 There are worse names than that in the chapter of ill, 
 For we give what we take, — let the resolute man 
 Resist us, and kill us, and well, — if he can. 
 
 Behold our Women ! their forms are as fair, 
 
 As love ever guarded with delicate care. 
 
 They have all woman's beauty, but yet Nature wills. 
 
 No weak woman-hearts should be born on our hills. 
 
 They know not the distaff, they know not the loom. 
 Such tasks, to their hands, would be dull as the tomb ; 
 And why should they toil without pleasure or gain ? 
 They are clothed with the spoils that we bring from the plain . 
 
 They clean our muskets, they sharpen our swords. 
 They speed us to battle with kisses and words, 
 And when to our homes the hot enemy 's nigh, 
 They show us our children, and bid us go die. — 
 
 This Will to resist, whoever the foe. 
 
 Is part of our being, — the thing must be so, — 
 
 As the Faith we adore, as the Hills where we range, 
 
 As the blood of our Fathers, that never can change.
 
 32 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 
 
 All Pasha knows that the hate we have vowed 
 Can never be broken, can never be bowed, 
 We hate him as Turk, as tyrant, as man, — 
 We hate as he hates, that is all that we can. 
 
 All Pasha knows with what mercy he'd meet 
 Were he laid by the chances of war at our feet ; 
 He has smiled at each pang of a Suliot's frame, 
 How loud would we laugh, when he suftered the same. 
 
 Neither dazzled with hope nor blinded with pride, 
 Do we look on the tempest our hearts have defied. 
 Let them conquer at last, — we are ready for all, 
 AVhat on earth has not fallen, and shall not we fall 1 
 
 Yet still we have faith, that their number and nerve 
 Will not force the strong spirit within us to swerve, — 
 When the breath of a traitor shall poison our air, 
 Tt is then, only then, we shall dare to despair. 
 
 But then, even then, though the blood-sated foe 
 Shall ravage our homes till each stone be laid low. 
 Though the manifold voice of our nation be still 
 In the winding defile, on the fort-headed hill, 
 
 Though the stranger shall pause in the desolate scene. 
 To ask some lone herdsman of things that have been.
 
 THE SULIOT TO THE FRANK. 33 
 
 And the water undrawn in the weed-clotted wells* 
 Be a visible sign of the tale that he tells ; 
 
 One memory brightly shall start from the shade, 
 Where we, and our passions, and errors are laid, 
 One thought, that there only through all this wide land, 
 The Cross was upright in the Christian hand.t 
 
 In the valleys beneath us, degraded, forlorn, 
 It's being the boon of the Infidel's scorn. 
 In shame and in darkness it lingers, but there^ 
 It is waving as free as the ambient air. 
 
 The time may be near when the Mussulman sword 
 Shall rend in its fury the sign of the Lord, 
 Shall defile it with dust and pollute it with gore. 
 But the last of our race will have fallen before. 
 
 * At the site of the hamlet of "Samoriva " two lean asses, at *' Kako 
 (x-a-rai ?) Suli " the capital village, a scanty herd of goats and their solitary 
 keeper, were the only living things I saw among the scorched and hroken 
 frame-works of houses : the numher of wells or rather cisterns at the 
 latter place, nearly close together, is extraordinary ; our guide, himself a 
 Suliot, said that there was a separate one for each house ; this, however, 
 may he well discredited. 
 
 t There is no donht that religious passion strongly assisted the Suliots 
 in bearing up against their enemy ; in their latter and most desperate 
 struggles, they were generally led on by a priest, and the red cross was 
 their banner.
 
 34 
 
 T E M P E . 
 
 " Tempe's Thai, das elysiclie Thai, 
 
 Wo des Stromgotts Urne langs 
 
 Gruner Au'n Goldfluthen giesst." — Platen. 
 
 " Je crois quo le nom de ce fleuve (Galesus) a fait sa fortune ehez les 
 poetes, qui ne se piquent pas d'exactitude, et pour un nom harmonieux 
 donneraient bien d'autres soufflets a la verite. II est probable que Blan- 
 duse doit aux memes titres sa celebrity, et sans le temoignage de Tite 
 Live, je serais tcnte de croire que le grand nitrite de Tempe fut d'enricher 
 les vers de syllables sonores." — P. L. Courier. Lettres. 
 
 The vale of Tempe is cleft in the range of consecrated hills 
 which branches from the great Pindus-chain to the Saronic 
 gulf, and divides Ossa from Olympus, a circumstance of no 
 mean significance in the proces-s of its poetical imputation. Its 
 most striking, because, perhaps, most unexpected, character is 
 its narrowness ; it is, in fact, a glen of the most limited dimen- 
 sions. The Peneus, never exceeding the common breadth of a 
 mountain-river, and the horse-path, often worked out of the 
 side and projections of the Ossa ridge, fill up the whole space, 
 with the exception of a strip of some few feet between them, 
 from which spring the glorious platains, whose boughs uniting 
 with those on tlie other side of the stream lead it on under one 
 continual bower ; around their roots are pomegranate and 
 mastic, and thick grass, with bubbling springs of a still deeper 
 verdant tinge than the rest of the water. " Jntus sud luce 
 viridante adlabifur Peneus, viridis calculo, amcenus circa ripas 
 gramine," poetically writes the px'osaic Pliny. The cliff, on the
 
 TEMPE. 35 
 
 Olympus side, is a majestic wall, jutting out at regular inter- 
 vals, as if in folds, but almost evenly precipitous : the other 
 side, on the contrary, is a line of rugged crags, peaked or table- 
 topped, preserving occasional foundations and one or two turrets 
 of the series of Roman fortresses, and well planted to their 
 summits. I felt it rather a singular scene than any thing else, 
 and much more singular must it have been in the old time, 
 before the large secretion of alluvial soil, which places the 
 mouth of the river many miles from the end of the ravine. 
 " When Xerxes beheld," says Herodotus*, " the mouth of the 
 Peneus, he was seized with great admiration ; " so even now I 
 admired, but it was not admiration alone one wanted here. 
 The admission of this impression of disappointment naturally 
 led to the consideration of the causes of the eminence of this 
 place in poetical geography. On this point two circumstances 
 must not be overlooked ; first, that the use of it, as a proverb 
 of surpassing beauty, is exclusively Roman ; and, secondly, 
 that the mention of, and allusions to it, in Roman writers, are 
 still more vague and indefinite than proverbial expressions are 
 wont to be ; with the exception of Horace, who may have passed 
 through Tempe on his way to, or in return from, the disaster 
 of Philippi, few of them could have had any personal know- 
 ledge of the scene which they were undeservedly exalting above 
 all the familiar charms of their own glorious Italy, and adorn- 
 ing with the wilfulness of fancy. The description of Livyf 
 may seem more close ; but its whole tenor has little in common, 
 not only with the enchanted imagination of the poets, but with 
 the simplest features of the reality. Secondly, that the tra- 
 veller, who had toiled for three or four days over the sullen 
 monotony of the plain of Thessaly, was likely to be exaggeratr 
 
 * vii.128. 
 t Rupes utrimque ita abscissse sunt, ut despici vix sine vertigine qua- 
 dam simul oculoium animique possit,— terret et sonitus et altitude per 
 mediam vallem fluentis Penei amiiis. — xliv. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TEMPE. 
 
 edly sensible of the beauty and interest into which his path 
 suddenly transported him, and to bear away a remembrance 
 commensurate with tlie pleasure he had received ; but what 
 must have been his state of feeling, liis heart how highly toned, 
 his sj)irit how eager a recipient of sweet and lovely impressions, 
 and not only his, but that of those who heard him tell of what 
 he had seen, and of those who transmitted the report to other 
 lands and other generations, when he knew that this was " the 
 Elysian valley," that the gods were on one side, and the god- 
 like giants on the other, that the legend of the Titanic war, the 
 battle of the powers of the Universe, took its date perhaps 
 from that very convulsion of nature which caused this remark- 
 able disruption of the mountains ; that here those blessed beings, 
 forms of Love and Truth, gentle and sublime, (" not yet dead, 
 but in old marbles ever beautiful,") who were dear to him as 
 his own thoughts, held their divine diversions ; poised in air, 
 or laughingly descending, walking proudly within this gallery 
 of proud trees, or sheltered within this jewelled tide from the 
 mid-day passion of the Sun their brother, while from that 
 throne of rock looked down the Father and the King, an 
 immense shadow in the midst of his own light, with a thought, 
 ful delight and solemn smiles ? 
 
 We are in Tempe, Peneus glides below, — 
 That is Olympus, — we are wondering 
 Where, in old history, Xerxes the great King, 
 Wondered. How strangely pleasant this to know ! 
 We may have gazed on scenes of grander flow, 
 And on rocks cast in shapes more marvellous, 
 Now this delicious calm entices us, 
 These platain shades, to let the dull world go. 
 A poet's Mistress is a hallowed thing,
 
 OLYMPUS. 37 
 
 And all the beauties of his verse become 
 Her own ; — so be it with the poet's Vale : 
 Listen those emerald waters murmuring, 
 Behold the clifis, that wall the gods' old home, 
 And float into the Past with softly swelling sail. 
 
 OLYMPUS. 
 
 With no sharp-sided peak or sudden cone, 
 Thou risest o'er the blank Thessalian plain, 
 
 But in the semblance of a rounded throne. 
 Meet for a monarch and his noble train 
 To hold high synod ; — but I feel it vain, 
 
 With my heart full and passionate as now, 
 To frame my humble verse, as I would fain, 
 
 To calm description, — I can only bow 
 
 My head and soul, and ask again, " if that be Thou ?" 
 
 I feel before thee, as of old T felt, 
 
 (With sense, as just, more vivid in degree) 
 
 When first I entered, and unconscious knelt 
 Within the Roman Martyr's sanctuary : 
 I feel that ages laid their faith on Thee,
 
 38 OLYMPUS. 
 
 And if to me thou art a holy hill, 
 
 Let not the pious scorn, — that Piety 
 Tliough veiled, that Truth, though shadowy, were still 
 All the world had to raise its heart and fallen will. 
 
 Thou Shrine which man, of his own natural thought. 
 Gave to the God of Nature, and girt round 
 
 With elemental mightiness, and brought 
 
 Splendour of form and depth of thunderous sound, 
 To wall about with awe the chosen ground, — 
 
 All without toil of slaves or lavished gold, 
 Thou wert upbuilt of memories profound, 
 
 Imaginations wonderful and old, 
 
 And the pure gems that lie in Poets' hearts untold. 
 
 God was upon Thee in a thousand forms 
 
 Of Terror and of Beauty, stern and fair, 
 Upgathered in the majesty of storms, 
 
 Or floating in the film of summer air ; 
 
 Thus wert Thou made ideal everywhere ; 
 From Thee the odorous plumes of Love were spread, 
 
 Dehght and plenty through all lands to bear, — 
 From Thee the never-erring bolt was sped 
 To curb the impious hand or blast the perjured head. 
 
 How many a Boy, in his full noon of faith, 
 Leaning against the Parthenon, half-blind
 
 OLYMPUS. 39 
 
 With inner light, and holding in his breath, 
 Awed by the image of his own high mind, 
 Has seen the Goddess there so proudly shrined. 
 
 Leave for awhile her loved especial home, 
 
 And pass, though wingless, on the northward wind, 
 
 On to thy height, beneath the eternal dome, 
 
 Where Heaven's grand councils wait, 'till Wisdom's 
 self shall come. 
 
 Ours is another world, and godless now 
 
 Thy ample crown ; 'tis weU, — yes, — be it so, 
 
 But I can weep this moment, when thy brow 
 Light-covered with fresh hoar of autumn snow, 
 Shines in white light and chillness, which bestow 
 
 New grace of reverend loveliness, as seen 
 With the long mass of gloomy hills below : 
 
 Blest be our open faith ! too grand, I ween. 
 
 To grudge these votive tears to Beauty that has been.
 
 40 
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 The gulf of Volo (Pelasgicus Sinus) has received the merited 
 homage of every tourist in northern Greece. As seen from 
 some miles inland, and even from some parts of its own shore, 
 it is so weather-fended and mountain-bound, that it becomes 
 difficult to imagine it as a part of the open yEgeau, — the many- 
 islanded yEgean, — to believe that the waters at your feet are 
 of the sea, over which Delos wandered, and which now con- 
 tains it within " her glassy cestus." The form of Pelion is 
 improved by a close approach, and the villages which climb 
 above half-way up its sides would beautify the least attractive 
 surface, each house rising with its own cypresses and platans 
 about it, in an irregular succession. Here too, as elsewhere, 
 the first and oldest association is the brightest, — that of the 
 Argonauts ; the light of the tradition is refracted in its different 
 colours on almost all the many cities that have lived and 
 perished on this hilly shore ; it was doubtless an object of eager 
 rivalry, from which of them went forth the parent ship, — the 
 aboinginal sea-conqueror, — the ocean-opener ! A peasant 
 asked us whether it were not true that "hence set out the 
 first Ship that ever sailed." 
 
 It is a privilege of great price to walk 
 With that old sorcerer Fable, hand in hand, 
 Adown the shadowy vale of History : 
 There is no other wand potent as his,
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS, 41 
 
 Out of that scene of gloomy pilgrimage, 
 
 Where prostrate splendors and unsated graves 
 
 Are ever rained upon by human tears, 
 
 To make a Paradise of noblest art, 
 
 A gallery of bright thoughts, serene ideas, 
 
 Pictorial graces, everlasting tints, 
 
 To the heart's eye delicious, — pure delight 
 
 Of Beauty and calm Joy alternating 
 
 With exercise of those high attributes. 
 
 Which make the will of man indomitable, — 
 
 Justice, and enterprise, and patriot-love. 
 
 That Peasant's simple question to my thoughts 
 Became a mystic thread, — a golden clue ; 
 For when I drew it towards me, all the veil 
 Of the deep past shrunk up, and light profuse 
 Fell round me from time-clouded memories ; 
 The full-noon-day, it seemed to me, went back, 
 And passed into the pearly grey of morn, 
 From which, in outline dim, slowly came forth 
 Pelion, — his lower steeps (now populous 
 With village voices) desolate and bare ; 
 And the now naked range of loftier rock, 
 Thick-vested with a mantle of warm pine. 
 Along the shore, the turreted serail. 
 And bright-adorned kiosks, and low bazaar, 
 Into a city strange, of ancient form.
 
 42 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS. 
 
 But to my spirit's sight faintly defined, 
 Was changed ; — yet I could palpably discern 
 A crowd that stood before a portico, 
 And a thin smoke that from the midst arose, 
 As of a sacrifice ; and close beside. 
 The waters rested in inviolate calm. 
 
 Upon their edge, yet clinging to the sand, 
 There was a shape, of other frame and kind 
 Than I had ever seen the wave embrace ; 
 A burden of full-armed men it bore, 
 And from its centre the aspiring stem 
 Of a straight oak, Dodona's holy growth, 
 Upsprung, with leafy coronal unshorn. 
 The joy of prosperous omens on the land 
 Awoke the silence of that solemn dawn ; 
 And as it ceased, a clear and manly voice 
 Out of the shape responded musical, 
 And thus its meaning sunk into my soul. 
 
 " Not with the rapid foot and panting breast, 
 
 With which, be Pelion's dark-haired front 
 
 And mountain-thickets far away 
 
 Our witnesses, the eager heart was wont 
 
 To lead us to the boar's absconded rest 
 
 Unwearied, while before us lay 
 
 The hope of an illustrious prey, —
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS. 43 
 
 Nor, by the impulse of Pheraean* steeds, 
 
 Bearing the warrior and the car 
 
 Into the central depths of war, 
 
 While he, thus winged, hardly heeds 
 
 The presence of opposing spears, 
 
 More than the north wind fears 
 
 The grove whose mass he can crush down like reeds ; 
 
 — Not thus the work is to be done, 
 
 Which this fleet-passing hour will see begun. 
 
 " For these are means, whose excellence can lead 
 
 To victory in the practised chase 
 
 Or common usage of heroic arms : — 
 
 Our thought is now to do a hardier deed ; 
 
 Sublimer energy our spirit warms 
 
 Than bard has ever sung in Grecian halls ; — 
 
 Where to succeed will place 
 
 Our name 'mid nations' festivals. 
 
 And where to fail itself will be 
 
 A glory for eternity. 
 
 " Over a wider and more dreary plain, 
 Than curious mortals know, 
 
 * Vide Iliad ii. 763, for the excellence of the horses of the hero, the 
 eponymus of the house which gave its name to the place. Pherse, now 
 Velestino, is near the Bcebfean marsh (ii. 711 ). a few miles to the N.W. 
 of Volo. Pagasae was its port. There are walls and the site of a temple 
 on the hill above it.
 
 44 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS, 
 
 Trackless and markless as fresh-fallen snow, — 
 
 An awful space, on which the stain 
 
 Of human foot has never lain, — 
 
 Uncrossed by cheerful bird, — 
 
 Where never sound is heard, 
 
 But the unpausing din. 
 
 Half laughter and half groan. 
 
 Of the Divinity that stirs within. 
 
 And answers all the winds that blow 
 
 In thunder-tone ; — 
 
 Over this mystic plain, — 
 
 The earth-enclosing Ocean-plain, 
 
 We are about to go. 
 
 " And let no holy fear restrain 
 
 The hearts, that know no fear beside ; 
 
 For, not in impious disdain 
 
 Of the eternal rules, that ])ind 
 
 The destinies of human kind 
 
 Within sage limits, and wild pride. 
 
 But with the free obedience 
 
 Of a most perfect reverence. 
 
 Dare we the untamed billow to bestride. 
 
 " For had it been in truth the imperial will 
 Of Mother Nature, when her plastic hand 
 Did the vast depths with buoyant liquid fill,
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS, 45 
 
 To plant a barrier betwixt land and land, 
 
 And keep each portion separate. 
 
 Encircled by a special fate ; 
 
 How could the Gods, the everwise, 
 
 Have urged us to our enterprise 
 
 With favouring voices and protecting eyes ? 
 
 How could our rude sea-chariot be 
 
 Made instinct with applauding Deity I 
 
 " A just and noble aim, 
 
 The Gods with love regard, — 
 
 But the self-glorious, the bold 
 
 Who honour not the laws of old, 
 
 A jealous justice will reward, 
 
 With woe and bitter shame ; 
 
 We have not forgot 
 
 The miserable lot 
 
 Of Tantalus, ambrosia-fed, 
 
 Tantalus, whose kingly head 
 
 Deep in deepest Hades lies, 
 
 Eminent in agonies ; 
 
 Even where our journey leads, 
 
 In that Eastern distance, bound 
 
 To an ice-peak, ever bleeds 
 
 He of the unclosed heart-wound. 
 
 The unsubdued and godlike one, 
 
 Who robbed the treasury of the sun ;
 
 46 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS. 
 
 But he such warnings little heeds, 
 Whose soul is fixed upon an honest end, — 
 Him mitst the Gods befriend. 
 
 " And is it not a virtuous aim, 
 Even to the earth's extremest shore, 
 By means no mortal force essayed before, 
 To bear the glory of the Grecian name ? 
 To spoil the spoiler, wash away the stain 
 Of foully-slaughtered parentage, restore 
 To Greece the precious gift of yore, 
 Kind Gods to Helle and her brother gave, 
 Though Destiny restrained 4lie power to save. 
 
 " Thus hasting to a sacred war. 
 
 With Psean and delighted song. 
 
 We feel our feet upon the Car, 
 Which the broad -winged Winds shall bear along ; 
 No strength of ours their turbulence restrains, 
 No will of ours their vagrant course commands. 
 But ye who love us, fear not, for the reins 
 Are in almighty and benignant hands. — 
 
 And if the blindly-falling brand 
 Of Fate, that neither spares the wise nor brave, 
 
 Far from his loved paternal land, 
 Should lay some Hero under the dark wave ; 
 
 Yet let him not be deeply mourned.
 
 A VISION OF THE ARGONAUTS. 47 
 
 As dead inglorious, or cast out unurned : 
 
 For the fond-pitying Nymphs below, 
 
 Will cover him with golden sand, 
 
 And sing above him songs of woe, 
 
 Sweeter than we can understand ; 
 The grace of song shall breathe upon his name. 
 And his Elysian bUss be endless as his fame." 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then, methought, 
 
 The exuberant shout, that to the warriors' strain 
 
 Had made tumultuous prelude, came again. 
 
 But with still loftier passion ; to the cause 
 
 I gave a quick attention, and beheld 
 
 Above the low Magnesian promontoiy, 
 
 A small and solitar}' flaccid cloud 
 
 Lowly suspended, by the clear round sun* 
 
 (Which seemed to halt behind it as he rose) 
 
 Gorgeously glorified ; to this all eyes 
 
 Were turned, and every voice a homage paid : 
 
 " The Fleece, the Golden Fleece, our Golden Fleece," 
 
 Rose in a storm of sound, and instantly, 
 
 Though with no visible wind or rufiied tide, 
 
 But as impregnate with propelling power. 
 
 The Shape, no more dependent on the sand. 
 
 Into the open waters past, serene. 
 
 * The stin itself was supposed to have its bed in Colchis. Mimnermus 
 apud Athen.
 
 48 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYLAE. 
 
 Then as the Vision fainted, self-dispersed 
 In the full-flaring light, a melody, 
 Whose sense 1 could not justly apprehend, 
 But that it was of blessing and delight, 
 Emitted from the oracular central tree, 
 Caught up my heart, and bore it swift along 
 With that strange shape, into mysterious depths 
 Of placid darkness and undreaming sleep. 
 
 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYLAE. 
 
 If the victory of Marathon was an Homeric rhapsody, the 
 victory of Thermopylae was an yEschjlean tragedy, and my 
 wish on the spot was, that here too, as well as at Salamis, the 
 shame of the Persians had found such an artist to record it, — 
 I regretted that there had been no Lacedemonian to frame in 
 words the poetry his countrymen had acted. The scenes of 
 the eventful drama unfolded themselves before me, one by one ; 
 on the wings of Fate and Duty it ever rested, and by their 
 harmonious action moved onward to the end ; — there was the 
 utterance of the oracle, decreeing that Sparta or her king must 
 fall, and the triumphant obedience of Leonidas ; from that 
 moment he was, to all base and earthly purposes, no living 
 man ; he bade his wife " marry some other virtuous man, and 
 bring up children in honour ;" and he and they who associated 
 themselves eagerly in his sacrifice celebrated their own funeral 
 games with sumptuous pride ; there was the humiliation of 
 number and force before moral greatness, in the wondering
 
 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYL.E. 49 
 
 terror of the herald who gazed on the handful of Spartans, 
 calmly combing their long hair and engaged in sportful exer- 
 cises, in the very face of the army of nations ; there was the 
 free dismissal, as it were, on the steps of the altar, of all who 
 did not feel themselves^ bound by a law in their hearts, to 
 remain and die; there was the last onset, the last leonine 
 bound of those who might certainly have resisted longer and 
 perhaps might have made more havoc among the enemy by 
 remaining within the narrowest part of the pass, and fighting 
 for every inch of ground, but this very act of waiting and 
 resisting would have had something in it discordant with the 
 perfect free-will of the whole action, — they went to meet fate to 
 the very last ; they went out, " as making a sortie for the 
 purpose of death ;" and, to consummate the immolation, when 
 the few, who still struggled to preserve the venerated form of 
 what was their King from the sacrilege of vile and hostile 
 bands, were crushed back into the close strait of their own 
 encampment, there was the solemn resting, the " sitting down " 
 of this scanty band on the rising ground, waiting, in the strength 
 of their weakness, till that tale of divine humanity should be 
 altogether finished. And just as simply majestic were the 
 monuments erected above them, — as pure and sacred the epi- 
 taphs ; — they had done what they ought to do, they had obeyed, 
 — that was all. 
 
 " Stranger ! go tell the Spartans— we obeyed 
 All that they told us,* 
 
 and below are laid." 
 Their laws and customs, f 
 
 No parle}nng with themselves, no pausing thought 
 Of ATorse or better consequence, was there, 
 
 Their business was to do what Spartans ought, 
 Sparta's chaste honour was their only care. 
 
 * According to Herodotus. f According to Strabo.
 
 50 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYLAE. 
 
 First in the outlet of that narrowest pass, 
 
 Between the tall straight cliffs and sullen tide, 
 
 Before his Faithful, stood Leonidas, — 
 
 Before the Few who could not leave his side. 
 
 Never the hope of such a precious meed 
 
 Upon his most ambitious dreams had shone. 
 
 Through Him the Gods for Sparta had decreed 
 More fame than Athens earned at Marathon. 
 
 And more than this, he knew in that proud hour, 
 How high a price his single Life could claim. 
 
 Than in its sacrifice there lay the power. 
 Alone to save his father-land from shame. 
 
 Yet was he loth to meet that sacred fate, 
 
 As he there stood, cramped in by rocks and sea, 
 
 He would confront the Persian myriad's weight, 
 And die an unbound Victim, fighting free. 
 
 One more fair field, — one last unshackled blow 
 Strong with concentrate vengeance, this was all 
 
 That still remained to fill to overflow 
 The measure of the glory of his fall. 
 
 How He, and They who followed him in love, 
 Went forth and perished, is a tale to tell. 
 
 Such as old Bards to Epic music wove. 
 And so felt he who wrote their Chronicle.
 
 THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYLiE. 51 
 
 « * * * * 
 
 ***** 
 
 The symbol Lion, that once stood in stone 
 
 Over the Lion-hearted, is no more ; 
 Where sat the Last, on their sepulchral throne, 
 
 Is now a thing of antiquarian lore. 
 
 Nor mourn for this, — all other truth is vain. 
 But this, to know at heart, that They are there, 
 
 There in the giant cliffs, and perilous plain. 
 Paths, fountains, forest, ocean, every where. 
 
 Now let all Thought be Memory, — calmly wait, 
 Till clear defined, before thy Spirit's eyes, 
 
 Heroic Dignity, impersonate 
 
 In awful phantoms, silently arise. 
 
 Between the Men who noble deeds have done. 
 
 And every Poet to the end of time, 
 There is a brotherly communion. 
 
 One Father-God has made them both sublime : 
 
 And thus, to Thee, there can be nothing dead 
 Of great things past, they live in thine own will, 
 
 Thou givest them form, — they, on thy favoured head, 
 Virtues of earth and Heavenly Love distil. 
 
 E 2
 
 THE MAID OF RHAMNUS. 
 
 The aspect of the town and temples of Rliamnus must have 
 been one of the most enchanting that Fancy can form out of 
 Art and Nature. The buildings covered the sides and summit 
 of an out-jutting rock, not much elevated above the sea ; and 
 we may infer from the huge gateway and walls, that the place 
 was strong and noble. Above it rises with a steep acclivity 
 the lofty line of coast, on whose hii,diest ridge the temples were 
 throned. All between the edifices is rich with Nature's profu- 
 sion. On one side, down a steep and serpentine ravine, a full 
 stream finds its way to the sea, flowing by the hill of the city. 
 The temples, whose whiteness dazzles even in their decaying 
 remnants, must have come out with a lustrous glory, from the 
 thick green about them and the blue behind. They are two, 
 within one large and solid peribolus ; the earlier of Nemesis, 
 built after the battle of Marathon, the other much later and of 
 finer workmanship. In the former stood the statue of Phidias, 
 the offering of the perfection of Athenian art to the Power who 
 had avenged Athens so well. Pausanias, when on this subject, 
 mentions casually, that no one thouglit of representing Nemesis 
 as a winged Goddess, before the inhabitants of Smyrna, who 
 gave as their reason for this impersonation, " the near connec- 
 tion of Vengeance and Love." 
 
 A MAID, whose beauty was laid desolate 
 
 By many tears, outbreathed her tale of woe, 
 
 In that dread fane, with words of such deep hate. 
 As they who deeply love alone can know.
 
 GREEK RELIGION. 53 
 
 " Shall Love be free to speed his impious way, 
 Withering young hearts, that cannot but be true, 
 
 Unveiling beauty only to betray, 
 
 And Vengeance not be winged to pursue 1 
 
 " Seem not at once so stern and calmly still, 
 Up, great Protectress ! seize him while he flies, 
 
 None, none but thou, can match his demon skill, 
 And every hour another victim dies." 
 
 A priest half-hid confessed the truth and power, 
 That lay within the maiden's casual prayer, 
 
 And the sage Goddess willed that, from that hour, 
 Her earthly shape those two wide vans should bear. 
 
 GREEK RELIGION. 
 
 Could we, though but for an hour, burst through those 
 
 gates adamantine, 
 Which, as the children of men pass onward in swift 
 
 generation. 
 Time's dark cavern along, are heavily closing behind them ! 
 Could we but breathe the delight of the time when, fresh 
 
 in his boyhood. 
 Out of his own exuberant life, Man gave unto Nature, 
 And new senses awoke, through every nerve of creation !
 
 54 GREEK RELIGION. 
 
 Waves of the old iEgean .' — I listen your musical ebbing ; 
 Smile to my eye, as you will, with smiles clear-crystal as 
 
 ever. 
 Bind, in your silvery net, fair capes and embowered 
 
 islands, 
 But ye can bear no more on your breast that vision of 
 
 glory, 
 
 When in the cool moon-dew went forth the imperial 
 revel, 
 
 Dolphins and pearl-shell cars, of the Queen and the 
 People of Ocean ; 
 
 Whose sweet-undulant murmur the homeless mariner 
 hearkened, 
 
 Over the undulant sapphire, and trembled in glad adora- 
 tion. 
 
 How were ye voiced, ye Stars ! — how cheerily Castor and 
 
 Pollux 
 Spoke to the quivering seaman, amid the outpouring of 
 
 tempest ! 
 With what a firm-set gaze on the belt triple-gemmed of 
 
 Orion 
 Looked the serene Greek child, as he thought of the 
 
 suffering giant. 
 Panting with sightless orbs for the dawn's miraculous 
 
 healing ! 
 With what a sigh did he pass from the six proud deified 
 
 sisters.
 
 GREEK RELIGION. 55 
 
 On to the fate of the fallen, and mourned for the love that 
 
 dethroned her ! 
 Not by elaborate charts did he read that book of the 
 
 Heavens, 
 But to his heart's fine ear it was taught by a heavenly 
 
 master. 
 
 Now from her window perchance may the maiden of 
 
 desolate Hellas, 
 When with the woes of her love and her land her spirit 
 
 is heavy, 
 Yearn to the white-bright moon, which, over the curved 
 
 horizon. 
 Climbing the air still flushed with the flames of the oppo- 
 site sunset,* 
 Seems with affectionate eye to regard her, and weep to 
 
 her weeping ; 
 But it is now not as when, having pined for Endymion's 
 
 kindness. 
 She with the mourners of love held personal sympathy 
 
 ever, 
 When in the sky's void chasms a wanderer, she to the 
 
 pilgrim, 
 Over the world's sick plain, was a dear companion in 
 
 sorrow. 
 
 * The contemporaneity of a transparent moonlight with the roseate sether 
 and gold and orange tracts of sunset is one of the most impressive pheno- 
 mena of these regions.
 
 56 GREEK RELIGION. 
 
 Down through the blue-grey thyme, which roofs their 
 
 courses with odour, 
 Eivulets, gentle as words from the lips of Beauty, are 
 
 flowing ; 
 Still, in the dusky ravine, they deepen and freshen their 
 
 waters. 
 Still, in the thick-arched coves, they slumber and dimple 
 
 delighted, 
 Catching the full-swelled fig, and the deep-stained arbutus 
 
 ruby,— 
 Still, to the sea's sand-brim, by royally gay oleanders. 
 And oriental array of reeds, they are ever attended ; 
 But they are all dumb forms, unimpregnate with vital 
 
 emotion, 
 Now from the pure fount-head, no Nymph, her bosom 
 
 expanding, 
 Dazzles the way-worn viTetch with the smile of her bland 
 
 benediction, 
 (riving the welcomed draught mysterious virtue and 
 
 savour ; — 
 Now no curious hind in the noon-tide's magical ardour,* 
 Peeps through the blossomy trellice, that over the pool's 
 
 dark crystal 
 (xuards the immaculate forms of the awful Olympian 
 
 bathers ; 
 
 * On the mystical power of noon in the appearance of supernatural beings, 
 vide Theocritus, i. 15 ; Lucan, iii. 422 ; I'hilostratus, Heroic, i. art 4 ; Por- 
 phyrius de Antro Nymph, c. xxvi. and xxvii.
 
 GREEK RELIGION. 57 
 
 Now at the wide stream-mouth never one, one amorous 
 Triton 
 
 Breathes to the surge and the tall marsh-blooms eupho- 
 nious passion. 
 
 These high Temples around, the religious shade of the 
 
 olive 
 Falls on the grass close-wove ; — in the redolent valley 
 
 beneath us, 
 Stems of the loftiest platain their crowns large-leaved are 
 
 spreading, 
 WhUe the most motley of herds is adorning the calm of 
 
 their umbrage ; — 
 Yet ye are gone, ye are vanished for ever, ye guardian 
 
 Beings ! 
 Who in the time-gnarled trunks, broad branches, and 
 
 summer enchantment 
 Held an essential life and a power, as over your members, — 
 Soothing the rage of the storm by your piteous moans of 
 
 entreaty, 
 Staying the impious axe in the paralysed hand of the 
 
 woodman. 
 Daphne, tremulous nymph, has fled the benignant asylum 
 Which, in the shape of the laurel, she found from the 
 
 heat of Apollo ; — 
 Wan Narcissus has languished away from the languishing 
 
 flower ; —
 
 58 GREEK RELIGION. 
 
 Hyacinth dwells no more in his brilliant abode, and the 
 
 stranger 
 Reads the memorial signs he has left, with a curious 
 
 pleasure. 
 
 Thou art become, oh Echo ! a voice, an inanimate image ; 
 Where is the palest of maids, dark-tressed, dark-wreathed 
 
 with ivy, 
 Who with her lips half- opened, and gazes of beautiful 
 
 wonder. 
 Quickly repeated the words that burst on her lonely 
 
 recesses. 
 Low in a love-lorn tone, too deep-distracted to answer ? 
 
 What must have been thy Nature, oh Greece ! when 
 
 marvellous-lovely 
 As it is now, it is only the tomb of an ancient existence?
 
 59 
 
 MARATHON. 
 
 Of the battle of Marathon we have not only the hei'oic nar- 
 rative of Herodotus, but supplementary traditions, illustrations, 
 as it were, of the grand picture, Herodotus only writes, that 
 Epizelius fighting was blinded by a vision ; but we have, in 
 Pausanias, the pendant story, that a man appeared in the thick 
 fray, of rustic form and dress, and hewed down many Persians 
 with a plough-share, and then vanished, and whom an oracle 
 commanded to be worshipped as the hero Echetloeus ; this was 
 evidently the vision that blinded the champion. Again, the 
 old antiquarian tells, that around the tombs of the slain, still in 
 his own late age, there was a tumult of horses pi'ancing and 
 men combating all night long, which to listen for with a wilful 
 curiosity brought evil fate, but not so when perceived by a 
 casual hearer. Thus was Marathon, for ages, a field of holy 
 fable — thus the maturity of Athenian splendour was linked to 
 its infant energies, and Aristophanes regards the 'MapaOaipo- 
 /j-axoi, with the same feeling of pride and respect with which 
 Nestor looks back on the friends of his youth, " who are far 
 different from what men are now-a-days." 
 
 I COULD believe that under such a sky, 
 Thus grave, thus streaked with thunderlight, of yore, 
 The small Athenian troop rushed onward, more 
 As Bacchanals, than men about to die.
 
 60 THE CONCENTRATION OF ATHENS. 
 
 How weak that massive motley enemy 
 
 Seemed to those hearts, full-fed on that high lore, 
 
 Which, for their use, in his melodious store, 
 
 Old Homer had laid up immortally. 
 
 Thus Marathon was Troy, — thus here again, 
 
 They were at issue with the barbarous East, 
 
 And favouring Gods spoke out, and walked the plain ; 
 
 And every man was an anointed priest 
 
 Of Nemesis, empowered to chastise 
 
 The rampant insolence that would not be made wise. 
 
 THE CONCENTRATION OF ATHENS. 
 
 The Poet Keats, to whom the old Greek mind seemed instinctively 
 familiar, in an unpublished fragment, speaks of the Greek Poets as 
 " Bards who died content on pleasant sward. 
 Leaving great verse unto a little clan," 
 
 and continues with a prayer that he too may attain their old vigour, 
 and sing 
 
 " Unheard, 
 
 Save of the quiet primrose and the span 
 
 Of Heaven and few ears." 
 
 Why should we wonder that from such small space 
 Of Earth so much of human strength upgrew, 
 When thus were woven bonds that tighter drew 
 Round the Athenian heart than faith or race ?
 
 PELASGIAN AND CYCLOPEAN WALLS, 61 
 
 Thus patriotism could each soul imbue 
 
 With personal affections, face to face, 
 
 And home was felt in every public place, 
 
 And brotherhood was never rare or new. 
 
 Thus Wisdom, from the neighbouring Parthenon, 
 
 Down on the Areopagus could fix 
 
 A watchful gaze : thus from the rising Pnyx 
 
 The Orator's inspiring voice could reach 
 
 Half o'er the City, and his solemn speech 
 
 Was as a father's counsel to his son. 
 
 PELASGIAN AND CYCLOPEAN WALLS. 
 
 Ye cliffs of masomy, enormous piles, 
 Which no rude censure of familiar Time 
 Nor record of our puny race defiles, 
 In dateless mystery ye stand sublime, 
 Memorials of an age of which we see 
 Only the types in things that once were Ye. 
 
 Whether ye rest upon some bosky knoll, 
 Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified, 
 Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll 
 Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side,
 
 62 PELASGIAN AND CYCLOPEAN WALLS. 
 
 Still on your savage features is a spell 
 That makes ye half divine, ineftable. 
 
 With joy, upon your height I stand alone. 
 
 As on a precipice, or lie within 
 
 Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone, 
 
 Pointing my steps with careful discipline. 
 
 And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear 
 
 These masses to their places in mid-air ; 
 
 Of Anakim, and Titans, and of days 
 
 Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit 
 
 So close to Nature, that his best essays 
 
 At Art were but in all to follow it, 
 
 In all, — dimension, dignity, degree ; 
 
 And thus these mighty things were made to be.
 
 63 
 
 WRITTEN AT MYCEN.E. 
 
 I SAW a weird procession glide along 
 
 The vestibule * before the Lion's gate ; t 
 
 A Man of godlike limb and warrior state, 
 
 Who never looked behind him, led the throng ; 
 
 Next a pale Girl, singing sweet sorrow, met 
 
 My eyes, who ever pointed to a fleck 
 
 Of ingrained crimson on her marble neck ; 
 
 Her a fierce Woman, armed with knife and net, 
 
 Close followed, whom a Youth pursued with smile, 
 
 Once mild, now bitter-mad, himself the while 
 
 Pursued by three foul Shapes, gory and grey : 
 
 Dread Family ! . . . I saw another day 
 
 The phantom of that Youth, sitting alone, 
 
 Quiet, thought-bound, a stone upon a stone. 
 
 * iTjOTU^a rail. Elect. 1391. 
 
 t This piece of Archaic sculpture is very spirited ; I think the Lions 
 could not have had their heads as Clarke describes ; they must have 
 been thrown more back, like the Lions rampant in our heraldic bear- 
 ings. How strange it is that the ruins of Jlycente, extensive and certain 
 as they are, should have been so late an object of interest, that Spon 
 and %Mieler should have never heard of them, and Chandler forgot to 
 go and see them.
 
 64 
 
 ON A GROTTO AND WARM SPRING 
 
 AT THE HEAD OF THE GULF OF LEPANTO. 
 
 Within this grot some summer night, 
 Did Amphitrite loose her dress, 
 
 And show the full unshaded light 
 Of all her ocean-queenliness. 
 
 Into the rock the vital glow- 
 Passed out from her translucid form, 
 
 And thus the springs, that hither flow. 
 Are made for ever summer-warm. 
 
 Alas ! the name of Her who wrought 
 This work, and all her glorious train, 
 
 Have faded far from common thought 
 And never will be there again. 
 
 But Thou, — who in these tempered waves 
 Delightest thy dust-fevered brow, — 
 
 For Thee the past has no such graves, 
 Where Poets worshipped, worship Thou.
 
 65 
 
 CORINTH, 
 
 ON LEAVING GREECE. 
 
 I STOOD upon that great Acropolis, 
 
 The turret-gate of Nature's citadel, 
 
 Where once again, from slavery's thick abyss 
 
 Strangely delivered, Grecian warriors dwell. 
 
 I watched the bosom of Parnassus swell, 
 
 I traced Eleusis, Athens, Salamis, 
 
 And that rude fane * below, which lives to tell 
 
 Where reigned the City of luxurious bliss. 
 
 Within the maze of great Antiquity 
 
 My spirit wandered tremblingly along ; — 
 
 As one who with rapt ears to a wild song 
 
 Hearkens some while, — then knows not whether he 
 
 Has comprehended all its melody. 
 
 So in that parting hour was it with Greece and me. 
 
 * It is very curious that some awkward ill-proportioneJ ruins should 
 be the only memorials of that Corinth, whose exquisite refinement in all 
 that could charm and embellish life was a proverb with the world, and 
 who extended her existence so far into the later domains of Roman 
 time. It may be that there was some sanctity attached to this temple, 
 from its very age and ungainliness, which preserved it amid the annihi- 
 lation of other more sumptuous and polished edifices.
 
 66 
 
 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 As, in the legend which our childhood loved, 
 The destined prince was guided to the bed. 
 Where, many a silent year, the charmed Maid 
 Lay still, as though she were not ; nor could wake. 
 Till the first touch of his appointed hand 
 With the deep fountains of her subtle being 
 Made sympathy, and in her virgin bosom 
 The pulse of breath, that so long had beat on 
 Its regular measure, trembled and grew fast, 
 And the long fringes parted on her eyes, — 
 And she to her old world of light and sense 
 Was born again ; so the Invisible Power, 
 Whose awful presence is upon our earth 
 Above all dominations, came at last 
 To Greece, and laid the magic of his hand 
 Upon her sleep, and she obedient rose. 
 
 She rose, but not as that enchanted ladie. 
 To whose unsullied beauty sleep had been
 
 MODERN GREECE. 67 
 
 But as a veil, to guard off impure Time 
 From breathing on it, and had left no trace 
 Of its existence, but the long gold hair, 
 That, like a vestment, folded round her form ; 
 Nor, even as they, who on this vulgar orb 
 Rise from their night's brief slumbers, hale and fresh, 
 With all the toil of yesterday behind them ; — 
 No, Nations sleep not thus, — their sleep and rest 
 Has more of death about it, — in its hours 
 Silent corruption works, and slow decay ; 
 And when some special grace bids them awake, 
 Half-blinded, with worn hearts, and sense confused, 
 They rush in fury from their couch of shame, 
 Proclaim themselves new-born, and free, and young, 
 Nothing of youth about them, but its passions, 
 Its vigorous lusts, and recklessness of ends. — 
 
 Oh ! wouldst Thou, from thy hot delirious dream. 
 
 Look out upon the calm of long-past time, 
 
 Thine own bright natural youth, willing to learn ; 
 
 Would only Greece remember what she was, 
 
 And then what made her so ; — would she remember 
 
 That distant Histoiy records a time. 
 
 Though in the splendour of the after-light 
 
 Nearly obliterate, when she was as bare 
 
 Of every element of social being. 
 
 Of every use of moral energies, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 MODERN GREECE. 
 
 Of all that can transform humanity 
 
 From the wild warrior-savage, instinct-led, 
 
 Into the thinking, acting citizen. 
 
 As now, or more so ; but her infant soul, 
 
 Soon from that rude and miserable state, 
 
 Into a youth of healthy-springing thoughts. 
 
 Gay simple fancies, aspirations high, 
 
 Expanded under tutelary care 
 
 Of two wise nurses, delegates of God, 
 
 The Love of Beauty and Self-sacrifice : 
 
 And when, in the full time, came slowly on 
 
 Life's manly mood, and consciousness mature, 
 
 She, the fair faith and natural impulses 
 
 That waited on her morning, taking up 
 
 Into the accomplished glory of her noon, 
 
 Never forgot, through all the growth of wealth, 
 
 And martial action, and scholastic pride. 
 
 Her first affections, — and possessed at once, 
 
 A Mind informed by sage experience, 
 
 And a Heart fresh as it had come from heaven. 
 
 ^Vhat, though the curse of this unresting world, 
 The influence that will let no gieatness be, 
 Merged in the blackness of barbaric night. 
 This model of the perfect equipoise. 
 And just appliance of all human powers ; 
 Yet still for You, born of a second dawn,
 
 MODERN GREECE. 69 
 
 The children of another germ of life, 
 It has a voice of loud authority ; 
 By the same laws it bids you train your minds, 
 To the same tutelage submit your hearts. 
 And to the sum of wisdom there laid up. 
 Adding the priceless gems of Christian truth, 
 Be owners of a treasurj' of such wealth. 
 As all the spirit of nations has not known.
 
 ITALY.
 
 Sempre vivete, o can arti dnine, 
 Conforto a nostra sventurata gente, 
 Fra r itale mine 
 Gl' itali pregi a celebrare intente. 
 
 (ji. Leopardi.
 
 73 
 
 AN ITALIAN TO ITALY. 
 
 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.
 
 74 AN ITALIAN TO ITALY. 
 
 " 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 veiled 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,
 
 AN ITALIAN TO ITALY. 75 
 
 With undiscerning piety, — the same 
 FiUal rehgion, 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 1
 
 76 AX ITALIAN TO ITALY. 
 
 " 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 / upon a far bleak shore ! 
 My heart will see them still : 
 
 " Beautiful forms ! and aye repent 
 The waywardness and pride, 
 That was not with their charms content, 
 And yearned for aught beside ; 
 
 For some imagined bliss 
 
 I might have slain all this, — 
 I might have sprent thy gorgeous robe with blood, 
 And scarred the lucid clearness of thy brow, 
 Dear land ! in sooth, I meant thee good, 
 But know the madness now. 
 
 " What though in poverty and fear, 
 Thou thinkst upon the morrow, 
 Dutiful Art is ever near. 
 To wile thee from all sorrow ;
 
 AN ITALIAN TO ITALY. 77 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 There can be no desu'e in these lines to depi'eciate the high 
 merit of the Italian political exiles of this (1831) and former 
 years. If the intensity of their patriotic feelings be here fairly 
 painted, the mightier has been their energy of self-sacrifice, 
 and the heartier should be our admiration. But though 
 
 " Deh ! fossi tu men beUa o almen piu forte," 
 may be the stifled cry of many an Italian heart, — yet the mass, 
 in weakness and in indolence, bear with their governors ; and it 
 is with regard to these, that we should weigh, in a just measure, 
 the physical differences between countries, where Life is worth 
 living for its own sake, and those where all the excitement of 
 social and political feelings is necessary to give zest and enjoy- 
 ment to existence.
 
 78 
 
 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-worshij) only is for thee. 
 
 They say thy Tomb lies there below ; 
 What want I with the marble show 1 
 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 1
 
 79 
 
 FEELINGS EXCITED BY SOME MILITARY 
 MANOEUVRES 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 !
 
 80 
 
 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS, ON VENICE. 
 
 " 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-tuned 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 / love best, above my head 
 To feel nor arch nor tent, nor anything 
 But tliat pure Heaven's eternal covering.
 
 VENICE. 81 
 
 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 piace 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 : —
 
 82 VENICE. 
 
 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 tlirough the pellucid air, 
 
 And cast its reflex in the crj'stal 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 1 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 t 
 The Guardian Angel stands in aether 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, — 
 
 * " Ich liorte einen blinden Sanger in Chioggia, der sang, Venedig 3ey 
 einc cwige Stailt ; dor Hiinniel liatte bich im Meer gespiegelt und sein 
 Widerschcin ware Venedig."— Pi^TK.v. 
 
 t The Campanile.
 
 VENICE. 83 
 
 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 aiiy minaret ? 
 
 Dost thou not feel, that in this scene are blent 
 Wide distances of the estranged 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 i 
 
 IL 
 
 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, 
 
 * The Libro d'Oro, the Venetian " Peerage."* 
 G 2
 
 84 VENICE. 
 
 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 vrhilom 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 gathered 
 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
 
 VENICE. 85 
 
 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. 
 
 m. 
 
 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.
 
 86 .VENICE. 
 
 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, T 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 :
 
 VENICE. 87 
 
 And even under laws most mild, 
 All shame was deemed their due, 
 And the nurse told the Christian child 
 To shun the cursed 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 
 r the rank grass o'er them grown. 
 
 I thought of Shy lock, — 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 !
 
 88 VENICE. 
 
 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 1 
 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 1 
 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, 
 
 * The Venetian Pantheon of S. Giovanni e Paolo.
 
 VENICE. 89 
 
 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 1 
 
 Is there no engine of compassionate Death, 
 
 Which with a rapid mercy will relieve 
 
 This ancient city of its shamed 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 
 
 * E. G. In the refectories of the Redentore and Frari,
 
 96 VENICE. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. — 
 The 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
 
 VENICE. 91 
 
 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, 
 
 Eeligion 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, —
 
 92 VENICE. 
 
 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, 
 
 * As in the instance of Antonio Grimani, who was living in exile at 
 Rome at the time of tho league of Cambray. lie had been cimdemned 
 for some error in fiRhting against tho Turks. When Venice was in 
 distress, he offered all liis private fortune to the state. After her victory 
 lie was not only recalled, but elected Doge some years later.
 
 THE VENETIAN SERENADE. 93 
 
 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. 
 
 THE VENETIAN SERENADE. 
 
 When along the light ripple the far senerade 
 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 — Stall — but you know not for whom ! " 
 
 Stall — 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 — Premi — but I stay not for you ! 
 
 Premi — not for you ! "
 
 94 FROM GOTHE. 
 
 Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear, 
 Then awake not, fair sleeper — beheve 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 — Sciar — and for you and to you ! 
 
 Sciar — and to you ! " 
 
 The Venetian words here used are the calls of the gondoliers, 
 indicating the direction in which they are rowing. Scia/re is to 
 stop the boat. 
 
 FROM GOTHE. 
 
 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, coflfin and cradle between.
 
 95 
 
 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-winged boat, 
 
 In which I lay afloat, 
 
 Became a deft canoe, light-wove 
 
 Of painted bark, gay-set with lustrous shells.
 
 96 A DREAM IN A GONDOLA. 
 
 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 spiced 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, 
 
 Tlirough the arbute's ruby-bushes,
 
 A DREAM IN A GONDOLA. 97 
 
 Voices of a happy hymn 
 
 Every moment grow less dim, 
 
 Till at last the slim caique 
 
 (HoUowed 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 sether-ocean ; — 
 
 O joyant Earth ! beloved 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 Egyptian bark, or frail canoe, 
 
 H
 
 98 A DREAM IN A GONDOLA. 
 
 Or mythic skift' 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 1 
 
 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.
 
 99 
 
 ON THE MAD-HOUSE AT VENICE. 
 
 " I looked and saw between us and the sun 
 A building on an i>land, 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." Sheu-ev. 
 
 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. 
 
 B 2
 
 100 
 
 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 !
 
 VENICE. 101 
 
 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.
 
 102 VENICE. 
 
 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 !
 
 VENICE. 103 
 
 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 1 
 
 The glory into whose embrace, 
 
 The virgin pants to rise. 
 
 Is but reflected from the face 
 
 Of these Venetian skies.
 
 104 VENICE. 
 
 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, 
 
 * 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 exag- 
 gerated. I do not remcniber to have ever seen the phenomenon so 
 astonishingly beautiful as at Venice, at least in Italy.
 
 VENICE. 105 
 
 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 I 
 
 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 !
 
 106 ODE. 
 
 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. 
 
 ODE 
 
 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.
 
 ODE. 10/ 
 
 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,
 
 108 ODE. 
 
 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 
 Compassed 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 ?
 
 ODE. 109 
 
 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 glor)' made, 
 
 Glimpsing like starlight through the massive pine. 
 
 Or finely-trelUsed 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 noon 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 earthy graves arise. 
 
 Those evenings, oh ! those evenings, when with one, 
 Then the world's loveliness, now wholly mine,
 
 110 ODE. 
 
 I stood beside tlie 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, 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 knowL^dge to my listening heart. 
 Such sympathies as word or pen 
 Can never tell again !
 
 ODE. Ill 
 
 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 1 
 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.
 
 ]12 ODE. 
 
 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 Griver, 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, Southern Moon, thy beauty hail, 
 In Thee rejoicing and adoring Him.
 
 113 
 
 PICTURES IN VERSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 PICTURE BY GIOV. BELLINI, IN THE CHURCH OF THE 
 KEDENTORE AT VENICE, 
 
 THE VIRGIN. 
 
 Who am I, to be so far exalted 
 
 Over all the maidens of Judaea, 
 
 That here only in this lonely bosom 
 
 Is the wonder-work of God revealed ? 
 
 Oh ! to think this little, httle, infant, 
 
 Whose warm limbs upon my knees are resting, 
 
 Helpless, silent, with his tender eyelids, 
 
 Like two pearl-shells, delicately closed, 
 
 Is informed with that eternal spirit, 
 
 Who, between the Cherubim enthroned. 
 
 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.
 
 114 PICTURES IN VERSE. 
 
 TWO ANGELS. 
 
 (PLAYING ON INSTRUMENTS.) 
 
 We and the little cheerful goldfinch, 
 Perched above that blessed 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,
 
 PICTURES IN VERSE. 115 
 
 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. 
 
 n. 
 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 enemieg 
 
 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. 
 
 "a 
 1 2
 
 116 PICTURES IN VERSE. 
 
 The stone is there, — the cord is there, 
 But the gross weight I cannot feel, 
 For round me, even while I pray. 
 Beautiful-winged 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. 
 
 my soul's lover ! Saviour Christ ! 
 
 1 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 blessed 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,
 
 PICTURES IN VERSE. 117 
 
 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.
 
 118 PICTURES IN VERSE. 
 
 ANGEL. 
 
 IKN'BBLING, ANC 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, —
 
 PICTURES IN VERSE. 119 
 
 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 1 
 Why may I not take up the heavy plaything. 
 And on my shoulder carry it behind you 1 
 Then, I am older, stronger too, than you are ; 
 1 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,
 
 120 PICTURES IN VERSE. 
 
 Thousand, mjTiad, 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 OX 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 I see within 
 That artless wooden form, 
 A meaning of exceeding misery, 
 A dark, dark, shadow of oncoming woe.
 
 PICTURES IN VERSE. 121 
 
 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 stUl ! 
 
 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 finished. 
 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 blessed glory plays about that head 
 For those who here in fiery bondage groan,
 
 122 TO GIOVANNI BELLINI. 
 
 Conscious their suffering never could atone 
 For Sin, till He that once had suffered. 
 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. 
 
 TO GIOVANNI BELLINI. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE FACT OF THAT PAINTER's HAVING HAD IN HIS 
 ROOM A GRECIAN STATUE OF VENUS AS A STUDY. 
 
 Thou didst not slight with vain and partial scorn 
 
 The inspirations of our nature's youth. 
 
 Knowing that Beauty, wheresoe'er 'tis born. 
 
 Must ever be the foster-child of Truth. 
 
 Nor didst thou lower the Mother of the Lord 
 
 To the mere Goddess of a Pagan bower. 
 
 But with such grace as Christians have adored 
 
 Those sense-delighting charms thou didst empower ; 
 
 And would that they who followed thee, and gave 
 
 To famous Venice yet another fame.
 
 TO RAFFAEL. 123 
 
 To be the Painter's home, had done the same, 
 Nor made their heart the imitative slave 
 Of those dead forms, as if the Christian span 
 Embraced no living Poetry for man. 
 
 The decline of pure religious feeling in Art in Venice may be, 
 perhaps, most accurately dated from the influence of Aretino 
 over Titian ; up to that time he had hardly ever painted a 
 profane subject, and no other artist ever seems to have thought 
 of it. Afterwards such exceptions as Bonifacio and the piety of 
 the people prevented so sudden a degradation as took place in 
 the Roman school from Raffael to Giulio Romano, and in the 
 Bolosnese from Francia to Guido ; but too soon came the 
 younger Palma and his followers, the Caracci of the Venetians. 
 
 TO RAFFAEL. 
 
 " Raffael, alas I was the only person who conceived the project of re- 
 covering the remains of ancient Rome from its rubbish, by means of 
 methodical excavations, and this led to no result whatever." — Niebuhr. 
 
 Thine was the scheme, and worthy to be thine, 
 
 O Painter-Poet ! with care and regular toil, 
 
 To raise those marvels from the entombing soil 
 
 With which Greek Art made Rome a place divine. 
 
 Though Gothic rage with Christian zeal combine, 
 
 Earthquake with flood, — the desolating coil 
 
 Of plague two centuries old with Guiscard's spoil, —
 
 124 THE IMMORTALITY OF ROME. 
 
 Brancaleone's fiercely-sage design 
 With other shocks, — of Pagan Rome to make 
 A mere blank memory, — thou hadst bade awake 
 Rare shapes from their deep beds, had Sympathy 
 Lent thee good aid . . . Still I could wish for thee 
 That thou hadst never yearned for them, — elate 
 To be in Christian Art so great among the Great. 
 
 THE BOIORTALITY OF ROME. 
 
 " Urbi et Orbi,* " — mystic euphony, 
 
 What depth of Christian meaning lies in Thee ! 
 
 How, from this world apart, this world above, 
 
 Selected by a special will of Love, 
 
 In its own spiritual atmosphere sublime, 
 
 Rome lives, a thought, without the reign of Time. 
 
 Thus, at the gates of great Eternity, 
 
 Nature, the constant herald of God, I see, 
 
 And ever onward reads she this decree : — 
 
 " Let nations have their cycles, — let their course 
 
 Still run unchanged, whate'er their inner force ; 
 
 Let each, whate'er its fabric, firm or frail. 
 
 Give its one chapter to the historic tale, 
 
 In silence and in shadow then to lie. 
 
 And, but in Memory's echo-life, to die ; — 
 
 * The form of the Papal Benediction.
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF ROME. 125 
 
 There is an end for all that is begun, 
 
 For the Sun's self, and all beneath the Sun." 
 
 Who dare deny this record ? — Eome alone ; 
 Rome has no history she can call her own ; — 
 The histor)'- of the Western World is hers, 
 Writ out in all its mazy characters : 
 What know we of it, till that name began, 
 Whose light still hovers o'er the Vatican ? 
 Where is the fount of all its m}Tiad riUs, 
 But springing 'mid the seven low Latian hills ? 
 There, thoughtless organs of divine intent, 
 Some scanty tribes in rudest union blent 
 Defensive force and martial will combined, 
 Till lust of conquest filled them, like a mind ; 
 Then fast the mustard-tree of power up-grew. 
 Fed into strength by Fortune's choicest dew, 
 Gathered the winds within its ample room. 
 And gave the swapng boughs a voice of doom, 
 For ever striving, as none else had striven. 
 Earth for its root, and for its branches Heaven.* 
 
 And when the flush of life was passed, — when came 
 Age's diy heart and Winter's naked shame, — 
 
 * " You cannot plant an Oak in a flower-pot ; — she must have Earth 
 for her root, and Heaven for her branches." — Hakrikgton — Oceana.
 
 126 THE IMMORTALITY OF ROME. 
 
 The conscious giant trembled at the spell, 
 Bowed his high head in agony, and fell. 
 That ruin is before us, — and we all 
 Have felt the shock of that tremendous fall 
 Within our quivering hearts ; we all have seen 
 Those temples altarless, and streets grass-green, 
 And columns standing lone, and basements bare, 
 And fragments crumbling in the new-found air ; 
 And, if at last our thought found utterance, said, 
 " Surely this is the City of the Dead ! " 
 
 I stood one night, — one rich Italian night. 
 When the Moon's lamp was prodigal of light, — 
 Within that Circus, whose enormous range, 
 Tho' rent and shattered by a life of change. 
 Still stretches forth its undiminished span, 
 Telling the weakness and the strength of Man. 
 In that vague hour which magnifies the great. 
 When Desolation seems most desolate, 
 I thought not of the rushing crowds of yore, 
 Who filled with din the vasty corridor ; 
 Those hunters of fierce pleasure are swept by, 
 And host on host has trampled where they lie. 
 But where is He, that stood so strong and bold, 
 In his thick armour of enduring gold. 
 Whose massive form irradiant as the sun. 
 Baptized the work his glory beamed upon
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF ROME. 127 
 
 With his own name, Colossal ? — From the day 
 
 Has that sublime illusion shrunk away, 
 
 Leaving a blank weed-matted Pedestal 
 
 Of his high place the sole memorial ? — 
 
 And is this miracle of imperial power, 
 
 The chosen of his tutelage, hour by hour. 
 
 Following his doom, and Rome, alive, — awake ? 
 
 Weak mother ! orphaned as thou art, to take 
 
 From Fate this sordid boon of lengthened life. 
 
 Of most unnatural life, which is not life. 
 
 As thou wert used to live ; oh ! rather stand 
 
 In thy green waste, as on the palm-flecked sand, 
 
 Old Tadmor,* hiding not its death ; — a tomb. 
 
 Haunted by sounds of life, is none the less a tomb. — 
 
 Then from that picture of the wreck-strewn ground, 
 
 Which the arch held in frame-work, slowly round 
 
 I turned my eyes and fixed them, where was seen 
 
 A long spare shadow stretched across the green, 
 
 The shadow of the Crucifix, — that stood, 
 
 A simple shape of rude uncarven wood. 
 
 Raising, erect and firm, its lowly head 
 
 Amid that pomp of ruin, — amid the dead, 
 
 A sign of salient life ; — the Mystery 
 
 Of Rome's immortal being was then made clear to me. 
 
 * Tadmor signifies the " City of the Palm-grove,"— hence the Roman 
 appellation.
 
 128 
 
 THE PAPAL BENEDICTION, 
 
 TROM ST. PETEr's. 
 
 Higher than ever lifted into space, 
 
 Rises the sovereign dome, — 
 Into the Colonnade's immense embrace 
 
 Flows all the life of Rome ; 
 
 The assembled peasants of a hundred mountains, 
 
 Beneath the Sun's clear disk. 
 Behold that peerless whole of radiant Fountains, — 
 
 Exorcised Obelisk, — 
 
 And massive Front, from whose high ridge outslanted, 
 
 A spacious awning fell ; — 
 The swaying breadth each gazer's breast enchanted 
 
 To follow its slow swell. ' 
 
 Why are they met in their collective might. 
 
 That earnest multitude ? 
 Is it to vindicate some injured right. 
 
 By threat and clamour rude ?
 
 THE PAPAL BENEDICTION. 129 
 
 To watch with tip-toe foot and eager eye 
 
 Some mere device of Pride, 
 Meaningless pomp of regal vanity 
 
 The void of Truth to hide ? 
 
 To feed some popular lust which cautious power 
 
 Would, for wise ends, restrain, 
 Not bartering to the passion of an hour 
 
 What ages toiled to gain ? 
 
 Thanks, thanks to Heaven, that in these ey\\ days, 
 
 Days of hard hearts and cold. 
 Days where no love is found in all our ways. 
 
 Where Man is overbold, 
 
 And loathe"fe all tender mutual offices. 
 
 And nothing old reveres, 
 Unwilling to be seen upon his knees. 
 
 Ashamed of his own tears, — 
 
 My soul the gracious privilege of this sight, 
 
 This priceless sight, has won, 
 A people of too simple faith to slight 
 
 A Father's benison ; — 
 
 Not in low flattery, not in selfish dread. 
 
 Before one meek old man, 
 A People, a whole People, prostrated, 
 
 Infant and veteran.
 
 130 THE PAPAL BENEDICTION. 
 
 By that High-Priest in prelude of deep prayer 
 
 Implored and sanctified, 
 The benediction of paternal care 
 
 Can never be denied. 
 
 Most surely from that narrow gallery 
 
 The oriflamme unfurled, 
 Shelters within its grand benignity 
 
 Rome and the orbed world. 
 
 The faintest wretch may catch the dew that falls 
 
 From those anointed lips, 
 And take away a wealth that never palls, 
 
 A joy without eclipse. 
 
 Old pines ! that darkly skirt the circUng hills, 
 
 Bend down in grateful awe, — 
 Infuse the earth's dry heart, prolific rills ! 
 
 With Love's unbroken law. 
 
 Bear the glad tidings to your sister seas, 
 
 Mediterranean waves ! 
 Let every muttering storm be hushed in peace, 
 
 Silent the thunderous caves ! 
 
 And would my spirit from Earth's embasing rule 
 
 Were in this moment riven ! 
 That I might pass through such fit vestibule 
 
 Up to the face of Heaven !
 
 131 
 
 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. 
 
 * ^\^len Sir Walter Scott was at Rome, the j-ear 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^riter. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 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. 
 
 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.
 
 THE ILLUMINATIONS OF ST. PETERS. 133 
 
 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. 
 
 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.
 
 134 ILLUMINATIONS OF ST. PETER S. 
 
 THE SAME. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY C. J. M'C. 
 
 Tempio ! che '1 ciel con quest' angusto mondo 
 
 E '1 tempo coir eternita mariti, 
 
 Di quai bellezze nuove il viso inondo 
 
 Or che mite e fral tu lo sguardo inviti ! 
 
 Sorridon sciolti sotto vel profondo 
 
 Quel tratti gia 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 1' avide Ore e 1' invidioso 
 
 Sol spegneran quel fregio, or si pomposo, 
 
 Tu non percio vedrai a te rovina, 
 
 Ma sempre stai eterno e chiaro e lietO; 
 
 Or divin sogno, or realta divina ! 
 
 IL 
 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 :
 
 ILLUMINATIONS OF ST. PETEr's. 135 
 
 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 1 
 
 m. 
 
 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 ; —
 
 136 THE FIREWORKS. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 joys' pure prime will flare away, 
 
 He waits his end in still and slow decay.
 
 137 
 
 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 llth, 1835. 
 
 * St. Peter's.
 
 138 
 
 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 tliree 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, vhere the Borghese family are interred.
 
 139 
 
 ROMAN RUINS. 
 
 How could Rome live so long, and now be dead ? 
 How came this waste and wilderness of stones ? 
 How shows the orbed 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 fer\'ent 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.
 
 140 
 
 ANTIQUES. 
 
 PLATEN. 
 
 Free ! let us free, — throw open the doors, lay open the 
 
 presses, 
 Here in the dark and the dust is it seemly for us to be 
 
 dwelling 1 
 What we, and where we have been, oh ! remember, and 
 
 give us your pity. 
 Once this rare old Vase was the pride of the gardens of 
 
 Egypt, 
 And Cleopatra herself bade her courtiers fill it with 
 
 myrtle : — 
 This so daintily carved, — this duplicate layer of Onyx, 
 On thy finger, Antinous, rested, a jewel unvalued — 
 Thine, thou beautiful Boy, too soon sped away to thy 
 
 heaven. 
 I, God Hermes, stood in the hall of Caesar Augustus, — 
 Breath of the odorous south from crowns of bay was shed 
 
 o'er me ; 
 Now have Ye piled us together and ranged us in cruel 
 
 confusion.
 
 ANTIQUES. 141 
 
 Each one pressing his fellow^ and each of us shading his 
 
 brother, — 
 None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the 
 
 sunshine ! 
 Wearjang even the eyes of gaping and vain " cognoscenti," 
 Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel, 
 Waking, in those that can feel, deep sense of sorrowful 
 
 yearning 
 For the magnificent days, when, as all but alive, we were 
 
 honoured. — 
 Ye too, — cull ye no roses, no fresh-blowing braids, to be 
 
 wreathed 
 Round the Etrurian vase and brow of the Parian marble ? 
 Ye too, — have ye no temples, no pleached arcades in 
 
 your gardens. 
 Where ye can take us, and plant us, all near the unpe- 
 
 rishing heavens, 
 After our own sweet wont, to the joy of the pious 
 
 beholder ?
 
 142 
 
 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.
 
 143 
 
 TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 
 
 AGED NINE YEARS. 
 
 Sweet, serious Child, — strange Boy ! I fain would know 
 Why, when I fondly talk and sport with thee, 
 
 I never miss the exuberant heart-flow 
 Which is the especial charm of infancy : 
 
 Thou art so wise, so sober, — nothing wild, — 
 
 I hardly think, yet feel, thou art a child. 
 
 For had the formal bondage of a school 
 
 Checked the gay outgrowth of thy vernal years, 
 
 Encumbered thy light wings with vulgar rule, 
 
 And dimmed the blossoms in thy cheeks with tears, — 
 
 Thou mightst have been as grave, as still, as now, 
 
 But not with that calm smile, that placid brow. 
 
 Nor has the knowledge of dull manly things, 
 
 And intellect grown ripe before its time, 
 Defiled thy being's freshly-salient springs. 
 
 And made thee conscious of a world of crime ; — 
 With all thy earnest looks, as spirit-free 
 As ever infant dancing down the lea.
 
 144 TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 
 
 Is it not that within thee, as a shrine, 
 
 The power of uncommunicable Art 
 Is working out its ministry divine, 
 
 Silently moulding thy all-virgin heart 
 To its own solemn ends ? Thus dost thou wear 
 That priestly aspect, — that religious air ; 
 
 And every circumstance of outward life 
 Tends this sublime ordainment to unfold ; 
 
 Is not each chamber of thy dwelling rife 
 With miracles of purest painters old, — 
 
 The Saints and Patriarchs of Art, — who knew 
 
 How best to make the Beautiful the True ? 
 
 Thou hast them all for teachers ; — He is there, 
 The limner cowled,* who never moved his hand 
 
 Till he had steeped his inmost soul in prayer : 
 Him thou art bound to in a special band. 
 
 For he was born, and fed his heart, as thou, 
 
 On storied Fiesole's fair-folded brow. 
 
 There thou canst read, with deeper reverence still, 
 Rare lessons of the later Monk,t who took 
 
 The world with awe of his inspired skill. 
 To which the Apostle leaning on his book, 
 
 * Fra Reato Angelico di Fiesole- 
 
 t Fra Bartolomoo, commonly called the " Frate."
 
 TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 145 
 
 And those three marvels in old Lucca shown, 
 Bear witness, in the days we call our own. 
 
 There too Masaccio's grandly-plain design, — 
 Quaint Ghirlandaio, — and the mighty pair,* 
 
 Master and pupil, who must ever shine 
 
 Consociate Sovereigns — thy preceptors are ; 
 
 Nor pass him by, who with grave lines looks down 
 
 Upon thee, Michel of the triple crown, t 
 
 Thou hast a Sire, whose full-experienced eye 
 Keeps harmony with an unerring heart, — 
 
 Who, of that glorified society, 
 
 To thy young sense can every depth impart : 
 
 How dare I then deny thy perfect joy ? 
 
 How dare /judge thee, thou unearthly Boy 1 
 
 Fiesole, 1833. 
 
 * Pietro Perugino and Raffaello. 
 t As Painter, Sculptor, and Poet.
 
 146 
 
 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 V
 
 AN INCIDENT AT PISA. 147 
 
 " Signer ! 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, 
 Signer ! 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. 
 l2
 
 148 NAPLES AND VENICE. 
 
 Oh ! if ill our utmost need 
 Love has power to intercede — 
 If between us and our foes 
 Innocence may interpose — 
 May not they, wl^ 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 ? 
 
 NAPLES AND VENICE. 
 
 Overlooking, overhearing, Naples and her subject bay, 
 Stands Camaldoli, the convent, shaded from the incle- 
 ment 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 !
 
 NAPLES AND VENICE. 14'J 
 
 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 aether : white as snow-wreaths 
 
 sunbeshone 
 Lean the Palaces and Temples green and purple heights 
 
 upon. 
 
 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.
 
 IdO NAPLES AND VENICE. 
 
 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. 
 
 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, bur- 
 nished domes, — 
 
 Ships approaching, — ships departing, — countless ships in 
 harbour-homes.
 
 NAPLES AND VENICE. 151 
 
 Yet SO silent ! scarce a murmur wnged 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 Gon- 
 dolier, — 
 
 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. 
 
 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 1 
 
 Which hath writ the goodlier tablet for the past to hoard 
 
 and show, 
 Venice in her student stillness, Naples in her living glow ?
 
 152 JMAPLES AND VENICE. 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred years : 
 
 Self-subsisting, self-devoted, there the moment 's Hero 
 
 ruled, — 
 Here the State, each one subduing, pride enchained and 
 
 passion schooled : 
 
 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.
 
 153 
 
 CANNiE. 
 
 Save where Garganus, with low-ridged 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 whUom dimmed with dust those noble eyes,t 
 
 And rendered aimless many a gallant feat, 
 
 And brought disgrace on many a high emprise. 
 
 * The battle was fought on the 2)st of May, b. c. 216. 
 t Vulturnus, a south-east wind, probably a local name.
 
 154 CANNiE. 
 
 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.t 
 
 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 only localities preserved in the tradition arc this large fountain 
 which goes by the name of tlie " Consul's WeU," and " The Place of Blood," 
 a farm-house on the other side of the river, where they say the Roman 
 prisoners were massacred. 
 
 t Abi, nuncia publice patribus urbem Romam muniant priva- 
 
 timque Fabio, L. iEmilium 'pricceptorum ejus meniorem cxtitisse, et 
 viKisse, et adhue mori ; et tu me, in hac strage militum meorum, patere 
 exspirarc. ne ut reus intcrcani, causaque consulatus accusator collegae 
 existam, ut alieno crimine innocentiam meam protegam. Liv. xxii.
 
 155 
 
 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 royallest 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,
 
 156 ON LEAVING ITALY. 
 
 If I am bound 
 
 To limit all the good my heart has sought 
 
 To that cold ground. 
 
 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 aestuous 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 !
 
 157 
 
 SWITZERLAND AND ITALY. 
 
 Within the Switzer's varied land, 
 When Summer chases high the snow, 
 You '11 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.
 
 158 SWITZERLAND. AND ITALY. 
 
 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 wondrous 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 :
 
 SWITZERLAND AND ITALY. 159 
 
 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.
 
 OTHER SCENES.
 
 Tlioiigh blank the range of place and fact 
 To hearts tliat only rise and fall, 
 God and the Poet can extract 
 Beauty and Truth from each and all.
 
 163 
 
 THE DEATH OF DAY. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE RHINE. 
 
 Full of hours, the Day is falling 
 Where its brethren lie, — 
 A stern and royal voice is calling 
 The beautiful to die. 
 
 The banners of the west 
 A splendid breadth unfold, — 
 Their glory be unblest ! 
 There is blood upon the gold. 
 
 Great Time, how canst thou slay, 
 With such a funeral state. 
 The gay and gentle Day, 
 Whom none could fear or hate ? 
 
 Oh ! mark him on his bed, 
 How flushed his quiet cheek, 
 How lowly droops his head. 
 And eyes that more than speak.
 
 164 THE DEATH OF DAY. 
 
 Let not the giddy breeze 
 Make sport of his last moans ; 
 AVeave them, ye aged trees ! 
 Into iEolian tones. 
 
 The hills, in clear outline, 
 Against the blanching sky, 
 Stand forth, nor seem to pine 
 For the joy that is passing by, 
 
 But solemnly and boldly 
 They bid a sad farewell, 
 Nor feel the pain more coldly 
 They are too proud to tell. 
 
 Yet leaves and blossoms pray 
 One deep and constant prayer : 
 " Take him not all away, 
 That made us seem so fair ; 
 
 " Say not, that, in its turn, 
 'T is pleasant to behold 
 The lamp of darkness burn 
 Light-amber or red-gold ; 
 
 " Praise not the coming night, 
 Its damp and sallow ray. 
 We would not call it bright, 
 Tho' it came not after Day.
 
 ON A RUINED CASTLE. 165 
 
 " We have wept when Day was sighing, — 
 His gloom has made us mourn, — 
 And now our love is dying, 
 What care we for the born 1 " 
 
 ON A RUINED CASTLE, 
 
 NEAR THE RHINE. 
 
 This was a fortress, firm and stout, 
 
 When there was battling round about, — 
 
 It has been decked in gala-plight, 
 
 In days of ladie-love and knight, — 
 
 It has known carouse and Proven9al song. 
 
 And the dance right featly tript along, 
 
 While the red yuhl-log and wassail bowl 
 
 Cheered the pilgrim's thirsty soul. 
 
 The swoop of Time has been to it 
 
 A bounty and a benefit, — 
 
 It has gained glory from those wings. 
 
 Which have annihilated Kings ; 
 
 And now it stands in its massiveness, 
 
 Wi' the scars of many an age, 
 
 Like a lore- encumbered prophetess, 
 
 Who has worn away her youthfulness, 
 
 In studies deep and sage.
 
 166 
 
 ON THE JUNGFRAU BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 The maiden moon is resting the maiden mount above, 
 They gaze upon each other with cold majestic love. 
 
 So I and Thou, sweet Sister ! upon each other gaze ; 
 Our love was warm, but sorrow has tempered its fine rays. 
 
 As in the hazy heaven that gentle orb appears, 
 Thou lookest in my face tearful— not shedding tears. 
 
 Like thine her face is pale, but from within a light 
 Mild-gleaming as thy spirit, still glorifies the night, 
 
 And casts a tender sheen on that pale hill beneath, 
 Pale as my heart which wears the shroud of early Death.
 
 16; 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE TYROL. 
 
 A Heart the world of men had bound and sealed 
 
 With shameful stamp and miserable chain, 
 
 Here, mother Nature ! is to Thee revealed. 
 
 Open to Thee ; oh ! be it not in vain. 
 
 Flov? over it, ye Torrents ! — though I fear, 
 
 That be your course as fierce as e'er it may, 
 
 The sorrow-stains engrained there many a year 
 
 Your force can never, never, wash away : 
 
 Then come, ye Mountains ! ye half-heavenly Forms ! 
 
 Based in deep lakes and woods, and crowned with storms, 
 
 Close on it, — cover, — seal it up again. 
 
 But with the signet of your own pure power, 
 
 So that unbroken, till the all-searching hour 
 
 Of Death, that impress may on it remain.
 
 168 
 
 " In the treasury of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, 
 1 was shown a gold and jewel-studded pen, with which every brother, on 
 his entrance into the order, signed his name. This had been tlie custom 
 for many centuries." — MS. Journal. 
 
 This dainty instrument, this table-toy, 
 Might seem best fitted for the use and joy 
 Of some high Ladie in old gallant times, 
 Or gay-learned weaver of Proven9al rhymes : 
 With such a pen did sweet Francesca trace 
 Some hurried lines beneath her blushing face, 
 And hid them in her lover's doublet sleeve, 
 To let him know, that, ere to-morrow eve, 
 They would enjoy the luscious summer-weather. 
 And read their favourite Launcelot together ; 
 With such a pen did tremulous Mary write 
 To bid good Chatelet come and play to-night ; 
 And so we might go on for hours, and fold 
 Our colouring fancies round this ancient gold ; 
 But here one stern Reality appears, 
 And leaves no place for other dreams or tears, — 
 The simple record, that, with this one pen,
 
 SALZBURG. 169 
 
 Have hundreds of our brothers, fellow-men, 
 Signed by their names the awfuUest decree 
 That between them and all the world could be ; 
 Those few small letters, when thus -WTitten, said — 
 " The writer, though he live, is living dead ; 
 The world of man, of beauty, and of bloom, 
 This visible earth, but serv^es him for a tomb, — 
 He feels no more its glories or its gains. 
 His soul can only know its purging pains, — 
 Here from the trails of sin however sure, 
 He needs that suffering to be perfect-pure." 
 
 Think of the fingers that have dared to hold 
 
 This fateful relic ! Some with grasp so bold, 
 
 You would believe that nothing but the pride 
 
 Of glory won, ambition satisfied. 
 
 Or joy of meed long toiled for, could command 
 
 Such full composure in an aged hand : 
 
 And yet the most of those, who hither brought 
 
 Their Being's sacrifice were men well taught 
 
 In the world's wisdom, men who had lived through 
 
 All that life gives to suffer and to do ; 
 
 Who had grown old in wars of spirit and arm. 
 
 But found in Victory no victorious charm 
 
 Against the clouding armament of 111, 
 
 Licensed on earth by God's unsounded will. 
 
 Some might be young, — by strange heart-prescience led 
 
 To know that Life is but a sick man's bed,
 
 170 SALZBURG. 
 
 On which, with aching head and limbs, we lie 
 
 Through the hot Night of our humanity, 
 
 Waiting for Death, our Lucifer, — so blest 
 
 Is he, through whose deep-drugged and senseless rest 
 
 No Dreams can pierce, — and thus they did but crave 
 
 To seek this stupor in the cloisteral gi'ave ; 
 
 These held the Pen, as valour holds a sword 
 
 Against the foe that doubted of its word ; 
 
 Yet others still might be, — young too and fair, 
 
 Strong too, but only strengthened by Despair, 
 
 Who, — when that closing moment came at last. 
 
 That one thin line, which lay between the Past 
 
 And the unknown bleak Future, — that deep trench. 
 
 Which, now leapt over, by a fearful v\Tench 
 
 Of almost natural instincts, held the soul, 
 
 Once the world's freeman, once without controul 
 
 Working and wandering, bound to a new law. 
 
 Captive in Faith and prisoner in Awe, — 
 
 Caught up this Pen, and quiveringly traced 
 
 he names, that thence could never be effaced, 
 With moveless eyes and j^ale-blue lips convulsed, 
 As if the salient blood were all repulsed 
 To its free source, — as if within their clutch 
 They had a poisoned dagger, and its touch 
 Was on their living flesh ; — yet they, even they, 
 Found in these precincts Joy, we will not say, 
 But, what is better. Peace ; — they asked no more ; 
 Happy the wave that breaks upon the shore !
 
 171 
 
 THE RIVER TRAUN. 
 
 WRITTEN IN LOMBARDY. 
 
 The Traun rises in the mountains of Upper Austria, and loses itself 
 in the Danube above Linz. Its course is remarkable for the combina- 
 tion of the best features of Alpine scenery with the grace and elegance 
 of the Southern landscape. 
 
 My heart is in a mountain moodj 
 Though I am bound to tread the plain, 
 She will away for ill or good, — 
 I cannot lure her back again ; 
 So let her go, — God speed her flight 
 O'er teeming glebe and columned town, 
 I know that she will rest ere night, 
 By the remembered banks of Traun. 
 
 And she will pray her sister Muse, 
 Sister, companion, friend, and guide. 
 Her every art and grace to use, 
 For love of that well-cherished tide ;
 
 172 THE KIVER TRAUN. 
 
 But words are weak, — she cannot reach 
 By such poor steps that Beauty's crown ; 
 How can the Muse to others teach 
 What were to me the banks of Traun ? 
 
 She can repeat the faithful tale 
 That " where thy genial waters flow, 
 All objects the rare crystal hail. 
 And cast their voices far below ; 
 And there the stedfast echoes rest. 
 Till the old Sun himself goes down. 
 Till darkness falls on every breast. 
 Even on thine, transparent Traun ! " 
 
 And she can say, " Where'er thou art, 
 Brawling 'mid rocks, or calm-embayed, 
 Outpouring thy abundant heart 
 In ample lake or deep cascade, — 
 Whatever dress thy sides adorn. 
 Fresh-dewy leaves or fir-stems brown, 
 Or ruby-dripping barbery thorn, 
 Thou art thyself, delightful Traun ! 
 
 " No glacier-mountains, harshly bold. 
 Whose peaks disturb the summer air, 
 And make the gentle blue so cold, 
 And hurt our warmest thoughts, are there ;
 
 MONT BLANC. 173 
 
 But upland meadows, lush with rills, 
 Soft-green as is the love-bird's down, 
 And quaintest forms of pine-clad hills, 
 Are thy fit setting, jewelled Traun !" 
 
 But the wise Muse need not be told, 
 Though fair and just her song may seem. 
 The same has oft been sung of old, 
 Of many a less deserving stream ; 
 For where would be the worth of sight, 
 If Love could feed on blank renown ? 
 They who have loved the Traun aright 
 Have sat beside the banks of Traun. 
 
 MONT BLANC. 
 
 Mount ! I have watched thee, at the fall of dew, 
 
 Array thee in thy panoply of gold, — 
 
 And then cast over it thy rosy vest, — 
 
 And last that awful robe that looks so cold, 
 
 Thy ghastly spectre-dress of nameless hue : 
 
 Then thou art least of earth, and then I love thee best.
 
 174 
 
 ON 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE, 
 AT PARIS. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Attic temple whose majestic room 
 
 Contained the presence of Olympian Jove, 
 
 With smooth Hymettus round it and above, 
 
 Softening the splendour by a sober bloom. 
 
 Is yielding fast to Time's irreverent doom ; 
 
 While on the then barbarian banks of Seine 
 
 That nobler type is realised again 
 
 In perfect form, and dedicate — to whom 1 
 
 To a poor Syrian girl, of lowliest name, 
 
 A hapless creature, pitiful and frail 
 
 As ever wore her life in sin and shame, — 
 
 Of whom all history has this single tale, — 
 
 " She loved the Christ, she wept beside his grave, 
 
 And He, for that Love's sake, all else forgave."
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE. 175 
 
 n. 
 
 If one, with prescient soul to understand 
 
 The working of this world beyond the day 
 
 Of his small life, had taken by the hand 
 
 That wanton daughter of old Magdala ; 
 
 And told her that the time was ripe to come 
 
 When she, thus base among the base, should be 
 
 More served than all the Gods of Greece and Rome, 
 
 More honoured in her holy memory, — 
 
 How would not men have mocked and she have scorned 
 
 The fond Diviner ? — Plausible excuse 
 
 Had been for them, all moulded to one use 
 
 Of feeling and of thought, but We are warned 
 
 By such ensamples to distrust the sense 
 
 Of Custom proud and bold Experience. 
 
 m. 
 
 Thanks to that element of heavenly things, 
 
 That did come down to earth, and there confound 
 
 Most sacred thoughts ^vith names of usual sound, 
 
 And homehest life with all a Poet sings. 
 
 The proud Ideas that had ruled and bound 
 
 Our moral nature were no longer kings, 
 
 Old Power grew faint and shed his eagle-wings,
 
 176 IMPRESSION, 
 
 And grey Philosophy was half uncrowned. 
 Love, Pleasure's child, betrothed himself to Pain 
 Weakness, and Poverty, and Self-disdain, 
 And tranquil sufferance of repeated wrongs. 
 Became adorable ; — Fame gave her tongues, 
 And Faith her hearts to objects all as low 
 As this lorn child of infamy and woe. 
 
 IMPRESSION, 
 
 ON RETURNING TO ENGLAND. 
 
 In just accordance with attentive sight, 
 
 Through airy space and round our planet ball, 
 
 The inorganic world is voiced with Light, 
 
 And Colours are the words it speaks withal. 
 
 Thus has my eye had glad experience ^ 
 
 Of that most perfect utterance and clear tone, 
 
 With which all visible things address the sense, 
 
 In lands retiring from the northern zone. 
 
 But, oh ! in what poor language, faintly caught^ 
 
 Do the old features of my England greet 
 
 Her stranger-son ! how powerless, — how unmeet 
 
 For the free vision Italy had taught 
 
 What to expect from Nature ; I must scan 
 
 Her face, I fear, no more, and look alone to Man.
 
 177 
 
 TO AN ENGLISH LADY, 
 
 WHO HAD SUNG A ROMAN BALLAD. 
 
 Blame not my vacant looks ; it is not true, 
 That my discourteous thoughts did vainly stray 
 Out of the presence of your gentle lay, 
 While other eager listeners nearer drew, 
 Though sooth I hardly heard a note ; for you, 
 Most cunning songstress, did my soul convey 
 Over the fields of space, far, far away. 
 To the dear garden-land, where long it grew. 
 Thus, all that time, beneath the ilex roof 
 Of an old Alban hill, I lay aloof, 
 With the cicala faintly clittering near, 
 Till, as your song expired, the clouds that pass 
 Athwart the Roman plain, as o'er a glass. 
 Thickened, and bade the Vision disappear.
 
 178 
 
 ON REVISITING CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 AFTER A LONG ABSENCE ON THE CONTINENT, 
 
 Nor few, nor poor in beauty, my resorts 
 In foreign climes, — nor negligent or dull 
 My observation, but these long-left courts 
 I still find beautiful, most beautiful ! 
 And fairly are they more so than before ; 
 For to my eye, fresh from a southern land, 
 They wear the colouring of the scenes of yore, 
 And the old Faith that made them here to stand. 
 I paint the very students as they were. 
 Not the men-children of these forward days, 
 But mild-eyed boys just risen from their knees. 
 While, proud as angels of their holy care, 
 Following the symbol-vested priest, they raise 
 The full response of antique litanies.
 
 179 
 
 THE SAME. 
 
 I HAVE a debt of my heart's own to Thee, 
 
 School of my Soul, old lime and cloister shade, 
 
 Which I, strange suitor, should lament to see 
 
 Fully acquitted and exactly paid. 
 
 The first ripe taste of manhood's best delights, 
 
 Knowledge imbibed, while mind and heart agree, 
 
 In sweet belated talk on winter nights, 
 
 With friends whom growing time keeps dear to me,- 
 
 Such things I owe thee, and not only these : 
 
 I owe thee the far beaconing memories 
 
 Of the young dead, who, having crossed the tide 
 
 Of Life where it was narrow, deep, and clear, 
 
 Now cast their brightness from the further side 
 
 On the dark-flowing hours I breast in fear. 
 
 N 2
 
 IfiO 
 
 ON COWPER'S GARDEN AT OLNEY. 
 
 From this forlornest place, at morn and even, 
 Issues a voice imperative, " Begone, 
 All ye that let your vermin thoughts creep on 
 Beneath the unheeded thunders of high Heaven ; 
 Nor M'elcome they, who, when free grace is given 
 To flee from usual life's dominion. 
 Soon as the moving scene or time is gone, 
 Return, like penitents unfitly shriven. 
 But Ye, who long have wooed the memory 
 Of this great Victim of sublime despair. 
 Encompassed round with evil as with air. 
 Yet crying, " God is good, and sinful He," — 
 Remain, and feel how better 'tis to drink 
 Of Truth to Madness even than shun that fountain's 
 brink."
 
 181 
 
 ROCHE ROCK, CORNWALL. 
 
 When all these order'd fields were one wet moor, 
 
 This Rock, that is for us a single sight 
 
 Of wonderment and picturesque delight, 
 
 AVas the salvation of the wandering Poor ; 
 
 The Hermit here supported to his door 
 
 The tottering steps invited by the light 
 
 That, as a lower star, transpierc'd the night, 
 
 And gave a blessed rest on that hard floor ; 
 
 Yet have we now a compensating gain — 
 
 The Rock has long return'd to nature's use, 
 
 Dismantled of its humanising power ; 
 
 But, 'mid the civilised and fertile plain, 
 
 We gaily climb or pleasurably muse 
 
 On God's protection of each opening hour.
 
 182 
 
 TINTERN ABBEY. 
 
 The Men who called their passion piety, 
 
 And wrecked this noble argosy of faith, — 
 
 They little thought how beauteous could be Death, 
 
 How fair the face of Time's aye-deepening sea ! 
 
 Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee, 
 
 Nor hearts that fail, can utterly deflower 
 
 This grassy floor of sacramental power, 
 
 Where we now stand communicants — even We, 
 
 We of this latter, still protestant age, 
 
 With priestly ministrations of the Sun 
 
 And Moon and multitudinous quire of stars 
 
 Maintain this consecration, and assuage 
 
 With tender thoughts the past of weary wars, 
 
 Masking with good that ill which cannot be undone.
 
 183 
 
 THE CAVE OF THE DYING DEER, 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF ULLSWATER. 
 
 To our instructed patient-seeking eyes 
 Each day reveals the outer world more clear, 
 Yet Life and Death, Nature's solemnities. 
 Darkly as through a glass alone apjDear ; 
 
 Whether the thing to scan 
 
 Be meditative Man 
 Or the poor instincts of a dying Deer. 
 
 Vex not the inland summer-calm ^vith storms, 
 Beauteous Ullswater ! be as calm and grave 
 As when the snows invest the mountain forms, 
 And thy black crystal sleeps without a wave ; 
 
 Triumphant Aira Force ! 
 
 Hold in thy torrent-course, — 
 Let Nature pity where she cannot save. 
 
 The noblest Stag of all Gowbarrow's park 
 Is struck, but by no mortal hunter's hand ; 
 There is no hound to see, no horn to hark, 
 Yet are his legs too weary-weak to stand :
 
 184 THE CAVE OF THE PVTNO DEER, 
 
 The antlers on his front 
 Hang heavy, that were wont 
 To rise rejoicing in their large command. 
 
 Now up the cliff he tries a sharp short bound, 
 Expiring action of his speedy pride. 
 And but once gazing pitifully round 
 The tangled bramble-heap he tears aside, 
 
 Seeking his solemn gi-ave 
 
 Within the same lone Cave, 
 Where, through recorded time, his sires have died. 
 
 Sons of the greenwood and free mountain air. 
 Children of open life and herding ways, 
 Why should they seek this solitary lair, 
 Soon as their conscious energy decays ? 
 
 How should they one and all 
 
 Select this common pall 
 Of cold damp rock for their departing days ? 
 
 There is an ill repute of all that kind, 
 That, when the leader of the troop is weak 
 With age or wounds, at once both stag and hind 
 The wrongs of years on his poor members wreak ; 
 
 Yet here it is not so, — 
 
 For mark his pace, how slow ! 
 And all their looks, how sorrowful and meek !
 
 THE CAVE OF THE DYING DEER. 185 
 
 Rather believe that to that voiceless creat ure 
 The decencies of Death are someway known, 
 That on the remnant of his living nature 
 The Last a shadow of itself has thrown, 
 
 Impelling him to teach, 
 
 More strongly than by speech. 
 That Death stands every^'here apart, — alone ! 
 
 Wisdom incumbent on the heu-s of life ! 
 Not visible least in those whose sole behest 
 Is to enjoy the world of peace or strife, 
 Holding necessity their only best ; 
 
 No part of thee is mean, — 
 
 For each, devoutly seen. 
 Shall aid the pupil Man to read the rest.
 
 186 
 
 ELYSIAN FIELDS AT LOWTHEK. 
 
 IN WESTMORELAND. 
 
 A YOUTH caressed and nurtured long, 
 Beneath the sky, beside the sea, 
 Where rules a vivid world of song 
 The clear-eyed Queen Parthenope, — 
 And wont to blend with outward grace 
 The soul Virgilian memory yields, 
 Might seek with dull, uneager, pace, 
 The cloudy north's Elysian Fields. 
 
 " Lowther," he cried, " of ancient strength 
 
 Thy lofty towers the harness wear ; — 
 
 Thy terraces their mossy length 
 
 Extend through centuries of care ; 
 
 In thine old oaks may Fancy read 
 
 A green traditionary chain 
 
 Of Worth and Power ; — Thou dost not need 
 
 To take the classic name in vain."
 
 ELYSIAN FIELDS AT LOWTHER. 18/ 
 
 Up Lowther's banks, that verj' eve, 
 This scornful youth was seen to wind 
 Still tardier steps, that seem'd to grieve 
 For joy or beauty left behind ; 
 But ere he reached the lordly roof, 
 High portal and cathedral stair, 
 His thoughts in other, fairer, woof, 
 Were olfer'd to the attentive air. 
 
 " Not once to Baiae's column'd bay. 
 Or Cuma's glade my spirit fled, 
 WhUe on that storm-cast trunk I lay. 
 Above yon torrent's stormy bed : 
 Crystal and green sufficed so well 
 To solace and delight mine eyes, 
 Thev yearn'd for no remember'd speU 
 Fashion'd beneath serener skies. 
 
 " If golden light or azure void 
 The Poet's radiant dream fulfils, 
 Are clouds and shadows unenjoy'd. 
 The ghostly guardians of the hiUs ? 
 Nature an open Faith demands. 
 And we have little else to do 
 But take the blessing from her hands, 
 Feeling — Here is Elysium too."
 
 188 
 
 ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN, 
 
 AT FROME, IN SOMERSETSHIRE. 
 
 Let other thoughts, where'er I roam, 
 
 Ne'er from my memory cancel 
 The coffin-fashioned tomb at Frome 
 
 That lies behind the chancel ; 
 A basket-work where bars are bent, 
 
 Iron in place of osier, 
 And shapes above that represent 
 
 A mitre and a crosier. 
 
 These signs of him that slumbers there 
 
 The dignity betoken ; 
 These iron bars a heart declare 
 
 Hard bent but never broken ; 
 This form pourtrays how souls like his, 
 
 Their pride and passion quelling, 
 Preferr'd to earth's higli palaces 
 
 This calm and narrow dwelling.
 
 ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN. ISO 
 
 There with the church- yard's common dust 
 
 He loved his own to mingle ; 
 The faith in which he placed his trust 
 
 Was nothing rare or single ; 
 Yet laid he to the sacred wall 
 
 As close as he was able, 
 The blessed crumbs might almost fall 
 
 Upon him from God's table. 
 
 Who was this Father of the Church, 
 
 So secret in his glory 1 
 In vain might antiquarians search 
 
 For record of his story ; 
 But preciously tradition keeps 
 
 The fame of holy men ; 
 So there the Christian smiles or weeps 
 
 For love of Bishop Ken. 
 
 A name his country once forsook, 
 
 But now with joy inherits, 
 Confessor in the Church's book, 
 
 And Martyr in the Spirit's ! 
 That dared with royal power to cope. 
 
 In peaceful faith persisting, 
 A braver Becket — who could hope 
 
 To conquer unresisting !
 
 190 
 
 LONDON CHURCHES, 
 
 I STOOD, one Sunday morning, 
 Before a large church-door, 
 The congregation gather'd 
 And carriages a score — 
 From one outstepp'd a lady 
 I oft had seen before. 
 
 Her hand was on a prayer book. 
 And held a vinaigrette ; 
 The sign of man's redemption 
 Clear on the book was set, — 
 But above the Cross there gHsten'd 
 A golden Coronet. 
 
 For her the obsequious beadle 
 The inner door flung wide, 
 Lightly, as up a ball-room, 
 Her footsteps seemed to ghde — 
 There might be good thoughts in her 
 For all her evil pride.
 
 LONDON CHURCHES. 191 
 
 But after her a Woman 
 Peep'd wistfully within, 
 On whose wan face was graven 
 Life's hardest discipline — 
 The trace of the sad trinity 
 Of weakness, pain, and sin. 
 
 The few free-seats were crowded 
 Where she could rest and pray ; 
 With her worn garb contrasted 
 Each side in fair array — 
 •'God's house holds no poor sinners," 
 She sigh'd, and crept away. 
 
 Old Heathendom's vast temples 
 Held men of every fate ; 
 The steps of far Benares 
 Commingle small and great ; 
 The dome of Saint Sophia 
 Confounds all human state. 
 
 The aisles of blessed Peter 
 Are open all the year ; 
 Throughout wide Christian Europe 
 The Christian's right is clear — 
 To use God's house in freedom, 
 Each man the other's peer.
 
 192 LONDON CHURCHES. 
 
 Save only in that England, 
 Where this disgrace I saw — 
 England, where no one crouches 
 In tyranny's base awe — 
 England, where all are equal 
 Beneath the eye of Law. 
 
 Yet there, too, each Cathedral 
 Contracts its ample room — 
 No weary beggar resting 
 Within the holy gloom- 
 No earnest student musing 
 Beside the famous tomb ! 
 
 Who shall remove this evil 
 That desecrates our age — 
 A scandal great as ever 
 Iconoclastic rage 1 
 Who to this Christian people 
 Restore their heritage ?
 
 193 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 CLIFDEN, IN CUNNEMARA. 
 
 Here the vast daughters of the eastward tide, 
 Heaved from the bosom of the Atlantic deep, 
 Lay down the burthen of their mighty forms, 
 Like some diviner natures of our kind, 
 Weary with gathered power, and sure to find 
 Only at once destruction and repose. 
 Yet no aerial cliff with harsh repulse 
 Confronts the roving buttresses of sea ; 
 But on the gentle slant of yielding shores 
 These wanderers of a world, intent on rest, 
 Impress their fluent substances, break down 
 The uneven slope by measureless degrees, 
 Wear out the line in thousand rugged shapes, 
 Detached, dissolving, and peninsular. 
 Now closed within broad circle, like a lake. 
 Now narrow as a river far inland : 
 Thence rose the name whose very utterance 
 

 
 194 CLIFDEN, IN CUNNEMARA. 
 
 Is as an echo of the distant main, 
 
 The name of Cunnemara, — Land of Bays. 
 
 I stood among those waters and low hills, 
 
 Within the circuit of a goodly town, 
 
 Furnished with mart and port and church and school, 
 
 Meet for the duteous work of social man 
 
 And all the uses of commodious life : 
 
 While round me circulated, free and wide, 
 
 A shifting crowd of almost giant shapes, 
 
 Creatures of busy blood and glorious eyes 
 
 Andalusian (as beseems the race), 
 
 Moulds of magnificent humanity. 
 
 Then was I told that twenty years before. 
 
 Or less, this spot, thus gay and populous, 
 
 Was one unmitigated solitude. 
 
 And all this outer wonder brought about 
 
 By the mere act of one industrious man ! 
 
 Thus rolls amain the large material world. 
 
 Impelled and energised by human will. 
 
 Accord not him alone the Hero's name, 
 Who weaves the complicate historic woof, 
 Out of the rough disorder of mankind. 
 Fashioning nations to his own proud law : 
 Nor him alone the Poet's, who creates. 
 In his own chamber, and exclusive spirit,
 
 CLIFDEN, IN CUNNEMARA. 195 
 
 A universe of beauty, undisturbed 
 
 But by serene and sister sympathies. 
 
 For He who in one unremitting chain 
 
 Of solemn purpose solders link to link 
 
 Of active day and meditative night, 
 
 And with unquivering heart and hand can meet 
 
 Ever distress, ever impediment, 
 
 And v^ring from out a world of checks and flaws 
 
 Some palpable and most perspicuous whole 
 
 Of realised design and change impressed, 
 
 Shall be enrolled among heroic souls, 
 
 Though small the scope and slow the growth of deed. 
 
 He too, whose care has made some arid soil 
 
 Alive with waters of humane delight. 
 
 That shall in merry channels gambol on, 
 
 Or rest in depths of happy consciousness, — 
 
 Has planted and defended in the wild 
 
 Some garden of affection, a safe place 
 
 For daily love to grow in, and when ripe 
 
 To shed sweet seeds, that in their turn will feed 
 
 The winds of life with odours, shall be writ 
 
 Poet, — Creator, in that book of worth, 
 
 Which Nature treasures for the eye of Heaven .
 
 196 
 
 THE SUBTERRANEAN RIVER AT CONG. 
 
 A PLEASANT mean of joy and wonder fills 
 The traveller's mind, beside this secret stream, 
 That flows from lake to lake beneath the hills, 
 And penetrates their slumber like a dream, 
 
 Untracked by sound or sight it wends its way, 
 Save where this well-like cave descending far, 
 Tlirough ivy curtains, lets the uncertain day 
 Fall on the current and its couch of spar. 
 
 A slippery stair will lead you to the brink, 
 There cast your torch athwart the gleaming tide. 
 And while you watch the motions of the link 
 That marries the great waters on each side, — 
 
 Think of our common life that glides a span, 
 In partial light, dark birth and death between, — 
 Think of the treasures of the heart of man 
 That once float by us and are no more seen.
 
 197 
 
 Or, for more cheerful mood, let local fame 
 Kecount, how in old time, the faery sprite, 
 Finvara, or some such melodious name. 
 Fashioned this channel for her own delight ; 
 
 And here, distressed at these unloyal days. 
 Masked in a milk-white fish, still sports along, 
 And altogether leaves the moonlight rays 
 For the cool shadow of her Caves of Cong. 
 
 " We arrived at the Coleraine Salmon Leap on the 12th of August, just 
 in time to see the last salmon caught, — the fishery there ending that day." 
 — MS. Journal. 
 
 One moment more before that fatal leap ! 
 
 One moment more ! and now thou hadst been free 
 
 To wanton in the autumn sun or sleep 
 
 In the warmed crystal of thy little sea. 
 
 I saw thee pant, — I saw the flickering shades 
 
 Wander beneath thy silver, loth to die, — 
 
 And still their glazed brilliancy upbraids 
 
 The heavens that they permit man's perfidy. 
 
 But is it not a weak nor sinless thought, 
 
 Since Nature's law thus undisturbed has run. 
 
 Heedless of all the same hard fate has wrought, 
 
 To pass the myriad and deplore the one ? 
 
 No, no, — our heart has but a narrow span. 
 
 Let it hold all the sympathy it can.
 
 198 
 
 VALE NT I A. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Where Europe's varied shore is bent 
 Out to the utmost Occident, 
 There rose of old from sea to air, 
 An island wonderful and fair ! 
 
 Not that on liis way to cheer 
 Our stranger-sister hemisphere, 
 Here the Sun is pleased to cast 
 Liefest smiles, as more his last. 
 Kinder than he gives to us — 
 Parting love-looks rubious : 
 Not that here the wind may fling 
 Odours from his faithless wing, 
 Scented breath of heaths and bowers, — 
 Keepsakes from confiding flowers, — 
 That the rover may be light 
 For his long Atlantic flight : — 
 Not that here the haughty land. 
 Spurning an assistant hand.
 
 VALENTIA. 199 
 
 Makes a gracious rivalry 
 
 With its fere the hoary sea, 
 
 Offering up to regal man 
 
 All the loyal gifts it can, 
 Such is not thy rarity 
 Thou Island of the Western Sea ! 
 
 Thy name is of a richer tone 
 
 Than our baptismal forms may own, — 
 
 A Spanish name, I little doubt, 
 
 Yet stands no Spanish lady out 
 
 When myriad star-rays mingle o'er 
 
 Her rose-emblazoned mirador, 
 
 Following with a flattered ear 
 
 A voice that follows a guitar. 
 
 Too mild and mellowed to be near, 
 
 But every precious word so clear. 
 
 It cannot come from very far. 
 
 No relic of gone days is here. 
 No ancient-minded cavalier, 
 Who takes his grandson on his knee 
 And half in play, half earnestly. 
 Watches the darling's tender hand 
 Labour to clasp a well-used brand, 
 Which sleeps in quiet rust at last, — 
 And tells him of the echoing past.
 
 200 VALENTIA. 
 
 What time the gallant Moorish race 
 Made Christian Spain their dwelling-place, 
 But Spain could never be the slave 
 Of stranger hosts, however brave, 
 And how this steel had helped to free 
 Her soil from turbaned Paynimrie. 
 
 The world has had its childly days. 
 
 Passion-bred hopes and earnest plays, — 
 
 The world has had its manhood fraught 
 
 With power and war and holy thought, — 
 
 The world is now grown vain and old,- 
 
 Her head and heart are palsy-cold, — 
 
 Light was called to meet her prime, 
 
 Thunder waits on her eve-time. 
 
 With a light that is not light, 
 
 But a death-glare ghastly bright. 
 
 And a voice is eveiy where 
 
 Louder than thousand trumpets' blare, 
 
 " Hear it, ye mortals, every one. 
 
 The life from out your world is gone." 
 
 So murmurs many a soul sublime, 
 Engaoled in this unhealthy time, 
 Whose embryo-thoughts and half-desires 
 Feed not his heart's sky-seeking fires ; 
 Who scales all heights, and with sharp ken 
 Observes the policies of men,
 
 VALENTIA. 201 
 
 Their aims and objects, and can see, 
 However wide the horizon be. 
 No onward-leading knightly road, 
 Such as his ancient heroes trode, — 
 No one secure and honest way 
 Where he can travel night and day, — 
 But every moment full of fear, 
 Of Truth forgot and Error near : 
 He dare not mingle in that niaze, 
 He dare not front the doubtful haze, — 
 He dare not, — as he would keep whole 
 His virgin rectitude of soul, 
 As he holds dear his life to be 
 His claim to blest Eternity ! 
 And thus, with all his loving mind. 
 He stands at bay against his kind. 
 Half sad to see amidst the blind. 
 
 Is there no refuge but the tomb 
 For all this timeless spirit-bloom ? 
 Does earth no other prospect yield 
 But one broad barren battle-field 1 
 Or if there be some cradling spot 
 Where such grown evil enters not, 
 Lies it in countries far away 
 From where he first drank in the day ? 
 Where, if despairing he be driven, 
 He must renounce his native heaven,
 
 202 VALENTIA. 
 
 No more by olden ties be bound, 
 Take other dress, and let the sound 
 Of native and of neighbour speech 
 No more his aliened senses reach .' 
 
 Be it not so ! for thou art here, 
 O Island beautifully drear ! 
 For Thou, encountering such a guest, 
 Wilt clasp him to thy hardy breast. 
 And bid him dwell at peace with thee 
 In thy uncitied modesty ; 
 Let him his spirit slake and steep 
 In thy immense Atlantic deep. 
 Let him from thy rude nature gain 
 kcy)HiXfi- Some sturdy f5j*»ifte.to sustain 
 ' The burthen of ideal care, 
 
 To which the Poet's soul is heir.
 
 203 
 
 THE ENVOY. 
 
 TO 
 
 Beloved, close this weary-wandering book, 
 
 Let us forget it ever held a line, 
 Let me repose upon thy loving look, 
 
 For 1 am thine again, — nothing but Thine. 
 
 For sights half-seen, and thoughts half-followed out, 
 And feeble memories, how can I repine 1 
 
 Having one bliss, on which I dare not doubt, — 
 For I am thine again, — nothing but Thine. 
 
 Or if my Spirit has learnt some things aright, 
 Nor toiled in vain within the Past's rich mine, 
 
 It is, that it may take a nobler flight, 
 
 And worthier to be thine, — nothing but Thine. 
 
 Thy presence is the homestead of my heart, 
 My own true country, my familiar shrine, 
 
 I know no other world than what thou art, 
 Since I am thine again, — nothing but Thine.
 
 U>NDON : 
 RRADRI7RV AND KVANS. PlilNTKRS, H'HlTKKRrAHS.
 
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