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

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

Your glories mingled with the brightest hues
Of her memorial halo, fading, fading,

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

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

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

sword

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

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

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

known.

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

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

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

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

THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO AT ROME.

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

flight,

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

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

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

VI.

PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN. FORBEAR to deem the Chronicler unwise, Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth, Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth Has spared of sound and grave realities, Firmly rejects those dazzling flatteries, Dear as they are to unsuspecting Youth, That might have drawn down Clio from the skies To vindicate the majesty of truth. Such was her office while she walked with men, A Muse, who, not unmindful of her Sire All-ruling Jove, whate'er the theme might be Revered her Mother, sage Mnemosyne, And taught her faithful servants how the lyre Should animate, but not mislead, the pen.

VII.

AT ROME.

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

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

treat

Of freedom, with mind grasping the whole theme

From ancient Rome, downwards through that bright dream

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

VIII.

LONG has the dew been dried on tree and lawn;

NEAR ROME, IN SIGHT OF ST PETER'S.

O'er man and beast a not unwelcome boon
Is shed, the languor of approaching noon;
To shady rest withdrawing or withdrawn
Mute are all creatures, as this couchant fawn,
Save insect-swarms that hum in air afloat,
Save that the Cock is crowing, a shrill note,
Startling and shrill as that which roused the
dawn.

-Heard in that hour, or when, as now, the

nerve

Shrinks from the note as from a mis-timed thing,

Oft for a holy warning may it serve,

Charged with remembrance of his sudden sting, His bitter tears, whose name the Papal Chair And yon resplendent Church are proud to bear.

IX.

AT ALBANO.

DAYS passed-and Monte Calvo would not clear His head from mist; and, as the wind sobbed through

Albano's dripping Ilex avenue,
My dull forebodings in a Peasant's ear
Found casual vent. She said, "Be of good

cheer;

Our yesterday's procession did not sue
In vain; the sky will change to sunny blue,
Thanks to our Lady's grace." I smiled to hear,
But not in scorn:-the Matron's Faith may
lack

The heavenly sanction needed to ensure
Fulfilment; but, we trust, her upward track
Stops not at this low point, nor wants the lure
Of flowers the Virgin without fear may own,
For by her Son's blest hand the seed was sown.
X.

NEAR Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove Perched on an olive branch, and heard her cooing

'Mid new-born blossoms that soft airs were wooing,

While all things present told of joy and love.
But restless Fancy left that olive grove
To hail the exploratory Bird renewing
Hope for the few, who, at the world's undoing,
On the great flood were spared to live and

years,

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

Ah! not like me who walk in the world's ways,
On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One
Crying amid the wilderness, and given,
Now that their snows must melt, their herbs

and flowers

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

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

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

eyes,

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

Flood,

That lulled me asleep, bids me listen once more. Its murmur how soft! as it falls down the steep, Near that Cell-yon sequestered Retreat high

in air

Where our Milton was wont lonely vigils to keep

For converse with God, sought through study

and prayer.

The Monks still repeat the tradition with pride, And its truth who shall doubt? for his Spirit is here;

In the cloud-piercing rocks doth her grandeur abide,

In the pines pointing heavenward her beauty

austere ;