III.

AT ROME.

Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill?
Yon petty Steep in truth the fearful Rock,
Tarpeian named of yore, and keeping still
That name, a local Phantom proud to mock
The Traveller's expectation?-Could our
Will

Destroy the ideal Power within, 'twere done Thro' what men see and touch,-slaves wandering on,

Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill.

Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sign; Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, From that depression raised, to mount on high

With stronger wing, more clearly to discern Eternal things; and, if need be, defy Change, with a brow not insolent, though

stern.

IV.

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,

skies

way,

A gratulation from that vagrant Voice
Was wanting;-and most happily till now.

For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed
Pile,

High on the brink of that prec.p.tous rock,
Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth
It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,
By a few Monks, a stern society,
Dead to the world and scorning earth-born
joys,

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

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

To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules
Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live;
His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discip-
line,

Doth sometimes here predominate, and works

By unsought means for gracious purposes; For earth through heaven, for heaven, by changeful earth,

Illustrated, and mutally endeared.

Rapt though He were above the power of

sense,

Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart
Of that once sinful Being overtlowed
On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements,
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections: and with beast and bird
(Stilled from afar-such marvel story tells-
By casual outbreak of his passionate words,
And from their own pursuits in field or
grove

Drawn to his side by look or act of love
Humane, and virtue of his innocent life)
He wont to hold companionship so free,
So pure, so fraught with knowledge and de-
light,

As to be likened in his Followers' minds
To that which our first Parents, ere the fall

From their high state darkened the Earth

with fear.

Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful

bowers.

Then question not that, 'mid the austere Band,

Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod,

Some true Partakers of his loving spirit Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts

Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith, Of a baptized imagination, prompt

To catch from Nature's humblest monitors Whate'er they bring of impulses sublime.

Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though paie

With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by 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, thec, simple
Cuckoo,

Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies
To carry thy glad tidings over heights
Still loftier, and to climes more near the
Pole.

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

If that substantial title please thee more,
Farewell!-but go thy way, no need hast

thou

Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear,

Thee gentle breezes waft-or airs that meet Thy course and sport around thee softly fan

Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence, And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.

XV.

AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came be reft,

And seeking consolation from above;
Nor grieve the less that skill to him was
left

To paint this picture of his lady-love:
Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve?
And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing
So fair, to which with peril he must cling,
Destroy in pity, or with care remove.
That bloom-those eyes-can they assist to
bind

Thoughts that would stray from Heaven?

The dream must cease

To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live;

Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find

The most profound repose his cell can give.

XVI.

CONTINUED.

THE world forsaken, all its busy cares
And stirring interests shunned with desper-
ate flight,

All trust abandoned in the healing might
Of virtuous action; all that courage dares,
Labor accomplishes, or patience bears--
Those helps rejected, they, whose minds
perceive

How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave

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

wood

When with life lengthened out came a desolate time,

And darkness and danger had compassed him round,

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

And here once again a kind shelter be found.

And let me believe that when nightly the [Muse Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill, Here also, on some favored height, he would choose

To wander, and drink inspiration at will.

Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page

Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind

Had a musical charm, which the winter of