With aspects novel to my sight; but still For old remembrance' sake. And oft, where Spring Displayed her richest blossoms among files Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet might roam, A gratulation from that vagrant Voice Was wanting; and most happily till now. For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile, High on the brink of that precipitous rock, Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned By a few Monks, a stern society, 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 Illustrated, and mutually endeared. Rapt though he were above the power of sense, Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart 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 To catch from Nature's humblest monitors Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though pale 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 skyward 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 Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers Revive, their obstinate winter pass away, That awful name to thee, thee, simple Cuckoo, Voice of the desert, fare thee well; sweet Bird! If that substantial title please thee more, Farewell! - but go thy way; no need hast thou Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear, Thee gentle breezes waft, - or airs that meet Thy course and sport around thee softly fan, Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence, And folds thy pinions up in blest repose. XV. AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came bereft, Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left bind can they assist to Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live; How wide a space can part from inward peace The most profound repose his cell can give. XVI. CONTINUED. THE world forsaken, all its busy cares And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight, Those helps rejected, they whose minds perceive heave For such a one beset with cloistral snares. Father of Mercy! rectify his view, If with his vows this object ill agree; |