The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee,
Aud cried aloud: "Right well it pleaseth me!
Church-bells at best but ring us to the door;
But go not in to mass; my bell doth more:
It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The Bell of Atri famous for all time."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
THERE Baixe sees no more the joyous throng;
Her bank all- beaming with the pride of Rome :
No generous vines now bask along the hills,
Where sport the breezes of the Tyrrhene main:
With baths and temples mixed, no villas rise;
Nor, art sustained amid reluctant waves,
Draw the cool murmurs of the breathing deep:
No spreading ports their sacred arms extend:
No mighty moles the big intrusive storm,
From the calm station, roll resounding back.
An almost total desolation sits,
A dreary stillness saddening o'er the coast;
Where, when soft suns and tepid winters rose,
Rejoicing clouds inhaled the balm of peace;
Where citied hill to hill reflected blaze;
And where, with Ceres Bacchus wont to hold
A genial strife. Her youthful form, robust,
E'en Nature yields; by fire and earthquake rent :
Whole stately cities in the dark abrupt
Swallowed at once, or vile in rubbish laid,
A nest for serpents; from the red abyss
New hills, explosive, thrown; the Lucrine lake
A reedy pool: and all to Cuma's point,
The sea recovering his usurped domain,
And poured triumphant o'er the buried dome.
RUINS OF CORNELIA'S HOUSE.
TURN from ruins of imperial power,
Tombs of corrupt delight, old walls the pride Of statesmen pleased for respite brief to hide Their laurelled foreheads in the Muses' bower, And seek Cornelia's home. At sunset's hour How oft her eyes, that wept no more, descried Yon purpling hills! How oft she heard that tide Fretting as now low cave or hollow tower! The mother of the Gracchi! Scipio's child! 'T was virtue such as hers that built her Rome! Never towards it she gazed! Far off her home She made, like her great father self-exiled. Woe to the nations when the souls they bare, Their best and bravest, choose their rest elsewhere! Aubrey de Vere.
'TWAS night; the noise and bustle of the day
Were o'er. The mountebank no longer wrought
Miraculous cures, he and his stage were gone;
And he who, when the crisis of his tale
Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear,
Sent round his cap; and he who thrummed his wire
And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain
Melting the passenger. Thy thousand cries,
So well portrayed, and by a son of thine,
Whose voice had swelled the hubbub in his youth,
Were hushed, Bologna, silence in the streets,
The squares, when, hark, the clattering of fleet hoofs;
And soon a courier, posting as from far,
Housing and holster, boot and belted coat
And doublet, stained with many a various soil,
Stopt and alighted. 'T was where hangs aloft
That ancient sign, the pilgrim, welcoming
All who arrive there, all perhaps save those
Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell,
Those on a pilgrimage. And now approached
Wheels, through the lofty porticos resounding,
Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade
As the sky changes. To the gate they came;
And, ere the man had half his story done,
e host received the Master, one long used
To sojourn among strangers, everywhere
(Go where he would, along the wildest track)
Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost,
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those
Who love the haunts of genius; one who saw,
Observed, nor shunned the busy scenes of life,
But mingled not, and mid the din, the stir,
Lived as a separate spirit.
Since last we parted; and those five short years,
Much had they told! His clustering locks were turned
Gray;
nor did aught recall the youth that swam
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice,
Still it was sweet; still from his eye the thought ·
Flashed lightning-like, nor lingered on the way,
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night
We sat, conversing, no unwelcome hour
The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose,
Rising, we climbed the rugged Apennine.
was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day!
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. Had I said, "Good folks, mere noise repels,
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?"
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,
To give it my loving friends to keep. Naught man could do have I left undone, And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the house-tops now,
Just a palsied few at the windows set,
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate, or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind,
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go!
In such triumphs people have dropped down dead. Thou, paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?" God might have questioned; but now instead "T is God shall requite! I am safer so. Robert Browning.
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