COMPLACENT Fictions were they, yet the Break forth at thought of laying down

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:

ΙΟ

Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;

his head,

From ancient Rome, downwards through that bright dream

Of Commonwealths, each city a starlike seat

He, nursed 'mid savage passions that Of rival glory; they-fallen Italy—

defile

Humanity, sang feats that well might call
For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin's

riotous Hall.

Nor must, nor will, nor can, despair of
Thee!

Thanks to our Lady's grace." I smiled Ruin perceived for keener sympathies;

Stops not at this low point, nor wants Thy fortunes, twice exalted, might pro

Verse to glad notes prophetic of the Unburied, lay hid under heaps of hour

When thou, uprisen, shalt break thy But who is He-the Conqueror? Would double yoke, he force

And enter, with prompt aid from the His way to Rome? Ah, no,-round hill

Checked not its rage; unfelt the ground [Composed June, July, 1837.-Published: vol. of

Sword dropped not, javelin kept its LIST-'twas the Cuckoo.-O with what

Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet

might roam,

Whate'er assemblages of new and old, 25
Strange and familiar, might beguile the

way,

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

now.

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
delight,

61 As to be likened in his Followers' minds

For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed To that which our first Parents, ere the Pile, fall High on the brink of that precipitous From their high state darkened the Earth

30

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.
35
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; 41
His milder Genius (thanks to the good
God

That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing disci-
pline,

Doth sometimes here predominate, and works 45

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

Illustrated, and mutually endeared.

with fear, Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers.

65

With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by
years,
75

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 80
By the joint pressure of his musing mood

Rapt though He were above the power And habit of his vow. That ancient

Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; All trust abandoned in the healing might

GRIEVE for the Man who hither came Enormous, dragged, while side by side