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For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed To that which our first Parents, ere Pile,

fall

High on the brink of that precipitous From their high state darkened the Earth

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St. Francis, far from Man's resort, to Do still survive, and, with those gent

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Hands clasped above the crucifix he wo
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed
By the joint pressure of his musing mo

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

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On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements, As we approached the Convent gate
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections; and with beast and

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aloft

Looking far forth from his aerial cell,
A young Ascetic-Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike

was

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his thy last haunt beneath Italian skies o carry thy glad tidings over heights all loftier, and to climes more near the

Pole.

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THE world forsaken, all its busy cares And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight,

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

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Of virtuous action; all that courage dares, Labour accomplishes, or patience bearsThose helps rejected, they, whose minds perceive

6

How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave

10

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 Thee1.

XVII.

AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI.

WHAT aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size

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

bereft,

nd seeking consolation from above;

or grieve the less that skill to him was left

> paint this picture of his lady-love:

they sate,

By panting steers up to this convent

gate?

1 See Note, p. 907.

How, with empurpled cheeks and pam

pered eyes,

In the pines pointing heavenward beauty austere ;

Dare they confront the lean austerities 5 In the flower-besprent meadows his genit

Of Brethren who, here fixed, on Jesu wait

In sackcloth, and God's anger deprecate Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies?

we trace

Turned to humbler delights, in whi youth might confide,

That would yield him fit help while pr figuring that Place

Strange contrast !-verily the world of Where, if Sin had not entered, Love new

dreams,

Where mingle, as for mockery combined,
Things in their very essences at strife, II
Shows not a sight incongruous as the

extremes

That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,

Meet on the solid ground of waking life1.

XVIII.

AT VALLOMBROSA.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd embower 2.

PARADISE LOST.
"VALLOMBROSA-I longed in thy shadiest

wood

had died.

When with life lengthened out came desolate time,

And darkness and danger had compass him round,

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

And here once again a kind shelter found.

And let me believe that when nightly

Muse

Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill Here also, on some favoured height, would choose

To wander, and drink inspiration will.

To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in floor!"

page

Fond wish that was granted at last, and Of that holiest of Bards, and the name

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my mind

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2 See for the two first lines, “Stanzas composed When the Being of Beings shall summa in the Simplon Pass," p. 345.

her hence.

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lut in his breast the mighty Poet bore Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire.

fold with the thought, in reverence I sate down,

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AT FLORENCE.-FROM MICHAEL ANGELO1. RAPT above earth by power of one fair face,

Hers in whose sway alone my heart delights,

I mingle with the blest on those pure heights

Where Man, yet mortal, rarely finds a place.

With Him who made the Work that Work accords 5 So well, that by its help and through His grace

I raise my thoughts, inform my deeds and words,

Clasping her beauty in my soul's embrace.

and, for a moment, filled that empty Thus, if from two fair eyes mine cannot

Throne.

XX.

EFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, BY
RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT FLORENCE.

turn,

I feel how in their presence doth abide 10
Light which to God is both the way and

guide;

And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn,
My noble fire emits the joyful ray

HE Baptist might have been ordained to That through the realms of glory shines

ery

'orth from the towers of that huge Pile,

wherein

for aye.

1 This and the following Sonnet may possibly His Father served Jehovah; but how have been two of the fifteen Sonnets which in win

Jue audience, how for aught but scorn defy

1805 Wordsworth essayed to translate from the Italian of Michael Angelo. A rough draft of No. XXII. is given by Mr. Dykes Campbell from a notebook belonging to S. T. Coleridge. See Coleridge's The obstinate pride and wanton revelry 5 Poetical Works, p. 474. Mr. Campbell, unfortu

of the Jerusalem below, her sin

And folly, if they with united din

nately, does not give the date of the entry, or of the note-book.-ED.

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My fault, nor hear it with Thy sacred So fare they-the Man serving as

ear;

ΙΟ

Neither put forth that way Thy arm

severe;

Slave. Ere long their fates do each to ea conform :

Wash with Thy blood my sins; thereto Both pass into new being,-but the Wor

incline

More readily the more my years require
Help, and forgiveness speedy and entire.

XXIII.

AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT
IN THE APENNINES.

YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;

Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine

Which no devotion now respects;

If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,

Transfigured, sinks into a hopeless gra
His volant Spirit will, he trusts, ascend
To bliss unbounded, glory without end

XXV.

AFTER LEAVING ITALY.

FAIR Land! Thee all men greet with jo how few,

Whose souls take pride in freedom, virtis fame,

Part from thee without pity dyed

shame:

I could not-while from Venice we with drew,

Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride Led on till an Alpine strait confined

In aught that ye would grace or hide-
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste! 10
Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye-full often spurned as weeds-
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering

wall

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view

Within its depths, and to the shore we ca
Of Lago Morto, dreary sight and name
Which o'er sad thoughts a sadder colo

ing threw.

Italia! on the surface of thy spirit,
(Too aptly emblemed by that torpid laka
Shall a few partial breezes only creep?-
Be its depths quickened; what thou da
inherit

Of the world's hopes, dare to fulfil; awake
Mother of Heroes, from thy death-

sleep!

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