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 St. Francis, far from Man's resort, to Do still survive, and, with those gent Hands clasped above the crucifix he wo Rapt though He were above the power And habit of his vow. That ancien On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements, As we approached the Convent gate aloft Looking far forth from his aerial cell, was his thy last haunt beneath Italian skies o carry thy glad tidings over heights all loftier, and to climes more near the Pole. 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 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. 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, 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 PARADISE LOST. 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 my mind 2 See for the two first lines, “Stanzas composed When the Being of Beings shall summa in the Simplon Pass," p. 345. her hence. lut in his breast the mighty Poet bore Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire. fold with the thought, in reverence I sate down, 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 turn, I feel how in their presence doth abide 10 guide; And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn, 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. 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 XXIII. AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine Which no devotion now respects; If not a straggler from the herd Transfigured, sinks into a hopeless gra 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- wall view Within its depths, and to the shore we ca ing threw. Italia! on the surface of thy spirit, Of the world's hopes, dare to fulfil; awake sleep! |