That leads unto thy sacred street.

  II

  And yet what joy it were for me

  To turn my feet unto the south,

  And journeying towards the Tiber mouth

  To kneel again at Fiesole!

  And wandering through the tangled pines

  That break the gold of Arno’s stream,

  To see the purple mist and gleam

  Of morning on the Apennines

  By many a vineyard-hidden home,

  Orchard and olive-garden grey,

  Till from the drear Campagna’s way

  The seven hills bear up the dome!

  III

  A pilgrim from the northern seas—

  What joy for me to seek alone

  The wondrous temple and the throne

  Of Him who holds the awful keys!

  When, bright with purple and with gold,

  Come priest and holy Cardinal,

  And borne above the heads of all

  The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.

  O joy to see before I die

  The only God-anointed King,

  And hear the silver trumpets ring

  A triumph as He passes by!

  Or at the brazen-pillared shrine

  Holds high the mystic sacrifice,

  And shows his God to human eyes

  Beneath the veil of bread and wine.

  IV

  For lo, what changes time can bring!

  The cycles of revolving years

  May free my heart from all its fears,

  And teach my lips a song to sing.

  Before yon field of trembling gold

  Is garnered into dusty sheaves,

  Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves

  Flutter as birds adown the wold,

  I may have run the glorious race,

  And caught the torch while yet aflame,

  And called upon the holy name

  Of Him who now doth hide His face.

  Arona.

  Urbs Sacra Aeterna

  Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;

  In the first days thy sword republican

  Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:

  Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,

  Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;

  And now upon thy walls the breezes fan

  (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)

  The hated flag of red and white and green.

  When was thy glory! when in search for power

  Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,

  And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?

  Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,

  When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,

  The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

  Montre Mario.

  Sonnet

  On Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the Sistine Chapel

  Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,

  Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,

  Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love

  Than terrors of red flame and thundering.

  The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:

  A bird at evening flying to its nest

  Tells me of One who had no place of rest:

  I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.

  Come rather on some autumn afternoon,

  When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,

  And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,

  Come when the splendid fullness of the moon

  Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,

  And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

  Easter Day

  The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:

  The people knelt upon the ground with awe:

  And borne upon the necks of men I saw,

  Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.

  Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,

  And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,

  Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:

  In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.

  My heart stole back across wide wastes of years

  To One who wandered by a lonely sea,

  And sought in vain for any place of rest:

  “Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest.

  I, only I, must wander wearily,

  And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.”

  E Tenebris

  Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,

  For I am drowning in a stormier sea

  Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:

  The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,

  My heart is as some famine-murdered land

  Whence all good things have perished utterly,

  And well I know my soul in Hell must lie

  If I this night before God’s throne should stand.

  “He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,

  Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name

  From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.”

  Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,

  The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,

  The wounded hands, the weary human face.

  Vita Nuova

  I stood by the unvintageable sea

  Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray,

  The long red fires of the dying day

  Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;

  And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:

  “Alas!” I cried, “my life is full of pain,

  And who can garner fruit or golden grain

  From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!”

  My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,

  Nathless I threw them as my final cast

  Into the sea, and waited for the end.

  When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw

  From the black waters of my tortured past

  The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!

  Madonna Mia

  A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,

  With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,

  And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears

  Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:

  Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,

  Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,

  And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,

  Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.

  Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,

  Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,

  Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,

  Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice

  Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw

  The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

  The New Helen

  Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy

  The sons of God fought in that great emprise?

  Why dost thou walk our common earth again?

  Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,

  His purple galley, and his Tyrian men,

  And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes?

  For surely it was thou, who, like a star

  Hung in the silver silence of the night,

  Didst lure the Old World’s chivalry and might

  Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!

  Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?

  In amorous Sidon was thy temple built

  Over the light and laughter of the sea

  Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,

  Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,

  All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;

  Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,

  And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss

  Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned

  From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles!

  No! thou art Helen, and none other one!

  It was for thee that young Sarpedôn died,

  And Memnôn’s manhood was untimely spent;

  It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried

  With Thetis’ child that evil race to run,

  In the last year of thy beleaguerment;

  Ay! even now the glory of thy fame

  Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,

  Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well

  Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.

  Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land

  Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew,

  Where never mower rose at break of day

  But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,

  And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand

  Till summer’s red had changed to withered grey?

  Didst thou lie there by some Lethaean stream

  Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,

  The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam

  From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?

  Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill

  With one who is forgotten utterly,

  That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;

  Hidden away that never mightst thou see

  The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine

  To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;

  Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening,

  But only Love’s intolerable pain,

  Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,

  Only the bitterness of child-bearing.

  The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death

  Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,

  While yet I know the summer of my days;

  For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath

  To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise,

  So bowed am I before thy mystery;

  So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel,

  That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,

  Yet care I not what ruin time may bring

  If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.

  Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,

  But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,

  Who flies before the north wind and the night,

  So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,

  Back to the tower of thine old delight,

  And the red lips of young Euphorion;

  Nor shall I ever see thy face again,

  But in this poisonous garden-close must stay,

  Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,

  Till all my loveless life shall pass away.

  O Helen! Helen! Helen! yet a while,

  Yet for a little while, O, tarry here,

  Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!

  For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile

  Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear,

  Seeing I know no other god but thee:

  No other god save him, before whose feet

  In nets of gold the tired planets move,

  The incarnate spirit of spiritual love

  Who in thy body holds his joyous seat.

  Thou wert not born as common women are!

  But, girt with silver splendour of the foam,

  Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise!

  And at thy coming some immortal star,

  Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies,

  And waked the shepherds on thine island-home.

  Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep

  Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;

  No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,

  Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.

  Lily of love, pure and inviolate!

  Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!

  Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:

  For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,

  Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire,

  Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,

  Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne

  For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,

  Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,

  And the white glory of thy loveliness.

  The Burden of Itys

  This English Thames is holier far than Rome,

  Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea

  Breaking across the woodland, with the foam

  Of meadow-sweet and white anemone

  To fleck their blue waves—God is likelier there

  Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

  Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take

  Yon creamy lily for their pavilion

  Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake

  A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,

  His eyes half shut—he is some mitred old

  Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

  The wind the restless prisoner of the trees

  Does well for Palaestrina, one would say

  The mighty master’s hands were on the keys

  Of the Maria organ, which they play

  When early on some sapphire Easter morn

  In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

  From his dark House out to the Balcony

  Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,

  Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy

  To toss their silver lances in the air,

  And stretching out weak hands to East and West

  In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

  Is not yon lingering orange after-glow

  That stays to vex the moon more fair than all

  Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago

  I knelt before some crimson Cardinal

  Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,

  And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

  The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous

  With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring

  Through this cool evening than the odorous

  Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,

  When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,

  And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

  Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass

  Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird

  Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass

  I see that throbbing throat which once I heard

  On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,

  Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

  Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves

  At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,

  And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves

  Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe

  To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait

  Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

  And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,

  And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,