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 Another Random Document on
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himself, on his first journey to Rome, baptized many in these very
catacombs—many, probably, who later on had received that other
baptism of blood in the ghastly revels of Nero's gardens, and whose
remains were gathered together secretly by the brethren, and buried
in the caves of the “Potter's Fields.” And now the strangers have
become possessors; the holy dead have consecrated what might
well have been called another “field of blood”; and the successors of
S. Peter sit in reverend state and govern Christendom on the very
spot where the first Bishop of Rome celebrated in secret the first
Masses Rome ever witnessed. The grain of mustard-seed has indeed
become a great and goodly tree, and the [pg 216] birds of all
nations and all ages lodge in the beneficent shadow of its branches.

The whole history of the Basilica of S. Peter, whether the first that
sheltered the relics of the apostles, or the present more magnificent
one, built from the designs of Bernini, and completed by Michael
Angelo, teems with facts of this nature.

The old roof of S. Peter's was covered by Pope Honorius I. with the
gilt bronze tiles that had roofed, some historians say the temple of
Romulus, others that of Jupiter Capitolinus, possibly of both; as
though the first founders of pagan Rome, the Romulus and Remus
of history and legend, were to pay tribute to the founders of
Christian Rome, the great apostles SS. Peter and Paul, whose blood
cemented the walls of the early church, and over whose sacred relics
that venerable roof was to hang; or, as if the false Jove, dethroned
and vanquished by the fisherman, were stripped of his splendor to
do honor to the true God. The tiles have been removed elsewhere
now, but the fact still retains its touching import. And the like is
carried out in the present Basilica; for the Pantheon, raised to the
honor of its myriad of demon gods, gave up the bronze of its portico
at the command of Urban VIII., that out of it Bernini might fashion
that wonderful work, the Baldacchino over the high altar. Wonderful
work! that, as we gaze at it, never weary and ever admiring, we ask
ourselves in what way the mind of the architect78 wrought when he
brought forth this splendid design. Did it come to him at once, like
the one grand idea ruling all the cadences of action in a Greek play?
Or did he build it up, piece by piece, in his soul, and touch and
retouch the beautiful image like the finished diversities of an idyl?
We incline to the first, for that is most like inspiration, and the
Baldacchino of S. Peter's must have been an inspiration.

As we pass beneath the deep shadow of the great colonnade of S.

Peter's into the vast piazza facing the Basilica, it is like stepping from
the mazes of a forest out into the sunny plain. Almost catching the
diamond spray of these ever-joyous fountains, we mount the easy
steps, so dignified in their gradual ascent, and pass into the gallery
of the façade with the same awe-struck feeling we have experienced
when suddenly we have found our frank glance come in unexpected
contrast with the deep, scrutinizing gaze of a dark eye and the
overhanging solemnity of a thoughtful and heavy-laden brow. And
first the bass-relief before us tells us the history of the church. Christ
delivers the keys to S. Peter, who, kneeling, receives the tokens of
his high office. At either end of the long gallery are the equestrian
statues of two great imperial defenders and benefactors of the
church: Constantine the Great still gazes on the labarum that
appeared to him in mystic form not far off on that very hill of Monte
Mario, pine-crowned, and where now stands a church in
commemoration of the event—an event which turned the City on
Seven Hills, the Babylon of the prophecies, the woman drunk with
the blood of the martyrs, into the Eternal City, the port of the
church's bark, the patrimony of S. Peter, and the home of all
Christian hearts—the city of which a great and royal sufferer once
said; “J'ai trouvé [pg 217] que Rome est l'endroit où on peut le
mieux se passer du bonheur.”79 Here all sorrow is ennobled, all grief
is sheltered. The great King of the church is himself “the Man of
Sorrows,” and here his Vicar reigns!

At the very entrance we pause to ponder over as touching an elegy

as ever was written in memoriam; and the grief it portrays is that of
the other great defender of the church, whose equestrian statue
meets us on the left end of the gallery—Charlemagne mourns for
Adrian I.

“I, Charles, write these verses, weeping for my father! Yea, my

father, my dear love! These verses are my lamentation for thy loss.
Be thou ever mindful of me, whose memory seeks thee dwelling
with Christ in the blessed region of heaven. The priests and the
people loved thee with a great love, and all with one love, best of
shepherds! Great friend! I mingle in one our names and our
illustrious titles. Adrian and Charles—emperor, I; and father, thou!”

In the history of nations, as in the life of individuals, there is a not

unfrequent repetition of events bearing the same type though not
the same in fact. They give a characteristic coloring to the biography
of the individual or the history of the people. The events and the
man react on each other. But this is especially true, and in a far
deeper sense, with the history of God's church. When the Israelites
came out of Egypt, they spoiled the Egyptians. They carried away as
a tribute the treasures unwillingly conceded by their former masters.
The Christian world, on the conversion of Constantine, stepped forth
from the darkness and despotism of paganism, and Charlemagne, as
if in commemoration of this antitype of that deliverance, endowed
the church of S. Peter with rich tributes from Egypt for the
benefaction of the clergy, and for the lighting and repairing of the
great Basilica. Human governments are generally ungrateful; but the
church is a divine government, though carried on through human
agents, and gratitude is one of her virtues and one of her most
distinctive attributes. Constantine and Charlemagne are not
forgotten. Their statues guard the entrance of S. Peter's, as
erstwhile their power guarded and endowed the see of Peter. Nor
shall even the weaker sex fail of the tribute liberally paid to loyalty
and devotion. There is something sublime in the gratitude depicted
in the monument to the Countess Mathilda, who holds in her hands
the mitre and the keys, as though to suggest the idea of consigning
them to the protection of the great mediatrix of the incorrigible
Emperor of the West, Henry IV., and who had sheltered in her own
dominions the great S. Gregory, and done so much to increase the
patrimony of the church. A royal father giving his crown and sceptre
into the hands of a favorite child could not more touchingly portray
the loving appreciation of the sovereign pontiffs towards one who
had been so true to the church's cause. And time has no effect in
diminishing the gratitude of that church which is built upon a rock,
and where all is enduring, any more than it has in diminishing the
glory of the saints; for it was Urban VIII. who erected the
monument in S. Peter's to the spiritual daughter of the great
Hildebrand, Gregory VII.—a grateful memory of [pg 218] more than
six hundred years' standing!

We have often heard people complain of a sentiment of

disappointment on first entering S. Peter's. It has been accounted
for by the fact that the perfect proportion and harmony of the
whole, producing therefore no startling contrasts, fail to effect so
sudden an impression on the mind as would be the case were the
harmony less absolute. To this it may be replied that some minds are
more alive to impressions of harmony, and others to those of
contrast. We can best speak from experience, and we all agreed that
nowhere had we felt such a sense of completeness and its
consequent repose fall upon our souls as when we pushed aside that
heavy leathern portal, and passed within the precincts of S. Peter's. I
do not remember ever to have done so, though I have probably
been there fifty times, without an involuntary pause as I first
entered; and before approaching the holy-water stoups, supported
by white marble boys of six feet high, who carry a large marble shell
between them, and, everything being large in proportion, fail not to
look like infants, in spite of their real size. The first chapel to the
right as you enter is the one in which a large number of very
valuable relics are kept in rich reliquaries, and which are only shown
to the public on certain days. These are distinct from the great relics
of the Passion, which are exhibited to the crowd from the loggia in
the dome on either side of the high altar during Holy Week. I used
to be attracted to that chapel, which is otherwise less striking than
many of the others, by the Pietà of Michael Angelo. In my father's
house in England we have that same Pietà, said to be an original. It
is on a smaller scale and unfinished; at least the head and features
of Our Lady always gave me that impression. Not so the figure of
Our Lord, which is full of the sad tenderness of death. The utter
supineness of the limbs and of the arm, which has fallen off Our
Lady's lap, and hangs down; the beauty of the worn face; the
wonderfully graceful and yet manly hands, pierced, like the feet; the
general position of the whole body, like a broken flower flung on the
Mother's lap—are full of the deepest religious feeling and pathos.
But it is difficult thoroughly to appreciate it where it stands in S.
Peter's. It is over the altar, and one had need do as I used to do at P
——, when a child, to be able to appreciate all the details. I used to
go alone, when I was sure of not being caught, down the dark,
dreary passage which led to the dark, disused chapel, on the damp,
marble pavement of which stood this supposed original of the Pietà.
Then getting a chair from a bath-room in the vicinity of the chapel, I
stood upon that, so as to bring myself nearly on a level with the
head of Our Lady, and thus be able to look down, as she does, on
the dead Christ supported on her knees.

How often in S. Peter's I have wished I could do the same with the
undoubted work of Michael Angelo, and trace again in every line the
pathetic beauty of suffering and death, as, with eyes full of tears, I
had done in early life! The Pietà at S. Peter's has the same absence
of real beauty in the face of Our Lady with the one at P——; the
same long upper lip and want of finish. It also gives a like
impression with all other pietàs, in [pg 219] which the Mother is
represented as holding her Divine Son on her knees—a thing which
in reality would be impossible. No woman could support on her
knees the dead body of a full-grown man. Michael Angelo, whose
idealism was always under the control of his marvellous anatomical
drawing, was too conscious of that not to endeavor palpably to
counteract what probably, as he was working at the group, he felt to
be an invincible objection. He has certainly made it look possible in
his Pietà, but he has done it at the expense of beauty and congruity.
The Blessed Virgin's lap is enormous; her whole figure looks
powerful and gigantic, while that of the Saviour is undersized in
proportion.

I have often paused in the space opposite this first chapel, across
the nave, to watch some fifty little urchins learning their catechism.
Merry little creatures they seemed to be, all more or less in the
négligé attire of Italian beggar life, picturesque in color and
dilapidated in texture. Sparkling black eyes and gleaming white teeth
were their chief and never-failing beauty. They sat on low forms, or
rather they leant upon them, lay upon them, scrambled over them,
waiting for their instructor, who always seemed long in coming.
When at last he did arrive, a faint semblance of order was
established. The little creatures shouted forth the answers in a sort
of loud sing-song, nudging each other all the time, swinging their
little, naked, well-bronzed legs, and keeping up some perennial jokes
all the time with each other, but little in unison with the words they
were repeating. I cannot say that their demeanor seemed at all to
affect the stolid gravity of their priestly instructor, or even to try his
patience. He simply ignored it. He appeared to have no eyes nor
ears for any sound but the well-known monotony of the responses.
It is to be hoped something may come back to them of it all when
they are old enough to think. For myself, I could only reflect on what
a strange reminiscence it would seem to me to have learnt my
catechism beneath the dome of S. Peter's. To these little, careless
mortals, it was only a part of their everyday life.

The niches, filled with colossal statues of the founders and

foundresses of religious orders, embellish the walls on all sides; and
probably all Catholics look out for some special saint as they wander
through the Basilica. We used particularly to salute S. Teresa and S.
Frances of Rome; the latter attended by her guardian angel. These
statues produce a grand effect, being all of white marble, standing in
niches of many-colored marbles and rich carving, though they are
far from all having artistic merit. There are still some niches empty.
Who will fill them? What saintly founders or foundresses of new
orders does the future of the church still reserve for us? Or will the
last day come, and find those niches empty still? With the exception
of the four statues under the dome, they are (and must always be)
canonized saints and founders of orders.

I have heard of people whose great ambition was to be buried in

Westminster Abbey. I knew one pretty bride, of high rank and
youthful ambition, who was married in the Abbey because she was
persuaded that her husband would be a great statesman, and that
his grateful country would bury him there. But I never heard of any
[pg 220] one who dreamed of filling one of the empty niches in S.
Peter's. On first entering the church, one sees the many lamps
burning round the Confessional of S. Peter, as the high altar is called.
They seem to pour an orange-colored glow all around. You stand or
kneel against the marble balustrade, and look down on the kneeling
figure of Pius VI. before the tomb of his greater predecessor. It is a
beautiful, restful image of perpetual prayer, and is one of the few
works of Canova I have ever really admired. Against the marble
balustrade there hang some wooden frames containing an
indulgenced prayer and hymn to S. Peter and S. Paul in Latin. I once
had a curious illustration of how a trifle may strike a stranger, while
it escapes the notice of one in the habit of seeing it constantly. I
never went to S. Peter's that I did not say that prayer at the tomb of
the apostles; for it must be remembered the relics (not all of them)
of S. Paul lie here, as well as those of S. Peter. I had had occasion to
insert them in a manuscript, which fell into the hands of a certain
very learned Capuchin, who holds a high post in his order, and in
connection, also, with the Sovereign Pontiff. He surprised me by
asking me where I got those prayers and hymns. He had never read
them before, in the many years he had lived at Rome in the
venerable convent of his order, and might have seen them fastened
by a small chain to the spot where he must so often have knelt.
Perhaps the fact that in every church in Rome you will find an
indulgenced prayer printed up somewhere as an incentive to
devotion, may have led to his not particularly noticing the one at S.
Peter's.
Frank used to tell Mary he never knew any one so greedy of
indulgences as she was. She always looked out for these short
prayers; she never went to S. Peter's without kneeling, as she
passed the priests in their confessionals, to receive the little tap from
the long wand they have in front of the confessional, and to the
receiving of which an indulgence is attached. He used to tell her
laughingly that he did not understand how she had the face to
disturb the priest saying his Office, and oblige him to lift his eyes
from his Breviary, and detach the long stick as she knelt a yard or
two distant. We have seen her unblushingly obtain three raps in
succession with all the devotion possible; and then, when she and I
were looking another way, Frank would strive against his natural
British undemonstrativeness, and kneel for the little blow, getting up
again with a shy blush. Mary and I never took any notice. We knew
that the small act of humility, which, among the childlike Italians,
came almost as a matter of course, cost him far more than it did us,
and therefore had more merit. The Romans have a harmless
superstition that if you are leaving Rome, and are anxious to return,
you will not fail to do so if you deposit some small coin in a safe
place. I had done so the last time I had been there; and, sure
enough, I was back again to claim my money. But though I could
remember the part of the church beneath the statue of S. Juliana
where I had dropt it into a crevice, I never could find it again.
However, that did not matter, since the charm had worked
successfully. A draught of the water from the fountain of Trevi is said
to have the same effect. I drank a cupful once in pure jest, and have
been to Rome four times [pg 221] since; but something more
powerful than the hidden half-pence or the fountain of Trevi has
lured me back again. There is, I believe, no spot in the world where
everybody gets to feel so at home as in Rome, outside the land of
their birth and the roof that shelters all their domestic affections.

In the same place where I had hidden my little coin I remember a

scene which filled my imagination with interest and admiration. It
was Holy Thursday. The high altar was being stripped of all the
ornaments, and washed with wine, to the mournful chanting of the
choir; the daylight was fast declining, though still some rays of the
setting sun stole through the yellow-tinted windows below the
dome; and the Grand Penitentiary was seated in his violet robes on a
raised platform, in a crimson velvet chair, with no partition between
him and the low stool to his right, on which the penitents were to
kneel. There were several steps, covered with cloth, to mount from
the pavement of the church to the seat of the prelate; and at some
distance from these was a temporary railing to prevent the crowd
from approaching within hearing of what should pass between the
penitent and the priest. We stood among the crowd. The penitent
was a man of about thirty years of age, with coal-black hair and
beard, deep, dark eyes, and regular features. It was very curious to
hear the remarks of the bystanders; and they were very
characteristic of Italians, born to the faith. Most of them were
praying aloud, in brief ejaculations, that God would grant him perfect
contrition. The women especially were exclaiming: “Ah! poverello,
ma piange!”80 Two priests passed through the crowd, and paused a
moment, with a smile of indescribable benevolence and satisfaction
that a big fish had been caught in Peter's net, and was being drawn
to land. The confession lasted a long time. The man never for a
moment shifted his position; but by degrees the venerable prelate
bent his ear closer and closer to the poor penitent, and his
countenance showed a mixture of compassion and tenderness quite
paternal. The man's forehead almost touched the priest's shoulder,
as he poured forth his long history of error and shame. At length the
priest's hand was raised to give the absolution, and a murmur of
relief and congratulation ran through the crowd of spectators. The
hand rested on the man's head before he rose from his knees. He
came quickly down the steps. The crowd parted to let him pass. He
can have seen none but smiling and happy glances all around him, if
he cared to look up; but all silently made way for him, and in a
moment he was lost in the multitude, absolved and released from
the burden of some “reserved case.” Of course there were many
conjectures as to who and what he might be. Some said he had
been a bandit; others that he was a priest who had broken his vows,
and made this confession in public as an act of greater humility; for
of course it is not imperative to carry all reserved cases to the Grand
Penitentiary, nor need the penitent wait for Lent to get absolution.
Nevertheless, the prelate with power to absolve all reserved cases
(of which murder is one) occupies that raised confessional
throughout Lent for certain hours of the day. Mary was so overcome
at the piety and charity of the crowd in the [pg 222] warm interest
they evinced, and observed so often that it must be delightful to be
thus prayed for while making one's confession, that we began to
apprehend she would mount the platform herself, had not Frank
timely observed to her that, in all probability, she had no reserved
case on her conscience!

By this time the shades of night were closing in. The lights were all
extinguished. The altars stood bare and cold. The dark crowd
swayed in dense masses towards the open doors. The light of the
moon struggled pale and wan through the high windows where the
setting sun had lately thrown a golden glow. The vast cathedral
echoed to the steps of the departing crowd, and we turned towards
home, more deeply impressed with the desolation expressed by the
Holy Thursday ceremonies in S. Peter's in the stripping of the altars
than with many others more generally remarked.

It was night before we reached our apartment in the Ripetta.

Mary's bedroom overlooked the river, and in the morning she could
see S. Peter's bathed in the rosy light of the rising sun, while flights
of white sea-gulls came up the river with the early tide to feed upon
the refuse which had been thrown into the water. They came
swooping down, with their glittering plumage flashing in the
sunshine, and, dipping low, would snatch some dainty morsel from
the swift water, and mount up, in graceful, curving flight, to repeat
the same again and again. As the port was close to our house, no
doubt it was an advantageous position for both the breakfast and
supper of the gulls. They always returned in the evening, but at no
other hour in the day. At night we could see lights in three windows
of the Vatican. They were always there, and always at about the
same hour they disappeared. One day, when Mary was calling on
Cardinal Antonelli he asked her where we were living; and on her
describing the position, and how she could see S. Peter's and the
Vatican, and specially those three windows, he told her the lights
were from his own apartment. His eminence is very fond of flowers,
and has a garden in Rome, in which he takes great pleasure. They
were talking of flowers, and he observed to Mary that she would find
very much the same flora throughout Europe, though not of course
equally distributed. Mary objected that she had never seen the little
common yellow primrose of our English woods, in that part of Italy.
“Nevertheless, you will find we have it,” was his reply. And not long
after, on our way to Viterbo, we saw its starry blossoms by the
roadside, and hailed it as an old friend, dearer to our hearts than
even the graceful pink cyclamen, which from the position of the
petals reminds me of a pretty, blushing child with her hair all drawn
back from her forehead.

What memories crowd upon me as I recall these trivial incidents!

What happy hours have I spent beneath that deep-blue but not
unclouded sky, with the warm breeze perfumed by the breath of
violets in the Doria Pamphili Villa! The great stone pines, with their
soft, unceasing sighs; the large willows dropping their bright-green
flexible wands into the clear water; the violet anemones, with here
and there a large crimson one, or a yellow tulip lighting up the soft
green grass like a sparkling gem; the violets, not bashful and hidden
shrinkingly beneath their leaves, as in [pg 223] our colder climes,
but lifting their little dark-purple heads high in the air, to drink the
light and leave a perfumed kiss on every breeze that floats; soft
masses of white cloud sailing slowly over the blue ether, and casting
dappled shadows on the long grass. In the distance is S. Peter's and
the Vatican, with fields of broken ground in many tints of yellow and
green and red between it and the stone balustrade against which we
lean. It appears, from this point of view, to be quite outside the city,
and to stand alone and untrammelled by meaner buildings. Behind
us is a dense avenue of venerable ilex, and but now we were visiting
the Colombarium, the other side of the road, and moralizing on the
pagan practice of cremation, as compared with the hallowed
Christian sepulture—it must have been so difficult to realize that the
little handful of ashes in the urn had anything to do with the dead
wife or child or father, that they had loved, embraced, and conversed
with!

Again, I remember a day when we were living at Capo le Case. I

took Ann with me, and we set out for a long walk regardless of the
flight of time. We directed our course to S. John Lateran. On our
way, we paused at San Clemente, where we had several times
visited the subterranean church under the guidance of the kind and
learned F. Mullooly. Few, perhaps, have ever noticed, in a church
which presents so much else to interest them, a small picture, the
head of S. Catharine of Sienna, over an altar at the bottom of the
church, on the right hand. It is modern, and by a Dominican artist
whose name is unknown to me, and probably to all save the
brothers of his order. Nevertheless, I have never seen devotion more
exquisitely depicted than in that sweet, sorrowful face, with the
tears standing in the large, uplifted eyes. Through the open door of
the church penetrated the scent of large masses of Banksia roses
that hung over a wall in a garden nearly opposite. Untrained,
untrimmed they flung long wreaths to the wind, and lay in cloud-like
bunches of soft, creamy white. As we passed by the door of the
hospital of the Salvatore, two Sisters stepped out into the sunshine,
on some errand of charity for their sick and aged patients. We then
visited the Basilica of S. John Lateran, “the mother and head of all
churches.” The gigantic statues of the apostles have a very imposing
effect, in spite of their many artistic faults, more so, perhaps, than
the equally faulty statues at S. Peter's. Then we wandered into the
large piazza in front of the cathedral, and looked beyond the gates
and crumbling fortifications of Rome upon the Alban hills. The long
avenue of trees leading to the church of Santa Croce di
Gerusalemme were coming into leaf; so were the group of trees to
our right, by the low wall of the piazza, on which grew tufts of fern
and yellow-blossomed oxalis. We sat on the steps, and ate some hot
chestnuts I had bought by the roadside, getting, at the same time, a
pinch of salt from a dark-browed matron, with a yellow kerchief
across her ample bosom, and a silver dagger in her hair, who sold
cigars in a little wooden booth. It was enough to be alive on such a
day and in such a scene, with the easy liberty of Italian life and the
total absence of “Mrs. Grundy.” There was no one to see us (save a
few beggar-women) sitting on the steps of the grand [pg 224]
portico, and scattering the skins of our chestnuts on the pavement
at our feet, while we silently drank in the balmy air and rejoiced in
the beauty of the view before us. Ere we returned, we visited the
Scala Santa, and looked long on Giacometti's beautiful group of the
Kiss of Judas. The evening was closing in when, wearied but
satisfied, we reached our home. But if these remembrances are full
of light and warmth, not less pleasing are those of our moonlight
drives the year that we remained in Rome till the middle of July, and
every evening used to visit the Colosseum, or S. John Lateran and
Santa Maria Maggiore, stopping to gaze long upon the cold silver
light, so sharp and sudden on every curve and shaft, on architrave
and entablature, on capital and plinth, while the dense shadows
lurked behind like black stains of unfathomable darkness. Then we
would drive to S. Peter's, and after crossing the bridge of Sant'
Angelo between the angels, each holding an instrument of the
Passion, we would look across the dark river to see the covered
balcony of the house where Michael Angelo was an honored guest,
and had introduced the young Raphael to the small circle of favored
ones who met nightly under that roof. There, too, Vittoria Colonna
probably came to increase the charm by her wit and beauty, while
Michael Angelo nourished those sentiments of pure and profound
veneration for her great merits which made him bitterly reproach
himself after her unexpected death, because he who had never
breathed one word of love to her while living, had dared to press a
kiss on her marble brow when cold in death. What noble sentiments,
what lofty times! And yet in many things how unseemly would some
of their practices appear to us? For it was in the Church of San
Silvestro al Quirinale that they used to meet after Vespers, to
converse and laugh and jest together. We look across the river to
mark that house. It is dark and silent now. No lights gleam from the
windows. Half-defaced frescos still cover some of the walls, but it is
let from top to bottom to several families of the very poorest of the
people.

But I must pause. Rome is inexhaustible, whether in her classic, her

Christian, or her artistic treasures; besides the charm of social
intercourse, the delight of varied society, and the equal ease and
splendor which may be found in the interior life of her princely
palaces. Nor can I close this chapter without speaking of one whose
presence, though now confined within the walls of his own palace,
makes Rome so doubly dear to the true Catholic. The days are gone
when our afternoon drive might be gladdened by the pleasure of
finding the well-known crimson coach and magnificent black horses
checking our progress, while we hastened to descend and kneel
where he would pass, that we might catch a glance, perhaps a
smile, and certainly the blessing, of the venerable old man in whom
we recognize the Vicar of Christ. We had been admitted to more
than one private audience, besides witnessing several of those
receptions in which hundreds of people of many nations knelt to kiss
his feet, and to hear that sweet, clear voice utter words of
exhortation and encouragement. This last time we had entered the
Vatican with sad and altered feelings. It was no longer a gala-day,
that on which we were to [pg 225] visit the universal father of
Christendom. We were going to condole with an august prisoner, a
father defrauded of his rights, a sovereign deprived of his
possessions. We all felt depressed and inclined for silence. The Pope
had been indisposed, and, as we were kept waiting a long time, we
began to fear His Holiness would prove unable to receive us. Our
spirits flagged with every second that we were left in expectation, till
Mary began to look so pale I feared that she was ill. At length,
however, we perceived a stir among the crimson-liveried servants
who were in attendance in the vestibule; presently the curtain at the
end of the long gallery where we stood was drawn aside, and once
again our eyes beheld him who is ever present to our thoughts, and
whose name is breathed in so many prayers. The first feeling that
filled our beating hearts, as we looked on his saintly and venerable
face, was joy to feel that he was still amongst us; that despite
increasing years, and the increasing malice and hatred of his
enemies, his eye had not dimmed or his strength failed him. This
impression was increased with every word he spoke. It was like the
dawn which promises the perfect day, no matter how dark the night
has been. “The people imagine a vain thing!” He is still with us—he,
the father of his people! He may be ours for years to come. He may
see the day-spring of the church again. He may live to witness her
triumph. And should it be otherwise—should that white head be laid
low before the triumph of the church over her enemies—will he see
it less, will he share it less, because he has gone before? Impossible!
The church militant and the church triumphant are one. But our
hopes go further; or rather, they are more human. We believe that
Pius IX. will live to see the end of confusion and the beginning of
peace; the downfall of falsehood and oppression, and the restoration
of himself (and others) to all their rights. May God grant it!
There Was No Room For Them In The Inn.

No place for Him! So Him you drive away;

You drive away your God, your God. Oh! stay.
O height of human madness! wonders rare!
No place for Him! without Whom no place were.

—Crashaw.

[pg 226]
Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.” I.

An Eastern Romance Narrated In Songs.

By Aubrey De Vere.

Preface.

Who has not heard of those Christian communities which have held
their own during so many centuries, on the citied slopes of the
Lebanon, or on the adjacent plains? Several of them have existed
from a period earlier than that in which the foundations of our oldest
monarchies were laid. The Maronites derive their name from Maron,
a hermit of the IVth century, whose cell, on the banks of the
Orontes, gradually attracted a Christian population about it. In the
VIIth and VIIIth centuries, when the sword of the False Prophet was
carrying all before it, they retreated from the uplands of the
Euphrates and Mesopotamia to the fastnesses of the Lebanon. The
Melchites, a race of unquestionably Arab origin, and whose religious
offices are still celebrated in Arabic, emigrated to Syria before the
Christian era, and became Christian in the IVth century. Weakened
by their hereditary feuds, they retain, notwithstanding, all the pride
of their ancient stock, and not less all its heroism, its generosity, its
hospitality, its sense of honor, and its passion for poetry and
eloquence. The devotion of both these races to their Faith is
sufficiently attested by their having retained it during so many
centuries of wrong, and in spite of so many persecutions. In the
massacres of 1860 alone about 12,000 of them perished.
Few subjects are more worthy of attention than the ways of a People
which still keeps so much of what belonged to the feudal and
monastic system of Europe in the Middle Ages, and combines them
with the patriarchal traditions of the world's morning. Much that we
possess they lack; but, among them, some of the affections—
Patriotism and Love, for instance—retain a meaning which appears
to grow daily more rare amid the boasted civilization of the West.
That meaning is illustrated alike in their lives and their poetry. It has
been observed that the religious poetry of the East sometimes
resembles love-poetry. The converse remark may no less be made.
Eastern love-poetry is wide in its range; but its more characteristic
specimens resemble the early poetry of religion or patriotic devotion,
so full are they of elevation and self-sacrifice. I know not how far the
spirit of such poetry can make itself intelligible to the sympathies of
the West. To many readers the present poem will be an experiment
new, not only as regards its spirit, but its form also—that of a story
narrated in songs. It was composed, in substance, some years ago,
when the author was in the East.

Part I.

He Sang.81

I.

O wind of night! what doth she at this hour

In those high towers half lost in rock and brake?
Where is she? Sits she lonely in her bower?
If she is pensive, is it for my sake?

Perchance she joins the dance with other maids:

With whom? By whose are those white fingers pressed?
Perhaps for sleep her tresses she unbraids
 While moonbeams fill the chamber of her rest.

[pg 227]

Tell her, O wind! that I have laid my head

Here, on the rough stem of the prostrate pine
Which leans across the dried-up torrent's bed,
And dream at times her face, and dream it mine.

Once in the palm-grove she looked back on me;

A wild brier caught her zone: I saw it fall:
Large is the earth, the sun, the stars, the sea—
For me that rosy girdle clasps them all.

II.

By night I crossed the tremulous poplar bound

Which cools the south wind with its watery bower;
I heard the river's murmur, mid that sound,
And smelt the fragrance of the trampled flower.

Where that pure crystal makes thy morning bath

A white tent glimmered. Round it, rank on rank,
The crimson oleanders veiled the path,
And bent or rose, as swelled the breeze or sank.

I entered not. Beside that river's brim

I sat. Thy fawn, with trailing cord, drew near:
When from my knee its head it lifted, dim
Seemed those dark eyes, by day so large and clear.

Go back, poor fawn, and house thee with thy kind!

Where, amid rocks and mountains cold with snow,
Through forests sweep the branching hart and hind;
Go back: go up: together let us go.

III
Tell her that boasts—that slender is and tall—
I have a cypress in a sunny space:
Tell her that blushes, by my garden wall
A rose-tree blushes, kindling all the place.

Tell her that sweetly sings and softly moves,

A white swan winds all night below my trees;
My nightingale attunes the moon-lit groves—
Can I not portion out my heart with these?

[pg 228]

If I were dead, my cypress would lament,

My rose-tree shed its leaves upon my grave,
My nightingale weep long in forest tent—
She would not mourn me dead that scorns to save.

IV.

Thou cam'st, thou cam'st; and with thee came delight,

Not mine alone. The little flowers and leaves
Shook at the first gleam of thy garment white;
And still yon myrtle thrills, yon almond heaves.

Thou spak'st! That voice, methinks, is heard on high!

The buds and blooms in every amaranth wreath
By angels worn expand in ecstasy;
And in pure light a heavenlier fragrance breathe.

Hail, Land that gav'st her birth! Hail, precinct old!

Hail, ancient Race, the Lebanonian crown!
The Turk hath empire, and the Frank hath gold:
Virtue and Beauty, these are thy renown!

V.

Thou wentest: with thy going came my night:

 As some deep vale when sudden sinks the sun,
Deep, yet suspended on the mountain height
And girt by snows, am I when thou art gone.

With death those hills, so late all amethyst,

At once are clad: the streams are filmed with ice:
The golden ether changeth into mist:
Cold drops run down the beetling precipice:

The instant darkness cometh as a wind,

Or falleth as the falling of a pall:—
Return, my light of life, my better mind,
My spirit's day, my hope, my strength, mine all!

VI.

Breathe healthful zephyrs, airs of Paradise,

Breathe gently on that alabaster brow;
Shake the dark lashes of those violet eyes;
Flatter those lids that such high grace allow.

[pg 229]

Those cheeks, pure lilies, capture with sweet stealth,

And warm with something of a rose-like glow;
Those tremulous smiles, costlier than miser's wealth,
Draw out; those magic tresses backward blow!

Thus much is yours. 'Tis mine where once she strayed

To cull sad flowers that ne'er shall meet her sight;
To watch, close shrouded in the tall rock's shade,
High up one little casement's glimmering light.

VII.

Seest thou, O maid! some star by us unseen,

Buried from us in depths of starless space?
Know'st thou some joy of lesser joys the queen,
That lights so sweet a mystery in thy face?

That face is as the face of them that bask

In some great tidings, or the face of one
Who late hath set his hand upon some task
By God ordained, that shall for God be done.

That light is as the light of them who bent—

That shepherd choir—above the Babe new born:
Upward from Him thy day is ever sent,
A lifelong kindling of the Bethlehem morn.

VIII.

Since that strange moment, Love was as a breeze,

And I a leaf wafted by it along:
Onward 'twixt magic heavens and mystic seas
We passed. If I was weak, yet Love was strong.

On, ever on, through mountainous defiles,

By Love sustained, upborne, on piloted,
I wound o'er laughing lakes and happy isles;
I asked not whither, and I felt no dread.

I breathed, methought, some everlasting spring:

I passed, methought, in endless, aimless quest
(A dew-drop hanging on an eagle's wing)
Through some rich heaven and ever-deepening West.

[pg 230]

That dream had end. Once more I saw her face:

No love it looked: the sweet lips breathed no sound:
Then fell I, stone-like, through the fields of space,
And lay, dead bulk, upon the bleeding ground.
IX.

River that windest in thy jewell'd bed,

The palms of her soft feet beside thee move:
But gentleness and peace are round thee spread,
And therefore I am gone from what I love.

Nightly on thee the stars thou lov'st shall gaze:

Thee and thy heaven no envious cloud can sever:
In vain to her I love mine eyes I raise;
And therefore, happy stream, farewell for ever!

Pale passion slays or dies. I would die young,

Live while I live; then sink without a sigh,
As some swift wave, from central ocean sprung,
Subsides into the flat tranquillity.

X.

O heart whereon her Name was graved so long!

Heart pressed at last to hers, henceforth be snow!
For love's sake let me do to love no wrong:
There are who watch her. To the wars I go.

There are that watch her: and in fields far off

There are that wait my banner, name my name;
My House was ne'er the upstart Moslem's scoff:
Its orphaned heir his fathers will not shame.

This is the grove where, by yon meeting streams,

She too her love confessed—how falteringly!
From that glad hour a Church to me it seems:
I leave it: I must leave it though I die.

Here as I slept, an Angel, not to sense

Revealed, above me traced the sacred sign:
“Here is Love's palace: Duty calls thee hence:
 Alone where Duty stands are Church and Shrine.”

[pg 231]
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