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LAYS OF THE SAINTLY.

BY THE LONDON HERMIT.

AUTHOR OF SONGS OF SINGULARITY," "PEEPS AT LIFE," &c.

No. 13.-ST. JANUARIUS.

Or relics and of holy charms, and such celestial treasures,
The Papal Church has ever had a goodly store to boast,
To priestly domination, of all soul-enslaving measures,
The traffic in such trinkets has contributed the most.

The "one original True Cross," as many Christians thought it,

Was cut, and chipped, and pared away to nothing, one would think;

A piece was carried off by every devotee that sought it,

And yet from primal shape and size it never seemed to shrink.

Just so no monster gender'd in the mighty brain of Dante,

Had half as many bones and heads as Saints, 'twould seem, possessed; And tho' of their identity the evidence was scanty,

In wearing such, believers thought themselves supremely blessed.

Yet how could any Saint have had two sets of human members?
And how could more than one True Cross as genuine be shown?
Has any single year contained a couple of Decembers ?

Of tongues alone 'tis possible a multitude to own.

Besides, it's hard that Saints deceased, however much respected,
Are scatter'd in this fashion and not decently entomb'd,
Tho' calendar'd in memory, they're seldom re-collected,
But to a second martyrdom posthumously are doom'd.

Fair Italy in martyrs' blood's particularly wealthy,

She keeps a bottle full in every monast'ry and church,
Which melts at prayer until it looks like fluid live and healthy,
A miracle that well rewards the pious pilgrim's search.

Saints Ursula, Bartholomew, St. Vitus and St. Lawrence,

St. Eustace, John the Baptist, and some half a hundred more, Have left their blood in Naples, Rome, and Sicily, and Florence, To liquify when holy men come thither to adore.

But 'mid the sacred relics for their virtues highly rated,

St. Januarius's blood is famous far and near, In May and in September is his festa celebrated,

And once again repeated at the closing of the year.

Sweet Naples! "City of the Waves," as Mrs. Hemans named thee,

Oh, would I could do justice to thy beauty in my song,

And prove thee "Queen of Summer Seas," as poets have proclaim'd thee, But that would make the present lay inordinately long.

The subject of my melody's exclusively religious,

I hope my treatment of it will be reverent to match; For one who ventures on a theme so sacred and prodigious, Should do his very best a strain devotional to catch.

Obliging Muse, come, gift me with an eloquence ecstatic,
To praise St. Januarius for all that he has done,
("Gennaro," his familiar name, sounds rather operatic,
Suggesting dread "Lucrezia" and her vocalizing son.)

Would'st learn the Saint's biography?-'tis little that is told of him,
He preach'd at Benevento in the later Roman times,
When Diocletian's persecuting myrmidons got hold of him,
Regarding his religion as the dreadfullest of crimes.

Of all the Christian prelates the position was precarious,
When purple-mantled Anti-Christ the tyrant sceptre sway'd,
And thus it came to happen that the bishop Januarius
To Pagan wrath and cruelty a sacrifice was made.

'Tis said it was Timotheus who, suffering from blindness,
Was by our Saint restored to sight, yet doom'd him to his fate,
An instance that, as oft we find, to do a man a kindness,
Is purchasing, not gratitude, but injury and hate.

The Saint was to the lions cast, to meet the fate of Daniel,
With two companions, innocent of aught but holy zeal,
When lo! each great carnivorus fawn'd on him like a spaniel,
And lick'd his feet, declining to begin his horrid meal.

The lookers on attributed this miracle to magic,

And charged St. J. with sorcery, whose punishment was death, Determined that his exit should in any case be tragic,

By amputation of his head they robb'd him of his breath.

'Tis strange, as I've remark'd before, that martyrs brought to slaughter,
Whatever other forms of fate they manage to escape,
Tho' passing safe thro' boiling oil, and flames, and drowning water,
Expire at once when death assumes decapitation's shape.

Tradition says, a Roman dame, his loss devoutly rueing,

Sponged up the precious drops of blood, and put them in a phial; A bit of straw by chance fell in the bottle, while so doing, That straw's still there!-a fact enough to silence all denial.

The Saint's remains have often, since the day he went to heaven, Been moved from grave to grave until at last they were transferr'd To Naples' grand basilica, in fourteen-ninety-seven,

And there with pomp and circumstance most solemnly interr'd.

The splendid tomb and chapel form a suitable memorial,
Domenichino, Spagnoletto, were employed to paint
The scenes that deck the walls, and give a history pictorial
Of all the deeds and labours of the wonder-working Saint.

It is behind the altar that the relics are deposited,

And guarded safely with a double-duplicate of keys, Till on the days of festival they're carefully uncloseted, The pious Neapolitans to edify and please.

The head of "San Gennaro," now as hard and brown as leather,

Is placed upon the altar, near the sacrificial blood; The marvel is that when these holy relics meet together,

The vital stream will flow anew, tho' dried as thick as mud.

But first the guardians of the shrine, by fervency in praying,
Must warm their zeal to melting pitch, to gain the needful power,
But when the blood will liquify exactly, there's no saying,
It mostly takes ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.

A bust of Naples' patron, large, and hollow'd out, and burnished,
Contains his fossil cranium, as it stands upon the shrine;
With priestly robes magnificent his shoulders then are furnish'd,
And when the candles are alight the sight is very fine.

The blood is kept in bottles, one is small and reddish yellow,
But here and there upon the glass some sanguine specks have dried;
The other phial's larger and more greyish than its fellow,
And holds some half a pint or so of martyr'd blood inside.

The blood when first reveal'd to view is very dark and cloggy,
The case is like a carriage lamp, with hoops of silver barr'd,
The surface of the glassy sides is so opaque and foggy,
To see through the deception (if it be one) must be hard.

'Tis sweet to mark the faithful in the grand cathedral gather,
To help the saints and clergy for their sins to intercede,
But if the blood's long melting, the officiating father
Will try the soft persuasion of the Athanasian creed.

That "fixes it," as Yankees say, as we should say, un-fixes;
The clotted gore is fluidized, and mingles in a stream:
They lift the Roman candles up the longest of "long sixes
To cast upon the marvel their illuminating gleam.

"

Then when the process is complete, the keeper or "Thesaurer,"
Like nursemaid with a baby, hands the precious burden round
To be caressed and fondly kiss'd by each devout adorer,

With joyous tears, as one who has a priceless treasure found.

It certainly must be a scene religiously inspiring

To see the pious multitude with pleasure so elate, To hear the organ pealing, and the city guns a-firing, (But that was discontinued, it appears, in '68).

On special days the relics through the city streets are carried,

A clerical procession as magnificent and bright

As Monarch's when he's crown'd, or princely couples' when they're married, A "cynosure" all "neigh'bring eyes" to fasten and delight.

When melts the blood a kerchief's waved, and birds are set a-flying,
The priest upon the altar scatters petals of the rose,
And thus with praying, playing, paying (very often, crying),
And marching round, the ceremony draws towards a close.

No doubt 'tis most imposing, but suggestive, to my fancy,
(I hope that such comparison to no one seems a sin)
Of those ornate, bewildering displays of necromancy,
By conjurors like Hermann, Frikell, Maskelyne and Lynn.

Oh, for the eye of childish faith, whose seeing is believing!
That faith which Education's spread is banishing from earth,
Preventing lord or commoner such miracles receiving
As did in Jacobitish times the pious Earl of Perth.

The festa when he witness'd it took place in January,
Mid hundreds of the faithfullest of worshippers he knelt;
He saw the liquefaction in the sacred reliquary,

And doubted not the Hand Divine had caused the blood to melt.

'Twas only after many hours of penitential kneeling

On cold, hard stones, the devotees beheld, with tears of bliss, The blessed saint's death-frozen stream to fluid uncongealing: The Scottish lord the bottle hugg'd with oft-repeated kiss.

Ah me! this nineteenth century of scepticism and science,

More cold and hard than any stones impress'd by pilgrim's knees, Has taught that men, by bringing Nature's laws to due appliance, Objective miracles like this can imitate with ease.

'Tis hard to have to question such a sacred "Institution," But Truth will stand, however close a scrutiny be made, Applying to the mystery a chemical solution

We find there is no need at all for superhuman aid.

Thrice happy he whose calm belief declines the task of struggling With pros and cons, objections, doubts, all difficult to meet, Suspecting holy ministrants of systematic juggling,

And joining in a pious fraud the ignorant to cheat!

When once such possibilities have won from us admission,

We find our doubts increasing while our faith is growing s nall, Until their culmination is the terrible suspicion

That Januarius's "blood" may not be blood at all.

And after all cui bono? asks the soulless and prosaic;
What benefit's the miracle, supposing it is true?
Forbear, my gentle reader, whether clerical or laic,
To judge the creed of others from a narrow-minded view.

It keeps alive the ancient faith which Italy, possessing,

Is far more favour'd than ourselves, the godless tho' the free,

A faith that thro' the centuries has ever proved a blessing,
(If this you doubt, peruse the Papal history and see).

Besides, when dread Vesuvius shows ugly signs of grumbling,
The citizens implore their saint the peril to avert;
And then, instead of lava-streams upon their houses tumbling,
The fierce volcano stills its wrath, nor does the slightest hurt.

For fourteen centuries or more the blood has now existed,

For nearly half a thousand years its virtues have been proved; How many Roman converts in that time it has enlisted ! How many souls from heresy to orthodoxy moved!

Then hail to Januarius, and may his feast tri-annual
(Altho' they say it's scarcely so successful as of yore)
In spite of Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuel',

In fame and might miraculous grow yearly more and more;

Teetotallers alone may well avoid it, since it teaches
Devotion to the bottle, and it wouldn't do a bit
For apoplectic subjects, for they know that spite of leeches,
When once the blood gets to the head, they're sure to have a fit.

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