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THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.

387

A View across the Roman Campagna.

VER the dumb campagna-sea,

OVE

Out in the offing through mist and rain,

St. Peter's Church heaves silently

Like a mighty ship in pain,

Facing the tempest with struggle and strain.

Motionless waifs of ruined towers,

Soundless breakers of desolate land!

The sullen surf of the mist devours

That mountain-range upon either hand,

Eaten away from its outline grand.

And over the dumb campagna-sea

Where the ship of the Church heaves on to wreck,
Alone and silent as God must be

The Christ walks!— Ay, but Peter's neck
Is stiff to turn on the foundering deck.

Peter, Peter, if such be thy name,

Now leave the ship for another to steer,

And proving thy faith evermore the same

Come forth, tread out through the dark and drear,
Since He who walks on the sea is here!

Peter, Peter! he does not speak,

He is not as rash as in old Galilee. Safer a ship, though it toss and leak, Than a reeling foot on a rolling sea!

— And he's got to be round in the girth, thinks he.

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His nets are heavy with silver fish :

He reckons his gains, and is keen to infer,

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"The broil on the shore, if the Lord should wish, But the sturgeon goes to the Cæsar's dish."

Peter, Peter, thou fisher of men,

Fisher of fish wouldst thou live instead, -
Haggling for pence with the other Ten,
Cheating the market at so much a head,
Griping the bag of the traitor dead?

At the triple crow of the Gallic cock

Thou weep'st not, thou, though thine eyes be dazed: What bird comes next in the tempest shock? .. Vultures! See, as when Romulus gazed,

To inaugurate Rome for a world amazed!

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

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Hymn to the Flowers.

AY-STARS! that ope your eyes with morn to twinkle
From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation,

And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle

As a libation!

Ye matin worshipers! who bending lowly

Before the uprisen sun -- God's lidless eyeThrow from your chalices a sweet and holy Incense on high!

Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty
The floor of Nature's temple tessellate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty
Your forms create!

'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth
And tolls its perfume on the passing air,
Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth
A call to prayer.

HYMN TO THE FLOWERS.

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,

But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned;

To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply —
Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
Its dome the sky.

Thereas in solitude and shade I wander

Through the green aisles, or, stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder

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Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers
From loneliest nook.

Floral Apostles! that in dewy splendor

"Weep without woe, and blush without a crime," Oh, may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender, Your lore sublime!

"Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy glory,
Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like ours;
How vain your grandeur! Ah, how transitory
Are human flowers!"

In the sweet-scented pictures, Heavenly Artist!
With which thou paintest Nature's wide-spread hall,
What a delightful lesson thou impartest

Of love to all.

389

Not useless are ye, Flowers! though made for pleasure:
Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night,
From every source your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight.

Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary

For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori,

Yet fount of hope.

Posthumous glories! angel-like collection!
Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth,
Ye are to me a type of resurrection,

And second birth.

Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining,
Far from all voice of teachers or divines,
My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining,
Priests, sermons, shrines !

HORACE SMITH.

I

The Beleaguered City.

HAVE read in some old marvelous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,

That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

391

But when the old cathedral bell

Proclaimed the hour of prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmèd air.

Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;

Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

I have read in the marvelous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,

That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.

And when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,

The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar

The spectral camp is fled;

Faith shineth as a morning star,

Our ghastly fears are dead.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

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