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Faith crushed, yet proud of weeds, her gaudy

crown;

Virtues laid low, and mouldering energies.
Yet why prolong this mournful strain ?-Fallen
Power,

Thy fortunes, twice exalted, might provoke 10
Verse to glad notes prophetic of the hour
When thou, uprisen, shalt break thy double
yoke,

And enter, with prompt aid from the Most High, On the third stage of thy great destiny.

XII.

NEAR THE LAKE OF THRASYMENE.

WHEN here with Carthage Rome to conflict

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Or glory, not a vestige seems to endure,
Save in this Rill that took from blood the name1
Which yet it bears, sweet Stream! as crystal

pure.

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So may all trace and sign of deeds aloof
From the true guidance of humanity,
Thro' Time and Nature's influence, purify
Their spirit; or, unless they for reproof
Or warning serve, thus let them all, on ground
That gave them being, vanish to a sound.

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XIII.

NEAR THE SAME LAKE.

FOR action born, existing to be tried,
Powers manifold we have that intervene

5

To stir the heart that would too closely screen
Her peace from images to pain allied.
What wonder if at midnight, by the side
Of Sanguinetto or broad Thrasymene,
The clang of arms is heard, and phantoms glide,
Unhappy ghosts in troops by moonlight seen;
And singly thine, O vanquished Chief! whose

corse,

10

Unburied, lay hid under heaps of slain: But who is He?-the Conqueror. Would he force

His

to Rome? Ah, no,-round hill and

way
plain

Wandering, he haunts, at fancy's strong com

mand,

This spot-his shadowy death-cup in his hand.

XIV.

THE CUCKOO AT LAVERNA.

MAY 25TH, 1837.

LIST 'twas the Cuckoo.-O with what delight Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint,

Far off and faint, and melting into air,
Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again!
Those louder cries give notice that the Bird, 5
Although invisible as Echo's self,

Is wheeling hitherward. Thanks, happy Creature,

For this unthought-of greeting!

While allured From vale to hill, from hill to vale led on, We have pursued, through various lands, a long And pleasant course; flower after flower has

blown,

II

Embellishing the ground that gave them birth With aspects novel to my sight; but still Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the dew

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In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved,
For old remembrance sake. And oft-where

Spring

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Displayed her richest blossoms among files
Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit
Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade
Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour,
The lightsome Olive's twinkling canopy-
Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush
Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet might

roam,

Whate'er assemblages of new and old,
Strange and familiar, might beguile the way,
A gratulation from that vagrant Voice
Was wanting;-and most happily till now.

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For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile, High on the brink of that precipitous rock, 30 Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth

It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,
By a few Monks, a stern society,

Dead to the world and scorning earth-born joys. Nay-though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove,

St. Francis, far from Man's resort, to abide

36

Among these sterile heights of Apennine, Bound him, nor, since he raised yon House,

have ceased

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To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules
Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live;
His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline,
Doth sometimes here predominate, and works 45
By unsought means for gracious purposes;
For earth through heaven, for heaven, by
changeful earth,

Illustrated, and mutually endeared.

Rapt though He were above the power of

sense,

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Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart
Of that once sinful Being overflowed
On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements,
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections; and with beast and bird
(Stilled from afar—such marvel story tells- 55
By casual outbreak of his passionate words,
And from their own pursuits in field or grove
Drawn to his side by look or act of love
Humane, and virtue of his innocent life)
He wont to hold companionship so free,
So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight,
As to be likened in his Followers' minds
To that which our first Parents, ere the fall
From their high state darkened the Earth with

fear,

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Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers.

Then question not that, 'mid the austere

Band,

66

Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod,

Some true Partakers of his loving spirit

Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts
Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith,
Of a baptized imagination, prompt

To catch from Nature's humblest monitors
Whate'er they bring of impulses sublime.

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Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though pale

With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by

years,

Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see,
Upon a pine-tree's storm-uprooted trunk,
Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised,
Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed
By the joint pressure of his musing mood
And habit of his vow. That ancient Man-
Nor haply less the Brother whom I marked,
As we approached the Convent gate, aloft
Looking far forth from his aërial cell,
A young Ascetic-Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike he was—
If they received into a conscious ear

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80

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The notes whose first faint greeting startled me,
Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy
My heart may have been moved like me to

think,

Ah! not like me who walk in the world's ways, On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One Crying amid the wilderness, and given,

Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers

Revive, their obstinate winter pass away,

95

That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo,

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