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Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies
To carry thy glad tidings over heights
Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole.

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Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet

Bird!

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If that substantial title please thee more,
Farewell!-but go thy way, no need hast thou
Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower
To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear,
Thee gentle breezes waft-or airs that meet
Thy course and sport around thee softly fan-
Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, 110
Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence,
And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.

XV.

AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI.

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GRIEVE for the Man who hither came bereft,
And seeking consolation from above;
Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left
To paint this picture of his lady-love:
Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve?
And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing
So fair, to which with peril he must cling,
Destroy in pity, or with care remove.
That bloom-those eyes-can they assist to bind
Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The

dream must cease

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To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live; Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find How wide a space can part from inward peace The most profound repose his cell can give.

XVI.

CONTINUED.

THE world forsaken, all its busy cares
And stirring interests shunned with desperate
flight,

All trust abandoned in the healing might
Of virtuous action; all that courage dares,
Labour accomplishes, or patience bears-
Those helps rejected, they, whose minds per-

ceive

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How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave

For such a One beset with cloistral snares.
Father of Mercy! rectify his view,
If with his vows this object ill agree;
Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue
Imperious passion in a heart set free:-
That earthly love may to herself be true,
Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.1

ΙΟ

XVII.

AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF
CAMALDOLI.

WHAT aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size
Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate,
By panting steers up to this convent gate?
How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered

eyes,

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Dare they confront the lean austerities
Of Brethren who, here fixed, on Jesu wait
In sackcloth, and God's anger deprecate
Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies ?
Strange contrast!-verily the world of dreams,

1 See Note.

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Where mingle, as for mockery combined,
Things in their very essences at strife,
Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes
That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,
Meet on the solid ground of waking life.1

XVIII.

AT VALLOMBROSA.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd embower.2

PARADISE LOST.

“VALLOMBROSA-I longed in thy shadiest wood To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor!"

Fond wish that was granted at last, and the Flood,

That lulled me asleep, bids me listen once more. Its murmur how soft! as it falls down the steep, Near that Cell-yon sequestered Retreat high in air

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Where our Milton was wont lonely vigils to keep For converse with God, sought through study and prayer.

The Monks still repeat the tradition with pride, And its truth who shall doubt? for his Spirit

is here;

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In the cloud-piercing rocks doth her grandeur abide,

In the pines pointing heavenward her beauty austere ;

1 See Note.

2 See for the two first lines, "Stanzas composed in the Simplon Pass."

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In the flower-besprent meadows his genius we

trace

Turned to humbler delights, in which youth might confide,

That would yield him fit help while prefiguring that Place

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Where, if Sin had not entered, Love never had

died.

When with life lengthened out came a desolate

time,

And darkness and danger had compassed him round,

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With a thought he would flee to these haunts of his prime, And here once again a kind shelter be found. And let me believe that when nightly the Muse Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill, Here also, on some favoured height, he would choose

To wander, and drink inspiration at will.

Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my

mind

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Had a musical charm, which the winter of age And the changes it brings had no power to unbind.

And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you
I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to

part,

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While your leaves I behold and the brooks they

will strew,

And the realised vision is clasped to my heart.

Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may In Forms that must perish, frail objects of sense;

Unblamed-if the Soul be intent on the day 35 When the Being of Beings shall summon her hence.

For he and he only with wisdom is blest Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they grow,

Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest, To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity flow.

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XIX.

AT FLORENCE.

UNDER the shadow of a stately Pile,

The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the while,
I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurelled Dante's favourite seat. A throne,
In just esteem, it rivals; though no style
Be there of decoration to beguile

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The mind, depressed by thought of greatness flown.

II

As a true man, who long had served the lyre,
I gazed with earnestness, and dared no more.
But in his breast the mighty Poet bore
A Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire.
Bold with the thought, in reverence I sate down,
And, for a moment, filled that empty Throne.

XX.

BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT FLORENCE.

THE Baptist might have been ordained to cry Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein

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