THE CHURCH OF THE MADELEINE,
THE Attic temple whose majestic room Contained the presence of Olympian Jove, With smooth Hymettus round it and above, Softening the splendour by a sober bloom, Is yielding fast to Time's irreverent doom; While on the then barbarian banks of Seine That nobler type is realised again
In perfect form, and dedicate-to whom? To a poor Syrian girl, of lowliest name, A hapless creature, pitiful and frail
As ever wore her life in sin and shame,— Of whom all history has this single tale,- "She loved the Christ, she wept beside his grave, And He, for that Love's sake, all else forgave."
If one, with prescient soul to understand The working of this world beyond the day Of his small life, had taken by the hand That wanton daughter of old Magdala ; And told her that the time was ripe to come When she, thus base among the base, should be
More served than all the Gods of Greece and Rome,
More honoured in her holy memory,—
How would not men have mocked and she have scorned The fond Diviner ?-Plausible excuse
Had been for them, all moulded to one use Of feeling and of thought, but We are warned
By such ensamples to distrust the sense
Of Custom proud and bold Experience.
Thanks to that element of heavenly things, That did come down to earth, and there confound Most sacred thoughts with names of usual sound, And homeliest life with all a Poet sings.
The proud Ideas that had ruled and bound Our moral nature were no longer kings,
Old Power grew faint and shed his eagle-wings,
And grey Philosophy was half uncrowned. Love, Pleasure's child, betrothed himself to Pain ;- Weakness, and Poverty, and Self-disdain, And tranquil sufferance of repeated wrongs, Became adorable ;-Fame gave her tongues, And Faith her hearts to objects all as low As this lorn child of infamy and woe.
In just accordance with attentive sight, Through airy space and round our planet ball, The inorganic world is voiced with Light, And Colours are the words it speaks withal. Thus has my eye had glad experience
Of that most perfect utterance and clear tone, With which all visible things address the sense, In lands retiring from the northern zone. But, oh! in what poor language, faintly caught, Do the old features of my England greet Her stranger-son! how powerless,-how unmeet For the free vision Italy had taught
What to expect from Nature; I must scan
Her face, I fear, no more, and look alone to Man.
WHO HAD SUNG A ROMAN BALLAD.
BLAME not my vacant looks; it is not true, That my discourteous thoughts did vainly stray Out of the presence of your gentle lay, While other eager listeners nearer drew, Though sooth I hardly heard a note; for you, Most cunning songstress, did my soul convey Over the fields of space, far, far away, To the dear garden-land, where long it grew. Thus, all that time, beneath the ilex roof Of an old Alban hill, I lay aloof, With the cicala faintly clittering near, Till, as your song expired, the clouds that pass Athwart the Roman plain, as o'er a glass, Thickened, and bade the Vision disappear.
AFTER A LONG ABSENCE ON THE CONTINENT.
NOR few, nor poor in beauty, my resorts In foreign climes,-nor negligent or dull My observation, but these long-left courts I still find beautiful, most beautiful! And fairly are they more so than before ; For to my eye, fresh from a southern land, They wear the colouring of the scenes of yore, And the old Faith that made them here to stand.
I paint the very students as they were,
Not the men-children of these forward days, But mild-eyed boys just risen from their knees, While, proud as angels of their holy care, Following the symbol-vested priest, they raise The full response of antique litanies.
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