Passion-Flowers (Howe)/Rome

ROME.

I knew a day of glad surprise in Rome,Free to the childish joy of wandering,Without a 'wherefore' or 'to what good end?'By querulous voice propounded, or a thoughtOf punctual Duty, waiting at the doorOf home, with weapon duly poised to slayDelight, ere it across the threshold bound.I strayed, amassing wild flowers, ivy leaves,Relics, and crusted marbles, gathering tooThoughts of unending Beauty from the fields,The hills, the skies, the ancient heathen shrinesTransfigured in the light of Christian day.Coaxed by soft airs, by gentlest odors flattered,Conquered at last by the all-conquering sun,My heart its sadly cherished silence brake,And its long sealèd tides flowed forth in song,While bounding feet in gladdest rhythm moved.For never do I walk abroad so wellEnwrapped from wintry blast, or from fierce heat Of summer shaded, as when I may moveTo the free cadence of mine own wild singing.Nature on that fair day bestowed a graceMore than maternal. If, at its high noonYoung angels, from their heavenly school dismissed,Had made their play-ground on that Roman earth,Methinks, they would have sorrowed to return,Mingling unwonted tears with dews of eve.But the Day waned, and soft as love in deathBequeathed her admonition, warning meBack to the shelter of my Roman home,Where with my children, at the open window,In the soft purple scarf of twilight folded,I sate, and through the gathering dimness sawMystical shapes, that deepened into joy.

And thus I mused: there is a feast to-njghtAt such a palace, spread for high-born dames,Princes, and dignitaries of the church.There will be light and music, fit for thoseWho make the music and the light of life—The glancing wine-cup, and the stately dance—All glory of rich tissues, wondrous webs,And those white shoulders English women show.There, ere so far we pass, the courtly whistAt which the humblest Cardinal may sit,And illustrate his Christian poverty. Mirrors and diamonds flash the brilliance backThat emulates the clearer hue of day;And Night is only in Italian eyes,That take in light as the stars give it out,Till they grow introspective, and revealSlumbering within, volcanic depths of nature,How still when still, how passionate when roused.Such will the feast be, (Oh! bethink you, friends!)And I am bidden thither!And I am bidden thither!Gold and gemsI cannot show; if even my hair and eyes(Now fading in the grasp of Time) had wellDeserved the ancient praise that named them so;But in serenity of white attireFolded transparent, I can fitly go,Wearing my native courage on my bosomThat will not dim for Prelate nor for Prince.And to that tainted atmosphere of courtsWhere new corruption ever crowds, albeitAll words and ways are so embalmed by useThat men are born half mummied, I shall bringRosy, the woodland breath of LibertyFrom my far home, where men live as they list,And only trees are victims.And only trees are victims.I pursuedFurther, in thought, my new-commenced career.The winter, like a college boy's vacation, Seemed endless to anticipate, and layStretched in a boundless glittering before me,Unfathomable in its free delight.Or if horizon-bounded like the sea,I saw new seas beyond—the sweeping lineLimits the known, but not the possible.

But what sad sight is this? I looked acrossThe street, up towards the cresting of the hill,And there, before a humble door, beheldTwo men arrive, that bore a scanty coffinOf frailest wood and meanest fashioning.They entered in the shadow Death had left,And soon emerged with heavier steps, as bearingOne who should bear the weight of life no more,Abandoned to his ghastly solitude,As is the Roman custom. Only hereWealth stood not in the room of tenderness,Granting its escort of funereal pompOn the brief journey to oblivion.Here was no gorgeous pall, no garland pale;Here thronged no Capuchins, with livid flareOf torches, (which, however held, will dropWax on the paper held by thievish boys,)Nor mumming penitents, that frighten babes,Nor priest to fellow-priest responding deep.Only a dingy Acolite, with dull And leaden brow, walked sturdily alongAfter the wooden cross. No solemn dirgeStartled the heart with words of hope and judgment,To wail of wounded Nature set—scarce mightI catch the ominous mumbling of a prayer,As the sad pilgrim hurried to his shrineAdown the sloping street.Adown the sloping street.But from that house(I never learned who lived and died therein)Or ere I knew, the lengthening shadow fellUpon the dial of my life, and thereMarked the swift wearing of its day. As sureAs chimes of Heaven ring out the hour of man,So surely, then, I heard that I must die.And as the mystic whisper crept to me,Methought the flowers about my room turned faint,And the light texture of my festal robe,That seemed to dream of floating in the dance,Grew dank and heavy, as the linen shroudThat binds dead hearts, and with enduring fibreOutlasts the wasting of their nobleness,While I, careering onward, high in hopeWas held to pause and tremble. I have beenIn dangers of the sea and land, unscared;And from the narrow gates of childbed oftHave issued, bearing high my perilous prize(The germ of angel-hood, from chaos rescued,) With steadfast hope and courage; but this onceMy heart so failed me, I was fain to turnFor comfort to the Nurse, and question thus:'Must I leave all my treasures, all my loves,And, like yon wretched corpse, be coldly laidBeyond sweet Nature's daily miracle?'She, with true Quickly cheeriness replied:'There is no need to think about it now,'So do not fret you, Madam'—but I satTill twilight darkened into night, and tillThe gracious children dropped in sleep, and heardEver those threat'ning words, 'Thou too shalt die.'

A day of fuller joy arose for meWhen the young Spring-tide came, and dark-eyed boysBound violets and anemones to sell.The later light gave scope to long delight,And I might stray, unhaunted by the fearOf fever, or the chill of evening air,While happiest companionship enrichedThe ways whose very dust was gold before.Then the enchantment of an orange groveFirst overcame me, entering thy lone walksCloistered in twilight, Villa Massimo!Where the stern cypresses stand up to guardA thousand memories of blessedness.There seemed a worship in the concentrate Deep-breathing sweetness of those virgin flowers,Fervid as worship is in passionate soulsThat have not found their vent in earthly life,And soar too wild untaught, and sink unaided.They filled the air with incense gathered upFor the pale vesper of the evening star.Nor failed the rite of meet antiphony—I felt the silence holy, till a noteFell, as a sound of ravishment from heaven—Fell, as a star falls, trailing sound for light;And, ere its thread of melody was broken,From the serene sprang other sounds, its fellows,That fluttered back celestial welcoming.Astonished, penetrate, too past myselfTo know I sinned in speaking, where a breathLess exquisite was sacrilege, my lipsGave passage to one cry: God! what is that?(Oh! not to know what has no peer on earth!)And one, not distant, stooped to me and said:'If ever thou recall thy friend afar,Let him but be commemorate with this hour,The first in which thou heard'st our Nightingale.'

Nor only to these holy solitudesMy willing feet made duteous pilgrimage:The growing warmth unlocked for me the gatesWhence Rome once issued to subdue the world, And, following in her footsteps, I might seeWhere erst she strode forth towards the unknown waste,Her splendor felt itself empowered to fill.How widely overflowed her noble soul,Too great and generous to contain itself,Gathering glory from the East, and then(With kindred instinct of all luminous things)Craving an outlet in the Northern night,As if its depth alone could give her scope.But the dim North had other laws than hers,And took not from her will its destiny;Its darkness swallowed up the light she gaveAnd seemed to quench it. But, as none can tellAmong the sunbeams which unconscious oneComes weaponed with celestial will, to strikeThe stroke of Freedom on the fettered floods,Giving the spring his watchword—even soRome knew not she had spoke the word of FateThat should, from out its sluggishness, compelThe frost-bound vastness of barbaric life,Till, with an ominous sound, the torrent roseAnd rushed upon her with terrific brow,Sweeping her back, through all her haughty waysTo her own gates, a piteous fugitive—A moment chafing at its limits thereTo enter in, resistless, and o'erwhelmWith heavy tide:s of death, her struggling breast. Beguile me not to flights like this, thou PastThat, forced to abdicate the rod of rule,Stretchest the wand of favor to our love,And temptest souls from thy magnificence.Here, on the ruins of the Ancient world,Thou sittest, like a harlot, to entrapThe manifold human heart with various gifts.The poet, tender fool, must pause to waveAside thy shadowy veil, and gaze intoThy melancholy eyes, that rivet him,And yield his reason to thy wildering rhyme:He sinks beside thee, looking, listening, longing,And thou hast stolen the darling of the AgeThat to his mother's breast returns no more.

The despot, that engirds with bristling thornsBroad meadow lands of gracious human growth,That they may yield their golden wealth at willTo wither in his prison granary—Harvesting ruthlessly with headsman's axe,And sword unknightly, whose death angels pauseAnd with slow fingers bind the immortal sheaves,—He, hurrying in his greed of power and wealth,Sees in thine hand unrighteous title-deeds,And stops to bargain. Soon the compact's signed,Empty of justice, not to sense aspiring,But with a formula defying Heaven That smiles down hope and promise, and the lawThat metes the liberal sunshine equally.Thou giv'st him right to wrong his fellows much,Himself more, and God's image most of all.Thou hast him, purchased at his own vile price,And those who weep, waste not their tears on him.

Or yonder monkling, in unmanly garb,With sturdy limbs fed fat in idleness,Whose hands scorn labor, as his brain hates thoughtThese stretched for alms, that busy with deceit,Who trails from door to door his beggary,Devoutest praying, where the housewife 's fair.He is an image of thy modelling,Spawn of a ruder age, as one might say,Some generations nearer brutes than we.Shall he thrive on, upheld of thee, and liveA life that were a sanctimonious lie,Had it but truth enough to be a lie?Shall he still cheat the poor with demon fables,And glittering trash, that holds the place of God?Shall God himself, known through such medium,Be held in horror of the human heart,Whose inborn yearning for the love divineCongeals, before the vengeful portraiture,To terror, and estrangement wide as life? Oh then, roll further back thy chariot wheelsEven to the Ghetto of the hated Jew;In his poor synagogue's simplicityFaith enters not in Fancy's masqueradeAccoutred for religion's revelry.His Rabbi nothing adds or takes away,Nothing assumes of mystic right or power,But gives the ancient venerable wordWith cautious lips and emphasis devout,(Intent on reading as his fathers read,)As if believing it, not he, should teach.He has the oracles that Jesus loved,Though suffering still Tradition's jealous handTo bind too closely o'er the face of TruthHer veil of Oriental tracery,Which that serene One smilingly looks through,Sure of her own and God's eternity.From Sinai's height great Moses gives him laws;He hears, as we, vibrating endlesslyThe golden harp-strings of the poet-king,While wondrous, widely gifted SolomonTeaches his quaint philosophy of life,And pictures passion holier than prayer.Still in his prophets reading history,He waits the Christ whom Christians show him not,Waiting with infinite loss, yet in one thing,One only, happier than they—his faith Enfolds intact in its integrity,One treasure, which lies brokenly in theirs,The deepest lesson of his Eastern skies,Th' inviolable unity of God.

Still to the spirit of the Past I speakAs I discerned it there, in fateful leagueWith wanton weakness, selfishness and sin.'No good survives the fitness of its time,The semblance of the most transcendent formThat Friendship ever mourned in burialShould it revisit us with church-yard dampsAnd deathly odors scattering from its hair,Were but a thing of ghastliness and dreadFit for exorcisement. Thou hadst thy day,And in it thy degree of grace and glory;But now, rebellious to thy doom of change,Thou throwest grimly on thy catafalque,While Rome, that were as fragrant as God's Eden,Could Nature only have her freshening way,Must still exhale thee, shuddering, to the world,Condemned to propagate the germ of deathWhich thy decay holds festering in her heart.

'Thou vampire Beauty, own that thou art dead,Nor bind thy hollow brows with flowers of youth That wither as they touch thee. Yield to usThe wealth thy spectral fingers cannot hold;Bless us, and so depart, to lie in state,Embalmed thy lifeless body, and thy shadeSo clamorous now for bloody holocaustsHallowed to peace, by pious festivals.'

But from these reasonings, that far outstripThe knowledge and the wisdom of a child,Let me descend to chronicle my stepsIn that enchanted region—steps that takeA moment's grandeur from the ground they trod,Though else pursuing with uncertain strideWays of obscure and mean significance.I saw the outposts, where Rome's wider growthInvited wider ruin, crumbled now,Till Ruin's self needs History's blazonmentTo be remarked, so closely does she hugThe charitable weeds that Time's remorseFlings back, to hide what he makes devastate.

I saw Albano, Ostia, Tivoli,The Sybil of the temple, spreading stillHer silent, awful oracle beforeThe crownèd Iris of the waterfall,Who, from her crystal columns opposite,Smiles promise back for mournful 'monishing, And when she flits, flies heavenward, nor leavesMore earthy record than the glittering tears,In which the gladness of her soul dissolves,And, thrilling through th' unconscious element,The deep pulsation of a deathless heart.

Other, at times, that downward torrent seemedA daring Sappho leaps she from the rock,Maddened of faithless sunshine, fleeing it.In the abyss is peace, and she shall sleepTreasured in darkness, garnered up in gloom.But, sharing the impulsive ecstasy,Love leaps with her—his slender arms of steelEnlacing what his rainbow wings uphold.Now, vain her furious flight, her struggle vain,The sunshine overtakes her desperate course;Her madness is unhealed, she cannot rest,For Love, in sunshine, follows every where.

Forgive imperfect types, that strive to showHow the fixed Sybil sits there and decays,While leaping, loving human life flows on,And, plunging down to Chaos, is not lost.

I saw l'Ariccia, where the artist's soulRevels in light and color magical, Nor feels the dearth of thought, where nought transpires,Save steady growth of men and plants alike.Studies of leaves and grasses, fervid tints,And purple mountain shadows, wile for himToo soon the silent, sultry summer day,Gorgeous in all its changes; if he wishA tenant for his painted ParadiseHe summons up, to fill the golden void,Such stately forms and shadowings of lifeAs with the look and gesture startle us,Seen in the coldness of our sombre walls,And make us tremble strangely, as a veilWere for a moment merely lifted there,And all the burning beauty of the SouthWere near us, like Eternity, unguessed.

And often, when I've seen the twilight drapeHer folds of sadness o'er the wide domainOf the Campagna, desolate with tombs,(Itself a monumental wilderness,)I've pondered thus: 'Perhaps at midnight hereWakes the quiescent city of our day,A Juliet, drunken with her draught of woe,And wildly calls on Love's deliveranceWrithing in her untimely cerements,And stiffens back to silence when she hears:'Love has no help, save that which waits on Death.'

Oh no! more piteous still, a mazèd child,Bereft in parentage and destiny,She wanders, stopping at these stones, to traceThrough wreck and rust of ages, signs that proveHer filiation to the mighty siresWhose grim ghosts scare her slumbers, pointing hither.She feels the kingly impulse of her race,(For next to soul is sense of generous blood,)But, too unskilled to construe of herself,Can only crouch when strangers call her, Changeling,And on the weak, unwilling hand enforceTheir gift of shame, a Bondmaid's heritage.

These days wore on more rapidly than suchAs Winter loads with leaden sluggishness,Abridged of light, but lengthened out with care;And, while I dreamed that they should never end,They were already ended in my view.Then, as perforce, I gathered up all strengthFor the uprooting of my vine of life,So clinging, creeping, craving from men's handsA gracious culture, loving so to growAnd bear the fruit God gave it right to bearAs genial tribute to Love's genial care;I felt the sudden, earnest wish for deathShoot like a subtle poison through my veins. Oh now! I cried; in these full golden hours,Let me set sail, and bend my course for heaven.Oh God! I am too happy not to beAdmitted there—I can but end in thee;Not elsewhere tends this tide of blessedness.But, if I must await the tedious ebbAnd days decline, I shall but be a wreckThat whitens, stranded on the shore, and mocksThe pilot's skill, with bare dismantled ribs,While shattered mast and shredded banner pointTo the rich freight surrendered to the deep.As I prayed thus, I wrestled with myselfAnd wrenched my hands, by loving friends held backTill they were free, and stretched on high to GodWho took them.Who took them.As by an electric chain,The mystical conjunction showed to meThe twilight street, of only six months gone,The lonely coffin, the ungracious priest,And the worn pilgrim, carried to his rest;And the same voice, which, as a silver bellChimed out the numbers of men's fate in heaven,Uttered again what then a menace seemed,But what was now a promise—'Thou shalt die.'

Have patience with me, on the seaward wayI linger, for one gesture of farewell. The bridge is crossed that led, oh path of peace!To holy vespers in the twilight aisle.The gate is closed—the air without is drear.Look back! the dome! gorgeous in sunset still—I see it—soul is concentrate in sight—The dome is gone—gone seems the heaven with it.Night hides my sorrow from me. Oh, my Rome,As I have loved thee, rest God's love with thee!