Rosa Mystica

Helas

• To drift with every passion till my soul
• Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
• Is it for this that I have given away
• Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?-
• Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
• Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
• With idle songs for pipe and virelay
• Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
• Surely that was a time I might have trod
• The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
• Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God;
• Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
• I did but touch the honey of romance-
• And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

Requiescat

• • Tread lightly, she is near
  • Under the snow,
  • Speak gently, she can hear
  • The daisies grow.
• • All her bright golden hair
  • Tarnished with rust,
  • She that was young and fair
  • Fallen to dust.
• • Lily-like, white as snow,
  • She hardly knew
  • She was a woman, so
  • Sweetly she grew.
• • Coffin-board, heavy stone,
  • Lie on her breast,
  • I vex my heart alone
  • She is at rest.
• • Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
  • Lyre or sonnet,
  • All my life’s buried here,
  • Heap earth upon it.

Avignon

Salve Saturnia Tellus

• I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned
• Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
• And when from out the mountain’s heart I came
• And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
• I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
• And musing on the story of thy fame
• I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
• The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned
• The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,
• And in the orchards every twining spray
• Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
• But when I knew that far away at Rome
• In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
• I wept to see the land so very fair.

Turin

San Miniato

• • See, I have climbed the mountain side
  • Up to this holy house of God,
  • Where once that Angel-Painter trod
  • Who say the heavens opened wide,
• • And throned upon the crescent moon
  • The Virginal white Queen of Grace,-
  • Mary! could I but see thy face
  • Death could not come at all too soon.
• • O crowned by God with thorns and pain!
  • Mother of Christ! O mystic wife!
  • My heart is weary of this life
  • And over-sad to sing again.
  • O crowned by, God with love and flame!
  • O crowned by Christ the Holy One!
  • O listen ere the searching sun
  • Show to the world my sin and shame.

Ave Maria Plena Gratia

• Was this his coming! I had hoped to see
• A scene wondrous glory, as was told
• Of some great God who a rain of gold
• Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
• Or a dread vision as when Semele
• Sickening for love and unappeased desire
• Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
• Caught her white limbs and slew her utterly:
• With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
• And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
• Before this supreme mystery of Love:
• A kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
• An angel with a lily in his hand,
• And over both with outstretched wings the Dove.

Florence

Italia

• Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
• Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
• From the North Alps to the Sicilian tide!
• Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
• Because rich gold in every town is seen,
• An on thy sapphire lake, in tossing pride
• Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride
• Beneath one flag of red and white and green.
• O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain!
• Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town
• Lies mourning for her God-anointed King?
• Look heavenward! shall God allow this thing?
• Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,
• And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

Venice

Sonnet

• I wandered in Scoglietto’s green retreat,
• The oranges on each o’erhanging spray
• Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day
• Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet
• Made snow of all the blossoms, at my feet
• Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:
• And the curved waves that streaked the sapphire bay
• Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
• Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
• “Jesus the Son of Mary has been slain,
• O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers.”
• Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
• Had drowned all memory of thy bitter pain,
• The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers, and the Spear.

Genoa, Holy Week

Rome Unvisited

Urbs Sacra Aeterna

• Rome! What a scroll of History thine has been!
• In the first days thy sword republican
• Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:
• Then of thy peoples thou wert crowned Queen,
• Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
• And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
• (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
• The hated flag of red and white and green.
• When was thy glory! when in search for power
• Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
• And all the nations trembled at thy rod?
• Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
• When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
• The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

Sonnet On Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the Sistine Chapel

• Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
• Sad olive-groves, or sliver-breasted dove,
• Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
• Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
• The empurpled vines dear memories of Thee bring:
• A bird at evening flying to its nest,
• Tells me of One who had no place of rest:
• I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.
• Come rather on some autumn afternoon,
• When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,
• And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,
• Come when the splendid fulness of the moon
• Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,
• And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

Easter Day

• The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
• The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
• And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
• Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
• Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
• And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
• Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
• In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.
• My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
• To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
• And sought in vain for any place of rest:
• “Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
• I, only I, must wander wearily,
• And bruise My feet, and drink wine salt with tears.”

E Tenebris

• Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
• For I am drowning in a stormier sea
• Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
• The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
• My heart is as some famine-murdered land,
• Whence all good things have perished utterly,
• And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
• If I this night before God’s throne should stand.
• “He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
• Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
• From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.”
• Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night,
• The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
• The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Vita Nuova

• I stood by the unvintageable sea
• Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray,
• The long red fires of the dying day
• Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
• And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
• “Alas! ” I cried, “my life is full of pain,
• And who can garner fruit or golden grain,
• From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!”
• My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw
• Nathless I threw them as my final cast
• Into the sea, and waited for the end.
• When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
• The argent splendor of white limbs ascend,
• And in that joy forgot my tortured past.

Madonna Mia

• A lily girl, not made for this world’s pain,
• With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
• And longing eyes half veiled by slumbrous tears
• Like bluest water seen through mists of rain;
• Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
• Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
• And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
• Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
• Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
• Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
• Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe.
• Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
• Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast and saw
• The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

The New Helen

• • Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
  • The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
  • Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
  • Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
  • His purple galley, and his Tyrian men,
  • And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes?
  • For surely it was thou, who, like a star
  • Hung in the silver silence of the night,
  • Didst lure the Old World chivalry and might
  • Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!
• • Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?
  • In amorous Sidon was thy temple built
  • Over the light and laughter of the sea?
  • Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,
  • Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,
  • All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
  • Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
  • And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss
  • Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned
  • From Calpe and the cliffs of Herakles!
• • No! thou art Helen, and none other one!
  • It was for thee that young Sarpedon died,
  • And Memnon’s manhood was untimely spent;
  • It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried
  • With Thetis’ child that evil race to run,
  • In the last year of thy beleaguerment;
  • Ay! even now the glory of thy fame
  • Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,
  • Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well
  • Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.
• • Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land
  • Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew,
  • Where never mower rose to greet the day
  • But all unswathed the trammeling grasses grew,
  • And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand
  • Till summer’s red had changed to withered gray?
  • Didst thou lie there by some Lethaean stream
  • Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,
  • The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam
  • From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?
• • Nay, thou were hidden in that hollow hill
  • With one who is forgotten utterly,
  • That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;
  • Hidden away that never might’st thou see
  • The face of her, before whose mouldering shrine
  • To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;
  • Who gat from joy no joyous gladdening,
  • But only Love’s intolerable pain,
  • Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,
  • Only the bitterness of child-bearing.
• • The lotos-leaves which heal the wounds of Death
  • Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,
  • While yet I know the summer of my days;
  • For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath
  • To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise,
  • So bowed am I before thy mystery;
  • So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel,
  • That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,
  • Yet care I not what ruin time may bring
  • If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.
• • Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,
  • But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,
  • Who flies before the north wind and the home.
  • So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,
  • Back to the tower of thine old delight,
  • And the red lips of young Euphorion;
  • Nor shall I ever see thy face again,
  • But in this poisonous garden must I stay,
  • Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,
  • Till all my loveless life shall pass away.
• • O Helen! Helen! Helen! Yet awhile,
  • Yet for a little while, O tarry here,
  • Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!
  • For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile
  • Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear,
  • Seeing I know no other god but thee:
  • No other god save him, before whose feet
  • In nets of gold the tired planets move,
  • The incarnate spirit of spiritual love
  • Who in thy body holds his joyous seat.
• • Thou wert not born as common women are!
  • But, girt with silver splendor of the foam,
  • Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise!
  • And at thy coming some immortal star,
  • Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies;
  • And waked the shepherds on thine island home.
  • Thou shalt not die! no asps of Egypt creep
  • Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;
  • No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,
  • Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.
• • Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
  • Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
  • Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
  • For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,
  • Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire,
  • Aimlessly wandered in the house of gloom.
  • Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
  • For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
  • Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
  • And the white glory of thy loveliness.