And stern and sad (so rare the smiles O Milan, O the chanting quires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! A mount of marble, a hundred spires! I climb'd the roofs at break of day; I stood among the silent statues, How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair, A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys Remember how we came at last From Como, when the light was gray, Like ballad-burthen music, kept, To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake The moonlight touching o'er a terrace What more? we took our last adieu, But ere we reach'd the highest summit It told of England then to me, O love, we two shall go no longer So dear a life your arms enfold Yet here to-night in this dark city, I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, Still in the little book you lent me, And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And gray metropolis of the North. Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. 204 TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. COM OME, when no graver cares employ, For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Should all our churchmen foam in spite Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of tow., All round a careless-order'd garden You'll have no scandal while you dine, For groves of pine on either hand, Where, if below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on thro' zones of light and shadow Glimmer away to the lonely deep, We might discuss the Northern sin Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; Or whether war's avenging rod Till you should turn to dearer matters, How best to help the slender store, Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; Nor pay but one, but come for many, Many and many a happy year. January, 1854. WILL. I. WELL for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 2. But ill for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still! He seems as one whose footsteps halt, And o'er a weary, sultry land, Far beneath a blazing vault, Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt. |