| |
| WHOEVER, led by worship of the past, | |
| Or love of beauty, even in its wane, | |
| Wastes a sweet season of delightful sadness | |
| In wandering mid the wilderness of Rome, | |
| May see,—as I did, many a summer since,— | 5 |
| A wretched quarter of the sacred city, | |
| Where the poor dregs of Israel’s children dwell. | |
| |
| ’T is called the Ghetto, and the pious townsman | |
| Shuns it, unless his piety lie deep | |
| Enough to teach him not to turn aside | 10 |
| From any form of human brotherhood: | |
| Hard by the muddy Tiber’s idle flow, | |
| Beyond the shadow of the Vatican, | |
| Yet within sound, almost, of choirs that chant | |
| Morning and evening to a Christian organ, | 15 |
| Its prison-like and ragged houses rise. | |
| A miry street leads through the unholy realm, | |
| Where no saint’s chapel, perfect in proportion, | |
| Breaks the long ugliness with one fair front; | |
| Nor ever open door breathes odorous fumes | 20 |
| Of silver censers on the passers by. | |
| Here hymns are never heard, nor sacring bell, | |
| Nor benediction from benignant lips, | |
| Nor whispered aves to the cold-eyed Virgin. | |
| The cowled procession brings no tapers here, | 25 |
| With crucifix and banner-bearing boys, | |
| To take the taint out of the Hebrew air. * * * * * | |
| At either entrance of the ill-paved way | |
| A gate as massive as the Scæan was, | |
| And grim as that through which the Tuscan passed | 30 |
| On his dread journey to the fires of hell, | |
| Swings on its hinges till the set of sun, | |
| And then is bolted till he glare again. | |
| Thus dawn and night to the poor captives come | |
| Made by the barring only and unbarring | 35 |
| Of the spiked portals; for the blessed ray | |
| Pierces no lattice, gilds no threshold here. | |
| The gloomy shops a mingled steam exhale | |
| Of withered greens, and musty grocers’ ware, | |
| And such rank offal as the meaner sort | 40 |
| Of curs will mumble when their Lent seems long. | |
| Here at high noon the petty trade proceeds | |
| By the dim tallow which the greasy counter | |
| Receives in minted drops,—the only coin, | |
| Save that of oaths, which is abundant here. * * * * * | 45 |
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