RELIGION’S purest presence was not found, | |
| By the first followers of our Saviour’s creed, | |
| In stately fanes where trump and timbrel sound | |
| Sent up the chorus in a strain agreed, | |
| And where the decked oblation’s wail might plead | 5 |
| For guilty man with Abraham’s holy seed. | |
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| Not in vast domes,—horizons hung by men, | |
| Where golden panels fret a marble sky, | |
| And things below look up, and wonder when | |
| Those lifelike seraphim would start and fly! | 10 |
| Not where the heart is mastered by the eye | |
| Will worship, anthem-winged, ascend most high. | |
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| But in the damp cathedral of the grove, | |
| Where nature feels the sanctitude of rest, | |
| Or in the stillness of the sheltered cove | 15 |
| Which noiseless waterfowl alone molest, | |
| At times a reverence will pervade the breast | |
| Which will not always come, a bidden guest. | |
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| Oft as the parting smiles of day and night | |
| Flush earth and ocean with a roseate hue, | 20 |
| And the quick changes of the magic light | |
| Prolong the glory of their warm adieu, | |
| Each pilgrim on the hills, and every crew | |
| On the lulled waters, frame their vows anew. | |
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| Then by the waves that lip Liguria’s land, | 25 |
| In Genoa’s gulf, thou, wanderer! must have heard | |
| What, more than hymns from Pergolesi’s hand, | |
| The living soul of adoration stirred,— | |
| And, like the note of Spring’s first-welcomed bird, | |
| Some thoughts awake for which there is no word. | 30 |
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| The shipman’s chant! as noting travellers tell, | |
| In either language—old and new—the same; | |
| But more they might have truly said, and well, | |
| For ’t is a speech the universe may claim; | |
| Men of all times, all climes, and every name, | 35 |
| Devotion’s tongue! which from the Godhead came. | |
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HYMN Tost rudderless around the deep | |
| By Apennine and Alpine blast, | |
| Which o’er the surge in fury sweep, | |
| And make a bulrush of our mast, | 40 |
| We murmur in our half-hour’s sleep | |
| To thee, Madonna! till the storm be past, | |
| In mare irato, in subita procella, | |
| Invoco te, nostra benigna stella. | |
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| Whether for weeks our bark hath striven | 45 |
| With death in wild Sardinia’s waves, | |
| Or downward far as Tunis driven, | |
| Threat us with life,—the life of slaves; | |
| We know whose hand its help has given, | |
| And locked the lightning in its thunder caves. | 50 |
| In mare irato, in subita procella, | |
| Invoco te, nostra benigna stella. | |
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| O Virgin! when the landsman’s hymn, | |
| At vesper time, on bended knee, | |
| In sunlit aisle, or chapel dim, | 55 |
| Or cloister cell, is paid to thee, | |
| Hear us that ocean’s pavement skim, | |
| And join our anthem to the raging sea: | |
| In mare irato, in subita procella, | |
| Invoco te, nostra benigna stella. | 60 |
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| And when the tempest’s wrath is o’er, | |
| And tired Libeccio sinks to rest, | |
| And starlight falls upon the shore | |
| Where love sits watching, uncaressed, | |
| Though hushed the tumult and the roar, | 65 |
| Again the prayer we ’ll chant which thou hast blest: | |
| In mare irato, in subita procella, | |
| Invoco te, nostra benigna stella. | |
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