| |
| I LOVE the solemn awe that broods around | |
| This spot, so wondrous in its solitude: | |
| ’T is grave, e’en as the ancient faith that walked | |
| In high austerity throughout the land; | |
| ’T is still, as if the many hundred monks | 5 |
| Who lie beneath my feet had e’en but now | |
| To Mary said their prayer, and, one by one, | |
| Crept down below unto their rest in death; | |
| ’T is cold and calm as was the iron front | |
| Of him, its king, who built him here a house, | 10 |
| Where, with his bosom-friend Remorse, he came, | |
| And, in her dread companionship, grew pale | |
| With looking on the blackness of his soul, | |
| And pondering how best to meet his God; | |
| ’T is awful, with its royal dead, who lie | 15 |
In chill magnificence.
The mountains gray, | |
| Wherein the Escorial sits, breathe o’er her like | |
| Ascetics rude. The very hedgerows dare | |
| Not seek in graceful longing the glad sky, | |
| But their young shoots are disciplined unto | 20 |
A goodly sanctity.
But, ah! behold | |
| The pages of the ancient manuscripts, | |
| With History’s morning twilight, gold and red! | |
| We of the more advancing day have paled | |
| The horizon of our books, as of our lives; | 25 |
| And in the broad, clear beams of Learning’s sun, | |
| We know not the old age’s intensity. | |
| The streaks of opening glory then burned in | |
| A deeper coloring to all her thought. | |
| |
| Poor Philip! I can see thee now, within | 30 |
| The narrow room near by the chapel, where, | |
| Midst all thy mortal pains, thy gaze was fixed | |
| Upon the altar, while thy dying bed | |
| Was quivering in the mighty organ’s roll. | |
| Thy worship’s pageantry moved daily o’er | 35 |
| Thy glazing eye: like him who walks the night | |
| In dreams, thou seeing wert, and seeing not. | |
| Ah! better he, the pure in heart, who makes | |
| His bed beneath the open dome of stars, | |
| And seeth God, the great High Priest, perform | 40 |
| The ritual of the world, and, on the voice | |
| Of answering Nature, passeth unto heaven! | |
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