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(From The Widow of Crescentius)
WHERE, through Gargano’s woody dells, | |
| O’er bending oaks the north-wind swells, | |
| A sainted hermit’s lowly tomb | |
| Is bosomed in umbrageous gloom, | |
| In shades that saw him live and die | 5 |
| Beneath their waving canopy. | |
| ’T was his, as legends tell, to share | |
| The converse of immortals there; | |
| Around that dweller of the wild | |
| There “bright appearances” have smiled, | 10 |
| And angel wings at eve have been | |
| Gleaming the shadowy boughs between. | |
| And oft from that secluded bower | |
| Hath breathed, at midnight’s calmer hour, | |
| A swell of viewless harps, a sound | 15 |
| Of warbled anthems pealing round. | |
| O, none but voices of the sky | |
| Might wake that thrilling harmony, | |
| Whose tones, whose very echoes, made | |
| An Eden of the lonely shade! | 20 |
| Years have gone by; the hermit sleeps | |
| Amidst Gargano’s woods and steeps; | |
| Ivy and flowers have half o’ergrown | |
| And veiled his low sepulchral stone: | |
| Yet still the spot is holy, still | 25 |
| Celestial footsteps haunt the hill; | |
| And oft the awe-struck mountaineer | |
| Aerial vesper-hymns may hear | |
| Around those forest-precincts float, | |
| Soft, solemn, clear, but still remote. | 30 |
| Oft will Affliction breathe her plaint | |
| To that rude shrine’s departed saint, | |
| And deem that spirits of the blest | |
| There shed sweet influence o’er her breast. | |
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