Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Rome, Palaces and Villas of | | The Miserere | | Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) |
| | | NOT of the earth that music! all things fade; | |
| Vanish the pictured walls! and, one by one, | |
| The starry candles silently expire! | |
| And now, O Jesus! round that silent cross | |
| A moment’s pause, a hush as of the grave. | 5 |
| Now rises slow a silver mist of sound, | |
| And all the heavens break out in drops of grief; | |
| A rain of sobbing sweetness, swelling, dying, | |
| Voice into voice inweaving with sweet throbs, | |
| And fluttering pulses of impassioned moan,— | 10 |
| Veiled voices, in whose wailing there is awe, | |
| And mysteries of love and agony, | |
| A yearning anguish of celestial souls, | |
| A shiver as of wings trembling the air, | |
| As if God’s shining doves, his spotless birds, | 15 |
| Wailed with a nightingale’s heart-break of grief, | |
| In this their starless night, when for our sins | |
| Their sun, their life, their love, hangs darkly there, | |
| Like a slain lamb, bleeding his life away! | | | | |
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