| |
| NIGHT was again descending, when my mule, | |
| That all day long had climbed among the clouds, | |
| Higher and higher still, as by a stair, | |
| Let down from heaven itself, transporting me, | |
| Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door,— | 5 |
| That door which ever, as self-opened, moves | |
| To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad | |
| Ministering spirits. Lying on the watch, | |
| Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me, | |
| All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb; | 10 |
| And a lay-brother of the Hospital, | |
| Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits | |
| The distant echoes gaining on his ear, | |
| Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand | |
| While I alighted. Long could I have stood, | 15 |
| With a religious awe contemplating | |
| That house, the highest in the Ancient World, | |
| And destined to perform from age to age | |
| The noblest service, welcoming as guests | |
| All of all nations and of every faith; | 20 |
| A temple, sacred to humanity! | |
| It was a pile of simplest masonry, | |
| With narrow windows and vast buttresses, | |
| Built to endure the shocks of time and chance; | |
| Yet showing many a rent, as well it might, | 25 |
| Warred on forever by the elements, | |
| And in an evil day, nor long ago, | |
| By violent men,—when on the mountain-top | |
| The French and Austrian banners met in conflict. | |
| On the same rock beside it stood the church, | 30 |
| Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity; | |
| The vesper-bell, for ’t was the vesper hour, | |
| Duly proclaiming through the wilderness, | |
| “All ye who hear, whatever be your work, | |
| Stop for an instant,—move your lips in prayer!” | 35 |
| And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale, | |
| If dale it might be called, so near to heaven, | |
| A little lake, where never fish leaped up, | |
| Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow; | |
| A star, the only one in that small sky, | 40 |
| On its dead surface glimmering. ’T was a place | |
| Resembling nothing I had left behind, | |
| As if all worldly ties were now dissolved;— | |
| And, to incline the mind still more to thought, | |
| To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore | 45 |
| Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom | |
| A lonely chapel destined for the dead, | |
| For such as, having wandered from their way, | |
| Had perished miserably. Side by side, | |
| Within they lie, a mournful company, | 50 |
| All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them; | |
| Their features full of life yet motionless | |
| In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change, | |
| Though the barred windows, barred against the wolf, | |
| Are always open! But the North blew cold; | 55 |
| And, bidden to a spare but cheerful meal, | |
| I sate among the holy brotherhood | |
| At their long board. The fare indeed was such | |
| As is prescribed on days of abstinence, | |
| But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine. | 60 |
| And through the floor came up, an ancient crone | |
| Serving unseen below; while from the roof | |
| (The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir) | |
| A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling | |
| Its partial light on apostolic heads, | 65 |
| And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet | |
| Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime; | |
| Nor was a brow o’ercast. Seen as they sate, | |
| Ranged round their ample hearthstone in an hour | |
| Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile, | 70 |
| As children; answering, and at once, to all | |
| The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth; | |
| Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk | |
| Music; and gathering news from them that came, | |
| As of some other world. But when the storm | 75 |
| Rose, and the snow rolled on in ocean-waves, | |
| When on his face the experienced traveller fell, | |
| Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands, | |
| Then all was changed; and, sallying with their pack | |
| Into that blank of nature, they became | 80 |
| Unearthly beings. “Anselm, higher up, | |
| Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long, | |
| And now, as guided by a voice from heaven, | |
| Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence | |
| Whose can it be, but his who never erred? | 85 |
| A man lies underneath! Let us to work! | |
| But who descends Mont Velan? ’T is La Croix. | |
| Away, away! if not, alas, too late. | |
| Homeward he drags an old man and a boy, | |
| Faltering and falling, and but half awaked, | 90 |
| Asking to sleep again.” Such their discourse. | |
| Oft has a venerable roof received me; | |
| Saint Bruno’s once,—where, when the winds were hushed, | |
| Nor from the cataract the voice came up, | |
| You might have heard the mole work underground, | 95 |
| So great the stillness there; none seen throughout, | |
| Save when from rock to rock a hermit crossed | |
| By some rude bridge,—or one at midnight tolled | |
| To matins, and white habits, issuing forth, | |
| Glided along those aisles interminable, | 100 |
| All, all observant of the sacred law | |
| Of silence. Nor is that sequestered spot, | |
| Once called “Sweet Waters,” now “The Shady Vale,” | |
| To me unknown; that house so rich of old, | |
| So courteous, and, by two that passed that way, | 105 |
| Amply requited with immortal verse, | |
| The Poet’s payment. But among them all, | |
| None can with this compare, the dangerous seat | |
| Of generous, active virtue. What though frost | |
| Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow | 110 |
| Thaw not, but gather,—there is that within, | |
| Which, where it comes, makes summer; and, in thought, | |
| Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath | |
| Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates | |
| Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe | 115 |
| Those from the South ascending, every step | |
| As though it were their last,—and instantly | |
| Restored, renewed, advancing as with songs, | |
| Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag, | |
| That plain, that modest structure, promising | 120 |
| Bread to the hungry, to the weary rest. | |
| |
