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From “Don Juan”
AVE MARIA! o’er the earth and sea, | |
| That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee! | |
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| Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour, | |
| The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft | |
| Have felt that moment in its fullest power | 5 |
| Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft, | |
| While swung the deep bell in the distant tower | |
| Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, | |
| And not a breath crept through the rosy air, | |
| And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer. | 10 |
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| Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of prayer! | |
| Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of love! | |
| Ave Maria! may our spirits dare | |
| Look up to thine and to thy Son’s above! | |
| Ave Maria! O that face so fair! | 15 |
| Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove,— | |
| What though ’t is but a pictured image?—strike,— | |
| That painting is no idol,—’t is too like. | |
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| Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude | |
| Of the pine forest, and the silent shore | 20 |
| Which bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood, | |
| Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o’er | |
| To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood, | |
| Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio’s lore | |
| And Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me, | 25 |
| How have I loved the twilight hour and thee! | |
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| The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, | |
| Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, | |
| Were the sole echoes, save my steed’s and mine, | |
| And vesper bells that rose the boughs along; | 30 |
| The spectre huntsman of Onesti’s line, | |
| His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng | |
| Which learned from this example not to fly | |
| From a true lover,—shadowed my mind’s eye. | |
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| O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things,— | 35 |
| Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, | |
| To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings, | |
| The welcome stall to the o’erlabored steer; | |
| Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings, | |
| Whate’er our household gods protect of dear, | 40 |
| Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; | |
| Thou bring’st the child, too, to the mother’s breast. | |
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| Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart | |
| Of those who sail the seas, on the first day | |
| When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; | 45 |
| Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, | |
| As the far bell of vesper makes him start, | |
| Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay: | |
| Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? | |
| Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns. | 50 |
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