With snow the Esquiline was strewn At morn!--Fair Legend! who but thinks Of thee, when first the breezes blown From summer Alp to Alp he drinks?
He stands: he hears the torrents dash: Slowly the vapours break; and lo!
Through chasms of endless azure flash The peaks of everlasting snow.
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He stands; he listens; on his ear Swells softly forth some virgin hymn: The white procession windeth near, With glimmering lights in sunshine dim.
Mother of Purity and Peace!
They sing the Saviour"s name and thine Clothe them for ever with the fleece Unspotted of thy Lamb Divine!
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_Fest. Puritatis._
XV.
Far down the bird may sing of love; The honey-bearing blossom blow: But hail, ye hills that rise above The limit of perpetual snow!
O Alpine City, with thy walls Of rock eterne and spires of ice, Where torrent still to torrent calls, And precipice to precipice;--
How like that holier City thou, The heavenly Salem"s earthly porch, Which rears among the stars her brow, And plants firm feet on earth--the Church!
"Decaying, ne"er to be decayed,"
Her woods, like thine, renew their youth: Her streams, in rocky arms embayed, Are clear as virtue, strong as truth.
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At times the lake may burst its dam; Black pine and rock the valley strew; But o"er the ruin soon the lamb Its flowery pasture crops anew.
She, too, in regions near the sky Up-piles her cloistered snows, and thence Diffuses gales of purity O"er fields of consecrated sense.
On those still heights a love-light glows The plains from them alone receive;-- Not all the Lily! There thy Rose, O Mary, triumphs, morn and eve!
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XVI.
Cloud-piercing Mountains! Chance and Change More high than you their thrones advance.
Self-vanquished Nature"s rockiest range Gives way before them like the trance
Of one that wakes. From morn to eve Through fissured clefts her mists make way; At Night"s cold touch they freeze, and cleave Her crags; and, with a t.i.tan"s sway,
Flake off and peel the rotting rocks, And heap the glacier tide below With isles of sand and floating blocks, As leaves on streams when tempests blow.
Lo, thus the great decree all-just, O Earth, thy mountains hear; and learn From fire and frost its import--"dust Thou art; and shalt to dust return."
He only is Who ever was; The All-measuring Mind; the Will Supreme.
Rocks, mountains, worlds, like bubbles pa.s.s: G.o.d is; the things not G.o.d but seem.
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_Foederis Arca._
XVII.
From end to end, O G.o.d, Thy Will With swift yet ordered might doth reach: Thy purposes their scope fulfil In sequence, resting each on each.
In Thee is nothing sudden; nought From harmony and law that swerves: The orbits of Thine act and thought In soft succession wind their curves.
O then with what a gradual care Must thou have shaped that sacred shrine, That Ark of grace, ordained to bear The burthen of the Babe divine!
How many a gift within her breast Lay stored, for Him a couch to strew!
How many a virtue lined His nest!
How many a grace beside Him grew!
Of love on love what sweet excess!
How deep a faith! a hope how high!-- Mary! on earth of thee we guess; But we shall see thee when we die!
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_Domus Aurea._
XVIII.
She mused upon the Saints of old; Their toils, their pains, she longed to share Of Him she mused, the Child foretold; To Him her hands she stretched in prayer.
No moment pa.s.sed without its crown; And each new grace was used so well It drew some tenfold talent down, Some miracle on miracle.
O golden House! O boundless store Of wealth by heavenly commerce won!
When G.o.d Himself could give no more, He gave thee all; He gave His Son!
Blessed the Mother of her Lord!
And yet for this more blessed still, Because she heard and kept His Word-- High servant of His sovereign Will!
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_Respexit Humilitatem._
XIX
Not all thy purity, although The whitest moon that ever lit The peaks of Lebanonian snow Shone dusk and dim compared with it;--