-Binding, ever as he bade,

Columns in this colonnade

With arms wide open to embrace

The entry of the human race

To the breast of. . . what is it, yon building,
A-blaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice?

Now I see it is no dream :

It stands there and it does not seem;
For, in pictures, ever thus it looks,
And thus I have read of it in books,
Often in England, leagues away,

And wondered how those fountains play,
Growing up eternally

Each to a musical water-tree,

Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,

Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,
To the granite lavers underneath.
Liar and dreamer in your teeth!

I, the sinner that speak to you,

Was in Rome this night, and stood, and knew Both this and more! For see, for see,

The dark is rent, mine eye is free

To pierce the crust of the outer wall,
And I view inside, and all there, all,
As the swarming hollow of a hive,
The whole Basilica alive!

Men in the chancel, body and nave,

Men on the pillars' architrave,

Men on the statues, men on the tombs

With popes and kings in their porphyry wombs, All famishing in expectation

Of the main-altar's consummation.

For see, for see, the rapturous moment
Approaches, and earth's best endowment
Blends with heaven's: the taper-fires
Pant up, the winding brazen spires
Heave loftier yet the baldachin;
The incense-gaspings, long kept in,
Suspire in clouds; the organ blatant
Holds his breath and grovels latent,
As if God's hushing finger grazed him,
(Like Behemoth when He praised him)
At the silver bell's shrill tinkling,
Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling
On the sudden pavement strewed
With faces of the multitude.
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,—
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, all in all,

King of kings, and Lord of lords,

As His servant John received the words,

"I died, and live for evermore!

بح

MEN AND WOMEN.

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS.

I.

WHERE the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-

II.

Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince

Ages since

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.

III.

Now the country does not even boast a tree,

As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)

IV.

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest, Twelve abreast.

V.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone-

VI.

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

VII.

Now, the single little turret that remains
On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks

Through the chinks—

VIII.

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time

Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

IX.

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away-

X.

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there

In the turret, whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb

Till I come.

XI.

But he looked upon the city, every side,

Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then,

All the men!