Chapter XV: Front Matter (15)

Mary’s bedroom overlooked the river, and in the morning she could see S. Peter’s bathed in the rosy light of the rising sun, while flights of white sea‐gulls came up the river with the early tide to feed upon the refuse which had been thrown into the water. They came swooping down, with their glittering plumage flashing in the sunshine, and, dipping low, would snatch some dainty morsel from the swift water, and mount up, in graceful, curving flight, to repeat the same again and again. As the port was close to our house, no doubt it was an advantageous position for both the breakfast and supper of the gulls. They always returned in the evening, but at no other hour in the day. At night we could see lights in three windows of the Vatican. They were always there, and always at about the same hour they disappeared. One day, when Mary was calling on Cardinal Antonelli he asked her where we were living; and on her describing the position, and how she could see S. Peter’s and the Vatican, and specially those three windows, he told her the lights were from his own apartment. His eminence is very fond of flowers, and has a garden in Rome, in which he takes great pleasure. They were talking of flowers, and he observed to Mary that she would find very much the same flora throughout Europe, though not of course equally distributed. Mary objected that she had never seen the little common yellow primrose of our English woods, in that part of Italy. “Nevertheless, you will find we have it,” was his reply. And not long after, on our way to Viterbo, we saw its starry blossoms by the roadside, and hailed it as an old friend, dearer to our hearts than even the graceful pink cyclamen, which from the position of the petals reminds me of a pretty, blushing child with her hair all drawn back from her forehead.

What memories crowd upon me as I recall these trivial incidents! What happy hours have I spent beneath that deep‐blue but not unclouded sky, with the warm breeze perfumed by the breath of violets in the Doria Pamphili Villa! The great stone pines, with their soft, unceasing sighs; the large willows dropping their bright‐green flexible wands into the clear water; the violet anemones, with here and there a large crimson one, or a yellow tulip lighting up the soft green grass like a sparkling gem; the violets, not bashful and hidden shrinkingly beneath their leaves, as in our colder climes, but lifting their little dark‐purple heads high in the air, to drink the light and leave a perfumed kiss on every breeze that floats; soft masses of white cloud sailing slowly over the blue ether, and casting dappled shadows on the long grass. In the distance is S. Peter’s and the Vatican, with fields of broken ground in many tints of yellow and green and red between it and the stone balustrade against which we lean. It appears, from this point of view, to be quite outside the city, and to stand alone and untrammelled by meaner buildings. Behind us is a dense avenue of venerable ilex, and but now we were visiting the Colombarium, the other side of the road, and moralizing on the pagan practice of cremation, as compared with the hallowed Christian sepulture—it must have been so difficult to realize that the little handful of ashes in the urn had anything to do with the dead wife or child or father, that they had loved, embraced, and conversed with!

Again, I remember a day when we were living at Capo le Case. I took Ann with me, and we set out for a long walk regardless of the flight of time. We directed our course to S. John Lateran. On our way, we paused at San Clemente, where we had several times visited the subterranean church under the guidance of the kind and learned F. Mullooly. Few, perhaps, have ever noticed, in a church which presents so much else to interest them, a small picture, the head of S. Catharine of Sienna, over an altar at the bottom of the church, on the right hand. It is modern, and by a Dominican artist whose name is unknown to me, and probably to all save the brothers of his order. Nevertheless, I have never seen devotion more exquisitely depicted than in that sweet, sorrowful face, with the tears standing in the large, uplifted eyes. Through the open door of the church penetrated the scent of large masses of Banksia roses that hung over a wall in a garden nearly opposite. Untrained, untrimmed they flung long wreaths to the wind, and lay in cloud‐like bunches of soft, creamy white. As we passed by the door of the hospital of the Salvatore, two Sisters stepped out into the sunshine, on some errand of charity for their sick and aged patients. We then visited the Basilica of S. John Lateran, “the mother and head of all churches.” The gigantic statues of the apostles have a very imposing effect, in spite of their many artistic faults, more so, perhaps, than the equally faulty statues at S. Peter’s. Then we wandered into the large piazza in front of the cathedral, and looked beyond the gates and crumbling fortifications of Rome upon the Alban hills. The long avenue of trees leading to the church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme were coming into leaf; so were the group of trees to our right, by the low wall of the piazza, on which grew tufts of fern and yellow‐blossomed oxalis. We sat on the steps, and ate some hot chestnuts I had bought by the roadside, getting, at the same time, a pinch of salt from a dark‐browed matron, with a yellow kerchief across her ample bosom, and a silver dagger in her hair, who sold cigars in a little wooden booth. It was enough to be alive on such a day and in such a scene, with the easy liberty of Italian life and the total absence of “Mrs. Grundy.” There was no one to see us (save a few beggar‐women) sitting on the steps of the grand portico, and scattering the skins of our chestnuts on the pavement at our feet, while we silently drank in the balmy air and rejoiced in the beauty of the view before us. Ere we returned, we visited the Scala Santa, and looked long on Giacometti’s beautiful group of the Kiss of Judas. The evening was closing in when, wearied but satisfied, we reached our home. But if these remembrances are full of light and warmth, not less pleasing are those of our moonlight drives the year that we remained in Rome till the middle of July, and every evening used to visit the Colosseum, or S. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore, stopping to gaze long upon the cold silver light, so sharp and sudden on every curve and shaft, on architrave and entablature, on capital and plinth, while the dense shadows lurked behind like black stains of unfathomable darkness. Then we would drive to S. Peter’s, and after crossing the bridge of Sant’ Angelo between the angels, each holding an instrument of the Passion, we would look across the dark river to see the covered balcony of the house where Michael Angelo was an honored guest, and had introduced the young Raphael to the small circle of favored ones who met nightly under that roof. There, too, Vittoria Colonna probably came to increase the charm by her wit and beauty, while Michael Angelo nourished those sentiments of pure and profound veneration for her great merits which made him bitterly reproach himself after her unexpected death, because he who had never breathed one word of love to her while living, had dared to press a kiss on her marble brow when cold in death. What noble sentiments, what lofty times! And yet in many things how unseemly would some of their practices appear to us? For it was in the Church of San Silvestro al Quirinale that they used to meet after Vespers, to converse and laugh and jest together. We look across the river to mark that house. It is dark and silent now. No lights gleam from the windows. Half‐defaced frescos still cover some of the walls, but it is let from top to bottom to several families of the very poorest of the people.

But I must pause. Rome is inexhaustible, whether in her classic, her Christian, or her artistic treasures; besides the charm of social intercourse, the delight of varied society, and the equal ease and splendor which may be found in the interior life of her princely palaces. Nor can I close this chapter without speaking of one whose presence, though now confined within the walls of his own palace, makes Rome so doubly dear to the true Catholic. The days are gone when our afternoon drive might be gladdened by the pleasure of finding the well‐known crimson coach and magnificent black horses checking our progress, while we hastened to descend and kneel where he would pass, that we might catch a glance, perhaps a smile, and certainly the blessing, of the venerable old man in whom we recognize the Vicar of Christ. We had been admitted to more than one private audience, besides witnessing several of those receptions in which hundreds of people of many nations knelt to kiss his feet, and to hear that sweet, clear voice utter words of exhortation and encouragement. This last time we had entered the Vatican with sad and altered feelings. It was no longer a gala‐day, that on which we were to visit the universal father of Christendom. We were going to condole with an august prisoner, a father defrauded of his rights, a sovereign deprived of his possessions. We all felt depressed and inclined for silence. The Pope had been indisposed, and, as we were kept waiting a long time, we began to fear His Holiness would prove unable to receive us. Our spirits flagged with every second that we were left in expectation, till Mary began to look so pale I feared that she was ill. At length, however, we perceived a stir among the crimson‐liveried servants who were in attendance in the vestibule; presently the curtain at the end of the long gallery where we stood was drawn aside, and once again our eyes beheld him who is ever present to our thoughts, and whose name is breathed in so many prayers. The first feeling that filled our beating hearts, as we looked on his saintly and venerable face, was joy to feel that he was still amongst us; that despite increasing years, and the increasing malice and hatred of his enemies, his eye had not dimmed or his strength failed him. This impression was increased with every word he spoke. It was like the dawn which promises the perfect day, no matter how dark the night has been. “The people imagine a vain thing!” He is still with us—he, the father of his people! He may be ours for years to come. He may see the day‐spring of the church again. He may live to witness her triumph. And should it be otherwise—should that white head be laid low before the triumph of the church over her enemies—will he see it less, will he share it less, because he has gone before? Impossible! The church militant and the church triumphant are one. But our hopes go further; or rather, they are more human. We believe that Pius IX. will live to see the end of confusion and the beginning of peace; the downfall of falsehood and oppression, and the restoration of himself (and others) to all their rights. May God grant it!

There Was No Room For Them In The Inn.

No place for Him! So Him you drive away; You drive away your God, your God. Oh! stay. O height of human madness! wonders rare! No place for Him! without Whom no place were.

—_Crashaw._

Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.” I.

An Eastern Romance Narrated In Songs.

By Aubrey De Vere.

Preface.

Who has not heard of those Christian communities which have held their own during so many centuries, on the citied slopes of the Lebanon, or on the adjacent plains? Several of them have existed from a period earlier than that in which the foundations of our oldest monarchies were laid. The Maronites derive their name from Maron, a hermit of the IVth century, whose cell, on the banks of the Orontes, gradually attracted a Christian population about it. In the VIIth and VIIIth centuries, when the sword of the False Prophet was carrying all before it, they retreated from the uplands of the Euphrates and Mesopotamia to the fastnesses of the Lebanon. The Melchites, a race of unquestionably Arab origin, and whose religious offices are still celebrated in Arabic, emigrated to Syria before the Christian era, and became Christian in the IVth century. Weakened by their hereditary feuds, they retain, notwithstanding, all the pride of their ancient stock, and not less all its heroism, its generosity, its hospitality, its sense of honor, and its passion for poetry and eloquence. The devotion of both these races to their Faith is sufficiently attested by their having retained it during so many centuries of wrong, and in spite of so many persecutions. In the massacres of 1860 alone about 12,000 of them perished.

Few subjects are more worthy of attention than the ways of a People which still keeps so much of what belonged to the feudal and monastic system of Europe in the Middle Ages, and combines them with the patriarchal traditions of the world’s morning. Much that we possess they lack; but, among them, some of the affections—Patriotism and Love, for instance—retain a meaning which appears to grow daily more rare amid the boasted civilization of the West. That meaning is illustrated alike in their lives and their poetry. It has been observed that the religious poetry of the East sometimes resembles love‐poetry. The converse remark may no less be made. Eastern love‐poetry is wide in its range; but its more characteristic specimens resemble the early poetry of religion or patriotic devotion, so full are they of elevation and self‐sacrifice. I know not how far the spirit of such poetry can make itself intelligible to the sympathies of the West. To many readers the present poem will be an experiment new, not only as regards its spirit, but its form also—that of a story narrated in songs. It was composed, in substance, some years ago, when the author was in the East.