UIDO RENI in a Roman palace chamber
Sat one pleasant summer afternoon
('T was the old Farnese's sumptuous palace).
The walls were blazoned with the gilded moon
In crescent, and sweet tangles of those flowers
That blossom into faces, while birds play,
Fluttering from twig to twig, and lizards run
Below, and jewelled beetles crawl from spray to spray.
The great hall window, reaching to the floor,
Stood open for the vine to ramble in;
The birds were in the garden down below;
The silver-columned fountain, tall and thin
As a magician's wand, rose in the air;
Great yellow clouds, laden with sunshine, passed;
The sky, one flawless sapphire, floated there.
Guido was painting, half entranced in thought;
Quietly painting that pure, gentle face
You've seen in lonely chapels oft and oft;
Calm, sweet, and radiant, with a saintly grace;
Chaste as a virgin martyr glorified;
Without one thought of earth, pure as the snow
Upon the Alp-peak, with no stain of sin
Sullying her form, save where one rapturous glow
Of coldest sunshine lit her marbly breast;
The dove-like eyes were all intent on heaven.
A Sabbath sanctity was in the air,
And not one glare of passion's burning leven.
Where was the proud and dark-eyed beauty then,
The painter's model? Where the peasant girl
All love and happiness? Where, then, was she
With throbbing bosom and with lavish curl?
Only a blear-eyed crone in a low chair,
Facing the central window, dozed or prayed.
Her cheeks were wrinkled leather, and her hair,
In one gray half-starved knot of grizzled braid,
Crowned her old nodding, semi-palsied head.
Her breviary was resting on her knees,
Nor recked she what the chiding painter said.
In came the cardinal, grave, and coldly wise.
His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace
Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass
He bent o'er Guido's shoulder; soon his face
Grew wistful, and then curdled to a smile,
As he beheld the crone, and looked again.
"Where is thy model, Guido ?" Guido said,
"I keep her, cardinal, locked up in my brain."
Walter Thornbury.
A DAY IN THE PAMFILI DORIA.
THOUGH the hills are cold and snowy,
And the wind drives chill to-day,
My heart goes back to a spring-time
Far, far in the past away.
And I see a quaint old city,
Weary and worn and brown,
Where the spring and the birds are so early, And the sun in such light goes down.
I remember that old-time villa,
Where our afternoons went by,
Where the suns of March flushed warmly,
And spring was in earth and sky.
Out of the mouldering city,
Mouldering, old, and gray,
We sped, with a lightsome heart-thrill,
For a sunny, gladsome day, -
For a revel of fresh spring verdure,
For a race mid springing flowers,
For a vision of plashing fountains,
Of birds and blossoming bowers.
There were violet banks in the shadows,
Violets white and blue;
And a world of bright anemones,
That over the terrace grew,
Blue and orange and purple,
Rosy and yellow and white, Rising in rainbow bubbles,
Streaking the lawns with light.
And down from the old stone pine-trees,
Those far-off islands of air,
The birds are flinging the tidings
Of a joyful revel up there.
And now for the grand old fountains,
Tossing their silvery spray,
Those fountains so quaint and so many,
That are leaping and singing all day.
Those fountains of strange weird sculpture,
With lichens and moss o'ergrown,
Are they marble greening in moss-wreaths?
Or moss-wreaths whitening to stone?
Down many a wild, dim pathway
We ramble from morning till noon;
We linger, unheeding the hours,
Till evening comes all too soon.
And from out the ilex alleys,
Where lengthening shadows play, We look on the dreamy Campagna, All glowing with setting day,
All melting in bands of purple,
In swathings and foldings of gold,
In ribands of azure and lilac,
Like a princely banner unrolled.
And the smoke of each distant cottage,
And the flash of each villa white,
Shines out with an opal glimmer,
Like gems in a casket of light.
And the dome of old St. Peter's
With a strange translucence glows,
Like a mighty bubble of amethyst
Floating in waves of rose.
In a trance of dreamy vagueness
We, gazing and yearning, behold
That city beheld by the prophet,
Whose walls were transparent gold.
And, dropping all solemn and slowly,
To hallow the softening spell,
There falls on the dying twilight
The Ave Maria bell.
With a mournful motherly softness,
With a weird and weary care,
That strange and ancient city
Seems calling the nations to prayer.
And the words that of old the angel
To the mother of Jesus brought,
Rise like a new evangel,
To hallow the trance of our thought.
With the smoke of the evening incense,
Our thoughts are ascending then
To Mary, the mother of Jesus,
To Jesus, the Master of men.
O city of prophets and martyrs,
O shrines of the sainted dead,
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