The mother' shall wean her eldest-born
A month before its time
No festal day shall idle by,
No hour uncounted stand,
The grandame in her bed shall die
With' the spindle in her hand.
Spin, spin, women of Brittany,
Nor let your Litany
Come to an end,
Before you have prayed
The Virgin to aid
Bertrand du Guesclin, our Hero and Friend.
WHEN gentle Gratian ruled the Roman west,
And with unvigo'rous virtues thought to hold
That troubled balance in perpetual rest,
And crush with good intent the bad and bold,
The youth Alipius for the first time saw
The Mother of civility and law.
Mother in truth, but yet as one who now
By her disloyal children tended ill
Should sit apart, with hand upon her brow,
Moaning her sick desires and feeble will;
So Rome was pictured to the subtler eye,
That could through words the soul of things descry.
* Suggested by the Confessions of St. Augustin.
But no such vision of the truth had He
Who with full heart passed under the old wall,
A Roman moulded by that sun and sea
Which lit and laved the infant Hannibal.
One who with Afric blood could still combine
The civic memo'ries of a Roman line.
To him was Rome whatever she had been,
Republican, Cesarean, unforgot,
As much the single undisputed Queen,
As if the Empire of the East was not,-
Fine gold and rugged iron fused and cast
Into one image of the glorious Past:
And on a present throne to heaven up-piled,
Of arches, temples, basilics and halls,
He placed his Idol, while before her filed
Nations to gild and glut her festivals ;
And of her might the uttera'nce was so loud,
That every other living voice was cowed.
Possessed by this idea, little heed
At first he gave the thicke'ning multitude,
That met and passed him in their noisy speed,
Like hounds intent upon the scent of blood,
For all the City was that day astir,
Tow'ard the huge Flavian Amphitheatre.
Yet soon his sole attention grew to scan
That edifice whose walls might rather seem
The masonry of Nature than of man,
In size and figure a Titanic dream,
That could whole worlds of lesser men absorb Within the' embrace of one enormous orb.
The mighty tragedies of skill and strife,
That there in earnest death must ever close,
Exciting palates which no tastes of life
Could to a sense of such delight dispose,
Swept by his fancy with an hundred names,
The pomps and pageantries of Roman games.
Why should he not pass onward with that tide Of passionate enchantment? why not share The seeds of pleasure Nature spread so wide, And gave the heart of men like common air? Why should that be to him a shame and sin, Which thousands of his fellows joy'd to win?
But ere this thought could take perspicuous form,
His Will arose and fell'd it at a blow;
For he had felt that instinct's fever-storm
Lash his young blood to fury long ago,-
And in the Circus had consumed away
Of his best years how many' a wanton day!
Till the celestial guardian of his soul
Led him the great Augustin's voice to hear,
And soon that better influence o'er him stole,
A reve'rend master and companion dear,
From whom he learnt in his provincial home
Wisdom scarce utter'd in the schools of Rome :
"How wide Humanity's potential range,—
From Earth's abysses to serenest Heaven,—
From the poor child of circumstance and change,
By every wind of passion tossed and driven,
To the established philosophic mind,
The type and model of the thing designed:
"And how this work of works in each is wrought,
By no enthusiast leap to good from ill,
But by the vigo'rous government of thought,
The unrelaxing continence of will,—
Where little habits their invis'ible sway
Extend, like body's growth, from day to day."
By meditations such as these sustained
He stoutly breasted that on-coming crowd,
Then, as in stupor, at one spot remained,
For thrice he heard his name repeated loud,
And close before him there beheld in truth
Three dearest comrades of his Afric youth.
O joy! to welcome in a stranger land
Our homeliest native look and native speech,
To feel that in one pressure of the hand
There is a world of sympathy for each;
And if old friendliness be there beside,
The meeting is of bridegroom and of bride.
What questions asked that waited not reply!
What mirthful comment on apparent change!
Till the three raised one gratulating cry,—
"Arrived just then! how fortunate,-how strange !
Arrived to see what they ne'er saw before,
The fight between the Daunian and the Moor.
"One graceful-limbed and lofty as a palm,
The other moulded like his mountain-pine;
Each with his customed arms content and calm,
In his own nation each of princely line,—
Two natures sepa'rate as the sun and snow
Battling to death to make a Roman show!"
-Alipius, with few words and earnest mien, Answered, "That he long since had stood apart From those ferocious pleasures, and would wean Those whom he loved from them with all his heart, Yet, as his counsel could have little power,
Where should they meet the morrow,—at what hour?"
Their shafts of mock'ery from his virtuous head
Fell to the ground,—so, using ruder might,
Amid applauding bystanders, they said,
66
"They would divert him in his own despite,"
And bore him forward, while in fearless tone
He cried, "my mind and sight are still mine own."
His body a mere dead-weight in their hands,
His angry eyes in proud endurance closed,
They placed him where spectators from all lands
In eager expectation sat disposed,
While in the distance still, before, behind,
The people gathering were as rushing wind:
Which ever rising grew into a storm
Of acclamations, when, at either end,
The combatant displayed his perfect form,
Brandished his arms, rejoicing to expend
His life in fight at least,-at least reclaim
A warrior's privilege from a captive's shame.
As rose before Amphion's notes serene
The fated City of heroic guilt,
Alipius thus his soul and sense between
Imagination's strong defence up-built,
With soft memorial music, dreamy strains
Of youthful happinesses, loves, and pains.
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