MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY, 1837
XIV. THE CUCKOO AT LAVERNA
MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY, 1837
LIST–’twas the Cuckoo.–O with what delight Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint, Far off and faint, and melting into air, Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again! Those louder cries give notice that the Bird, Although invisible as Echo’s self, Is wheeling hitherward. Thanks, happy Creature, For this unthought-of greeting! While allured From vale to hill, from hill to vale led on, We have pursued, through various lands, a long 10 And pleasant course; flower after flower has blown, Embellishing the ground that gave them birth With aspects novel to my sight; but still Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the dew In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved, For old remembrance sake. And oft–where Spring Displayed her richest blossoms among files Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour, 20 The lightsome Olive’s twinkling canopy– Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush Blending as in a common English grove Their love-songs; but, where’er my feet might roam, Whate’er assemblages of new and old, Strange and familiar, might beguile the way, A gratulation from that vagrant Voice Was wanting,–and most happily till now. For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile, High on the brink of that precipitous rock, 30 Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience, By a few Monks, a stern society, Dead to the world and scorning earth-born joys. Nay–though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove, St. Francis, far from Man’s resort, to abide Among these sterile heights of Apennine, Bound him, nor, since he raised yon House, have ceased To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules 40 Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live; His milder Genius (thanks to the good God That made us) over those severe restraints Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline, Doth sometimes here predominate, and works By unsought means for gracious purposes; For earth through heaven, for heaven, by changeful earth, Illustrated, and mutually endeared. Rapt though He were above the power of sense, Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart 50 Of that once sinful Being overflowed On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements, And every shape of creature they sustain, Divine affections; and with beast and bird (Stilled from afar–such marvel story tells– By casual outbreak of his passionate words, And from their own pursuits in field or grove Drawn to his side by look or act of love Humane, and virtue of his innocent life) He wont to hold companionship so free, 60 So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight, As to be likened in his Followers’ minds To that which our first Parents, ere the fall From their high state darkened the Earth with fear, Held with all kinds in Eden’s blissful bowers. Then question not that, ‘mid the austere Band, Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod, Some true Partakers of his loving spirit Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith, 70 Of a baptized imagination, prompt To catch from Nature’s humblest monitors Whate’er they bring of impulses sublime. Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though pale With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by years, Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see, Upon a pine-tree’s storm-uprooted trunk, Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised, Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore Appended to his bosom, and lips closed 80 By the joint pressure of his musing mood And habit of his vow. That ancient Man– Nor haply less the Brother whom I marked, As we approached the Convent gate aloft Looking far forth from his aerial cell, A young Ascetic–Poet, Hero, Sage, He might have been, Lover belike he was– If they received into a conscious ear The notes whose first faint greeting startled me, Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy 90 My heart–may have been moved like me to think, Ah! not like me who walk in the world’s ways, On the great Prophet, styled ‘the Voice of One Crying amid the wilderness’, and given, Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers Revive, their obstinate winter pass away, That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo, Wandering in solitude, and evermore Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies 100 To carry thy glad tidings over heights Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole. Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet Bird! If that substantial title please thee more, Farewell!–but go thy way, no need hast thou Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear, Thee gentle breezes waft–or airs, that meet Thy course and sport around thee, softly fan– Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, 110 Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence, And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.