Stand ghost-like in the Cæsar's home,
As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,

And drew their sap all kingly yet!
And every stone your feet beneath

Is broken from some mighty thought,

And sculptures in the dust still breathe

The fire with which their lines were wrought,

And sunder'd arch, and plunder'd tomb

Still thunder back the echo,

"Rome!"

Yet gaily o'er Egeria's fount

The ivy flings its emerald veil,

And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount,

And light-sprung arches span the dale,

And soft, from Caracalla's Baths,

The herdsman's song comes down the breeze, While climb his goats the giddy paths

To grass-grown architrave and frieze;

And gracefully Albano's hill

Curves into the horizon's line,

And sweetly sings that classic rill,

And fairly stands that nameless shrine,

And here, oh, many a sultry noon

And starry eve, that happy June,

Came Angelo and Melanie,

And earth for us was all in tune

For while Love talk'd with them, Hope walked apart

with me!

V.

I shrink from the embittered close

Of my own melancholy tale.

'Tis long since I have waked my woes-
And nerve and voice together fail!

The throb beats faster at my brow,

My brain feels warm with starting tears,
And I shall weep-but heed not thou!

"Twill soothe awhile the ache of years.
The heart transfix'd-worn out with grief-
Will turn the arrow for relief.

The painter was a child of shame!

It stirr'd my pride to know it first, For I had question'd but his name,

And thought, alas! I knew the worst, Believing him unknown and poor.

His blood, indeed, was not obscure ;
A high-born Conti was his mother,
But, though he knew one parent's face,
He never had beheld the other,
Nor knew his country or his race.

The Roman hid his daughter's shame

Within St. Mona's convent wall,

And gave the boy a painter's name—

And little else to live withal!

And, with a noble's high desires

For ever mounting in his heart,

The boy consum'd with hidden fires,

But wrought in silence at his art;

And sometimes at St. Mona's shrine, Worn thin with penance harsh and long, He saw his mother's form divine,

And lov'd her for their mutual wrong.

I said my pride was stirr'd-but no!
The voice that told its bitter tale

Was touch'd so mournfully with wo,
And, as he ceas'd, all deathly pale,

He loos'd the hand of Melanie,
And gaz'd so gaspingly on me-

The demon in my bosom died!
"Not thine," I said, " another's guilt;
I break no hearts for silly pride;
So, kiss yon weeper if thou wilt!"

VI.

St. Mona's morning mass was done.

The shrine-lamps struggled with the day;

And rising slowly, one by one,

Stole the last worshippers away.

The organist played out the hymn,
The incense, to St. Mary swung,
Had mounted to the cherubim,

Or to the pillars thinly clung;

And boyish chorister replaced

The missal that was read no more,

And clos'd, with half irreverent haste,
Confessional and chancel door;

And as, through aisle and oriel pane,

The sun wore round his slanting beam, The dying martyr stirr'd again,

And warriors battled in its gleam;

And costly tomb and sculptur'd knight Show'd warm and wondrous in the light.

I have not said that Melanie

Was radiantly fair

This earth again may never see

A loveliness so rare!

She glided up St. Mona's aisle

That morning as a bride,

And, full as was my heart the while,
I bless'd her in my pride!

The fountain may not fail the less

Whose sands are golden ore,