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ST. JOHN LATERAN

OF TEMPLES built by mortal hands,
Give honour to the Lateran first;
"T was here the hope of many lands,-
The infant Church-was nursed;

And grew unto a great estate,

And waxed strong in grace and power, With Christ for head and faithful mate, And learning for her dower.

Since first this house to him was raised,

Three times five hundred years have run;

For this let Constantine be praised,

An English mother's son!

He with his own imperial sword

Did dig foundations broad and deep, That henceforth in his hand the Lord Rome and her hills should keep.

In after ages, one by one,

Arose the altars vowed to Heaven; Each crest is sacred now, but none

Like this of all the Seven!

Behold she stands! The Mother Church!
A queen among her countless peers!
Ah! open be that sacred porch

For thrice five hundred years!

BESSIE RAYNER PARKES.

THE PANTHEON

SIMPLE, erect, severe, austere, sublime,-
Shrine of all saints, and temple of all gods,
From Jove to Jesus,-spared and blest by time;
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods

His way through thorns to ashes,—glorious dome!

Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants'

rods

Shiver upon thee,-sanctuary and home Of art and piety,-Pantheon!-pride of Rome!

Relic of nobler days and noblest arts! Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads A holiness appealing to all hearts,To art a model; and to him who treads Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds Her light through thy sole aperture; to those Who worship, here are altars for their beads; And they who feel for genius may repose Their eyes on honoured forms, whose busts around them close.

LORD BYRON.

ARA COELI.

WHOEVER Will go to Rome may see,
In the chapel of the Sacristy
Of Ara-Cœli, the Sainted Child,-
Garnished from throat to foot with rings
And brooches and precious offerings,
And its little nose kissed quite away
By dying lips. At Epiphany,

If the holy winter day prove mild,

It is shown to the wondering, gaping crowd On the church's steps,-held high aloft,— While every sinful head is bowed,

And the music plays, and the censer's soft
White breath ascends like silent prayer.
Many a beggar kneeling there,

Tattered and hungry, without a home,
Would not envy the Pope of Rome,
If he, the beggar, had half the care
Bestowed on him that falls to the share
Of yonder Image,-for you must know
It has its minions to come and go,
Its perfumed chamber, remote and still,
Its silken couch, and its jewelled throne,
And a special carriage of its own
To take the air in, when it will.

And though it may neither drink nor eat,
By a nod to its ghostly seneschal

It could have the choicest wine and meat.
Often some princess, brown and tall,
Comes, and unclasping from her arm
The glittering bracelet, leaves it, warm
With her throbbing pulse, at the Baby's feet.
Ah, He is loved by high and low,

Adored alike by simple and wise.

The people kneel to Him in the street.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

THE STEPS OF ARA CŒLI

A ladder, realler, dearer

Than that to the patriarch known;

A stair whose every stone

Leads one to Heaven nearer.

For this divine, aerial

Fabric the architect

Searched Nature to select

The grandest of material.

Marbles, in ancient time

Unrivalled, he took as a token,-
Which mattocks blind had broken
Intent on nought but lime.

Which now will never salute us

From the gleaming shrine of the god,
Or from the pavement trod

By the feet of the Gracchi and Brutus.

[blocks in formation]

But in spite of the cavalieros

And the rabble that worship the doll-
As at the capitol-

Lo! the mounting shades of the heroes!

SULLY PRUDHOMME.

Tr. Robert Haven Schauffler.

THE VATICAN

OR, TURNING to the Vatican, go see
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain,—
A father's love and mortal's agony
With an immortal's patience blending: vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's

grasp,

The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links, the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

Or view the lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life and poesy and light,—

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