SAVONA

SAVONA

VESPERS ON THE SHORES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

At Savona, a very ancient little city on the coast of Genoa, there stands by the lighthouse a Madonna about two feet high, under which are inscribed two Sapphic verses, which are both good Latin and choice Italian,-made by Gabriello Chiabrera, "the prince of Italian lyric poets," who was a native of Savona,—

“In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella."

RELIGION'S purest presence was not found,

By the first followers of our Saviour's creed, In stately fanes where trump and timbrel sound Sent up the chorus in a strain agreed,

And where the decked oblation's wail might plead For guilty man with Abraham's holy seed.

Not in vast domes,-horizons hung by men,
Where golden panels fret a marble sky,

And things below look up, and wonder when
Those lifelike seraphim would start and fly!
Not where the heart is mastered by the eye
Will worship, anthem-winged, ascend most high.

But in the damp cathedral of the grove,
Where nature feels the sanctitude of rest,
Or in the stillness of the sheltered cove

Which noiseless waterfowl alone molest,
At times a reverence will pervade the breast
Which will not always come, a bidden guest.

Oft as the parting smiles of day and night

Flush earth and ocean with a roseate hue,
And the quick changes of the magic light

Prolong the glory of their warm adieu,
Each pilgrim on the hills, and every crew
On the lulled waters, frame their vows anew.

Then by the waves that lip Liguaria's land,

In Genoa's gulf, thou, wanderer! must have heard

What, more than hymns from Pergolesi's hand,

The living soul of adoration stirred,—

And, like the note of Spring's first-welcomed bird, Some thoughts awake for which there is no word.

The shipman's chant! as noting travellers tell,
In either language-old and new-the same;

But more they might have truly said, and well,

For 't is a speech the universe may claim; Men of all times, all climes, and every name, Devotion's tongue! which from the Godhead came.

HYMN

Tost rudderless around the deep
By Apennine and Alpine blast,
Which o'er the surge in fury sweep,
And make a bulrush of our mast,

We murmur in our half-hour's sleep

To thee, Madonna! till the storm be past,
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

Whether for weeks our bark hath striven

And locked the lightning in its thunder caves, We know whose hand its help has given,

With death in wild Sardinia's waves,

Or downward far as Tunis driven,
Threat us with life, the life of slaves;
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

O Virgin! when the landsman's hymn,
At vesper time, on bended knee,

In sunlit aisle, or chapel dim,

Or cloister cell, is paid to thee,

Hear us that ocean's pavement skim,

And join our anthem to the raging sea:
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

And when the tempest's wrath is o'er,
And tried Libeccio sinks to rest,
And starlight falls upon the shore
Where love is watching, uncaressed,

Though hushed the tumult and the roar,
Again the prayer we'll chant which thou hast

blest;

In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS.

COGOLETO

BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS

I KNOW not when this hope enthralled me first,
But from my boyhood up I loved to hear
The tall pine-forests of the Apennine
Murmur their hoary legends of the sea,
Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld
The sudden dark of tropic night shut down
O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes,
The while a pair of herons trailingly

Flapped inland, where some league-wide river hurled

The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms

Far through a gulf's green silence, never scarred
By any but the North-wind's hurrying keels.
And not the pines alone; all sights and sounds
To my world-seeking heart and fealty
And catered for it as the Cretan bees
Brought honey to the baby Jupiter,
Who in his soft hand crushed a violet,
Godlike foremusing the rough thunder's gripe;
Then did I entertain the poet's song,

My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er
That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell,