All meekness, gentleness, tho' large of limb;

And a lay-brother of the Hospital,

Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits

The distant echoes gaining on his ear,

Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand,

While I alighted..

Long could I have stood,

With a religious awe contemplating

That House, the highest in the Ancient World,,

And placed there for the noblest purposes.

"Twas a rude pile of simplest masonry,

With narrow windows and vast buttresses,

Built to endure the shocks of Time and Chance;

Yet shewing many a rent, as well it might,

Warred on for ever by the elements,

And in an evil day, nor long ago,

By violent men-when on the mountain-top

The French and Austrian banners met in conflict.

On the same rock beside it stood the church,

Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity;

The vesper-bell, for 'twas the vesper-hour,

Duly proclaiming thro' the wilderness,

"All ye who hear, whatever be your work,

Stop for an instant-move your lips in prayer!"

And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale,

If dale it might be called, so near to Heaven,

A little lake, where never fish leaped up,

Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;

A star, the only one in that small sky,

On its dead surface glimmering. "Twas a scene

Resembling nothing I had left behind,

As tho' all worldly ties were now dissolved;-
And, to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in shadow
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,

For such as having wandered from their way,

Had perished miserably. Side by side,

Within they lie, a mournful company,

All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;

Their features full of life yet motionless

In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,

Tho' the barred windows, barred against the wolf,

Are always open!

But the Bise blew cold;

And, bidden to a spare but cheerful meal,

I sate among the holy brother-hood

At their long board. The fare indeed was such

As is prescribed on days of abstinence,

But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine;
And thro' the floor came up, an ancient matron
Serving unseen below; while from the roof

(The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir,)

A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling

Its partial light on Apostolic heads,

And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet

Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime Nor was a brow o'ercast. Seen as I saw them, Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour

Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile,

As children; answering, and at once, to all

The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth;

Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk

Music; and gathering news from them that came, As of some other world. But when the storm Rose, and the snow rolled on in ocean-billows, When on his face the experienced traveller fell, Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands, Then all was changed; and, sallying with their pack

Into that blank of nature, they became

Unearthly beings. "Anselm, higher up

A dog howls loud and long, and now, observe,

Digs with his feet how eagerly! A man,

Dying or dead, lies buried underneath!