CAIUS CESTIUS. WHEN I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up and down before the tomb of CAIUS CEStius. The Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of the little monuments are erected to the young; young men of promise, cut off when on their travels, full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or children borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave. It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the Pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are for the most part your country : men. They call upon you in your mother-tonguein English-in words unknown to a native, known only to yourself and the tomb of CESTIUS, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger; among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer. THE NUN. 'Tis over; and her lovely cheek is now Nightly, through many and many a dreary hour, In anguish, in the ghastliness of death; Hers never more to leave those mournful walls, 'Tis over; and the rite, With all its pomp and harmony, is now Narrow and dark, nought thro' the gloom discerned, Nought save the crucifix, the rosary, And the grey habit lying by to shroud Her beauty and grace. When on her knees she fell, Entering the solemn place of consecration, The strain returning, and still, still returning, Came like a dirge. When her fair head was shorn, That she might fling them from her, saying, 'Thus, Were, one by one, removed, even to the last, * It was at such a moment, when contemplating the young and the beautiful, that Tasso conceived his sonnets, beginning 'Vergine pia,' and 'Vergine bella.' Those to whom he addressed them, have long been forgotten; though they were as much perhaps to be loved, and as much also to be pitied. Thus I renounce the world!' when all was changed, And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt, Distinguished only by the crown she wore, Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ, Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love Like a dream the whole is fled; And they, that came in idleness to gaze Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell None were so formed to love and to be loved, * Her back was at that time turned to the people; but in his countenance might be read all that was passing. The Cardinal, who officiated, was a venerable old man, evidently unused to the service and much affected by it. |