MONTE CASSINO.* 'WHAT hangs behind that curtain ?' - Wouldst thou learn? If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. 'Tis by some As tho' the day were come, were come and past, * The abbey of Monte Cassino is the most ancient and venerable house of the Benedictine Order. It is situated within fifteen leagues of Naples on the inland-road to Rome; and no house is more hospitable. + Michael Angelo. There are many miraculous pictures in Italy; but none, I believe, were ever before described as malignant in their influence. At Arezzo in the church of St. Angelo there is indeed over the great altar a fresco-painting of the Fall of the Angels, which has a singular story belonging to it. It was painted in the fourteenth century by Spinello Aretino, who has there represented Life, such as none could of himself impart, (They who behold it, go not as they came, But meditate for many and many a day) Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much; But what we know, we will communicate. 'Tis in an ancient record of the House; And may it make thee tremble, lest thou fall! As if he sought what most he feared to find, Still did he look behind him; oft and long, For here, 'tis said, he lingered while he lived, Lucifer as changed into a shape so monstrous and terrible, that he is said in that very shape to have haunted the Artist in his dreams and to have hastened his death; crying, night after night, "Where hast thou seen me in a shape so monstrous?" In the upper part St. Michael is seen in combat with the dragon: the fatal transformation is in the lower part of the picture. VASARI. He would discourse and with a mastery, Most devout he was; Most unremitting in the Services; Then, only then, untroubled, unassailed; And, to beguile a melancholy hour, Would sometimes exercise that noble art He learnt in FLORENCE; with a master's hand, Painting the wonders of the APOCALYPSE. At length he sunk to rest and in his cell Left, when he went, a work in secret done, The portrait, for a portrait it must be, That hangs behind the curtain. Whence he drew, None here can doubt; for they that come to catch The faintest glimpse-to catch it and be gone, Gaze as he gazed, then shrink into themselves, Acting the self-same part. But why 'twas drawn, Or to record the anguish Guilt inflicts, With what he could not fly from, none can say, For none could learn the burden of his soul.' THE HARPER. It was a Harper, wandering with his harp, By time and grief ennobled, not subdued; But the child Was worn with travel. Heavy sleep weighed down His eye-lids; and the grandsire, when we came, Emboldened by his love and by his fear, His fear lest night o'ertake them on the road, |