ADDRESSED ON LEAVING ROME TO A FRIEND RESIDING IN THAT CITY.
O lately written in the roll of friends,
O written late, not last, three pleasant months
Under the shadow of the Capitol,
A pleasant time, made pleasanter by thee,
It has been mine to pass—three months of spring,
Which pleasant in themselves and for thy sake,
Had yet this higher, that they stirred in the heart
The motions of continual thankfulness
To me, considering by what gracious paths
I had been guided, by what paths of love,
Since I was last a dweller in these gates.
That meditation could not prove to me
But as a spring that ever bubbles up,
Sparkling in the face of heaven, when every day
Reminded me how little gladness then
I gathered from these things, but now how much.
For tho’ not then indifferent to me
Nature or art, yea rather tho’ from these
I drew whatever lightened for a while
The burden of our life and weary load;
Yet seldom could I summon heart enough,
With all their marvels round me, to go forth
In quest of any. But some lonely spot,
Some ridge of ruin fringed with cypresses,
Such as have everywhere loved well to make
Their chosen home above all other trees,
’Mid the fal’n palaces of ancient Rome,
Me did such haunt please better, or I loved,
With others whom the like disquietude,
At the like crisis of their lives, now kept
Restless, with them to question to and fro
And to debate the evil of the world,
As tho’ we bore no portion of that ill,
As tho’ with subtle phrases we could spin
A woof to screen us from its undelight:
Such talk sometimes prolonging into night,
As being loth to separate, and find
Each in his solitude how vain are words,
When that they have opposed to them is more.
I would not live that time again for much,
Full as it was of long and weary days,
Full of rebellious askings, for what end,
And by what power, without our own consent,
We were placed here, to suffer and to sin,
To be in misery and know not why.
But so it was with me, a sojourner,
Five years ago, beneath these mouldering walls
As I am now: and, trusted friend, to thee
I have not doubted to reveal my soul,
For thou hast known, if I may read aright
The pages of thy past existence, thou
Hast known the dreary sickness of the soul,
That falls upon us in our lonely youth,
The fear of all bright visions leaving us,
The sense of emptiness, without the sense
Of an abiding fulness anywhere,
When all the generations of mankind,
With all their purposes, their hopes and fears,
Seem nothing truer than those wandering shapes
Cast by a trick of light upon a wall,
And nothing different from these, except
In their capacity for suffering;
What time we have the sense of sin, and none
Of expiation. Our own life seemed then
But as an arrow flying in the dark
Without an aim, a most unwelcome gift,
Which we might not put by. But now, what God
Intended as a blessing and a boon
We have received as such, and we can say
A solemn yet a joyful thing is life,
Which, being full of duties, is for this
Of gladness full, and full of lofty hopes.
And He has taught us what reply to make,
Or secretly in spirit, or in words,
If there be need, when sorrowing men complain
The fair illusions of their youth depart,
All things are going from them, and to-day
Is emptier of delights than yesterday,
Even as to-morrow will be barer yet;
We have been taught to feel this need not be,
This is not life’s inevitable law,—
But that the gladness we are called to know,
Is an increasing gladness, that the soil
Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become
Richer and deeper, fitter to bear fruit
Of an immortal growth, from day to day,
Fruit of love life and indeficient joy.
Oh! not for baneful self-complacency,
Not for the setting up our present selves
To triumph o’er our past (worst pride of all),
May we compare this present with that past;
But to provoke renewed acknowledgments,
But to incite unto an earnest hope
For all our brethren. And how should I fear
To own to thee that this is in my heart—
This longing, that it leads me home to-day,
Glad even while I turn my back on Rome,
Yet half unseen—its arts, its memories,
Its glorious fellowship of living men;
Glad in the hope to tread the soil again
Of England, where our place of duty lies:
Not as altho’ we thought we could do much,
Or claimed large sphere of action for ourselves;
Not in this thought—since rather be it ours,
Both thine and mine, to cultivate that frame
Of spirit, when we know and deeply feel
How little we can do, and yet do that.