Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LEGEND OF ST ROSALIE, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LEGEND OF ST ROSALIE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fair art thou, sicily! - in all his round
Last Line: And such its reverence for st rosalie!
Alternate Author Name(s): Delta
Subject(s): Legends; Rosalie, Saint (d. 1160)


I.

FAIR art thou, Sicily!—in all his round,
Shines not the sun on lovelier land than thine;
With gorgeous olive groves thy hills are crown'd,
And o'er thy vales the pomegranate and vine
Spread rich in beauty; halcyon seas around
Thy shores breathe freshness, making half divine
An earthly climate; eye hath nowhere seen
Heaven brighter in its blue, earth in its green!

II.

But of these boasts I sing not now—my tale
Is of an ancient pestilence, when the power
Of death hung o'er thee, like a sable veil,
And desolation ruled each awful hour;
When man's heart sank, and woman's cheek grew pale,
And graves were dug in every garden-bower,
And proud Palermo bow'd her spiry head
In silent gloom—a city of the dead!

III.

Hush'd was the voice of traffic on each street;
Within the market-place the grass sprang green;
Friends from each other shrank with hasty feet,
When on the porch the plague's red-cross was seen;
The clocks had long forgotten to repeat
Time's warning hours; and, where had revel been
On days of carnival, with wheels of dread
The dead-cart roll'd, and homes gave out their dead.

IV.

A lurid vapour veil'd the sun from view,
And the winds were not; strangers fled the shore;
Lay in the ports the ship without a crew,
The heat-warp'd fisher-boat and rotting oar;
Wander'd the house-dog masterless, and grew
So fierce with famine, the gaunt looks he wore
Betoken'd madness; broken was each tie
That sweetens life, or links humanity.

V.

Thus week on week crawl'd on, and day by day:
Down to the dreary caverns of the grave,
Pass'd in this harvest-home of death away,
Unmark'd, unmourn'd, the beauteous and the brave,
The white-hair'd sire, and infant of a day;
No funeral had a single follower, save
The hirelings who for wine or booty schemed,
And, while they trod the verge of Hell, blasphemed;

VI.

Till one grey morn, when all was drear and dumb,
Arose, far off, the sound as of a sea,
Or wailing of the wild winds, when they come
To strip the frail leaves from October's tree:
Now nearer—'twas the multitudinous hum
Of human tongues. What could the meaning be?
The timid and the plague-struck left their beds,
And all the roofs were clad with gazing heads!

VII.

And lo! a grey-hair'd abbot, in the van
Of a tumultuous, motley, rushing crowd,
Which throng'd around the venerable man,
And scarce a passage for his path allow'd.
Above his head, as if a talisman
Of peace, a long white silken banner flow'd;
Unsandal'd were his feet, his sackcloth vest
And sable cowl humility confess'd.

VIII.

And in his calm blue eye a mystery shone,
And on his brow a bright intelligence,
As if his soul to happy worlds had flown,
To carry back some gracious message thence;
Straightway he mounted on a ledge of stone,
'Mid the hush'd crowd glad tidings to dispense,
And stretching forth his thin pale fingers, thus
He spake, in accents clear though tremulous:—

IX.

"As in my solitary cell I lay,
On the dried rushes sprinkled for my bed,
A golden light, as if of sudden day,
Around my darken'd walls effulgence shed;
Upon my knees I sprang, in act to pray,
And, earthward as I shrank in solemn dread,
I heard a silver tongue, which thus began—
'Put away fear, and look to me, O man!

X.

"'Look up to me—my home is Paradise,
Where all is fadeless, shadowless, and grand,
And groves of amaranth in glory rise,
And streams of silver lave a golden strand,
And angels with their white plumes veil their eyes,
As in the presence of the Throne they stand;
Put away fear—to lighten human woe,
Only on messages of love we go.

XI.

"'Yes! I am come the harbinger of good
From God to man; the tear, the suppliant sigh,
While happy hearths were doom'd to solitude
And silence, have ascended to the sky.
Now by His precious name who died on rood,
Health shall once more revisit Sicily—
Again Palermo take her titles old—
The wide world's granary—the shell of gold.'

XII.

"As music melts within the moonlight sea,
So ceased her voice upon the silent air;
And, looking up, from sudden fear set free,
Behold! a form, angelically fair,
In robes cerulean mantled to the knee,
Floating in light—a halo round her hair;
Within her hand she held a branch of palm,
And in her eye dwelt Heaven's eternal calm.

XIII.

"Like honey dripping from the comb, so came
Once more her words—' List to me, do not fear—
No vows of wrath I bring, no words of blame,
This world, where now we are, was once my sphere;
And all the feelings of the human frame,
And all man's hopes and joys to me were dear;
Yes! I was once a denizen of earth,
And in the home of princes had my birth.

XIV.

"'Each pleasure for my young heart was devised,
My wishes all were with fruition crown'd,
Yet, girt with earthly grandeur, I despised
The gaiety and the giddiness around,
The calm of holy meditation prized,
And seeking solace in religion, found;
Till wean'd from frality, in abstraction deep,
I held communion with the blest in sleep.

XV.

"'And day by day more spiritual I grew,
And night by night more ravishingly blest;
Scarcely it seem'd 'twas human breath I drew,
For angels stood before my sight confest,
And round my walks in circling glory flew,
And shadow'd with their plumes my couch of rest,
Till, by their high communion purified,
The face of man no more I could abide.

XVI.

"''Twas now my fifteenth summer, and the sun
One morn was shining on the pearly dew,
When, blessing all, yet taking leave of none,
In silence from my palace home I flew—
Flew till my strength was spent, and day was done
Whither, and for what purpose, scarce I knew,
Nor was it ever guess'd; though, since the last
Hour of my life, five centuries have pass'd.

XVII.

"'Cherubs hung round, an angel was my guide,
And, mantled in Elysian reverie,
She bore me up the mount, and at her side,
I woke, o'ershadowed by an olive tree;
There was I stationed thenceforth to abide,
Till time from earth should set my spirit free;
And so, amid the rocks, by foot untrod,
I learn'd to live with nature, and to God.

XVIII.

"'My home was Pelegrino's rocky cell;
The berries of the mountain were my food;
My drink was water from its bubbling well;
My only friends the wild birds of the wood;
Yet found I there a peace, which may not dwell
With man below, except in solitude,
When life's one purpose is to fast and pray;
And with my knees I wore the rock away.

XIX.

"'Celestial minds, believe me, for the woes
Of mortal life have sympathy, and I
To hush Palermo's wailings to repose,
Now bring thee down a message from on high;
Hearken to what I bid thee—and the rose
Of health again shall bloom, the plague shall fly:—
For it is granted me, by Heavenly grace,
To be the guardian of my native place.

XX.

"'Girt with that holy faith which falters not,
Go thou with morning, and, from out the stones,
Which strew the floors of Pelegrino's Grot,
Gather together my unburied bones—
For since my own, a human voice hath not
Broken its calm with penitential moans—
Bear them, with anthems to the Prince of Peace,
Thrice round the city, and the plague shall cease.

XXI.

"'And then shall pass away the brooding gloom,
Which hid the very face of heaven from view;
Nature once more her course shall reassume,
The fields their verdure, and the sky its blue;
And Faith shall sit upon the sealed-up tomb;
And Time o'er Sorrow shed her healing dew;
And Hope present, in better worlds restored,
The loved—the quickly lost—and long deplored.'

XXII.

"With downcast earnestness my listening ear
Drank in the sounds celestial; as they ceased
I raised mine eyes, in reverential fear,
To gaze upon the Heavenly guest, well pleased;
But she had vanish'd, and the darkness drear
From her abstracted lustre had increased;
And on my couch, within my cell of stone,'
Awe-struck I knelt, in darkness and alone!"

XXIII.

Silently, breathlessly, around him stood,
Like men escaped from some tremendous doom
By miracle, the innumerous multitude;
Mid-day had broken upon midnight's gloom;
While, as Despair departed with her brood
Accursed, came Hope each pale face to illume;
And, as the abbot ceased, a long loud shout,
Like thunder, rang Palermo's bounds throughout.

XXIV.

Again, and yet again, that sea of sound
Surged up to heaven, and then the joyous crowd,
With leap, and lock'd embrace, and sudden bound,
Each other hail'd, in gratulation proud;
While some in speechless ecstasy were drown'd,
Others, o'ercome by feeling, wept aloud;
But onward to the mountain, as behoved,
All in one wild delirious tumult moved.

XXV.

Up Pelegrino's rocky sides they clomb,
The old man in the midst, and there, on high,
They found the fair Saint's dwelling-place and tomb—
A yawning cleft that faced the eastern sky;
Entering, 'twas mantled all in twilight gloom;
Which clearing up, 'twas rapture to descry
Upon its floor, amid the rugged stones,
The treasure which they sought for—mouldering bones—

XXVI.

The mouldering bones of sainted Rosalie,
Which there, unnoticed and unknown, had lain,
While spring, through centuries five, had green'd the tree,
And autumn burden'd earth with golden grain;
As they were borne to light, each bent the knee,
Then downwards follow'd to the dim-seen plain
In reverential silence—for the time
Was solemn, and gave birth to thoughts sublime.

XXVII.

Thus, from her trance of darkness, into day
Palermo broke; the bells from every tower
Peal'd joyously; and bands, with streamers gay,
Assembling, waited anxiously the hour
Which was to chase the pestilence away,
And from its dreaded and destructive power
Release a suffering city, and restore
To vacant homes the household gods once more.

XXVIII.

Then, as the vision bade, with chanted hymn,
Thrice round the city march'd they on that morn,
With censers in the daylight burning dim,
And the loud sound of timbrel, harp, and horn;
All eyes were on the abbot, for by him
The relics in a silver urn were borne;
Behind him paced the vestals, vow'd to God,
And freres with robes of white, and feet unshod.

XXIX.

Meanwhile the vapours, dense and stern, away
From the blue concave of the sky withdrew;
Burst forth in radiant loveliness the day,
And stirring all the leaves the light winds blew;
Gamboll'd the flocks; the wild birds caroll'd gay;
Almost it seem'd that nature breathed anew,
And had thrown off the spell, which made her seem
As if bewitch'd by some night-mareish dream.

XXX.

Again the tide of life went rolling on,
And mingling tongues were heard, and hurrying feet;
The clocks again gave out a cheerful tone;
Back to the empty harbours came the fleet;
With corn the long-deserted fields were sown;
And traffic swept the grass from off the street;
Joy re-illumin'd ocean, and its shore;
And man met man in brotherhood once more.

XXXI.

In season due, by grateful hands uprear'd,
On Pelegrino's rugged cliffs a fane,
Rich in its architectural grace, appear'd,
Over the grotto, where so long had lain
The bones of Rosalie—her name revered
May find in Sicily no like again,
For ever to shine forth the brightest star
In her peculiar Calendar by far.

XXXII.

And yearly on that day, when from the powers
Of pestilence Palermo's walls were freed,
The people give to revelry the hours,
And kneel before her imaged form, and feed
The path of her triumphal car with flowers.
Such of a grateful nation is the meed,
Paid for the blasting of Plague's upas-tree,
And such its reverence for St Rosalie!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net