Sonnets

Beacon of Christian truth! across the years Thy flame undying glows in Faith's clear sight, As once the Holy Grail's effulgence bright Shone on the pure in heart, the Saints' compeers, Who knew no more life's bitterness and fears But dwelt thenceforth upon a nobler height, Rapt in the radiance of Redemption's light That still to the elect of God appears. Each Christmas sees, before thy ancient shrine, Its sacred thorn burst into glorious flower, Of Heaven's immortal life a constant sign, Shown to mankind in graciousness benign, To make eternal with enlightening power The revelation of a truth divine.

The medieval pomp and civic pride Which once made Pisa famous, long have lain Forgotten with her pageants brief and vain That flashed inconstant on the Arno's tide. But, toned to softened hues, her walls abide, Enclosing baptistery, tower, and fane Wherein yet swings the lamp with brazen chain That marked the pendulum's time-measured stride And though the centuries, in lengthening roll, Show ever fainter through perspective time The fame depicted in the mouldering scroll, They cannot dim the shining aureole Around Galileo's name. Each hourly chime Proclaims the law that swung the girandole.

The hushed repose of some fair temple's shade Falls on the pilgrim when he treads the ways Where first the world to Shakespeare's childish gaze Disclosed its wonders when his footsteps strayed; Where, fired with love, he roamed the forest glade, Storing clear memories for other days; And where, at last, acclaimed and crowned with bays, He dropped the lyre no other hand has played. Fame watches o'er the deathless poet's sleep, Her fanfares echoing still their wild applause, While sweet Melpomene and Thalia weep, For theirs no more the grandest flight that soars, But lower planes where smaller spirits sweep, Whose whispers sound like waves on distant shores.

Bright messenger of life renewed and love, Joy fills thy golden chalice to the brim, Fit symbol of the sacred seraphim Who with their blazing phalanx headlong drove The Star of Morning from his seat above, Scattering celestial sparks through voidness dim, To fall upon our planet's curving rim And bloom as thy fair flowers in mead and grove. As victory's anthem stirred the heavenly choir, Awaking rapture in triumphant praise, So thou in spring dost mortal souls inspire With new-born hope and consecrated fire, Reflected glory from ethereal rays, To make divine the human heart's desire.

Road of the dead! whose stately avenue Of ruined tombs reveals the glorious past, When proud patrician chariots rolling fast And litters borne by slaves of ebon hue Breasted the throng that ever thicker grew And onward hurried where the portal vast Showed praetor, tribune and plebeian massed With traders from afar beyond the blue. Road of the dead! thy voices haunted me, Once as I lingered on a starlit night, Seeing thy restless ghosts in fantasy: And Peter paused again in act to flee: With downcast eyes and pale with sudden fright, Then whispered low: "Quo vadis Domine?"

The village chime drifts on the summer breeze, In softened cadence o'er expanses green, Across the river, winding slow between Broad fields of clover where marauding bees Lighten their toil with murmured harmonies, Whilst corn in rolling waves of verdant sheen Lends rhythmic movement to the rural scene And sighs responsive to the wind-stirred trees. The mingled voices, like a poet's rhyme, Link with their music pensiveness and joy: Yet each has meaning in its wayward time: The wind of freedom sings in every clime, The bee, that labour's sweetness cannot cloy, And life is measured by the warning chime.

Immortal beauty, touched by fire divine That glows as in thy pristine days, I see The white-robed priests and virgins joyfully Bearing their gifts of honey, flowers and wine, With sounding reed and timbrel, to thy shrine, Whilst thou, impassive, waitest the decree Of heaven, to speak with cold solemnity That which unfolds a deity's design. Gone are the gods and heroes of the past To shine in distant stars with pallid gleam, Subdued and faint beyond the darkness vast, Their power forgot, their glory overcast; Yet thou remainest in thy grace supreme And fadeless splendour that was ne'er surpassed.

To man primeval, the bright god of day Seemed lord of all things, and he bent the knee, To adoration moved unconsciously; And lo! the instinct which had made him pray, Showed him the mystic fire that latent lay Within the drying branches of the tree And brought the earth, in all its purity, The essence of the sun's benignant ray. Of Nature's elements the most refined, Free from pollution and corruption dire, Art thou, O strong and changeless spirit kind. Unfailing source of good, thou wast designed To be the first, man's reverence to inspire, And light the pathway of his groping mind.