Saint Romualdo

I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen painsBy austere penance and continuous toil,Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peaceWhich passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,Though the beginning is yesterday,And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that--A favored life, though outwardly the buttOf ignominy, malice, and affront,Yet lighted from within by the clear starOf a high aim, and graciously prolongedTo see at last its utmost goal attained.I speak not of mine Order and my House,Here founded by my hands and filled with saints--A white society of snowy souls,Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;For this is but the natural harvest reapedFrom labors such as mine when blessed by God.Though I rejoice to think my spirit stillWill work my purposes, through worthy hands,After my bones are shriveled into dust,Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruitOf holy satisfaction, sure and real,Though subtler than the tissue of the air--The power completely to detach the soulFrom her companion through this life, the flesh;So that in blessed privacy of peace,Communing with high angels, she can hold,Serenely rapt, her solitary course.

Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borneOf discipline and scourge; the twisted lashOf knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs;Vigils and fasts protracted, till my fleshWasted and crumbled from mine aching bones,And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores,Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung;Exposure to the fever and the frost,When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurkedFrom persecution of misguided folk,Accustoming my spirit to ignoreThe burden of the cross, while picturingThe bliss of disembodied souls, the graceOf holiness, the lives of sainted men,And entertaining all exalted thoughts,That nowise touched the trouble of the hour,Until the grief and pain seemed far less realThan the creations of my brain inspired.The vision, the beatitude, were true:The agony was but an evil dream.I speak not now as one who hath not learnedThe purport of those lightly-bandied words,Evil and Fate, but rather one who knowsThe thunders of the terrors of the world.No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock,Can move or reach my soul, securely thronedOn heights of contemplation and calm prayer,Happy, serene, no less actual joyOf present peace than faith in joys to come.

This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the treesStand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky!How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine,Taking and giving radiance, and the slopesAre purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light!Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyesFind the same sense of exquisite delight,My heart vibrates to the same touch of joyIn scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high,And youth coursed through my veins! This the one linkThat binds the wan old man that now I amTo the wild lad who followed up the houndsAmong Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea.For there how oft would I lose all delightIn the pursuit, the triumph, or the game,To stray alone among the shadowy glades,And gaze, as one who is not satisfiedWith gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea,The forest glooms, and shifting gleams betweenThe fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees,On gold-green turf, sweet-brier, and wild pink rose!How rich that buoyant air with changing scentOf pungent pine, fresh flowers, and salt cool seas!And when all echoes of the chase had died,Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds,How mine ears drank the ripple of the tideOn the fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds,The rustling of the tangled undergrowth,And the deep lyric murmur of the pines,When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze!There was my world, there would my heart dilate,And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayerUnto that Spirit of Love whose energiesWere active round me, yet whose presence, spheredIn the unsearchable, unbodied air,Made itself felt, but reigned invisible.This ere the day that made me what I am.Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the seaIllimitably sparkling, as they showedThat morning. Though I deemed I took no noteOf heaven or earth or waters, yet my mindRetains to-day the vivid portraitureOf every line and feature of the scene.Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I faredUnto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caughtBetween the slim boles, when I heard the clinkOf naked weapons, then a sudden thrustSickening to hear, and then a stifled groan;And pressing forward I beheld the sightThat seared itself for ever on my brain--My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf,Fallen upon his side, his bright young headAmong the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed closeUnto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutchedA handful of loose weeds and grass and earth,Uprooted in his anguish as he fell,And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed,Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet faceGhastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyesStaring in blankness on that other oneWho triumphed over him. With hot desireOf instant vengeance I unsheathed my swordTo rush upon the slayer, when he turnedIn his first terror of blood-guiltiness.

Within my heart a something snapped and brake.What was it but the chord of rapturous joyFor ever stilled? I tottered and would fall,Had I not leaned against the friendly pine;For all realities of life, unmooredFrom their firm anchorage, appeared to floatLike hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain.The strange delusion wrought upon my soulThat this had been enacted ages since.This very horror curdled at my heart,This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens,Were closing over me when I had stood,Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted HIM,My father; and he felt mine eyes as now,Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form,The one thing real, lay stretched between us both.The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strongTo grasp the truth. Then I remembered all--A few fierce words between them yester eveConcerning some poor plot of pasturage,Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:This was the end. I could not meet him now,To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,And draw him from the red entanglementCoiled by his own hands round his ruined life.God pardon me! My heart that moment heldNo drop of pity toward this wretched soul;And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,I fled amidst the savage silencesOf that grim wood, resolved to nurse aloneMy boundless desolation, shame, and grief.

There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon,The quiet of the still, suspended air,Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged,Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayedA solemn prayer, conceived in agony,Blessed with response instant, miraculous;For in that hour my spirit was at oneWith Him who knows and satisfies her needs.The supplication and the blessing sprangFrom the same source, inspired divinely both.I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth,And these like heavenly manna were rained downTo feed my hungered soul. His guilt was mine.What angel had been sent to stay mine armUntil the fateful moment passed awayThat would have ushered an eternityOf withering remorse? I found the germsIn mine own heart of every human sin,That waited but occasion's tempting breathTo overgrow with poisoned bloom my life.What God thus far had saved me from myself?Here was the lofty truth revealed, that eachMust feel himself in all, must know where'erThe great soul acts or suffers or enjoys,His proper soul in kinship there is bound.Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind,Encouraging as morning. As I lay,Crushed by the weight of universal love,Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself,I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell.I knew it--whence it came and what it sang.From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed,And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer,Clean lives, white days of strict austerity:Such were the offerings of these holy saints.How far might such not tend to expiateA riotous world's indulgence? Here my life,Doubly austere and doubly sanctified,Might even for that other one atone,So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven.

They sheltered me, not questioning the needThat led me to their cloistered solitude.How rich, how freighted with pure influence,With dear security of perfect peace,Was the first day I passed within those walls!The holy habit of perpetual prayer,The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech,The chastening discipline, the atmosphereOf settled and profound tranquillity,Were even as living waters unto oneWho perisheth of thirst. Was this the worldThat yesterday seemed one huge battlefieldFor brutish passions? Could the soul of manWithdraw so easily, and erect apartHer own fair temple for her own high ends?But this serene contentment slowly wanedAs I discerned the broad disparityBetwixt the form and spirit of the lawsThat bound the order in strait brotherhood.Yet when I sought to gain a larger love,More rigid discipline, severer truth,And more complete surrender of the soulUnto her God, this was to my reproach,And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides.In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,I held aloof from all my brethren's feastsTo wrestle with my viewless enemies,Till they should leave their blessing on my head;For nightly was I haunted by that face,White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns,Now staring out of darkness, and it heldMine eyes from slumber and my brain from restAnd drove me from my straw to weep and pray.Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wroughtUpon my spirit that I lay day-longIn dumb despair, until the blessed hopeOf mercy dawned again upon my soul,As gradual as the slow gold moon that mountsThe airy steps of heaven. My faith aroseWith sure perception that disaster, wrong,And every shadow of man's destinyAre merely circumstance, and cannot touchThe soul's fine essence: they exist or dieOnly as she affirms them or denies.

This faith sustain me even to the end:It floods my heart with peace as surely nowAs on that day the friars drove me forth,Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,Endured through pride, would bring into reproachTheir customs and their order. Then beganMy exile in the mountains, where I bodeA hunted man. The elements conspiredAgainst me, and I was the seasons' sport,Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains,And buffeted by all the winds of heaven.Yet was this period my time of joy:My daily thoughts perpetual converse heldWith angels ministrant; mine ears were charmedWith sweet accordance of celestial sounds,Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air.And visions were revealed unto mine eyesBy night and day of Heaven's very courts,In shadowless, undimmed magnificence.I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air--For had I perished, this too had been well--But for the revelation of His truth,The glory, the beatitude vouchsafedTo exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;So that the pinched, lean excommunicateWas crowned with joy more solid, more secure,Than all the comfort of the vales could bring.Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,Timid and few at first; but as they heardFrom mine own lips the precious oracles,That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeasedTheir spiritual hunger, and disclosedAll of the God within them to themselves,They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,And sware to follow and to serve the goodWhich my word published and my life declared.Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-topDescended leader of a band of saints,And midway 'twixt the summit and the valeI perched my convent. Yet I bated notOne whit of strict restraint and abstinence.And they who love me and who serve the truthHave learned to suffer with me, and have wonThe supreme joy that is not of the flesh,Foretasting the delights of Paradise.This faith, to them imparted, will endureAfter my tongue hath ceased to utter it,And the great peace hath settled on my soul.