With song which alway, sublime or vapid,

Flowed like a rill in the morning beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid — A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,

Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.

Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,

Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
With spirit shipwrecked, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove.

Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,

And some whose hands should have wrought for him (If children live not for sires and mothers), His mind grew dim.

And he fell far through that pit abysmal,—

The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, — And pawned his soul for the devil's dismal Stock of returns.

But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,

And shapes and signs of the final wrath, When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, Stood on his path.

And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,

And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
That no ray lights.

And lives he still, then? Yes: old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives, enduring what future story

Will never know.

Him grant a grave too, ye pitying noble,

Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell! He too had tears for all souls in trouble

Here and in hell.

ST. PATRICK'S HYMN BEFORE TARAH

A

T TARAH to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the holy Trinity:

Glory to him who reigneth in power,

The God of the elements, Father and Son

And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One, The ever-existing Divinity!

At Tarah to-day I call on the Lord,

On Christ, the omnipotent Word,
Who came to redeem from death and sin
Our fallen race;

And I put and I place

The virtue that lieth and liveth in
His incarnation lowly,

His baptism pure and holy,

His life of toil and tears and affliction,
His dolorous death-his crucifixion,

His burial, sacred and sad and lone,

His resurrection to life again,

His glorious ascension to Heaven's high throne, And, lastly, his future dread

And terrible coming to judge all men

Both the living and dead.

At Tarah to-day I put and I place

The virtue that dwells in the seraphim's love. And the virtue and grace

That are in the obedience

And unshaken allegiance

Of all the archangels and angels above,

And in the hope of the resurrection

To everlasting reward and election,

And in the prayers of the fathers of old,
And in the truths the prophets foretold,
And in the Apostles' manifold preachings,
And in the confessors' faith and teachings;
And in the purity ever dwelling

Within the immaculate Virgin's breast,
And in the actions bright and excelling

Of all good men, the just and the blest.

At Tarah to-day, in this fateful hour,
I place all heaven with its power,

And the sun with its brightness,

And the snow with its whiteness,

And fire with all the strength it hath,

And lightning with its rapid wrath,

And the winds with their swiftness along their path, And the sea with its deepness,

And the rocks with their steepness,

And the earth with its starkness,

All these I place,

By God's almighty help and grace, Between myself and the powers of darkness.

At Tarah to-day

May God be my stay!

May the strength of God now nerve me!
May the power of God preserve me!
May God the Almighty be near me!
May God the Almighty espy me!

May God the Almighty hear me!

May God give me eloquent speech!
May the arm of God protect me!
May the wisdom of God direct me!

May God give me power to teach and to preach!

May the shield of God defend me!
May the host of God attend me,
And ward me,

And guard me

Against the wiles of demons and devils,
Against the temptations of vices and evils,
Against the bad passions and wrathful will

Of the reckless mind and the wicked heart,-
Against every man who designs me ill,

Whether leagued with others or plotting apart!

In this hour of hours,

I place all those powers

Between myself and every foe

Who threaten my body and soul

With danger or dole,

To protect me against the evils that flow

From lying soothsayers' incantations,

From the gloomy laws of the Gentile nations,

From heresy's hateful innovations,

From idolatry's rites and invocations.

Be those my defenders,

My guards against every ban

And spell of smiths, and Druids, and women;
In fine, against every knowledge that renders
The light Heaven sends us dim in
The spirit and soul of man!

May Christ, I pray,

Protect me to-day

Against poison and fire,
Against drowning and wounding;
That so, in His grace abounding,
I may earn the preacher's hire!

Christ as a light

Illumine and guide me!

Christ as a shield o'ershadow and cover me!
Christ be under me!- Christ be over me!
Christ be beside me,

On left hand and right!

Christ be before me, behind me, about me;
Christ this day be within and without me!

Christ, the lowly and meek.

Christ the All-Powerful be

In the heart of each to whom I speak,
In the mouth of each who speaks to me!
In all who draw near me,

Or see me or hear me!

At Tarah to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the Holy Trinity!

Glory to Him who reigneth in power,
The God of the elements, Father and Son
And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,
The ever-existing Divinity!

Salvation dwells with the Lord,

With Christ, the omnipotent Word.
From generation to generation

Grant us, O Lord, thy grace and salvation!

ALESSANDRO MANZONI

(1785-1873)

BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN

LESSANDRO MANZONI was looked upon during his life as a man who had deserved well of Heaven. "He gazed," as one of his countrymen said, "at Fortune straight in the eyes, and Fortune smiled." And Manzoni might well have looked with clear eyes, for there was nothing in his heart-if a man's heart may be judged from his constant utterances that was base.

He lived in a time best suited to his genius and his temperament. And his genius and his time made an epoch in Italian history worthy of most serious study. In 1815 Italy was inarticulate; she had to speak by signs. She dared only dream of a future which she read in a glorious past. The Austrians ruled the present, the future was veiled, the past was real and golden. Manzoni, Pellico, and Grossi were romanticists because they were filled with aspiration; and their aspiration, clothing itself in the form which Goethe's 'Götz' and Sir Walter Scott's 'Marmion' had given to the world, tried to obliterate the present and find relief at the foot of the cross in the shadow of old Gothic cathedrals. The Comte de Mun, Vicomte de Vogüe, Sienkiewicz, and others of the modern neo-Catholic school, represent reaction rather than aspiration. Manzoni, Châteaubriand, Montalembert, Overbeck in art, Lamartine and Lamennais, were not only fiercely reactionary, but fiercely sentimental, hopeful, and romantic.

ALESSANDRO MANZONI

With Austrian bayonets at the throat of Italy, it was not easy to emit loud war-cries for liberty. The desire of the people must therefore be heard through the voice of the poet. And the desire of the Italians is manifest in the poetry and the prose of the author of 'The Betrothed' (I Promessi Sposi), and the 'Sacred Hymns.' Only two reproaches were made against Manzoni: he was praised by Goethe,- which, says a sneer turned proverb," as Mr. Howells puts it, "is a brevet of mediocrity," and he was not persecuted. "Goethe,"