RELIGION’S purest presence was not found,

By the first followers of our Saviour’s creed,

In stately fanes where trump and timbrel sound

Sent up the chorus in a strain agreed,

And where the decked oblation’s wail might plead

For guilty man with Abraham’s holy seed.

Not in vast domes,—horizons hung by men,

Where golden panels fret a marble sky,

And things below look up, and wonder when

Those lifelike seraphim would start and fly!

Not where the heart is mastered by the eye

Will worship, anthem-winged, ascend most high.

But in the damp cathedral of the grove,

Where nature feels the sanctitude of rest,

Or in the stillness of the sheltered cove

Which noiseless waterfowl alone molest,

At times a reverence will pervade the breast

Which will not always come, a bidden guest.

Oft as the parting smiles of day and night

Flush earth and ocean with a roseate hue,

And the quick changes of the magic light

Prolong the glory of their warm adieu,

Each pilgrim on the hills, and every crew

On the lulled waters, frame their vows anew.

Then by the waves that lip Liguria’s land,

In Genoa’s gulf, thou, wanderer! must have heard

What, more than hymns from Pergolesi’s hand,

The living soul of adoration stirred,—

And, like the note of Spring’s first-welcomed bird,

Some thoughts awake for which there is no word.

The shipman’s chant! as noting travellers tell,

In either language—old and new—the same;

But more they might have truly said, and well,

For ’t is a speech the universe may claim;

Men of all times, all climes, and every name,

Devotion’s tongue! which from the Godhead came.

Tost rudderless around the deep

By Apennine and Alpine blast,

Which o’er the surge in fury sweep,

And make a bulrush of our mast,

We murmur in our half-hour’s sleep

To thee, Madonna! till the storm be past,

In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

Whether for weeks our bark hath striven

With death in wild Sardinia’s waves,

Or downward far as Tunis driven,

Threat us with life,—the life of slaves;

We know whose hand its help has given,

And locked the lightning in its thunder caves.

In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

O Virgin! when the landsman’s hymn,

At vesper time, on bended knee,

In sunlit aisle, or chapel dim,

Or cloister cell, is paid to thee,

Hear us that ocean’s pavement skim,

And join our anthem to the raging sea:

In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.

And when the tempest’s wrath is o’er,

And tired Libeccio sinks to rest,

And starlight falls upon the shore

Where love sits watching, uncaressed,

Though hushed the tumult and the roar,

Again the prayer we ’ll chant which thou hast blest:

In mare irato, in subita procella,

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.