Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,
gray shadows fall; Dying brothers, fighting demons,
drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening
winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In
its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon’s
lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued,
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and
faint and lacking food. Over weak and suffering
brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying
foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of
ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring
afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of
battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still
thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! 1847.
“This legend [to which my attention was called
by my friend Charles Sumner], is the subject of a
celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers
possesses the original sketch. The slave lies
on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look
on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy,
rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her
arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity
of her attitude and expression. The executioner
holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong
movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste
to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping
in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its
gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers’s
sketch, finer than in the picture.”—Mrs.
JAMESON’S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154.
The day is closing dark and cold,
With roaring blast and sleety showers;
And through the dusk the lilacs wear
The bloom of snow, instead of flowers.
I turn me from the gloom without,
To ponder o’er a tale of old;
A legend of the age of Faith,
By dreaming monk or abbess told.
On Tintoretto’s canvas lives
That fancy of a loving heart,
In graceful lines and shapes of power,
And hues immortal as his art.
In Provence (so the story runs)
There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,
A peasant-boy of tender years
The chance of trade or conquest gave.
Forth-looking from the castle tower,
Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good St. Mark.
And there, when bitter word or fare
The service of the youth repaid,
By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.
The steed stamped at the castle gate,
The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and words so ill?
“Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
By scath of fire and strain of cord,
How ill they speed who give dead saints
The homage due their living lord!”
