Into the fold where drink and sleep
The jolly old friars of Benevent.
Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh
To see these beggars hobble along,
Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff,
Chanting their wonderful piff and paff,
And, to make up for not understanding
the song,

Singing it fiercely, and wild, and strong! Were it not for my magic garters and staff, (13)

And the goblets of goodly wine I quaff, And the mischief I make in the idle throng,

should not continue the business long.

Pilgrims (chanting).

In hâc urbe, lux solennis, Ver æternum, pax perennis; In hâc odor implens cælos, In hâc semper festum melos! Prince Henry. Do you observe that monk among the train, Who pours from his great throat the

roaring bass,

As a cathedral spout pours out the rain, And this way turns his rubicund round face?

Elsie. It is the same who, on the

times speaks,

And lets the piteous tears run down its cheeks,

To touch the heart of the impenitent. Prince Henry. O, had I faith, as in the days gone by

That knew no doubt, and feared no mystery!

Lucifer (at a distance). Ho, Cuth, bert Friar Cuthbert! Friar Cuthbert. Farewell, Prince! I cannot stay to argue and convince. Prince Henry. This is indeed the blessed Mary's land, Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!

All hearts are touched and softened at her name;

Alike the bandit with the bloody hand, The priest, the prince, the scholar, and the peasant,

The man of deeds, the visionarydreamer, Pay homage to her as one ever present! And even as children, who have much offended

In all its vague immensity,
Fading and darkening in the distance!
Silent, majestical, and slow,
The white ships haunt it to and fro,
With all their ghostly sails unfurled,
As phantoms from another world
Haunt the dim confines of existence !
But ah! how few can comprehend
Their signals, or to what good end
From land to land they come and go!
Upon a sea more vast and dark
The spirits of the dead embark,
All voyaging to unknown coasts.
We wave our farewells from the shore,
And they depart and come no more,
Or come as phantoms and as ghosts.
Above the darksome sea of death
Looms the great life that is to be,

A land of cloud and mystery,
A dim mirage, with shapes of men
Long dead, and passed beyond our ken.
Awestruck we gaze, and hold our breath
Till the fair pageant vanisheth,
Leaving us in perplexity,

And doubtful whether it has been
A vision of the world unseen,
Or a bright image of our own
Against the sky in vapours thrown.
Lucifer (singing from the sea). Thou
didst not make it, thou canst
not mend it,

But thou hast the power to end it!
The sea is silent, the sea is discreet,
Deep it lies at thy very feet!

There is no confessor like unto Death!
Thou canst not see him, but he is near;
Thou needest not whisper above thy
breath,

And he will hear!

He will answer the questions,

The vague surmises and suggestions,
That fill thy soul with doubt and fear!
Prince Henry. The fisherman, who
lies afloat,

With shadowy sail, in yonder boat,
Is singing softly to the night!
But do I comprehend aright
The meaning of the words he sung
So sweetly in his native tongue?
Ah, yes! the sea is still and deep;
All things within its bosom sleep!
A single step and all is o'er;

A plunge, a bubble, and no more;
And thou, dear Elsie, wilt be free
From martyrdom and agony.

Elsie (coming from her chamber
upon the terrace). The night is
calm and cloudless,

And still as still can be,

And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea.

They gather, and gather, and gather,
Until they crowd the sky,
And listen in breathless silence,
To the solemn litany.
It begins in rocky caverns,
As a voice that chants alone
To the pedals of the organ
In monotonous undertone;
And anon from shelving beaches
And shallow sands beyond,
In snow-white robes uprising

The ghostly choirs respond.
And sadly and unceasing
The mournful voice sings on,
And the snow-white choirs still answer
Christe eleison!

Prince Henry. Angel of God! thy
finer sense perceives

Celestial and perpetual harmonies! Thy purer soul, that trembles and believes,

Hears the archangel's trumpet in the breeze,

And where the forest rolls, or ocean

heaves,

Cecilia's organ sounding in the seas, And tongues of prophets speaking in the leaves.

But I hear discord only and despair, And whispers as of demons in the air!

At Sea.

Il Padrone. The wind upon our quarter lies,

And on before the freshening gale,
That fills the snow-white lateen sail,
Swiftly our light felucca flies.

Around, the billows burst and foam;
They lift her o'er the sunken rock,
They beat her sides with many a shock,
And then upon their flowing dome
They poise her, like a weathercock!
Between us and the western skies
The hills of Corsica arise;
Eastward, in yonder long blue line,
The summits of the Apennine,
And southward, and still far away,
Salerno, on its sunny bay.
You cannot see it, where it lies.

Prince Henry. Ah, would that never

more mine eyes

Might see its towers by night or day! Elsie. Behind us, dark and awfully, There comes a cloud out of the sea, That bears the form of a hunted deer, With hide of brown, and hoofs of

black,

And antlers laid upon its back,
And fleeing fast and wild with fear,
As if the hounds were on its track!
Prince Henry. Lo! while we gaze,
it breaks and falls
In shapeless masses, like the walls
Of a burnt city. Broad and red
The fires of the descending sun

Glare through the windows, and o'er

head,

Athwart the vapours, dense and dun,
Long shafts of silvery light arise,
Like rafters that support the skies!
Elsie. See! from its summit the lurid
levin

Flashes downward without warning,
As Lucifer, son of the morning,
Fell from the battlements of heaven!
Il Padrone. I must entreat you,
friends, below!

The angry storm begins to blow,
For the weather changes with the

moon.

All this morning, until noon,

We had baffling winds, and sudden flaws

Struck the sea with their cat's-paws.
Only a little hour ago

I was whistling to Saint Antonio
For a capful of wind to fill our sail,
And instead of a breeze he has sent a
gale.

Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars,* With their glimmering lanterns, all at play

On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,

And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.

Cheerly, my hearties! yo heave ho!
Brail up the mainsail and let her go
As the winds will and Saint Antonio!

Do you see that Livornese felucca,
That vessel to the windward yonder,
Running with her gunwale under?
I was looking when the wind o'ertook
her.

She had all sail set, and the only wonder
Is, that at once the strength of the blast
Did not carry away her mast.
She is a galley of the Gran Duca,
That, through the fear of the Algerines,
Convoys those lazy brigantines,
Laden with wine and oil from Lucca.
Now all is ready, high and low;
Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio!

So the Italian sailors call the phosphorescent gleams that sometimes play about the masts and rigging of ships.

Erigena Johannes, who dares to maintain,

In the face of the truth, the error infernal,

That the universe is and must be eternal;

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,

That nothing with God can be acci, dental;

Then asserting that God before the creation

Could not have existed, because it is plain

That, had he existed, he would have created;

Which is begging the question that should be debated,

And moveth me less to anger than laughter.

All nature, he holds, is a respiration Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter,

Will inhale it into his bosom again, So that nothing but God alone will remain.

And therein he contradicteth himself; For he opens the whole discussion by stating,

That God can only exist in creating. That question I think I have laid on the shelf!

(He goes out. Two Doctors come in disputing, and followed by pupils.) Doctor Serafino. I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain,

That a word which is only conceived in the brain,

Is a type of eternal Generation; The spoken word is the Incarnation. Doctor Cherubino. What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic, With all his wordy chaffer and traffic? Doctor Serafino. You make but a paltry show of resistance; Universals have no real existence! Doctor Cherubino. Your words are but idle and empty chatter; Ideas are eternally joined to matter! Doctor Serafino. May the Lord have mercy on your position, You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!

Doctor Cherubino. May he send your soul to eternal perdition, For your Treatise on the Irregular Verbs!

(They rush out fighting. Two Scholars come in.)

First Scholar. Monte Cassino, then, is your College.

What think you of ours here at Salern? Second Scholar. To tell the truth, I

arrived so lately,

I hardly yet have had time to discern. So much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge,

The air seems healthy, the buildings stately,

And on the whole I like it greatly.

First Scholar. Yes, the air is sweet; the Calabrian hills

Send us down puffs of mountain air; And in summer-time the sea-breeze fills With its coolness cloister, and court, and square.

Then at every season of the year There are crowds of guests and travellers here;

Pilgrims, and mendicant friars, and traders

From the Levant, with figs and wine, And bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,

Coming back from Palestine.

Second Scholar. And what are the

studies you pursue? What is the course you here go through? First Scholar. The first three years of the college course

O yes!

Are given to logic alone, as the source
Of all that is noble, and wise, and true.
Second Scholar. That seems rather
strange, I must confess,
In a Medical School: yet, nevertheless,
You doubtless have reasons for that.
First Scholar.
For none but a clever dialectician
Can hope to become a great physician:
That has been settled long ago.
Logic makes an important part
Of the mystery of the healing art;
For without it how could you hope to

show

After this there are five years more
Devoted wholly to medicine,
With lectures on chirurgical lore,
And dissections of the bodies of swine,
As likest the human form divine.
Second Scholar. What are the books
now most in vogue?

First Scholar. Quite an extensive catalogue;

Mostly, however, books of our own:
As Gariopontus' Passionarius,
And the writings of Matthew Platearius;
And a volume universally known
As the Regimen of the School of Salern,
For Robert of Normandy written in

terse

And very elegant Latin verse.

Each of these writings has its turn. And when at length we have finished these,

Then comes the struggle for degrees,
With all the oldest and ablest critics;
The public thesis and disputation,
Question and answer, and explanation
Of a passage out of Hippocrates,
Or Aristotle's Analytics.

There the triumphant Magister stands!
A book is solemnly placed in his hands,
On which he swears to follow the rule
And ancient forms of the good old
School;

To report if any confectionarius
Mingles his drugs with matters various,
And to visit his patients twice a-day,
And once in the night, if they live in
town,

And if they are poor, to take no pay.
Having faithfully promised these,
His head is crowned with a laurel crown;
A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,
The Magister Artium et Physices
Goes forth from the school like a lord

of the land.

And now, as we have the whole morning before us,

Let us go in, if you make no objection, And listen awhile to a learned prelection On Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus.

(They go in. Enter LUCIFER as a doctor.)

Lucifer. This is the great School of Salern!

A land of wrangling and of quarrels,