The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1875-02-05
1nMrE-cAMIN0,


s s., -e-----~---. MONTE CASINO. - - -
B..n,i,th6i yal1ey. through whose verdant neads
Unheard the Gariglfan0 Glides along
The Idris, nurse OF PUSHES Efld reeds, -"
The river taciturn Of classic song! -.
The Land Of Labor, and the Land Of Rest, +:
Where medieval towns are white on all
The hill-sides, and where every mountain
Isan Etrurian or Roman wall -: 81,
There ia Alagna, where Pope Bonifaee 49,,
Was dragged with eontumely from his
sci.rrs Corr ona, was that days disgrace
The Pontid's only, or in part thine owni
Their, is Ceprano, Where renegade,
Was each Apullun, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred, by his men-at-arms betrayed,
spurred on 70 Benevento and to death
There is Aqauinlumn, the old volscian town
Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light
Still hovers DER his birthplace like the crown
Ofsplend0r over cities seen at night.
Doobled the splendor is, that,in its streets q
The Angelic Doctor as school.boy played,
And dreamed perhaps the dreams that lie re-
In ponderous folios for scholastics made.
And there, uplifted like passing cloud
That pallses on q mountain summit high,
Monte Casinos convent rears its proud
And venerable walls against the sky.
Well remember how on foot climbed
The stony pathway leading to its gate;
Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed;
Below, the darkening town grew desolate.
WI, 7 ~,.,,.,,h.. 4Lo lo,., .rch ov1 dorlr
The courtyard with its well, the terrace
From which, fur down, diminished to a park,
The valley yelled in mist was dim deserted.
The day was dying, and with feeble hands
Caressed the mountain-tops; the wales be-
tween
Darkened; the river in the meadow-land
Sheathed itself as sword and was not seen.
The silence Of the place was like sleep,
So full Of rest it seemed; each passing word
Was reverberation from the deep
Recess Of the ages that are dead.
For more than thirteen centuries ago -.
Benedict, fleeing from the gates OF Rome,
youth disguised with its vice and woe,
Sought III these mountain solitudes home.
He founded here his Convent and his Rule
OF prayer and work, and counted work as
prayer.
His pen became clarion, and his school
Flames like beacon in the midnight air.
What though Boccaccio, in his reckless way
Mocking the lazy brotherhood, dcplores
The Illuminated manuscripts that lay
Torn and neglected on the dusty floersH
Boccaccio was novelist, child
OF fancy and Of fiction at the best;
This the urbane librarian said, and smiled
1ncredulous, as at some idle jest.
Upon such themes as these with one young
friar
l sal conversing late into the night,
Till in its cavernous chimney the wood fire
Had bur mt its heart out like an anchorite.
And then translated, in my convent cell,
Myself yet not myself, in dreams lay;
And, a. monk who hears the matin bill,
Started from Sleep already it was day
From the high window beheld the scene,
On which Saint Benedict so oft hsd gazed {;
The mountains and the valley in the sheen
OF the bright sun, and stood as one amazed.
Gray mists were rolling, rising, vanishing;
The woodlands glistened with their jeweled
Far of the mellow bells began to ring
For mathis in the half-awakened towns.
The conflict of che Present and the Past,
The ideal and the actual in our life,
As on . field of battle held me fast,
Where this world and the next wsrld were
ut strife.
or, a. tho valley from its sleep awoke,
saw the iron horses of the steam
Toss to the morning air their plumes Of smoke,
And woke as one awaketh from dream.
Henry W: Longfrllo,o in the Atlantic for
February!