Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Monte Cassino

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads        &nbsp Unheard the Garigliano glides along;— The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,        &nbsp The river taciturn of classic song. The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,        &nbsp Where mediaeval towns are white on all The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest        &nbsp Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall. There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface        &nbsp Was dragged with contumely from his throne; Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace        &nbsp The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own? There is Ceprano, where a renegade        &nbsp Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith, When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed        &nbsp Spurred on to Benevento and to death. There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,        &nbsp Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown        &nbsp Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night. Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets        &nbsp The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played, And dreamed perhaps the dreams, that he repeats        &nbsp In ponderous folios for scholastics made. And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud        &nbsp That pauses on a mountain summit high, Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud        &nbsp And venerable walls against the sky. Well I remember how on foot I climbed        &nbsp The stony pathway leading to its gate; Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed,        &nbsp Below, the darkening town grew desolate. Well I remember the low arch and dark,        &nbsp The court-yard with its well, the terrace wide, From which, far down, the valley like a park        &nbsp Veiled in the evening mists, was dim descried. The day was dying, and with feeble hands        &nbsp Caressed the mountain-tops; the vales between Darkened; the river in the meadowlands        &nbsp Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not seen. The silence of the place was like a sleep,        &nbsp So full of rest it seemed; each passing tread Was a reverberation from the deep        &nbsp Recesses of the ages that are dead. For, more than thirteen centuries ago,        &nbsp Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome, A youth disgusted with its vice and woe,        &nbsp Sought in these mountain solitudes a home. He founded here his Convent and his Rule        &nbsp Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer; The pen became a clarion, and his school        &nbsp Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air. What though Boccaccio, in his reckless way,        &nbsp Mocking the lazy brotherhood, deplores The illuminated manuscripts, that lay        &nbsp Torn and neglected on the dusty floors? Boccaccio was a novelist, a child        &nbsp Of fancy and of fiction at the best! This the urbane librarian said, and smiled        &nbsp Incredulous, as at some idle jest. Upon such themes as these, with one young friar        &nbsp I sat conversing late into the night, Till in its cavernous chimney the woodfire        &nbsp Had burnt its heart out like an anchorite. And then translated, in my convent cell,        &nbsp Myself yet not myself, in dreams I lay, And, as a monk who hears the matin bell,        &nbsp Started from sleep; already it was day. From the high window I beheld the scene        &nbsp On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed,— The mountains and the valley in the sheen        &nbsp Of the bright sun,—and stood as one amazed. Gray mists were rolling, rising, vanishing;        &nbsp The woodlands glistened with their jewelled crowns; Far off the mellow bells began to ring        &nbsp For matins in the half-awakened towns. The conflict of the Present and the Past,        &nbsp The ideal and the actual in our life, As on a field of battle held me fast,        &nbsp Where this world and the next world were at strife. For, as the valley from its sleep awoke,        &nbsp I saw the iron horses of the steam Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke,        &nbsp And woke, as one awaketh from a dream.