Oh that thy creed were sound! 1
For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of
Rome,
By thy unwearied watch and varied round
Of service, in thy Saviour’s holy home.
I cannot walk the city’s sultry streets,
But the wide porch invites to still retreats,
Where passion’s thirst is calm’d, and care’s un-
thankful gloom.
There, on a foreign shore,
The home-sick solitary finds a friend:
Thoughts, prison’d long for lack of speech, out-
pour
Their tears; and doubts in resignation end.
I almost fainted from the long delay
That tangles me within this languid bay,
When comes a foe, my wounds with oil and
wine to tend.
Palermo. June 13, 1833.
Footnotes
-
Of course this is the exclamation of one who,
when so writing, was not in Catholic Communion.
The same must said also of Nos. lxvi, lxxviii. ↩