Canto 14 (If Savonarola's zeal devout…)

If Savonarola's zeal devout But with the fagot's flame died out; If Leopardi, stoned by Grief, A young St. Stephen of the Doubt, Might merit well the martyr's leaf; In these if passion held her claim, Let Celio pass, of breed the same, Nor ask from him—not found in them— The Attic calm, or Saxon phlegm. Night glooming now in valley dead, The Italian turned, regained the gate, But found it closed, the warder fled, And strange hush of an Eastern town Where life retreats with set of sun. Before the riveted clamped wood Alone in outer dark he stood. A symbol is it? be it so: Harbor remains, I'll thither go. A point there is where Kedron's shore Narrowing, deepening, steepening more, Shrinks to an adamantine pass Flanked by three tombs, from base to head Hewn from the cliff in cubic mass, One quite cut off and islanded, And one presents in Petra row Pillars in hanging portico Or balcony, here looking down Vacantly on the vacant glen: A place how dead, hard by a town. 'Twas here that Celio made his den Where erst, as by tradition held, St. James from hunters lay concealed, Levites and bigots of the thong. Hour after hour slow dragged along. The glen's wall with night roundabout Blended as cloud with cloud-rack may. But lo—as when off Tamura The splash of north-lights on the sea Crimsons the bergs—so here start out Some crags aloft how vividly. Apace he won less narrow bound. From the high gate, behold, a stream

Of torches. Lava-like it wound Out from the city locked in dream, And red adown the valley flowed. Was it his friends the friars? from height Meet rescue bringing in that light To one benighted? Yes, they showed A file of monks. But—how? their wicks Invest a shrouded crucifix; And each with flambeau held in hand, Craped laymen mingle with the band Of cord-girt gowns. He looks again: Yes, 'tis the Terra Santa's train. Nearer they come. The warden goes, And other faces Celio knows. Upon an office these are bound Consolatory, which may stem The affliction, or relieve the wound Of those which mute accompany them In mourners' garb. Aside he shrunk Until had passed the rearmost monk; Then, cloaked, he followed them in glade Where fell the shadow deeper made. Kedron they cross. Much so might move—

If legend hold, which none may prove,— The remnant of the Twelve which bore Down thro' this glen in funeral plight The Mother of our Lord by night To sepulcher. Nay, just before Her tomb alleged, the monks and they Which mourn, pause and uplift a lay; Then rise, pass on, and bow the knee In dust beside Gethsemane. One named the Bitter Cup, and said: "Saviour, thou knowest: it was here The angels ministered, thy head Supported, kissed thy lidded eyes And pale swooned cheek till thou didst rise; Help these then, unto these come near!"

Out sobbed the mourners, and the tear From Celio trickled; but he mused— Weak am I, by a myth abused. Up Olivet the torch-light train Filed slowly, yielding tribute-strain At every sacred place they won; Nor tarried long, but journeyed on To Bethany—thro' stony lane Went down into the narrow house Or void cave named from Lazarus. The flambeaux redden the dark wall, Their shadows on that redness fall. To make the attestation rife, The resurrection and the life Through Him the lord of miracle The warden from the page doth bruit The story of the man that died And lived again—bound hand and foot With grave-clothes, rose—electrified; Whom then they loosed, let go; even he Whom many people came to see, The village hinds and farm-house maids, Afterward, at the supper given To Jesus in the balmy even, Who raised him vital from the shades. The lesson over, well they sang "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, Where is thy victory?" It rang, And ceased. And from the outward cave These tones were heard: "But died he twice? He comes not back from Paradise Or Hades now. A vacant tomb By Golgotha they show—a cell, A void cell here. And is it well? Raiser and raised divide one doom; Both vanished now." No thrills forewarn Of fish that leaps from midnight tarn; The very wave from which it springs

Is startled and recoils in rings. So here with Celio and the word Which from his own rash lips he heard. He, hastening forth now all unseen, Recrossed the mountain and ravine, Nor paused till on a mound he sate Biding St. Stephen's opening gate. Ere long in gently fanning flaws An odoriferous balmy air Foreruns the morning, then withdraws, Or—westward heralding—roves there. The startled East a tremor knows— Flushes—anon superb appears In state of housings, shawls and spears, Such as the Sultan's vanguard shows. Preceded thus, in pomp the sun August from Persia draweth on, Waited by groups upon the wall Of Judah's upland capital.