They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor, The lilies of their garden--head by head, The older with the newer-- Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses. And now the garden of their home uncloses To cover into secrecy the dead: Deep hidden by the roses they had watered, Lying together sanctified and slaughtered, Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread. . . . . Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid, Unclean, tormented, and that do not cease Their rending cries for aid, The son of him who slew the saints, by daytime Wandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime, Is cured of his distraction and at peace: Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden, Of which his well-belovèd is the warden, Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made. IN MONTE FANNO Sylvester by an open tomb Beheld Time’s vanity and doom-- A lovely body, as a flower, Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower. Sylvester meditated, thought His days to solitude were brought. Sight of a corpse within its grave!... To be an eremite alone were brave. Sylvester is a monk: and men Grow frequent round his holy den: Thence to a mount he leads them out, Called _Fannus_ ... through the wood they hear a shout. Sylvester builds his cloister.--Hush! Across the doorstep comes a rush, And all the monks faint with a lure That those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure. Sylvester calls into the dark-- There is a breath of those that hark-- “Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!” Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease. Sylvester in the woods, as still Even as the grave that bowed his will, When he became at first a monk, Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk. Sylvester conquers by his name: King Fannus and all Fauns lie tame Beneath it, and the wild-wood Cross, That he hath planted deep into the moss. Sylvester and his monks are clear From any advent warm and drear Through any door: but sometimes he Looks with slant eyes through piles of leafery. MACRINUS AGAINST TREES “How bare! How all the lion-desert lies Before your cell! Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyes Could, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock, That turn to the soft mass from barren rock, Familiarly dwell.” “O Traveller, for me the empty sands Burning to white! There nothing on the wilderness withstands The soul or prayer. I would not look on trees; My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze, And buried as by night.