Ave Maria! on a thousand thrones Raised by the weary hearts that beat to thee, As 'neath the softer light the throbbing sea, Thy name a spell of peace, in lingering tones Is whispered through the world: thy truth condones The feebler faith of worshippers that flee, Lost in the sovereign awe, to bend the knee By pictured holiness or breathing stones. Mother of Christ! whom ages old adorn, And hundred climes, by gentle thought and deed, Forgive the sacrilege, the brandished scorn Of the grim guardians of a narrow creed, Who fence their folds from Love's serener law, And "grate on scrannel pipes of wretched straw."--ED. [176] This sonnet was published in _Time's Telescope_, July 2, 1823, p. 136.--ED. XXVI APOLOGY Not utterly unworthy to endure Was the supremacy of crafty Rome;[177] Age after age to the arch of Christendom Aërial keystone haughtily secure; Supremacy from Heaven transmitted pure, 5 As many hold; and, therefore, to the tomb Pass, some through fire--and by the scaffold some-- Like saintly Fisher,[178] and unbending More.[179] "Lightly for both the bosom's lord did sit Upon his throne;"[180] unsoftened, undismayed 10 By aught that mingled with the tragic scene Of pity or fear; and More's gay genius played With the inoffensive sword of native wit, Than the bare axe more luminous and keen. FOOTNOTES: [177] "To the second part of the same series" (the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets") "I have added two, in order to do more justice to the Papal Church for the services which she did actually render to Christianity and Humanity in the Middle Ages."--W. W. (in a letter to Professor Reed, Sept. 4, 1842).--ED. [178] John Fisher, born in 1469, became Bishop of Rochester in 1504, was one of the first in England to write against Luther, opposed the divorce of Henry VIII., was sent to the Tower in 1534, and his see declared void, was made a Cardinal by the Pope while in prison, and beheaded on Tower Hill, 1535.--ED. [179] Sir Thomas More, the author of _Utopia_, born in 1478, was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, and succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor in 1529. Disapproving of the king's divorce, he resigned office, was committed to the Tower for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, found guilty of treason, and beheaded in 1535.--ED. [180] See _Romeo and Juliet_, act V. scene i. l. 3-- My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne.--ED. XXVII IMAGINATIVE REGRETS