The world forsaken, all its busy cares And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight, All trust abandoned in the healing might Of virtuous action; all that courage dares, Labour accomplishes, or patience bears-- 5 Those helps rejected, they, whose minds perceive How subtly works man’s weakness, sighs may heave For such a One beset with cloistral snares. Father of Mercy! rectify his view, If with his vows this object ill agree; 10 Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue[142] Imperious passion in a heart set free:-- That earthly love may to herself be true, Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee. [142] 1845. … and so subdue 1842. XVII AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI What aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size[143] Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate, By panting steers up to this convent gate? How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered eyes, Dare they confront the lean austerities 5 Of Brethren, who, here fixed, on Jesu wait In sackcloth, and God’s anger deprecate Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies? Strange contrast!--verily the world of dreams, Where mingle, as for mockery combined, 10 Things in their very essences at strife, Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind, Meet on the solid ground of waking life.[144] [143] In justice to the Benedictines of Camaldoli, by whom strangers are so hospitably entertained, I feel obliged to notice, that I saw among them no other figures at all resembling, in size and complexion, the two Monks described in this Sonnet. What was their office, or the motive which brought them to this place of mortification, which they could not have approached without being carried in this or some other way, a feeling of delicacy prevented me from inquiring. An account has before been given of the hermitage they were about to enter. It was visited by us towards the end of the month of May; yet snow was lying thick under the pine-trees, within a few yards of the gate.--W.W. 1842. [144] See note, pp. 72, 73.--ED. XVIII AT VALLOMBROSA[145]