Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich / [by Thomas Bailey Aldrich] [electronic text]

I.

LOOKING at Fra Gervasio, Wrinkled and withered and old and gray, A dry Franciscan from crown to toe, You would never imagine, by any chance, That, in the convent garden one day, He spun this thread of golden romance.

Romance to me, but to him, indeed, 'T was a matter that did not hold a doubt; A miracle, nothing more nor less. Did I think it strange that, in our need, Leaning from Heaven to our distress, The Virgin brought such things about— Gave mute things speech, made dead things move?— Mother of Mercy, Lady of Love! Besides, I might, if I wished, behold The Bambino's self in his cloth of gold And silver tissue, lying in state In the Sacristy. Would the signor wait?

Whoever will go to Rome may see, In the chapel of the Sacristy Of Ara-Cœli, the Sainted Child— Garnished from throat to foot with rings And brooches and precious offerings,

And its little nose kissed quite away By dying lips. At Epiphany, If the holy winter day prove mild, It is shown to the wondering, gaping crowd On the church's steps—held high aloft— While every sinful head is bowed, And the music plays, and the censers' soft White breath ascends like silent prayer.

Many a beggar kneeling there, Tattered and hungry, without a home, Would not envy the Pope of Rome, If he, the beggar, had half the care Bestowed on him that falls to the share Of yonder Image—for you must know It has its minions to come and go, Its perfumed chamber, remote and still, Its silken couch, and its jewelled throne, And a special carriage of its own To take the air in, when it will; And though it may neither drink nor eat, By a nod to its ghostly seneschal It could have of the choicest wine and meat. Often some princess, brown and tall, Comes, and unclasping from her arm The glittering bracelet, leaves it, warm With her throbbing pulse, at the Baby's feet. Ah, he is loved by high and low, Adored alike by simple and wise. The people kneel to him in the street.

What a felicitous lot is his— To lie in the light of ladies' eyes, Petted and pampered, and never to know The want of a dozen soldi or so! And what does he do for all of this? What does the little Bambino do? It cures the sick, and, in fact, 't is said Can almost bring life back to the dead. Who doubts it? Not Fra Gervasio. When one falls ill, it is left alone For a while with one— and the fever's gone!

At least, 't was once so; but to-day It is never permitted, unattended By monk or priest, to work its lure At sick folks' beds—all that was ended By one poor soul whose feeble clay Satan tempted and made secure.

It was touching this very point the friar Told me the legend, that afternoon, In the cloisteral garden all on fire With scarlet poppies and golden stalks. Here and there on the sunny walks, Startled by some slight sound we made, A lizard, awaking from its swoon, Shot like an arrow into the shade. I can hear the fountain's languorous tune, (How it comes back, that hour in June When just to exist was joy enough!)

I can see the olives, silvery-gray, The carven masonry rich with stains, The gothic windows with lead-set panes, The flag-paved cortile, the convent grates, And Fra Gervasio holding his snuff In a squirrel-like meditative way 'Twixt finger and thumb. But the Legend waits.