Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840/The Shrine and Grotto of Santa Rosalia
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THE SHRINE OF SANTA ROSALIA, ON MONTE
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THE SHRINE AND GROTTO OF SANTA ROSALIA.
Tradition relates that the saint, who was niece of William the Good, disgusted with the manners of her uncle's court, at the early age of fifteen retired to a life of solitude and prayer, on the mountains near Palermo, and was not heard of after. The picturesque grotto, in which the bones of the saint were discovered, has, like the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, been enclosed within the walls of a church. The celebrated effigy of the saint is seen peeping through a rounded aperture; and in the inner and darker part of the gloomy cavern, stands her image. There is something so affecting in the attitude, beauty, and expression of the countenance, that it suggests an apology for its infatuated Palermitan worshippers, which can easily be understood by those who have seen Westmacott's "Houseless Wanderer."
Had she not birth—that gives its place
High honoured in the land?
Her seat at every festival
Was at the Queen's right hand.
Had she not wealth—the wanting which,
Rank is a painful show?
It is the spirit of red gold
That rules the world below.
Had she not beauty—last, best charm
To woman granted here?
Ah! Nature has no other gift
So infinite—so dear!
Yet has she turned away from life,
Alone, apart, to dwell,
Within a mountain-solitude,
Within a mountain-cell.
What feelings and what impulses
Then stirred the human soul,
That gave itself entire, apart,
To solitude's control!
Was it a world of fantasy
Wherein her being moved,
While only of imagined things
She feared, and hoped, and loved?
Did the pale stars that watch at night
Reveal their mystic lore,
And tell the secrets of those days
That earth will know no more?
Did the wild winds amid the pines
Seem as they brought the tone
Of holy and immortal songs
To angels only known?
Her's must have been a life of dreams,
Exalted and sustained
By that enthusiastic faith
Which such a victory gained.
Yet hold I not such sacrifice
Is for the Christian's creed:
I question of its happiness—
I question of its need.
God never made a world so fair,
To leave that world a void,
Nor scattered blessings o'er our path,
Unless to be enjoyed.
Look round—the vales are sweet with flowers
The woods are sweet with song:
The soul, uplifted with their joy,
Says, such joy is not wrong.
Divine its origin—divine
The faith it keeps alive.
Not with the beautiful and true
Should human nature strive;
Each fine sense gifted with delight,
Was to the spirit given,
That, conscious of a better state,
It might believe in heaven.
Too much this weary world of ours
Has fallen since the fall;
And low desires, and care, and crime,
Hold empire over all.
Yet not the less it is our part
To do the best we can:
A better faith—a better fate
Man yet may work for man.
L. E. L.