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?
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