TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Pensive within the Coliseum's walls

I stood with thee, O Poet of the West!—

The day when each had been a welcome guest

In San Clemente's venerable halls:—

With what delight my memory now recalls

That hour of hours, that flower of all the rest,

When, with thy white beard falling on thy breast,

That noble head, that well might serve as Paul's

In some divinest vision of the saint

By Raffael dreamed — I heard thee mourn the dead —

The martyred host who fearless there, though faint,

Walked the rough road that up to heaven's gate led:

These were the pictures Calderon loved to paint

In golden hues that here perchance have fled.