1753.

D. F. M. C.

TO
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,

IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF SOME DELIGHTFUL DAYS SPENT WITH HIM AT
ROME,

This Drama is dedicated
BY
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.

TO LONGFELLOW.

I.

PENSIVE within the Colosseum'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:--
Ah, with what pride 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.

II.

YET take the colder copy from my hand,
Not for its own but for THE MASTER'S sake,--
Take it, as thou, returning home, wilt take
From that divinest soft Italian land
Fixed shadows of the Beautiful and Grand
In sunless pictures that the sun doth make--
Reflections that may pleasant memories wake
Of all that Raffael touched, or Angelo planned:--
As these may keep what memory else might lose,
So may this photograph of verse impart
An image, though without the native hues
Of Calderon's fire, and yet with Calderon's art,
Of what Thou lovest through a kindred Muse
That sings in heaven, yet nestles in the heart.

D. F. M. C.

Dublin, August 24th, 1869.

PREFATORY NOTE.

THE PROFESSOR OF POETRY AT OXFORD AND THE AUTOS SACRAMENTALES OF
CALDERON.

Although the Drama here presented to the public is not an 'Auto,' the
present may be a not inappropriate occasion to draw the attention of all
candid readers to the remarks of the Professor of Poetry at Oxford on
the 'Autos Sacramentales' of Calderon--remarks founded entirely on the
volume of translations from these Autos published by me in 1867,[*]
although not mentioned by name, as I conceive in fairness it ought to
have been, by Sir F. H. Doyle in his printed Lectures.[+]

In his otherwise excellent analysis of The Dream of Gerontius, Sir F. H.
Doyle is mistaken as to any direct impression having been made upon the
mind of Dr. Newman in reference to it by the Autos of Calderon. So late
as March 3, 1867, in thanking me for the