N the classic Appian way,
The Roman street of tombs,
Stands a lone Church, beneath whose floor
Thread the drear catacombs;
In dismal labyrinth they wind,
These footpaths of the dead,
Whereto in early Christian times,
The persecuted fled.
A MARTYR'S GRAVE.
"AMANTO FILIO DVLCISSIMO
QVI VIXIT ANNIS DVOBVS. ET. D. X.V.
N PACE."[1]
N the classic Appian way,The Roman street of tombs,
Stands a lone Church, beneath whose floor
Thread the drear catacombs;
In dismal labyrinth they wind,
These footpaths of the dead,
Whereto in early Christian times,
The persecuted fled.
For here the Christian found repose;
A grave in life was peace,
Peace was the watchword of his lips,
His grave in death—release.
The martyr found his couch of rest
Carved in the waiting stone;
The slab enclosed the tortured frame,
Where slept he sweetly on.
A grave in life was peace,
Peace was the watchword of his lips,
His grave in death—release.
The martyr found his couch of rest
Carved in the waiting stone;
The slab enclosed the tortured frame,
Where slept he sweetly on.
Rudely was scratched the victor's name,
With palm of peace, and dove—
The Ampullà of sacred blood,
Placed there by hand of love.
More than a hundred years ago,
A martyr's grave unsealed,
And slab removed, the bones e'en then,
An odour sweet revealed.
With palm of peace, and dove—
The Ampullà of sacred blood,
Placed there by hand of love.
More than a hundred years ago,
A martyr's grave unsealed,
And slab removed, the bones e'en then,
An odour sweet revealed.
Ah, could it be that costly spice,
Or aromatic gum,
Was not absorbed by damp decay,
And night tears of the tomb?
Or aromatic gum,
Was not absorbed by damp decay,
And night tears of the tomb?
Or that the lingering fragrant breath
That shrined the martyr's rest,
A memory was of those who die—
God's faithful and God's blest?[2]
That shrined the martyr's rest,
A memory was of those who die—
God's faithful and God's blest?[2]
Rome, 1861.
- ↑ An inscription in the Catacombs of St. Agnese, on the slab of a child's grave; a martyr of two years old.
- ↑ In the year 1716, the body of a holy martyr, named Martiria, was discovered in the Catacombs of St. Calisto. The Ampulla which once contained her blood still remained, and the inscription to the Roman lady was well preserved. These bones retained for a long period the same wonderful fragrance as had been observed before by eminent savants, on opening fresh tombs in the Catacombs of Rome. Among many eminent archæologists who were witnesses of this extraordinary phenomenon, were Signori Canonica, Raimondo, Binetti, and Romani. The same odour was also perceived by many persons in a street near the same cemetery, as they were stopping to pray near some tombs of saints. But laying aside all that might be attributed to a miraculous and supernatural fragrance, it might in some cases be produced by aromatic anointments used in embalming the martyred dead, even as they anointed the body of the Redeemer: though more frequently the bodies of Martyrs were hurried into their last resting places before there was time for the expensive rite of embalming.—Translated from "Boldetti's Roma Sotteranea."—[S. M. E.]