The Angelus, Jean-Francois Millet

From “DON JUAN” by Lord Byron

Ave Maria! o’er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour,
The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of prayer!
Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of love!
Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
Look up to thine and to thy Son’s above!
Ave Maria! O that face so fair!
Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove,—
What though ’t is but a pictured image?—strike,—
That painting is no idol,—’t is too like.

Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o’er
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio’s lore
And Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

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