Meanwhile, let all the far ends of the world Breathe back the deep breath of their old delight, To swell the Italian banner just unfurled. Help, lands of Europe! for, if Austria fight, The drums will bar your slumber. Had ye curled The laurel for your thousand artists' brows, If these Italian hands had planted none? Can any sit down idle in the house Nor hear appeals from Buonarroti's stone And Raffael's canvas, rousing and to rouse? Where's Poussin's master? Gallic Avignon Bred Laura, and Vaucluse's fount has stirred The heart of France too strongly, as it lets Its little stream out (like a wizard's bird Which bounds upon its emerald wing and wets The rocks on each side), that she should not gird Her loins with Charlemagne's sword when foes beset The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well Be minded how from Italy she caught, To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell, A fuller cadence and a subtler thought. And even the New World, the receptacle Of freemen, may send glad men, as it ought, To greet Vespucci Amerigo's door. While England claims, by trump of poetry, Verona, Venice, the Ravenna-shore, And dearer holds John Milton's Fiesole Than Langland's Malvern with the stars in flower.

And Vallombrosa, we two went to see Last June, beloved companion,—where sublime The mountains live in holy families, And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize Some grey crag, drop back with it many a time, And straggle blindly down the precipice. The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June-day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves, As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves Are all the same too: scarce have they changed the wick On good Saint Gualbert's altar which receives The convent's pilgrims; and the pool in front (Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait The beatific vision and the grunt Used at refectory) keeps its weedy state, To baffle saintly abbots who would count The fish across their breviary nor 'bate The measure of their steps. O waterfalls And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare That leap up peak by peak and catch the palls Of purple and silver mist to rend and share With one another, at electric calls Of life in the sunbeams,—till we cannot dare Fix your shapes, count your number! we must think Your beauty and your glory helped to fill The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink, He never more was thirsty when God's will Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link By which he had drawn from Nature's visible The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this, He sang of Adam's paradise and smiled, Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is The place divine to English man and child, And pilgrims leave their souls here in a kiss.

For Italy's the whole earth's treasury, piled With reveries of gentle ladies, flung Aside, like ravelled silk, from life's worn stuff; With coins of scholars' fancy, which, being rung On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof; In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young, Before their heads have time for slipping off Hope's pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed, We've sent our souls out from the rigid north, On bare white feet which would not print nor bleed, To climb the Alpine passes and look forth, Where booming low the Lombard rivers lead To gardens, vineyards, all a dream is worth,— Sights, thou and I, Love, have seen afterward From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,[11] When, standing on the actual blessed sward Where Galileo stood at nights to take The vision of the stars, we have found it hard, Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make A choice of beauty.

Therefore let us all Refreshed in England or in other land, By visions, with their fountain-rise and fall, Of this earth's darling,—we, who understand A little how the Tuscan musical Vowels do round themselves as if they planned Eternities of separate sweetness,—we, Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book, Or ere in wine-cup we pledged faith or glee,— Who loved Rome's wolf with demi-gods at suck, Or ere we loved truth's own divinity,— Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook, And Ovid's dreaming tales and Petrarch's song, Or ere we loved Love's self even,—let us give The blessing of our souls (and wish them strong To bear it to the height where prayers arrive, When faithful spirits pray against a wrong,) To this great cause of southern men who strive In God's name for man's rights, and shall not fail.

Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend Above the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail. Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale Into the azure air and apprehend That final gun-flash from Palermo's coast Which lightens their apocalypse of death. So let them die! The world shows nothing lost; Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath, What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post On duty's side? As sword returns to sheath, So dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven. Heroic daring is the true success, The eucharistic bread requires no leaven; And though your ends were hopeless, we should bless Your cause as holy. Strive—and, having striven, Take, for God's recompense, that righteousness!

FOOTNOTES:

[2] They show at Verona, as the tomb of Juliet, an empty trough of stone.

[3] These famous statues recline in the Sagrestia Nuova, on the tombs of Giuliano de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Lorenzo of Urbino, his grandson. Strozzi's epigram on the Night, with Michel Angelo's rejoinder, is well known.

[4] This mocking task was set by Pietro, the unworthy successor of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

[5] Savonarola was burnt for his testimony against papal corruptions as early as March, 1498: and, as late as our own day, it has been a custom in Florence to strew with violets the pavement where he suffered, in grateful recognition of the anniversary.

[6] See his description of the plague in Florence.

[7] Charles of Anjou, in his passage through Florence, was permitted to see this picture while yet in Cimabue's "bottega." The populace followed the royal visitor, and, from the universal delight and admiration, the quarter of the city in which the artist lived was called "Borgo Allegri." The picture was carried in triumph to the church, and deposited there.

[8] How Cimabue found Giotto, the shepherd-boy, sketching a ram of his flock upon a stone, is prettily told by Vasari,—who also relates that the elder artist Margheritone died "infastidito" of the successes of the new school.

[9] The Florentines, to whom the Ravennese refused the body of Dante (demanded of them "in a late remorse of love"), have given a cenotaph in this church to their divine poet. Something less than a grave!

[10] In allusion to Mr. Kirkup's discovery of Giotto's fresco portrait of Dante.

[11] Galileo's villa, close to Florence, is built on an eminence called Bellosguardo.

PART II.

I wrote a meditation and a dream, Hearing a little child sing in the street: I leant upon his music as a theme, Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat Which tried at an exultant prophecy But dropped before the measure was complete— Alas, for songs and hearts! O Tuscany, O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain? Didst thou, too, only sing of liberty As little children take up a high strain With unintentioned voices, and break off To sleep upon their mothers' knees again? Couldst thou not watch one hour? then, sleep enough— That sleep may hasten manhood and sustain The faint pale spirit with some muscular stuff.

But we, who cannot slumber as thou dost, We thinkers, who have thought for thee and failed, We hopers, who have hoped for thee and lost, We poets, wandered round by dreams,[12] who hailed From this Atrides' roof (with lintel-post Which still drips blood,—the worse part hath prevailed) The fire-voice of the beacons to declare Troy taken, sorrow ended,—cozened through A crimson sunset in a misty air, What now remains for such as we, to do? God's judgments, peradventure, will He bare To the roots of thunder, if we kneel and sue?

From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth, And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north,— Saw fifty banners, freighted with the signs And exultations of the awakened earth, Float on above the multitude in lines, Straight to the Pitti. So, the vision went. And so, between those populous rough hands Raised in the sun, Duke Leopold outleant, And took the patriot's oath which henceforth stands Among the oaths of perjurers, eminent To catch the lightnings ripened for these lands.

Why swear at all, thou false Duke Leopold? What need to swear? What need to boast thy blood Unspoilt of Austria, and thy heart unsold Away from Florence? It was understood God made thee not too vigorous or too bold; And men had patience with thy quiet mood, And women, pity, as they saw thee pace Their festive streets with premature grey hairs. We turned the mild dejection of thy face To princely meanings, took thy wrinkling cares For ruffling hopes, and called thee weak, not base. Nay, better light the torches for more prayers And smoke the pale Madonnas at the shrine, Being still "our poor Grand-duke, our good Grand-duke, Who cannot help the Austrian in his line,"— Than write an oath upon a nation's book For men to spit at with scorn's blurring brine! Who dares forgive what none can overlook?

For me, I do repent me in this dust Of towns and temples which makes Italy,— I sigh amid the sighs which breathe a gust Of dying century to century Around us on the uneven crater-crust Of these old worlds,—I bow my soul and knee. Absolve me, patriots, of my woman's fault That ever I believed the man was true! These sceptred strangers shun the common salt, And, therefore, when the general board's in view And they stand up to carve for blind and halt, The wise suspect the viands which ensue. I much repent that, in this time and place Where many corpse-lights of experience burn From Caesar's and Lorenzo's festering race, To enlighten groping reasoners, I could learn No better counsel for a simple case Than to put faith in princes, in my turn. Had all the death-piles of the ancient years Flared up in vain before me? knew I not What stench arises from some purple gears? And how the sceptres witness whence they got Their briar-wood, crackling through the atmosphere's Foul smoke, by princely perjuries, kept hot? Forgive me, ghosts of patriots,—Brutus, thou, Who trailest downhill into life again Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow Reproachful eyes!—for being taught in vain That, while the illegitimate Caesars show Of meaner stature than the first full strain (Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul), They swoon as feebly and cross Rubicons As rashly as any Julius of them all! Forgive, that I forgot the mind which runs Through absolute races, too unsceptical! I saw the man among his little sons, His lips were warm with kisses while he swore; And I, because I am a woman—I, Who felt my own child's coming life before The prescience of my soul, and held faith high,— I could not bear to think, whoever bore, That lips, so warmed, could shape so cold a lie.

From Casa Guidi windows I looked out, Again looked, and beheld a different sight. The Duke had fled before the people's shout "Long live the Duke!" A people, to speak right, Must speak as soft as courtiers, lest a doubt Should curdle brows of gracious sovereigns, white. Moreover that same dangerous shouting meant Some gratitude for future favours, which Were only promised, the Constituent Implied, the whole being subject to the hitch In "motu proprios," very incident To all these Czars, from Paul to Paulovitch. Whereat the people rose up in the dust Of the ruler's flying feet, and shouted still And loudly; only, this time, as was just, Not "Live the Duke," who had fled for good or ill, But "Live the People," who remained and must, The unrenounced and unrenounceable. Long live the people! How they lived! and boiled And bubbled in the cauldron of the street: How the young blustered, nor the old recoiled, And what a thunderous stir of tongues and feet Trod flat the palpitating bells and foiled The joy-guns of their echo, shattering it! How down they pulled the Duke's arms everywhere! How up they set new cafe-signs, to show Where patriots might sip ices in pure air— (The fresh paint smelling somewhat)! To and fro How marched the civic guard, and stopped to stare When boys broke windows in a civic glow! How rebel songs were sung to loyal tunes, And bishops cursed in ecclesiastic metres: How all the Circoli grew large as moons, And all the speakers, moonstruck,—thankful greeters Of prospects which struck poor the ducal boons, A mere free Press, and Chambers!—frank repeaters Of great Guerazzi's praises—"There's a man, The father of the land, who, truly great, Takes off that national disgrace and ban, The farthing tax upon our Florence-gate, And saves Italia as he only can!" How all the nobles fled, and would not wait, Because they were most noble,—which being so, How Liberals vowed to burn their palaces, Because free Tuscans were not free to go! How grown men raged at Austria's wickedness, And smoked,—while fifty striplings in a row Marched straight to Piedmont for the wrong's redress! You say we failed in duty, we who wore Black velvet like Italian democrats, Who slashed our sleeves like patriots, nor forswore The true republic in the form of hats? We chased the archbishop from the Duomo door, We chalked the walls with bloody caveats Against all tyrants. If we did not fight Exactly, we fired muskets up the air To show that victory was ours of right. We met, had free discussion everywhere (Except perhaps i' the Chambers) day and night. We proved the poor should be employed, ... that's fair,— And yet the rich not worked for anywise,— Pay certified, yet payers abrogated,— Full work secured, yet liabilities To overwork excluded,—not one bated Of all our holidays, that still, at twice Or thrice a week, are moderately rated. We proved that Austria was dislodged, or would Or should be, and that Tuscany in arms Should, would dislodge her, ending the old feud; And yet, to leave our piazzas, shops, and farms, For the simple sake of fighting, was not good— We proved that also. "Did we carry charms Against being killed ourselves, that we should rush On killing others? what, desert herewith Our wives and mothers?—was that duty? tush!" At which we shook the sword within the sheath Like heroes—only louder; and the flush Ran up the cheek to meet the future wreath. Nay, what we proved, we shouted—how we shouted (Especially the boys did), boldly planting That tree of liberty, whose fruit is doubted, Because the roots are not of nature's granting! A tree of good and evil: none, without it, Grow gods; alas and, with it, men are wanting!

O holy knowledge, holy liberty, O holy rights of nations! If I speak These bitter things against the jugglery Of days that in your names proved blind and weak, It is that tears are bitter. When we see The brown skulls grin at death in churchyards bleak, We do not cry "This Yorick is too light," For death grows deathlier with that mouth he makes. So with my mocking: bitter things I write Because my soul is bitter for your sakes, O freedom! O my Florence!

Men who might Do greatly in a universe that breaks And burns, must ever know before they do. Courage and patience are but sacrifice; And sacrifice is offered for and to Something conceived of. Each man pays a price For what himself counts precious, whether true Or false the appreciation it implies. But here,—no knowledge, no conception, nought! Desire was absent, that provides great deeds From out the greatness of prevenient thought: And action, action, like a flame that needs A steady breath and fuel, being caught Up, like a burning reed from other reeds, Flashed in the empty and uncertain air, Then wavered, then went out. Behold, who blames A crooked course, when not a goal is there To round the fervid striving of the games? An ignorance of means may minister To greatness, but an ignorance of aims Makes it impossible to be great at all. So with our Tuscans! Let none dare to say, "Here virtue never can be national; Here fortitude can never cut a way Between the Austrian muskets, out of thrall:" I tell you rather that, whoever may Discern true ends here, shall grow pure enough To love them, brave enough to strive for them, And strong to reach them though the roads be rough: That having learnt—by no mere apophthegm— Not just the draping of a graceful stuff About a statue, broidered at the hem,— Not just the trilling on an opera-stage Of "liberta" to bravos—(a fair word, Yet too allied to inarticulate rage And breathless sobs, for singing, though the chord Were deeper than they struck it) but the gauge Of civil wants sustained and wrongs abhorred, The serious sacred meaning and full use Of freedom for a nation,—then, indeed, Our Tuscans, underneath the bloody dews Of some new morning, rising up agreed And bold, will want no Saxon souls or thews To sweep their piazzas clear of Austria's breed.

Alas, alas! it was not so this time. Conviction was not, courage failed, and truth Was something to be doubted of. The mime Changed masks, because a mime. The tide as smooth In running in as out, no sense of crime Because no sense of virtue,—sudden ruth Seized on the people: they would have again Their good Grand-duke and leave Guerazzi, though He took that tax from Florence. "Much in vain He takes it from the market-carts, we trow, While urgent that no market-men remain, But all march off and leave the spade and plough, To die among the Lombards. Was it thus The dear paternal Duke did? Live the Duke!" At which the joy-bells multitudinous, Swept by an opposite wind, as loudly shook. Call back the mild archbishop to his house, To bless the people with his frightened look,— He shall not yet be hanged, you comprehend! Seize on Guerazzi; guard him in full view, Or else we stab him in the back, to end! Rub out those chalked devices, set up new The Duke's arms, doff your Phrygian caps, and men The pavement of the piazzas broke into By barren poles of freedom: smooth the way For the ducal carriage, lest his highness sigh "Here trees of liberty grew yesterday!" "Long live the Duke!"—how roared the cannonry, How rocked the bell-towers, and through thickening spray Of nosegays, wreaths, and kerchiefs tossed on high, How marched the civic guard, the people still Being good at shouts, especially the boys! Alas, poor people, of an unfledged will Most fitly expressed by such a callow voice! Alas, still poorer Duke, incapable Of being worthy even of so much noise!

You think he came back instantly, with thanks And tears in his faint eyes, and hands extended To stretch the franchise through their utmost ranks? That having, like a father, apprehended, He came to pardon fatherly those pranks Played out and now in filial service ended?— That some love-token, like a prince, he threw To meet the people's love-call, in return? Well, how he came I will relate to you; And if your hearts should burn, why, hearts must burn, To make the ashes which things old and new Shall be washed clean in—as this Duke will learn.

From Casa Guidi windows gazing, then, I saw and witness how the Duke came back. The regular tramp of horse and tread of men Did smite the silence like an anvil black And sparkless. With her wide eyes at full strain, Our Tuscan nurse exclaimed "Alack, alack, Signora! these shall be the Austrians." "Nay, Be still," I answered, "do not wake the child!" —For so, my two-months' baby sleeping lay In milky dreams upon the bed and smiled, And I thought "He shall sleep on, while he may, Through the world's baseness: not being yet defiled, Why should he be disturbed by what is done?" Then, gazing, I beheld the long-drawn street Live out, from end to end, full in the sun, With Austria's thousand; sword and bayonet, Horse, foot, artillery,—cannons rolling on Like blind slow storm-clouds gestant with the heat Of undeveloped lightnings, each bestrode By a single man, dust-white from head to heel, Indifferent as the dreadful thing he rode, Like a sculptured Fate serene and terrible. As some smooth river which has overflowed Will slow and silent down its current wheel A loosened forest, all the pines erect, So swept, in mute significance of storm, The marshalled thousands; not an eye deflect To left or right, to catch a novel form Of Florence city adorned by architect And carver, or of Beauties live and warm Scared at the casements,—all, straightforward eyes And faces, held as steadfast as their swords, And cognizant of acts, not imageries. The key, O Tuscans, too well fits the wards! Ye asked for mimes,—these bring you tragedies: For purple,—these shall wear it as your lords. Ye played like children,—die like innocents. Ye mimicked lightnings with a torch,—the crack Of the actual bolt, your pastime circumvents. Ye called up ghosts, believing they were slack To follow any voice from Gilboa's tents, ... Here's Samuel!—and, so, Grand-dukes come back!

And yet, they are no prophets though they come: That awful mantle, they are drawing close, Shall be searched, one day, by the shafts of Doom Through double folds now hoodwinking the brows. Resuscitated monarchs disentomb Grave-reptiles with them, in their new life-throes. Let such beware. Behold, the people waits, Like God: as He, in His serene of might, So they, in their endurance of long straits. Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night Ye tread them with that absolute heel which grates And grinds them flat from all attempted height. You kill worms sooner with a garden-spade Than you kill peoples: peoples will not die; The tail curls stronger when you lop the head: They writhe at every wound and multiply And shudder into a heap of life that's made Thus vital from God's own vitality. 'T is hard to shrivel back a day of God's Once fixed for judgment: 't is as hard to change The peoples, when they rise beneath their loads And heave them from their backs with violent wrench To crush the oppressor; for that judgment-rod's The measure of this popular revenge.

Meanwhile, from Casa Guidi windows, we Beheld the armament of Austria flow Into the drowning heart of Tuscany: And yet none wept, none cursed, or, if 't was so, They wept and cursed in silence. Silently Our noisy Tuscans watched the invading foe; They had learnt silence. Pressed against the wall, And grouped upon the church-steps opposite, A few pale men and women stared at all. God knows what they were feeling, with their white Constrained faces, they, so prodigal Of cry and gesture when the world goes right, Or wrong indeed. But here was depth of wrong, And here, still water; they were silent here; And through that sentient silence, struck along That measured tramp from which it stood out clear, Distinct the sound and silence, like a gong At midnight, each by the other awfuller,— While every soldier in his cap displayed A leaf of olive. Dusty, bitter thing! Was such plucked at Novara, is it said?

A cry is up in England, which doth ring The hollow world through, that for ends of trade And virtue and God's better worshipping, We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul,— Besides their clippings at our golden fleece. I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole Of immemorial undeciduous trees Would write, as lovers use upon a scroll, The holy name of Peace and set it high Where none could pluck it down. On trees, I say,— Not upon gibbets!—With the greenery Of dewy branches and the flowery May, Sweet mediation betwixt earth and sky Providing, for the shepherd's holiday. Not upon gibbets! though the vulture leaves The bones to quiet, which he first picked bare. Not upon dungeons! though the wretch who grieves And groans within less stirs the outer air Than any little field-mouse stirs the sheaves. Not upon chain-bolts! though the slave's despair Has dulled his helpless miserable brain And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain. Nor yet on starving homes! where many a lip Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain. I love no peace which is not fellowship And which includes not mercy. I would have Rather the raking of the guns across The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave; Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse Of dying men and horses, and the wave Blood-bubbling.... Enough said!—by Christ's own cross, And by this faint heart of my womanhood, Such things are better than a Peace that sits Beside a hearth in self-commended mood, And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits Are howling out of doors against the good Of the poor wanderer. What! your peace admits Of outside anguish while it keeps at home? I loathe to take its name upon my tongue. 'T is nowise peace: 't is treason, stiff with doom,— 'T is gagged despair and inarticulate wrong,— Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome, Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting 'neath the thong, And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress The life from these Italian souls, in brief. O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Righteousness, Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief, Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress, And give us peace which is no counterfeit!

But wherefore should we look out any more From Casa Guidi windows? Shut them straight, And let us sit down by the folded door, And veil our saddened faces and, so, wait What next the judgment-heavens make ready for. I have grown too weary of these windows. Sights Come thick enough and clear enough in thought, Without the sunshine; souls have inner lights. And since the Grand-duke has come back and brought This army of the North which thus requites His filial South, we leave him to be taught. His South, too, has learnt something certainly, Whereof the practice will bring profit soon; And peradventure other eyes may see, From Casa Guidi windows, what is done Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be, Pope Pius will be glorified in none. Record that gain, Mazzini!—it shall top Some heights of sorrow. Peter's rock, so named, Shall lure no vessel any more to drop Among the breakers. Peter's chair is shamed Like any vulgar throne the nations lop To pieces for their firewood unreclaimed,— And, when it burns too, we shall see as well In Italy as elsewhere. Let it burn. The cross, accounted still adorable, Is Christ's cross only!—if the thief's would earn Some stealthy genuflexions, we rebel; And here the impenitent thief's has had its turn, As God knows; and the people on their knees Scoff and toss back the crosiers stretched like yokes To press their heads down lower by degrees. So Italy, by means of these last strokes, Escapes the danger which preceded these, Of leaving captured hands in cloven oaks,— Of leaving very souls within the buckle Whence bodies struggled outward,—of supposing That freemen may like bondsmen kneel and truckle, And then stand up as usual, without losing An inch of stature. Those whom she-wolves suckle Will bite as wolves do in the grapple-closing Of adverse interests. This at last is known (Thank Pius for the lesson), that albeit Among the popedom's hundred heads of stone Which blink down on you from the roof's retreat In Siena's tiger-striped cathedral, Joan And Borgia 'mid their fellows you may greet, A harlot and a devil,—you will see Not a man, still less angel, grandly set With open soul to render man more free. The fishers are still thinking of the net, And, if not thinking of the hook too, we Are counted somewhat deeply in their debt; But that's a rare case—so, by hook and crook They take the advantage, agonizing Christ By rustier nails than those of Cedron's brook, I' the people's body very cheaply priced,— And quote high priesthood out of Holy book, While buying death-fields with the sacrificed.

Priests, priests,—there's no such name!—God's own, except Ye take most vainly. Through heaven's lifted gate The priestly ephod in sole glory swept When Christ ascended, entered in, and sate (With victor face sublimely overwept) At Deity's right hand, to mediate, He alone, He for ever. On His breast The Urim and the Thummim, fed with fire From the full Godhead, flicker with the unrest Of human pitiful heart-beats. Come up higher, All Christians! Levi's tribe is dispossest. That solitary alb ye shall admire, But not cast lots for. The last chrism, poured right, Was on that Head, and poured for burial And not for domination in men's sight. What are these churches? The old temple-wall Doth overlook them juggling with the sleight Of surplice, candlestick and altar-pall; East church and west church, ay, north church and south, Rome's church and England's,—let them all repent, And make concordats 'twixt their soul and mouth, Succeed Saint Paul by working at the tent, Become infallible guides by speaking truth, And excommunicate their pride that bent And cramped the souls of men. Why, even here Priestcraft burns out, the twined linen blazes; Not, like asbestos, to grow white and clear, But all to perish!—while the fire-smell raises To life some swooning spirits who, last year, Lost breath and heart in these church-stifled places. Why, almost, through this Pius, we believed The priesthood could be an honest thing, he smiled So saintly while our corn was being sheaved For his own granaries! Showing now defiled His hireling hands, a better help's achieved Than if they blessed us shepherd-like and mild. False doctrine, strangled by its own amen, Dies in the throat of all this nation. Who Will speak a pope's name as they rise again? What woman or what child will count him true? What dreamer praise him with the voice or pen? What man fight for him?—Pius takes his due.

* * * * *

Record that gain, Mazzini!—Yes, but first Set down thy people's faults; set down the want Of soul-conviction; set down aims dispersed, And incoherent means, and valour scant Because of scanty faith, and schisms accursed That wrench these brother-hearts from covenant With freedom and each other. Set down this, And this, and see to overcome it when The seasons bring the fruits thou wilt not miss If wary. Let no cry of patriot men Distract thee from the stern analysis Of masses who cry only! keep thy ken Clear as thy soul is virtuous. Heroes' blood Splashed up against thy noble brow in Rome; Let such not blind thee to an interlude Which was not also holy, yet did come 'Twixt sacramental actions,—brotherhood Despised even there, and something of the doom Of Remus in the trenches. Listen now— Rossi died silent near where Caesar died. HE did not say "My Brutus, is it thou?" But Italy unquestioned testified "I killed him! I am Brutus.—I avow." At which the whole world's laugh of scorn replied "A poor maimed copy of Brutus!" Too much like, Indeed, to be so unlike! too unskilled At Philippi and the honest battle-pike, To be so skilful where a man is killed Near Pompey's statue, and the daggers strike At unawares i' the throat. Was thus fulfilled An omen once of Michel Angelo?— When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete, And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow Upon the marble, at Art's thunderheat, Till haply (some pre-shadow rising slow Of what his Italy would fancy meet To be called BRUTUS) straight his plastic hand Fell back before his prophet-soul, and left A fragment, a maimed Brutus,—but more grand Than this, so named at Rome, was! Let thy weft Present one woof and warp, Mazzini! Stand With no man hankering for a dagger's heft, No, not for Italy!—nor stand apart, No, not for the Republic!—from those pure Brave men who hold the level of thy heart In patriot truth, as lover and as doer, Albeit they will not follow where thou art As extreme theorist. Trust and distrust fewer; And so bind strong and keep unstained the cause Which (God's sign granted) war-trumps newly blown Shall yet annunciate to the world's applause.

But now, the world is busy; it has grown A Fair-going world. Imperial England draws The flowing ends of the earth from Fez, Canton, Delhi and Stockholm, Athens and Madrid, The Russias and the vast Americas, As if a queen drew in her robes amid Her golden cincture,—isles, peninsulas, Capes, continents, far inland countries hid By jasper-sands and hills of chrysopras, All trailing in their splendours through the door Of the gorgeous Crystal Palace. Every nation, To every other nation strange of yore, Gives face to face the civic salutation, And holds up in a proud right hand before That congress the best work which she can fashion By her best means. "These corals, will you please To match against your oaks? They grow as fast Within my wilderness of purple seas."— "This diamond stared upon me as I passed (As a live god's eye from a marble frieze) Along a dark of diamonds. Is it classed?"— "I wove these stuffs so subtly that the gold Swims to the surface of the silk like cream And curdles to fair patterns. Ye behold!"— "These delicatest muslins rather seem Than be, you think? Nay, touch them and be bold, Though such veiled Chakhi's face in Hafiz' dream."— "These carpets—you walk slow on them like kings, Inaudible like spirits, while your foot Dips deep in velvet roses and such things."— "Even Apollonius might commend this flute:[13] The music, winding through the stops, upsprings To make the player very rich: compute!" "Here's goblet-glass, to take in with your wine The very sun its grapes were ripened under: Drink light and juice together, and each fine."— "This model of a steamship moves your wonder? You should behold it crushing down the brine Like a blind Jove who feels his way with thunder."— "Here's sculpture! Ah, we live too! why not throw Our life into our marbles? Art has place For other artists after Angelo."— "I tried to paint out here a natural face; For nature includes Raffael, as we know, Not Raffael nature. Will it help my case?"— "Methinks you will not match this steel of ours!"— "Nor you this porcelain! One might dream the clay Retained in it the larvae of the flowers, They bud so, round the cup, the old Spring-way."— "Nor you these carven woods, where birds in bowers With twisting snakes and climbing cupids, play."

O Magi of the east and of the west, Your incense, gold and myrrh are excellent!— What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest? Your hands have worked well: is your courage spent In handwork only? Have you nothing best, Which generous souls may perfect and present, And He shall thank the givers for? no light Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor Who sit in darkness when it is not night? No cure for wicked children? Christ,—no cure! No help for women sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws? no brothel-lure Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou four No remedy, my England, for such woes? No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No entrance for the exiled? no repose, Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground, And gentle ladies bleached among the snows? No mercy for the slave, America? No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France? Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. No pity, O world, no tender utterance Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way For poor Italia, baffled by mischance? O gracious nations, give some ear to me! You all go to your Fair, and I am one Who at the roadside of humanity Beseech your alms,—God's justice to be done. So, prosper!

In the name of Italy, Meantime, her patriot Dead have benison. They only have done well; and, what they did Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber: No king of Egypt in a pyramid Is safer from oblivion, though he number Full seventy cerements for a coverlid. These Dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber The sad heart of the land until it loose The clammy clods and let out the Spring-growth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against each piled injustice. Ay, the least, Dead for Italia, not in vain has died; Though many vainly, ere life's struggle ceased, To mad dissimilar ends have swerved aside; Each grave her nationality has pieced By its own majestic breadth, and fortified And pinned it deeper to the soil. Forlorn Of thanks be, therefore, no one of these graves! Not Hers,—who, at her husband's side, in scorn, Outfaced the whistling shot and hissing waves, Until she felt her little babe unborn Recoil, within her, from the violent staves And bloodhounds of the world,—at which, her life Dropt inwards from her eyes and followed it Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife And child died so. And now, the seaweeds fit Her body, like a proper shroud and coif, And murmurously the ebbing waters grit The little pebbles while she lies interred In the sea-sand. Perhaps, ere dying thus, She looked up in his face (which never stirred From its clenched anguish) as to make excuse For leaving him for his, if so she erred. He well remembers that she could not choose. A memorable grave! Another is At Genoa. There, a king may fitly lie, Who, bursting that heroic heart of his At lost Novara, that he could not die (Though thrice into the cannon's eyes for this He plunged his shuddering steed, and felt the sky Reel back between the fire-shocks), stripped away The ancestral ermine ere the smoke had cleared, And, naked to the soul, that none might say His kingship covered what was base and bleared With treason, went out straight an exile, yea, An exiled patriot. Let him be revered.

Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well; And if he lived not all so, as one spoke, The sin pass softly with the passing-bell; For he was shriven, I think, in cannon-smoke, And, taking off his crown, made visible A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke He shattered his own hand and heart. "So best," His last words were upon his lonely bed, I do not end like popes and dukes at least— "Thank God for it." And now that he is dead, Admitting it is proved and manifest That he was worthy, with a discrowned head, To measure heights with patriots, let them stand Beside the man in his Oporto shroud, And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand, And kiss him on the cheek, and say aloud,— "Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land! My brother, thou art one of us! be proud."

Still, graves, when Italy is talked upon. Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate. Still Niobe! still fainting in the sun, By whose most dazzling arrows violate Her beauteous offspring perished! has she won Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate? Nothing but death-songs?—Yes, be it understood Life throbs in noble Piedmont! while the feet Of Rome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood, Grow flat with dissolution and, as meet, Will soon be shovelled off like other mud, To leave the passage free in church and street. And I, who first took hope up in this song, Because a child was singing one ... behold, The hope and omen were not, haply, wrong! Poets are soothsayers still, like those of old Who studied flights of doves; and creatures young And tender, mighty meanings may unfold.

The sun strikes, through the windows, up the floor; Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, Not two years old, and let me see thee more! It grows along thy amber curls, to shine Brighter than elsewhere. Now, look straight before, And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, And from my soul, which fronts the future so, With unabashed and unabated gaze, Teach me to hope for, what the angels know When they smile clear as thou dost. Down God's ways With just alighted feet, between the snow And snowdrops, where a little lamb may graze, Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road, Albeit in our vain-glory we assume That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of God. Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet!—thou, to whom The earliest world-day light that ever flowed, Through Casa Guidi Windows chanced to come! Now shake the glittering nimbus of thy hair, And be God's witness that the elemental New springs of life are gushing everywhere To cleanse the watercourses, and prevent all Concrete obstructions which infest the air! That earth's alive, and gentle or ungentle Motions within her, signify but growth!— The ground swells greenest o'er the labouring moles.

Howe'er the uneasy world is vexed and wroth, Young children, lifted high on parent souls, Look round them with a smile upon the mouth, And take for music every bell that tolls; (WHO said we should be better if like these?) But we sit murmuring for the future though Posterity is smiling on our knees, Convicting us of folly. Let us go— We will trust God. The blank interstices Men take for ruins, He will build into With pillared marbles rare, or knit across With generous arches, till the fane's complete. This world has no perdition, if some loss.

Such cheer I gather from thy smiling, Sweet! The self-same cherub-faces which emboss The Vail, lean inward to the Mercy-seat.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] See the opening passage of the "Agamemnon" of AEschylus.

[13] Philostratus relates of Apollonius how he objected to the musical instrument of Linus the Rhodian that it could not enrich or beautify. The history of music in our day would satisfy the philosopher on one point at least.



POEMS BEFORE CONGRESS

PREFACE.

These poems were written under the pressure of the events they indicate, after a residence in Italy of so many years that the present triumph of great principles is heightened to the writer's feelings by the disastrous issue of the last movement, witnessed from "Casa Guidi Windows" in 1849. Yet, if the verses should appear to English readers too pungently rendered to admit of a patriotic respect to the English sense of things, I will not excuse myself on such grounds, nor on the ground of my attachment to the Italian people and my admiration of their heroic constancy and union. What I have written has simply been written because I love truth and justice quand meme,—"more than Plato" and Plato's country, more than Dante and Dante's country, more even than Shakespeare and Shakespeare's country.

And if patriotism means the flattery of one's nation in every case, then the patriot, take it as you please, is merely the courtier which I am not, though I have written "Napoleon III. in Italy." It is time to limit the significance of certain terms, or to enlarge the significance of certain things. Nationality is excellent in its place; and the instinct of self-love is the root of a man, which will develop into sacrificial virtues. But all the virtues are means and uses; and, if we hinder their tendency to growth and expansion, we both destroy them as virtues, and degrade them to that rankest species of corruption reserved for the most noble organizations. For instance,—non-intervention in the affairs of neighbouring states is a high political virtue; but non-intervention does not mean, passing by on the other side when your neighbour falls among thieves,—or Phariseeism would recover it from Christianity. Freedom itself is virtue, as well as privilege; but freedom of the seas does not mean piracy, nor freedom of the land, brigandage; nor freedom of the senate, freedom to cudgel a dissident member; nor freedom of the press, freedom to calumniate and lie. So, if patriotism be a virtue indeed, it cannot mean an exclusive devotion to our country's interests,—for that is only another form of devotion to personal interests, family interests, or provincial interests, all of which, if not driven past themselves, are vulgar and immoral objects. Let us put away the Little Peddlingtonism unworthy of a great nation, and too prevalent among us. If the man who does not look beyond this natural life is of a somewhat narrow order, what must be the man who does not look beyond his own frontier or his own sea?

I confess that I dream of the day when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England; having courage in the face of his countrymen to assert of some suggested policy,—"This is good for your trade; this is necessary for your domination: but it will vex a people hard by; it will hurt a people farther off; it will profit nothing to the general humanity: therefore, away with it!—it is not for you or for me." When a British minister dares speak so, and when a British public applauds him speaking, then shall the nation be glorious, and her praise, instead of exploding from within, from loud civic mouths, come to her from without, as all worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered and the populations she has saved.

And poets who write of the events of that time shall not need to justify themselves in prefaces for ever so little jarring of the national sentiment imputable to their rhymes.

ROME: February 1860.



NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY.

I.

Emperor, Emperor! From the centre to the shore, From the Seine back to the Rhine, Stood eight millions up and swore By their manhood's right divine So to elect and legislate, This man should renew the line Broken in a strain of fate And leagued kings at Waterloo, When the people's hands let go. Emperor Evermore.

II.

With a universal shout They took the old regalia out From an open grave that day; From a grave that would not close, Where the first Napoleon lay Expectant, in repose, As still as Merlin, with his conquering face Turned up in its unquenchable appeal To men and heroes of the advancing race,— Prepared to set the seal Of what has been on what shall be. Emperor Evermore.

III.

The thinkers stood aside To let the nation act. Some hated the new-constituted fact Of empire, as pride treading on their pride. Some quailed, lest what was poisonous in the past Should graft itself in that Druidic bough On this green Now. Some cursed, because at last The open heavens to which they had looked in vain For many a golden fall of marvellous rain Were closed in brass; and some Wept on because a gone thing could not come; And some were silent, doubting all things for That popular conviction,—evermore Emperor.

IV.

That day I did not hate Nor doubt, nor quail nor curse. I, reverencing the people, did not bate My reverence of their deed and oracle, Nor vainly prate Of better and of worse Against the great conclusion of their will. And yet, O voice and verse, Which God set in me to acclaim and sing Conviction, exaltation, aspiration, We gave no music to the patent thing, Nor spared a holy rhythm to throb and swim About the name of him Translated to the sphere of domination By democratic passion! I was not used, at least, Nor can be, now or then, To stroke the ermine beast On any kind of throne (Though builded by a nation for its own), And swell the surging choir for kings of men— "Emperor Evermore."

V.

But now, Napoleon, now That, leaving far behind the purple throng Of vulgar monarchs, thou Tread'st higher in thy deed Than stair of throne can lead, To help in the hour of wrong The broken hearts of nations to be strong,— Now, lifted as thou art To the level of pure song, We stand to meet thee on these Alpine snows! And while the palpitating peaks break out Ecstatic from somnambular repose With answers to the presence and the shout, We, poets of the people, who take part With elemental justice, natural right, Join in our echoes also, nor refrain. We meet thee, O Napoleon, at this height At last, and find thee great enough to praise. Receive the poet's chrism, which smells beyond The priest's, and pass thy ways;— An English poet warns thee to maintain God's word, not England's:—let His truth be true And all men liars! with His truth respond To all men's lie. Exalt the sword and smite On that long anvil of the Apennine Where Austria forged the Italian chain in view Of seven consenting nations, sparks of fine Admonitory light, Till men's eyes wink before convictions new. Flash in God's justice to the world's amaze, Sublime Deliverer!—after many days Found worthy of the deed thou art come to do— Emperor. Evermore.

VI.

But Italy, my Italy, Can it last, this gleam? Can she live and be strong, Or is it another dream Like the rest we have dreamed so long? And shall it, must it be, That after the battle-cloud has broken She will die off again Like the rain, Or like a poet's song Sung of her, sad at the end Because her name is Italy,— Die and count no friend? Is it true,—may it be spoken,— That she who has lain so still, With a wound in her breast, And a flower in her hand, And a grave-stone under her head, While every nation at will Beside her has dared to stand, And flout her with pity and scorn, Saying "She is at rest, She is fair, she is dead, And, leaving room in her stead To Us who are later born, This is certainly best!" Saying "Alas, she is fair, Very fair, but dead,—give place, And so we have room for the race." —Can it be true, be true, That she lives anew? That she rises up at the shout of her sons, At the trumpet of France, And lives anew?—is it true That she has not moved in a trance, As in Forty-eight? When her eyes were troubled with blood Till she knew not friend from foe, Till her hand was caught in a strait Of her cerement and baffled so From doing the deed she would; And her weak foot stumbled across The grave of a king, And down she dropt at heavy loss, And we gloomily covered her face and said, "We have dreamed the thing; She is not alive, but dead."

VII.

Now, shall we say Our Italy lives indeed? And if it were not for the beat and bray Of drum and trump of martial men, Should we feel the underground heave and strain, Where heroes left their dust as a seed Sure to emerge one day? And if it were not for the rhythmic march Of France and Piedmont's double hosts, Should we hear the ghosts Thrill through ruined aisle and arch, Throb along the frescoed wall, Whisper an oath by that divine They left in picture, book, and stone, That Italy is not dead at all? Ay, if it were not for the tears in our eyes, These tears of a sudden passionate joy, Should we see her arise From the place where the wicked are overthrown, Italy, Italy—loosed at length From the tyrant's thrall, Pale and calm in her strength? Pale as the silver cross of Savoy When the hand that bears the flag is brave, And not a breath is stirring, save What is blown Over the war-trump's lip of brass, Ere Garibaldi forces the pass!

VIII.

Ay, it is so, even so. Ay, and it shall be so. Each broken stone that long ago She flung behind her as she went In discouragement and bewilderment Through the cairns of Time, and missed her way Between to-day and yesterday, Up springs a living man. And each man stands with his face in the light Of his own drawn sword, Ready to do what a hero can. Wall to sap, or river to ford, Cannon to front, or foe to pursue, Still ready to do, and sworn to be true, As a man and a patriot can. Piedmontese, Neapolitan, Lombard, Tuscan, Romagnole, Each man's body having a soul,— Count how many they stand, All of them sons of the land, Every live man there Allied to a dead man below, And the deadest with blood to spare To quicken a living hand In case it should ever be slow. Count how many they come To the beat of Piedmont's drum, With faces keener and grayer Than swords of the Austrian slayer, All set against the foe. "Emperor Evermore."

IX.

Out of the dust where they ground them; Out of the holes where they dogged them; Out of the hulks where they wound them In iron, tortured and flogged them; Out of the streets where they chased them, Taxed them, and then bayonetted them; Out of the homes where they spied on them (Using their daughters and wives); Out of the church where they fretted them, Rotted their souls and debased them, Trained them to answer with knives, Then cursed them all at their prayers!— Out of cold lands, not theirs, Where they exiled them, starved them, lied on them; Back they come like a wind, in vain Cramped up in the hills, that roars its road The stronger into the open plain, Or like a fire that burns the hotter And longer for the crust of cinder, Serving better the ends of the potter; Or like a restrained word of God, Fulfilling itself by what seems to hinder. "Emperor Evermore."

X.

Shout for France and Savoy! Shout for the helper and doer. Shout for the good sword's ring, Shout for the thought still truer. Shout for the spirits at large Who passed for the dead this spring, Whose living glory is sure. Shout for France and Savoy! Shout for the council and charge! Shout for the head of Cavour; And shout for the heart of a King That's great with a nation's joy! Shout for France and Savoy!

XI.

Take up the child, Macmahon, though Thy hand be red From Magenta's dead, And riding on, in front of the troop, In the dust of the whirlwind of war Through the gate of the city of Milan, stoop And take up the child to thy saddle-bow, Nor fear the touch as soft as a flower of his smile as clear as a star! Thou hast a right to the child, we say, Since the women are weeping for joy as they Who, by thy help and from this day, Shall be happy mothers indeed. They are raining flowers from terrace and roof: Take up the flower in the child. While the shout goes up of a nation freed And heroically self-reconciled, Till the snow on that peaked Alp aloof Starts, as feeling God's finger anew, And all those cold white marble fires Of mounting saints on the Duomo-spires Flicker against the Blue. "Emperor Evermore."

XII.

Ay, it is He, Who rides at the King's right hand! Leave room to his horse and draw to the side, Nor press too near in the ecstasy Of a newly delivered impassioned land: He is moved, you see, He who has done it all. They call it a cold stern face; But this is Italy Who rises up to her place!— For this he fought in his youth, Of this he dreamed in the past; The lines of the resolute mouth Tremble a little at last. Cry, he has done it all! "Emperor Evermore."

XIII.

It is not strange that he did it, Though the deed may seem to strain To the wonderful, unpermitted, For such as lead and reign. But he is strange, this man: The people's instinct found him (A wind in the dark that ran Through a chink where was no door), And elected him and crowned him Emperor Evermore.

XIV.

Autocrat? let them scoff, Who fail to comprehend That a ruler incarnate of The people must transcend All common king-born kings; These subterranean springs A sudden outlet winning Have special virtues to spend. The people's blood runs through him, Dilates from head to foot, Creates him absolute, And from this great beginning Evokes a greater end To justify and renew him— Emperor Evermore.

XV.

What! did any maintain That God or the people (think!) Could make a marvel in vain?— Out of the water-jar there, Draw wine that none could drink? Is this a man like the rest, This miracle, made unaware By a rapture of popular air, And caught to the place that was best? You think he could barter and cheat As vulgar diplomates use, With the people's heart in his breast? Prate a lie into shape Lest truth should cumber the road; Play at the fast and loose Till the world is strangled with tape; Maim the soul's complete To fit the hole of a toad; And filch the dogman's meat To feed the offspring of God?

XVI.

Nay, but he, this wonder, He cannot palter nor prate, Though many around him and under, With intellects trained to the curve, Distrust him in spirit and nerve Because his meaning is straight. Measure him ere he depart With those who have governed and led; Larger so much by the heart, Larger so much by the head. Emperor Evermore.

XVII.

He holds that, consenting or dissident, Nations must move with the time; Assumes that crime with a precedent Doubles the guilt of the crime; —Denies that a slaver's bond, Or a treaty signed by knaves (Quorum magna pars, and beyond Was one of an honest name), Gives an inexpugnable claim To abolish men into slaves. Emperor Evermore.

XVIII.

He will not swagger nor boast Of his country's meeds, in a tone Missuiting a great man most If such should speak of his own; Nor will he act, on her side, From motives baser, indeed, Than a man of a noble pride Can avow for himself at need; Never, for lucre or laurels, Or custom, though such should be rife, Adapting the smaller morals To measure the larger life. He, though the merchants persuade, And the soldiers are eager for strife, Finds not his country in quarrels Only to find her in trade,— While still he accords her such honour As never to flinch for her sake Where men put service upon her, Found heavy to undertake And scarcely like to be paid: Believing a nation may act Unselfishly—shiver a lance (As the least of her sons may, in fact) And not for a cause of finance. Emperor Evermore.

XIX.

Great is he Who uses his greatness for all. His name shall stand perpetually As a name to applaud and cherish, Not only within the civic wall For the loyal, but also without For the generous and free. Just is he, Who is just for the popular due As well as the private debt. The praise of nations ready to perish Fall on him,—crown him in view Of tyrants caught in the net, And statesmen dizzy with fear and doubt! And though, because they are many, And he is merely one, And nations selfish and cruel Heap up the inquisitor's fuel To kill the body of high intents, And burn great deeds from their place, Till this, the greatest of any, May seem imperfectly done; Courage, whoever circumvents! Courage, courage, whoever is base! The soul of a high intent, be it known, Can die no more than any soul Which God keeps by Him under the throne; And this, at whatever interim, Shall live, and be consummated Into the being of deeds made whole. Courage, courage! happy is he, Of whom (himself among the dead And silent) this word shall be said: —That he might have had the world with him, But chose to side with suffering men, And had the world against him when He came to deliver Italy. Emperor Evermore.



THE DANCE.

I.

You remember down at Florence our Cascine, Where the people on the feast-days walk and drive, And, through the trees, long-drawn in many a green way, O'er-roofing hum and murmur like a hive, The river and the mountains look alive?

II.

You remember the piazzone there, the stand-place Of carriages a-brim with Florence Beauties, Who lean and melt to music as the band plays, Or smile and chat with someone who a-foot is, Or on horseback, in observance of male duties?

III.

'T is so pretty, in the afternoons of summer, So many gracious faces brought together! Call it rout, or call it concert, they have come here, In the floating of the fan and of the feather, To reciprocate with beauty the fine weather.

IV.

While the flower-girls offer nosegays (because they too Go with other sweets) at every carriage-door; Here, by shake of a white finger, signed away to Some next buyer, who sits buying score on score, Piling roses upon roses evermore.

V.

And last season, when the French camp had its station In the meadow-ground, things quickened and grew gayer Through the mingling of the liberating nation With this people; groups of Frenchmen everywhere, Strolling, gazing, judging lightly—"who was fair."

VI.

Then the noblest lady present took upon her To speak nobly from her carriage for the rest: "Pray these officers from France to do us honour By dancing with us straightway." The request Was gravely apprehended as addressed.

VII.

And the men of France, bareheaded, bowing lowly, Led out each a proud signora to the space Which the startled crowd had rounded for them—slowly, Just a touch of still emotion in his face, Not presuming, through the symbol, on the grace.

VIII.

There was silence in the people: some lips trembled, But none jested. Broke the music, at a glance: And the daughters of our princes, thus assembled, Stepped the measure with the gallant sons of France, Hush! it might have been a Mass, and not a dance.

IX.

And they danced there till the blue that overskied us Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate; And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us, Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate, And touch the holy stone where Dante sate.

X.

Then the sons of France, bareheaded, lowly bowing, Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south Stood, received them; till, with burst of overflowing Feeling—husbands, brothers, Florence's male youth, Turned, and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth.

XI.

And a cry went up, a cry from all that people! —You have heard a people cheering, you suppose, For the Member, mayor ... with chorus from the steeple? This was different: scarce as loud, perhaps (who knows?), For we saw wet eyes around us ere the close.

XII.

And we felt as if a nation, too long borne in By hard wrongers,—comprehending in such attitude That God had spoken somewhere since the morning, That men were somehow brothers, by no platitude,— Cried exultant in great wonder and free gratitude.



A TALE OF VILLAFRANCA.

TOLD IN TUSCANY.

I.

My little son, my Florentine, Sit down beside my knee, And I will tell you why the sign Of joy which flushed our Italy Has faded since but yesternight; And why your Florence of delight Is mourning as you see.

II.

A great man (who was crowned one day) Imagined a great Deed: He shaped it out of cloud and clay, He touched it finely till the seed Possessed the flower: from heart and brain He fed it with large thoughts humane, To help a people's need.

III.

He brought it out into the sun— They blessed it to his face: "O great pure Deed, that hast undone So many bad and base! O generous Deed, heroic Deed, Come forth, be perfected, succeed, Deliver by God's grace."

IV.

Then sovereigns, statesmen, north and south, Rose up in wrath and fear, And cried, protesting by one mouth, "What monster have we here? A great Deed at this hour of day? A great just Deed—and not for pay? Absurd,—or insincere."

V.

"And if sincere, the heavier blow In that case we shall bear, For where's our blessed 'status quo,' Our holy treaties, where,— Our rights to sell a race, or buy, Protect and pillage, occupy, And civilize despair?"

VI.

Some muttered that the great Deed meant A great pretext to sin; And others, the pretext, so lent, Was heinous (to begin). Volcanic terms of "great" and "just"? Admit such tongues of flame, the crust Of time and law falls in.

VII.

A great Deed in this world of ours? Unheard of the pretence is: It threatens plainly the great Powers; Is fatal in all senses. A just Deed in the world?—call out The rifles! be not slack about The national defences.

VIII.

And many murmured, "From this source What red blood must be poured!" And some rejoined, "'T is even worse; What red tape is ignored!" All cursed the Doer for an evil Called here, enlarging on the Devil,— There, monkeying the Lord!

IX.

Some said it could not be explained, Some, could not be excused; And others, "Leave it unrestrained, Gehenna's self is loosed." And all cried "Crush it, maim it, gag it! Set dog-toothed lies to tear it ragged, Truncated and traduced!"

X.

But HE stood sad before the sun (The peoples felt their fate). "The world is many,—I am one; My great Deed was too great. God's fruit of justice ripens slow: Men's souls are narrow; let them grow. My brothers, we must wait."

XI.

The tale is ended, child of mine, Turned graver at my knee. They say your eyes, my Florentine, Are English: it may be. And yet I've marked as blue a pair Following the doves across the square At Venice by the sea.

XII.

Ah child! ah child! I cannot say A word more. You conceive The reason now, why just to-day We see our Florence grieve. Ah child, look up into the sky! In this low world, where great Deeds die, What matter if we live?



A COURT LADY.

I.

Her hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark, Her cheeks' pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.

II.

Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race; Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face.

III.

Never was lady on earth more true as woman and wife, Larger in judgment and instinct, prouder in manners and life.

IV.

She stood in the early morning, and said to her maidens "Bring That silken robe made ready to wear at the Court of the King.

V.

"Bring me the clasps of diamond, lucid, clear of the mote, Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the small at the throat.

VI.

"Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten the sleeves, Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves."

VII.

Gorgeous she entered the sunlight which gathered her up in a flame, While, straight in her open carriage, she to the hospital came.

VIII.

In she went at the door, and gazing from end to end, "Many and low are the pallets, but each is the place of a friend."

IX.

Up she passed through the wards, and stood at a young man's bed: Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head.

X.

"Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou," she cried, And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in her face and died.

XI.

Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second: He was a grave hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckoned.

XII.

Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer. "Art thou a Romagnole?" Her eyes drove lightnings before her.

XIII.

"Austrian and priest had joined to double and tighten the cord Able to bind thee, O strong one,—free by the stroke of a sword.

XIV.

"Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of the past."

XV.

Down she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's, Young, and pathetic with dying,—a deep black hole in the curls.

XVI.

"Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain, Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the List of the slain?"

XVII.

Kind as a mother herself, she touched his cheeks with her hands: "Blessed is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as she stands."

XVIII.

On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: Kneeling,—"O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all?

XIX.

"Each of the heroes around us has fought for his land and line, But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine.

XX.

"Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed. But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!"

XXI.

Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pined One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind.

XXII.

Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name, But two great crystal tears were all that faltered and came.

XXIII.

Only a tear for Venice?—she turned as in passion and loss, And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing the cross.

XXIV.

Faint with that strain of heart she moved on then to another, Stern and strong in his death. "And dost thou suffer, my brother?"

XXV.

Holding his hands in hers:—"Out of the Piedmont lion Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on."

XXVI.

Holding his cold rough hands,—"Well, oh well have ye done In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone."

XXVII.

Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring,— "That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King."



AN AUGUST VOICE.

"Una voce augusta."—Monitore Toscano.

I.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? I made the treaty upon it. Just venture a quiet rebuke; Dall' Ongaro write him a sonnet; Ricasoli gently explain Some need of the constitution: He'll swear to it over again, Providing an "easy solution." You'll call back the Grand-duke.

II.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? I promised the Emperor Francis To argue the case by his book, And ask you to meet his advances. The Ducal cause, we know (Whether you or he be the wronger), Has very strong points;—although Your bayonets, there, have stronger. You'll call back the Grand-duke.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? He is not pure altogether. For instance, the oath which he took (In the Forty-eight rough weather) He'd "nail your flag to his mast," Then softly scuttled the boat you Hoped to escape in at last, And both by a "Proprio motu." You'll call back the Grand-duke.

IV.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? The scheme meets nothing to shock it In this smart letter, look, We found in Radetsky's pocket; Where his Highness in sprightly style Of the flower of his Tuscans wrote, "These heads be the hottest in file; Pray shoot them the quickest." Quote, And call back the Grand-duke.

V.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? There are some things to object to. He cheated, betrayed, and forsook, Then called in the foe to protect you. He taxed you for wines and for meats Throughout that eight years' pastime Of Austria's drum in your streets— Of course you remember the last time You called back your Grand-duke?

VI.

You'll take back the Grand-duke? It is not race he is poor in, Although he never could brook The patriot cousin at Turin. His love of kin you discern, By his hate of your flag and me— So decidedly apt to turn All colours at the sight of the Three.[14] You'll call back the Grand-duke.

VII.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? 'T was weak that he fled from the Pitti; But consider how little he shook At thought of bombarding your city! And, balancing that with this, The Christian rule is plain for us; ... Or the Holy Father's Swiss Have shot his Perugians in vain for us. You'll call back the Grand-duke.

VIII.

Pray take back your Grand-duke. —I, too, have suffered persuasion. All Europe, raven and rook, Screeched at me armed for your nation. Your cause in my heart struck spurs; I swept such warnings aside for you: My very child's eyes, and Hers, Grew like my brother's who died for you. You'll call back the Grand-duke?

IX.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? My French fought nobly with reason,— Left many a Lombardy nook Red as with wine out of season. Little we grudged what was done there, Paid freely your ransom of blood: Our heroes stark in the sun there We would not recall if we could. You'll call back the Grand-duke?

X.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? His son rode fast as he got off That day on the enemy's hook, When I had an epaulette shot off. Though splashed (as I saw him afar—no Near) by those ghastly rains, The mark, when you've washed him in Arno, Will scarcely be larger than Cain's. You'll call back the Grand-duke?

XI.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? 'T will be so simple, quite beautiful: The shepherd recovers his crook, ... If you should be sheep, and dutiful. I spoke a word worth chalking On Milan's wall—but stay, Here's Poniatowsky talking,— You'll listen to him to-day, And call back the Grand-duke.

XII.

You'll take back your Grand-duke? Observe, there's no one to force it,— Unless the Madonna, Saint Luke Drew for you, choose to endorse it. I charge you, by great Saint Martino And prodigies quickened by wrong, Remember your Dead on Ticino; Be worthy, be constant, be strong— Bah!—call back the Grand-duke!!

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The Italian tricolor: red, green, and white.



CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

hos basilei, hos theps, hos nekrps. GREGORY NAZIANZEN.

I.

The Pope on Christmas Day Sits in Saint Peter's chair; But the peoples murmur and say "Our souls are sick and forlorn, And who will show us where Is the stable where Christ was born?"

II.

The star is lost in the dark; The manger is lost in the straw; The Christ cries faintly ... hark!... Through bands that swaddle and strangle— But the Pope in the chair of awe Looks down the great quadrangle.

III.

The Magi kneel at his foot, Kings of the East and West, But, instead of the angels (mute Is the "Peace on earth" of their song), The peoples, perplexed and opprest, Are sighing "How long, how long?"

IV.

And, instead of the kine, bewilder in Shadow of aisle and dome, The bear who tore up the children, The fox who burnt up the corn, And the wolf who suckled at Rome Brothers to slay and to scorn.

V.

Cardinals left and right of him, Worshippers round and beneath, The silver trumpets at sight of him Thrill with a musical blast: But the people say through their teeth, "Trumpets? we wait for the Last!"

VI.

He sits in the place of the Lord, And asks for the gifts of the time; Gold, for the haft of a sword To win back Romagna averse, Incense, to sweeten a crime, And myrrh, to embitter a curse.

VII.

Then a king of the West said "Good!— I bring thee the gifts of the time; Red, for the patriot's blood, Green, for the martyr's crown, White, for the dew and the rime, When the morning of God comes down."

VIII.

—O mystic tricolor bright! The Pope's heart quailed like a man's; The cardinals froze at the sight, Bowing their tonsures hoary: And the eyes in the peacock-fans Winked at the alien glory.

IX.

But the peoples exclaimed in hope, "Now blessed be he who has brought These gifts of the time to the Pope, When our souls were sick and forlorn. —And here is the star we sought, To show us where Christ was born!"



ITALY AND THE WORLD.

I.

Florence, Bologna, Parma, Modena: When you named them a year ago, So many graves reserved by God, in a Day of Judgment, you seemed to know, To open and let out the resurrection.

II.

And meantime (you made your reflection If you were English), was nought to be done But sorting sables, in predilection For all those martyrs dead and gone, Till the new earth and heaven made ready.

III.

And if your politics were not heady, Violent, ... "Good," you added, "good In all things! Mourn on sure and steady. Churchyard thistles are wholesome food For our European wandering asses.

IV.

"The date of the resurrection passes Human foreknowledge: men unborn Will gain by it (even in the lower classes), But none of these. It is not the morn Because the cock of France is crowing.

V.

"Cocks crow at midnight, seldom knowing Starlight from dawn-light! 't is a mad Poor creature." Here you paused, and growing Scornful,—suddenly, let us add, The trumpet sounded, the graves were open.

VI.

Life and life and life! agrope in The dusk of death, warm hands, stretched out For swords, proved more life still to hope in, Beyond and behind. Arise with a shout, Nation of Italy, slain and buried!

VII.

Hill to hill and turret to turret Flashing the tricolor,—newly created Beautiful Italy, calm, unhurried, Rise heroic and renovated, Rise to the final restitution.

VIII.

Rise; prefigure the grand solution Of earth's municipal, insular schisms,— Statesmen draping self-love's conclusion In cheap vernacular patriotisms, Unable to give up Judaea for Jesus.

IX.

Bring us the higher example; release us Into the larger coming time: And into Christ's broad garment piece us Rags of virtue as poor as crime, National selfishness, civic vaunting.

X.

No more Jew nor Greek then,—taunting Nor taunted;—no more England nor France! But one confederate brotherhood planting One flag only, to mark the advance, Onward and upward, of all humanity.

XI.

For civilization perfected Is fully developed Christianity. "Measure the frontier," shall it be said, "Count the ships," in national vanity? —Count the nation's heart-beats sooner.

XII.

For, though behind by a cannon or schooner, That nation still is predominant Whose pulse beats quickest in zeal to oppugn or Succour another, in wrong or want, Passing the frontier in love and abhorrence.

XIII.

Modena, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Open us out the wider way! Dwarf in that chapel of old Saint Lawrence Your Michel Angelo's giant Day, With the grandeur of this Day breaking o'er us!

XIV.

Ye who, restrained as an ancient chorus, Mute while the coryphaeus spake, Hush your separate voices before us, Sink your separate lives for the sake Of one sole Italy's living for ever!

XV.

Givers of coat and cloak too,—never Grudging that purple of yours at the best, By your heroic will and endeavour Each sublimely dispossessed, That all may inherit what each surrenders!

XVI.

Earth shall bless you, O noble emenders On egotist nations! Ye shall lead The plough of the world, and sow new splendours Into the furrow of things for seed,— Ever the richer for what ye have given.

XVII.

Lead us and teach us, till earth and heaven Grow larger around us and higher above. Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven; We bait our traps with the name of love, Till hate itself has a kinder meaning.

XVIII.

Oh, this world: this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while scorned for the counter!

XIX.

Oh, this envy of those who mount here, And oh, this malice to make them trip! Rather quenching the fire there, drying the fount here, To frozen body and thirsty lip, Than leave to a neighbour their ministration.

XX.

I cry aloud in my poet-passion, Viewing my England o'er Alp and sea. I loved her more in her ancient fashion: She carries her rifles too thick for me Who spares them so in the cause of a brother.

XXI.

Suspicion, panic? end this pother. The sword, kept sheathless at peace-time, rusts. None fears for himself while he feels for another: The brave man either fights or trusts, And wears no mail in his private chamber.

XXII.

Beautiful Italy! golden amber Warm with the kisses of lover and traitor! Thou who hast drawn us on to remember, Draw us to hope now: let us be greater By this new future than that old story.

XXIII.

Till truer glory replaces all glory, As the torch grows blind at the dawn of day; And the nations, rising up, their sorry And foolish sins shall put away, As children their toys when the teacher enters.

XXIV.

Till Love's one centre devour these centres Of many self-loves; and the patriot's trick To better his land by egotist ventures, Defamed from a virtue, shall make men sick, As the scalp at the belt of some red hero.

XXV.

For certain virtues have dropped to zero, Left by the sun on the mountain's dewy side; Churchman's charities, tender as Nero, Indian suttee, heathen suicide, Service to rights divine, proved hollow:

XXVI.

And Heptarchy patriotisms must follow. —National voices, distinct yet dependent, Ensphering each other, as swallow does swallow, With circles still widening and ever ascendant, In multiform life to united progression,—

XXVII.

These shall remain. And when, in the session Of nations, the separate language is heard, Each shall aspire, in sublime indiscretion, To help with a thought or exalt with a word Less her own than her rival's honour.

XXVIII.

Each Christian nation shall take upon her The law of the Christian man in vast: The crown of the getter shall fall to the donor, And last shall be first while first shall be last, And to love best shall still be, to reign unsurpassed.



A CURSE FOR A NATION.

PROLOGUE.

I heard an angel speak last night, And he said "Write! Write a Nation's curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea."

I faltered, taking up the word: "Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother.

"For I am bound by gratitude, By love and blood, To brothers of mine across the sea, Who stretch out kindly hands to me."

"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write My curse to-night. From the summits of love a curse is driven, As lightning is from the tops of heaven."

"Not so," I answered. "Evermore My heart is sore For my own land's sins: for little feet Of children bleeding along the street:

"For parked-up honours that gainsay The right of way: For almsgiving through a door that is Not open enough for two friends to kiss:

"For love of freedom which abates Beyond the Straits: For patriot virtue starved to vice on Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion:

"For an oligarchic parliament, And bribes well-meant. What curse to another land assign, When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?"

"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write My curse to-night. Because thou hast strength to see and hate A foul thing done within thy gate."

"Not so," I answered once again. "To curse, choose men. For I, a woman, have only known How the heart melts and the tears run down."

"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write My curse to-night. Some women weep and curse, I say (And no one marvels), night and day.

"And thou shalt take their part to-night, Weep and write. A curse from the depths of womanhood Is very salt, and bitter, and good."

So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed, What all may read. And thus, as was enjoined on me, I send it over the Western Sea.



THE CURSE.

I.

Because ye have broken your own chain With the strain Of brave men climbing a Nation's height, Yet thence bear down with brand and thong On souls of others,—for this wrong This is the curse. Write.

Because yourselves are standing straight In the state Of Freedom's foremost acolyte, Yet keep calm footing all the time On writhing bond-slaves,—for this crime This is the curse. Write.

Because ye prosper in God's name, With a claim To honour in the old world's sight, Yet do the fiend's work perfectly In strangling martyrs,—for this lie This is the curse. Write.

II.

Ye shall watch while kings conspire Round the people's smouldering fire, And, warm for your part, Shall never dare—O shame! To utter the thought into flame Which burns at your heart. This is the curse. Write.

Ye shall watch while nations strive With the bloodhounds, die or survive, Drop faint from their jaws, Or throttle them backward to death; And only under your breath Shall favour the cause. This is the curse. Write.

Ye shall watch while strong men draw The nets of feudal law To strangle the weak; And, counting the sin for a sin, Your soul shall be sadder within Than the word ye shall speak. This is the curse. Write.

When good men are praying erect That Christ may avenge his elect And deliver the earth, The prayer in your ears, said low, Shall sound like the tramp of a foe That's driving you forth. This is the curse. Write.

When wise men give you their praise, They shall pause in the heat of the phrase, As if carried too far. When ye boast your own charters kept true Ye shall blush; for the thing which ye do Derides what ye are. This is the curse. Write.

When fools cast taunts at your gate, Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate As ye look o'er the wall; For your conscience, tradition, and name Explode with a deadlier blame Than the worst of them all. This is the curse. Write.

Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done, Go, plant your flag in the sun Beside the ill-doers! And recoil from clenching the curse Of God's witnessing Universe With a curse of yours. THIS is the curse. Write.



LAST POEMS

ADVERTISEMENT.

These Poems are given as they occur on a list drawn up last June. A few had already been printed in periodicals.

There is hardly such direct warrant for publishing the Translations; which were only intended, many years ago, to accompany and explain certain Engravings after ancient Gems, in the projected work of a friend, by whose kindness they are now recovered: but as two of the original series (the "Adonis" of Bion and "Song to the Rose" from Achilles Tatius) have subsequently appeared, it is presumed that the remainder may not improperly follow.

A single recent version is added.

LONDON: February 1862.

TO "GRATEFUL FLORENCE," TO THE MUNICIPALITY HER REPRESENTATIVE, AND TO TOMMASEO ITS SPOKESMAN, MOST GRATEFULLY.



LITTLE MATTIE.

I.

Dead! Thirteen a month ago! Short and narrow her life's walk; Lover's love she could not know Even by a dream or talk: Too young to be glad of youth, Missing honour, labour, rest, And the warmth of a babe's mouth At the blossom of her breast. Must you pity her for this And for all the loss it is, You, her mother, with wet face, Having had all in your case?

II.

Just so young but yesternight, Now she is as old as death. Meek, obedient in your sight, Gentle to a beck or breath Only on last Monday! Yours, Answering you like silver bells Lightly touched! An hour matures: You can teach her nothing else. She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt's pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows.

III.

Cross her quiet hands, and smooth Down her patient locks of silk, Cold and passive as in truth You your fingers in spilt milk Drew along a marble floor; But her lips you cannot wring Into saying a word more, "Yes," or "No," or such a thing: Though you call and beg and wreak Half your soul out in a shriek, She will lie there in default And most innocent revolt.

IV.

Ay, and if she spoke, maybe She would answer, like the Son, "What is now 'twixt thee and me?" Dreadful answer! better none. Yours on Monday, God's to-day! Yours, your child, your blood, your heart, Called ... you called her, did you say, "Little Mattie" for your part? Now already it sounds strange, And you wonder, in this change, What He calls His angel-creature, Higher up than you can reach her.

V.

'T was a green and easy world As she took it; room to play (Though one's hair might get uncurled At the far end of the day). What she suffered she shook off In the sunshine; what she sinned She could pray on high, enough To keep safe above the wind. If reproved by God or you, 'T was to better her, she knew; And if crossed, she gathered still 'T was to cross out something ill.

VI.

You, you had the right, you thought, To survey her with sweet scorn, Poor gay child, who had not caught Yet the octave-stretch forlorn Of your larger wisdom! Nay, Now your places are changed so, In that same superior way She regards you dull and low As you did herself exempt From life's sorrows. Grand contempt Of the spirits risen awhile, Who look back with such a smile!

VII.

There's the sting of't. That, I think, Hurts the most a thousandfold! To feel sudden, at a wink, Some dear child we used to scold, Praise, love both ways, kiss and tease, Teach and tumble as our own, All its curls about our knees, Rise up suddenly full-grown. Who could wonder such a sight Made a woman mad outright? Show me Michael with the sword Rather than such angels, Lord!



A FALSE STEP.

I.

Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart. Pass; there's a world full of men; And women as fair as thou art Must do such things now and then.

II.

Thou only hast stepped unaware,— Malice, not one can impute; And why should a heart have been there In the way of a fair woman's foot?

III.

It was not a stone that could trip, Nor was it a thorn that could rend: Put up thy proud under-lip! 'T was merely the heart of a friend.

IV.

And yet peradventure one day Thou, sitting alone at the glass, Remarking the bloom gone away, Where the smile in its dimplement was,

V.

And seeking around thee in vain From hundreds who flattered before, Such a word as "Oh, not in the main Do I hold thee less precious, but more!"...

VI.

Thou'lt sigh, very like, on thy part, "Of all I have known or can know, I wish I had only that Heart I trod upon ages ago!"



VOID IN LAW.

I.

Sleep, little babe, on my knee, Sleep, for the midnight is chill, And the moon has died out in the tree, And the great human world goeth ill. Sleep, for the wicked agree: Sleep, let them do as they will. Sleep.

II.

Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast The last drop of milk that was good; And now, in a dream, suck the rest, Lest the real should trouble thy blood. Suck, little lips dispossessed, As we kiss in the air whom we would. Sleep.

III.

O lips of thy father! the same, So like! Very deeply they swore When he gave me his ring and his name, To take back, I imagined, no more! And now is all changed like a game, Though the old cards are used as of yore? Sleep.

IV.

"Void in law," said the Courts. Something wrong In the forms? Yet, "Till death part us two, I, James, take thee, Jessie," was strong, And ONE witness competent. True Such a marriage was worth an old song, Heard in Heaven though, as plain as the New. Sleep.

V.

Sleep, little child, his and mine! Her throat has the antelope curve, And her cheek just the colour and line Which fade not before him nor swerve: Yet she has no child!—the divine Seal of right upon loves that deserve. Sleep.

VI.

My child! though the world take her part, Saying "She was the woman to choose; He had eyes, was a man in his heart,"— We twain the decision refuse: We ... weak as I am, as thou art, ... Cling on to him, never to loose. Sleep.

VII.

He thinks that, when done with this place, All's ended? he'll new-stamp the ore? Yes, Caesar's—but not in our case. Let him learn we are waiting before The grave's mouth, the heaven's gate, God's face With implacable love evermore. Sleep.