So, I soberly laid my last plan To extinguish the man. Round his creep-hole, with never a break Ran my fires for his sake; Overhead, did my thunder combine With my under-ground mine: Till I looked from my labour content To enjoy the event. 60

When sudden ... how think ye, the end? Did I say "without friend?" Say rather, from marge to blue marge The whole sky grew his targe With the sun's self for visible boss, While an Arm ran across Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast! Where the wretch was safe prest! Do you see! Just my vengeance complete, deg.69 The man sprang to his feet, 70 Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! —So, I was afraid!

* * * * *



THE PATRIOT

AN OLD STORY

It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad; The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels— But give me your sun from yonder skies!" They had answered "And afterward, what else?" 10

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep! Naught man could do, have I left undone: And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now— Just a palsied few at the windows set; For the best of the sight is, all allow, At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind; And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go! In triumphs, people have dropped down dead, "Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me? "—God might question; now instead, 'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so. 30

* * * * *



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL

Morning, evening, noon, and night, "Praise God!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned, Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he laboured, long and well; O'er his work the boy's curls fell.

But ever, at each period, He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"

Then back again his curls he threw, And cheerful turned to work anew. 10

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done; I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

"As well as if thy voice to-day Were praising God, the Pope's great way.

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I Might praise Him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone, And Theocrite was gone. 20

With God a day endures alway, A thousand years are but a day.

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night Now brings the voice of my delight." deg. deg.24

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, Spread his wings and sank to earth;

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, Lived there, and played the craftsman well;

And morning, evening, noon, and night, Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30

And from a boy, to youth he grew: The man put off the stripling's hue:

The man matured and fell away Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent, And ever lived on earth content.

(He did God's will; to him, all one If on the earth or in the sun.)

God said, "A praise is in mine ear; There is no doubt in it, no fear: 40

"So sing old worlds, and so New worlds that from my footstool go.

"Clearer loves sound other ways: I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'Twas Easter day: he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by The great outer gallery, 50

With his holy vestments dight, Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

And all his past career Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, Till on his life the sickness weighed;

And in his cell, when death drew near, An angel in a dream brought cheer:

And rising from the sickness drear, He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60

To the East with praise he turned, And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, And set thee here; I did not well.

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year,

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped— Creation's chorus stopped!

"Go back and praise again The early way, while I remain. 70

"With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up creation's pausing strain.

"Back to the cell and poor employ: Resume the craftsman and the boy!"

Theocrite grew old at home; A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.

One vanished as the other died: They sought God side by side.

* * * * *



MEMORABILIA

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that, And also you are living after; And the memory I started at— My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor with a name of its own And a certain use in the world, no doubt, 10 Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 'Mid the blank miles round about.

For there I picked upon the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! Well, I forget the rest.

* * * * *



WHY I AM A LIBERAL

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,— Whence comes it save from fortune setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men—each in his degree Also God-guided—bear, and gayly too? But little do or can the best of us: That little is achieved thro' Liberty. 10 Who then dares hold, emancipated thus, His fellow shall continue bound? not I, Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."

* * * * *



PROSPICE

Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, 10 Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more, The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past, No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold. 20 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

* * * * *



EPILOGUE TO "ASOLANDO"

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned— Low he lies who once so loved you whom you loved so, —Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel —Being—who? 10

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,—fight on, fare ever There as here!" 20

* * * * *



"DE GUSTIBUS—"

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. Hark, those two in the hazel coppice— A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,— The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon. And let them pass, as they will too soon, 10 With the beanflower's boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June!

What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)— 20 In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, And one sharp tree—'tis a cypress—stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Bough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, My sentinel to guard the sands To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break? While, in the house, forever crumbles 30 Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there's news to-day—the king Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: —She hopes they have not caught the felons. Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me— 40 (When fortune's malice Lost her, Calais) Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy." Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be!

* * * * *



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side, Breathed hot an instant on my trace,— I made, six days, a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, deg. when boys, have plucked deg.8 The fire-flies from the roof above, Bright creeping thro' the moss they love: 10 —How long it seems since Charles was lost! Six days the soldiers crossed, and crossed The country in my very sight; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal-fires. Well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress. Thinking on Metternich, deg. our friend, deg.19 And Charles's miserable end, 20 And much beside, two days; the third, Hunger o'ercame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize: you know, With us in Lombardy, deg. they bring deg.25 Provisions packed on mules, a string, With little bells that cheer their task, And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun's heat from the wine; These I let pass in jingling line; 30 And, close on them, dear noisy crew, The peasants from the village, too; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew. When these had passed, I threw my glove to strike the last, Taking the chance: she did not start, Much less cry out, but stooped apart, One instant rapidly glanced round, And saw me beckon from the ground. 40 A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that; my glove lay in her breast: Then I drew breath; they disappeared: It was for Italy I feared.

An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown. Meanwhile came many thoughts: on me Rested the hopes of Italy. 50 I had devised a certain tale Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail Persuade a peasant of its truth; I meant to call a freak of youth This hiding, and give hopes of pay, And no temptation to betray. But when I saw that woman's face, Its calm simplicity of grace, Our Italy's own attitude In which she walked thus far, and stood, 60 Planting each naked foot so firm, To crush the snake and spare the worm— At first sight of her eyes, I said, "I am that man upon whose head They fix the price, because I hate The Austrians over us; the State Will give you gold—oh, gold so much!— If you betray me to their clutch. And be your death, for aught I know, If once they find you saved their foe. 70 Now, you must bring me food and drink, And also paper, pen and ink, And carry safe what I shall write To Padua, which you'll reach at night Before the duomo shuts; go in, And wait till Tenebrae deg. begin; deg.76 Walk to the third confessional, Between the pillar and the wall, And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace? Say it a second time, then cease; 80 And if the voice inside returns, From Christ and Freedom; what concerns The cause of Peace?—for answer, slip My letter where you placed your lip; Then come back happy we have done Our mother service—I, the son, As you the daughter of our land!"

Three mornings more, she took her stand In the same place, with the same eyes: I was no surer of sun-rise 90 Than of her coming. We conferred Of her own prospects, and I heard She had a lover—stout and tall, She said—then let her eyelids fall, "He could do much"—as if some doubt Entered her heart,—then, passing out, "She could not speak for others, who Had other thoughts; herself she knew;" And so she brought me drink and food. After four days, the scouts pursued 100 Another path; at last arrived The help my Paduan friends contrived To furnish me: she brought the news. For the first time I could not choose But kiss her hand, and lay my own Upon her head—"This faith was shown To Italy, our mother; she Uses my hand and blesses thee." She followed down to the sea-shore; I left and never saw her more. 110

How very long since I have thought Concerning—much less wished for—aught Beside the good of Italy, For which I live and mean to die! I never was in love; and since Charles proved false, what shall now convince My inmost heart I have a friend? However, if I pleased to spend Real wishes on myself—say, three— I know at least what one should be. 120 I would grasp Metternich until I felt his red wet throat distil In blood thro' these two hands. And next, —Nor much for that am I perplexed— Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, Should die slow of a broken heart Under his new employers. Last —Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast Do I grow old and out of strength. If I resolved to seek at length 130 My father's house again, how scared They all would look, and unprepared! My brothers live in Austria's pay —Disowned me long ago, men say; And all my early mates who used To praise me so—perhaps induced More than one early step of mine— Are turning wise: while some opine "Freedom grows license," some suspect "Haste breeds delay," and recollect 140 They always said, such premature Beginnings never could endure! So, with a sullen "All's for best," The land seems settling to its rest. I think then, I should wish to stand This evening in that dear, lost land, Over the sea the thousand miles, And know if yet that woman smiles With the calm smile; some little farm She lives in there, no doubt: what harm 150 If I sat on the door-side bench, And while her spindle made a trench Fantastically in the dust, Inquired of all her fortunes—just Her children's ages and their names, And what may be the husband's aims For each of them. I'd talk this out, And sit there, for an hour about, Then kiss her hand once more, and lay Mine on her head, and go my way. 160

So much for idle wishing—how It steals the time! To business now.

* * * * *



MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's deg. hands deg.3 Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design: for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10 And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark"—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E'en then would be some stooping: and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. deg. There she stands deg.46 As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck deg. cast in bronze for me! deg.56

* * * * *



THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15—

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews—sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well, She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf deg. envied me, so fair she was! deg.5 What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since. And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse, 30 —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, deg. deg.31 Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find... Ah God, I know not, I!... Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, deg. deg.41 Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, deg. deg.42 Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast... Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati deg. villa, with its bath, deg.46 So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church, so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 50 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black— 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables deg. ... but I know deg.62 Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 70 One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's deg. every word, deg.77 No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Tully, my masters? Ulpian deg. serves his need! deg.79 And then how I shall lie thro' centuries, 80 And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: 90 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT deg. quoth our friend? deg.99 No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! 100 Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul. Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, 110 To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! stone— Gritstone, a-crumble! clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— And no more lapis to delight the world! Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs 120 —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch, at leisure if he leers— Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

* * * * *



THE LABORATORY

ANCIEN REGIME

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy— Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here!

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, Pound at thy powder, I am not in haste! 10 Better sit thus and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's.

That in the mortar—you call it a gum? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison, too? Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, What a wild crowd of Invisible pleasures! To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket! 20

Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live! But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

Quick—is it finished? The colour's too grim! Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim? Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me! That's why she ensnared him: this never will free 30 The soul from those masculine eyes,—say "No!" To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought My own eyes to bear on her so that I thought Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall Shrivelled; she fell not: yet this does it all!

Not that I bid you spare her the pain; Let death be felt and the proof remain: Brand, burn up, bite into its grace— He is sure to remember her dying face! 40

Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose; It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close: The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will! But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King's!

* * * * *



HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!

And after April, when May follows, And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! 10 Hark I where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge— That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! 20

* * * * *



UP AT A VILLA—DOWN IN THE CITY

(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality.)

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! Something to see, by Bacchus deg., something to hear, at least! deg.4 There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! —I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool. 10

But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

What of a villa? Tho' winter be over in March, by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees. 20

Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns, 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash, Tho' all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. 30

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 40 By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello deg.-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. deg.42 At the post-office such a scene-picture—the new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, deg. Boccaccio, deg. Petrarca, deg. St. Jerome deg. and Cicero, deg. deg.48 "And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of St. Paul has reached, deg. deg.49 Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." 50 Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady deg. borne smiling and smart. deg.51 With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords deg. stuck in her heart! deg.52 Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.

But bless you, it's dear—it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still—ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles; 60 One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals: Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!

* * * * *



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S

Oh Galuppi, deg. Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! deg.1 I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But altho' I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where St. Mark's deg. is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings deg.? deg.6

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call ... Shylock's bridge deg. with houses on it, where they kept the carnival: deg.8 I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May? 10 Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,— On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed, O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford —She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his sword, While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord deg.? deg.18

What? Those lesser thirds deg. so plaintive, sixths deg. diminished sigh on sigh, deg.19 Told them something? Those suspensions, deg. those solutions deg.—"Must we die?" deg.20 Those commiserating sevenths deg.—"Life might last! we can but try!" deg.21

"Were you happy?"—"Yes."—"And are you still as happy?"—"Yes. And you?" —"Then, more kisses !"—"Did I stop them, when, a million seemed so few?" Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say! "Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay! I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one, Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, Death, stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun. deg. deg.30

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve, While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve, In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: "Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

"Yours, for instance: you know physics, something of geology, Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree; Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be! deg. deg.39

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, 40 Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop: What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

* * * * *



ABT VOGLER

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION)

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon deg. willed deg.3 Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace deg. straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! deg.8

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! 10 Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired deg. walls of gold as transparent as glass, deg.19 Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: 20 For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night— Outlining round and round Rome's dome deg. from space to spire) deg.23 Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth. As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine. Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; 30 Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked, in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh, from the Protoplast, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last: Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed thro' the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon; And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too. 40

All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All thro' music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled:—

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo, they are! 50 And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught; It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought, And, there! Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow; For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 60 Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me? To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same? Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 70 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by. 80

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90 Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep: Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

* * * * *



RABBI BEN EZRA

Grow old along with me deg.! deg.1 The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall!" Not that, admiring stars, 10 It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed 20 On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide And not partake, effect and not receive! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of deg. God. deg.29 Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. 30

Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence,—a paradox Which comforts while it mocks,— Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, 40 And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute Whose flesh has soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? To man, propose this test— Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the Past profuse 50 Of power each side, perfection every turn: Eyes, ears took in their dole, Brain treasured up the whole; Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"

Not once beat "Praise be Thine! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: Perfect I call Thy plan: Thanks that I was a man! Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shall do!" 60

For pleasant is this flesh; Our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, 70 Let us cry "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a God tho' in the germ.

And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone 80 Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. 90

For, note when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west Shoots—"Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

So, still within this life, Tho' lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, "This rage was right i' the main, 100 That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth Should strive, thro' acts uncouth, 110 Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named deg. here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, deg.117 With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. 120

Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, deg. the world arraigned, deg.124 Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes 130 Match me: we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, 140 So passed in making up the main account: All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount deg.: deg.144

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped: All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 150

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, deg. deg.151 That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,— Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, 160 That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What tho' the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves 170 Around thy base, no longer pause and press deg.? deg.171 What tho' about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress deg.? deg.174

Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel? 180

But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men! And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,—to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.

So take and use Thy work, Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! 190 Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

* * * * *



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row! That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, Rarer, intenser, 10 Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture! All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; Clouds overcome it; No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit. 20 Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: Wait ye the warning? Our low life deg. was the level's and the night's: deg.23 He's for the morning. Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 'Ware the beholders! This is our master, famous calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! 30 He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo! Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Winter would follow? Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Cramped and diminished, Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! My dance is finished?" 40 No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side, Make for the city!) He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity; Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping deg.: deg.46 "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, deg. deg.48 Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,— Give!"—So, he gowned him, 50 Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him. Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Patience a moment! Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. 60

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy! Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy." Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Sooner, he spurned it. Image the whole, then execute the parts— Fancy the fabric 70 Quite, ere you build, ere steel strikes fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick.

(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!) That before living he'd learn how to live— No end to learning: Earn the means first—God surely will contrive Use for our earning. 80 Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes! Live now or never!" He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: Calculus racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him. "Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he! (Caution redoubled! 90 Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) Not a whit troubled, Back to his studies, fresher than at first, Fierce as a dragon He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon. Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, deg. deg.98 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! 100 Was it not great? did not he throw on God (He loves the burthen)— God's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen? Did not he magnify the mind, show clear Just what it all meant? He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by instalment. He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's success Found, or earth's failure: 110 "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes! Hence with life's pale lure!" That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. 120 That, has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's deg. business—let it be!— deg.129 Properly based Oun deg.— deg.130 Gave as the doctrine of the enclitic De deg. deg.131 Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews: Here's the top-peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live, but Know— Bury this man there? 140 Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.

* * * * *



ANDREA DEL SARTO

(CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER")

But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear. Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! 10 I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual: and it seems As if—forgive now—should you let me sit Here by the window, with your hand in mine, And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, deg. deg.15 Both of one mind, as married people use, Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! 20 Your soft hand is a woman of itself, And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so— My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! —How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet— My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. Which everybody looks on and calls his, 30 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less. You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, There's what we painters call our harmony! A common grayness silvers everything,— All in a twilight, you and I alike —You, at the point of your first pride in me (That's gone, you know)—but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 40 There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape, As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 50 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! This chamber for example—turn your head— All that's behind us! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door —It is the thing, Love! so such things should be— Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say. I can do with my pencil what I know, 60 What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep— Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week; And just as much they used to say in France. At any rate 'tis easy, all of it! No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives, —Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, 70 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive—you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,— Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)—so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 80 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word— Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself, 90 Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray, Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and thro' his art—for it gives way; 110 That arm is wrongly put—and there again— A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right—that, a child may understand. Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch— Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael deg., I and you! deg.119 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think— 120 More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare— Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "God and the glory! never care for gain.

The present by the future, what is that? Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo deg.! deg.130 Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat—somewhat, too, the power— And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak. That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau deg.! deg.150 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,— One finger in his beard or twisted curl Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile. One arm, about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes. Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 160 Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,— And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward! A good tune, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless ... but I know— 'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said; Too live the life grew, golden and not gray: And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world, 170 How could it end in any other way? You called me, and I came home to your heart, The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! "Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman's is the better when you pray, But still the other's Virgin was his wife—" Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 180 Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think. For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael... I have known it all these years... (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, Too lifted up in heart because of it) "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, 190 Who, were he set to plan and execute As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!" To Rafael's!—And indeed the arm is wrong. I hardly dare ... yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go! Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out! Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? Do you forget already words like those?) 200 If really there was such a chance so lost,— Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more pleased. Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!

This hour has been an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 Come from the window, Love,—come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce, bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? he waits outside? 220 Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The gray remainder of the evening out, Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly How I could paint, were I but back in France, One picture, just one more—the Virgin's face, 230 Not yours this time! I want you at my side To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo— Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, 240 Get you the thirteen scudi deg. for the ruff! deg.241 Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis!—it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said My father and my mother died of want. 250 Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have laboured somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You love me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance— Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 260 Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, deg. Rafael, Agnolo, and me deg.262 To cover—the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So—still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia,—as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

* * * * *



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS;

OR,

NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin, And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, 10 And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,— He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web, (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks, to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes—ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time. Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep 20 In confidence, he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. 30

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun) 40 Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.

'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown, He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue 50 That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole—He made all these and more, Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate: as well have made Himself: He would not make what He mislikes or slights, An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains; 60 But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be— Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,—that is it! Because, so brave, so better tho' they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,— 70 Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper thro' my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme. And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, And there, a sting to do his foes offence, 80 There, and I will that he begin to live, Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns Of grigs high up that make the merry din, Saucy thro' their veined wings, and mind me not. In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, And he lay stupid-like,—why, I should laugh; And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,— Well, as the chance were, this might take or else 90 Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the mankin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He.

'Thinketh such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 100 That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm. And two worms he whose nippers end in red: As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, 110 But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, And envieth that, so helped, such things do more Than He who made them! What consoles but this? That they, unless thro' Him, do naught at all, And must submit: what other use in things? 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue; Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay 120 Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, I make the cry my maker cannot make With his great round mouth; he must blow thro' mine!" Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,—the something over Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, 130 Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. There may be something quiet o'er His head, Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, Since both derive from weakness in some way. I joy because the quails come; would not joy Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, But never spends much thought nor care that way. It may look up, work up,—the worse for those 140 It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, Who, making Himself feared thro' what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life; Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes. 'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books 150 Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 160 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge In a hole o' the rock, and calls him Caliban; A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. 'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

His dam held that the Quiet made all things 170 Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so. Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. Had He meant other, while His hand was in, Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint, Like an orc's armour? Ay,—so spoil His sport! He is the One now: only He doth all.

'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? 180 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose. But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes. Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, By no means for the love of what is worked. 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, 190 Than trying what to do with wit and strength. 'Falls to make something; 'piled yon pile of turfs, And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! 200 One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. He hath a spite against me, that I know. Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? So it is, all the same, as well I find. 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, And licked the whole labour flat; so much for spite! 210 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! 'Dug up a newt He may have envied once And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone. Please Him and hinder this?—What Prosper does? Aha, if he would tell me how! Not he! There is the sport: discover how or die! All need not die, for of the things o' the isle Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; 220 Those at His mercy,—why, they please Him most When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice! Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. You must not know His ways, and play Him off, Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence: 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death 230 For fright at my approach: the two ways please. But what would move my choler more than this, That either creature counted on its life To-morrow, next day and all days to come, Saying forsooth in the inmost of its heart, "Because he did so yesterday with me, And otherwise with such another brute, So must he do henceforth and always." Ay? 'Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means! 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. 240

'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, And we shall have to live in fear of Him So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, If He have done His best, make no new world To please Him more, so leave off watching this,— If He surprise not even the Quiet's self Some strange day,—or, suppose, grow into it As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we, And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

'Believeth with the life the pain shall stop. 250 His dam held different, that after death He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, Giving just respite lest we die thro' pain, Saving last pain for worst,—with which, an end. Meanwhile, the best way to escape His Ire Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both. 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball 260 On head and tail as if to save their lives: 'Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so, 'would have him misconceive, suppose This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, And always, above all else, envies Him; Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, And never speaks his mind save housed as now: Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here, O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?" 270 'Would to appease Him, cut a finger off, Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste: While myself lit a fire, and made a song And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?" Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, 280 That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, There scuds His raven, that hath told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, 290 His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! So! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet thro' his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

* * * * *



"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"

(See Edgar's song in "Lear.")

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression deg. of the glee, that pursed and scored deg.5 Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh 10 Would break, what crutch 'gin write deg. my epitaph deg.11 For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried. So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What, with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope 20 Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring,— I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

As when a sick man very near to death Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend, And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith, "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;") 30

While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves, and staves: And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay.

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band"—to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. deg. deg.48

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 50 Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound, I might go on; naught else remained to do.

So, on I went. I think I never saw Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: For flowers—as well expect a cedar grove! But cockle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove. 60

No! penury, inertness, and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, Calcine its clods and set my prisoners deg. free." deg.66

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents deg. deg.68 Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as deg. to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 80 And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90

Not it deg.! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face deg.91 Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

Giles then, the soul of honour—there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands 100 Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight so far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet deg. or a bat? deg.106 I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. 110 No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate deg. with flakes and spumes. deg.114

So petty, yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 120

Which, while I forded,—good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! —It may have been a water-rat I speared, But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

Glad was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage—

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. deg. deg.133 What penned them there, with all the plain, to choose? No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk deg. deg.137 Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

And more than that—a furlong on—why, there! What bad use was that engine deg. for, that wheel, deg.140 Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's deg. tool, on earth left unaware, deg.143 Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes, and off he goes!) within a rood— Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth. 150

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end, Naught in the distance but the evening, naught To point my footstep further! At the thought, A great black bird, Apollyon's deg. bosom-friend, deg.160 Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains—with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me,—solve it, you! How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, Gods knows when— 170 In a bad dream, perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts—you're inside the den.

Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While, to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! 180

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

Not see? because of night perhaps?—why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled thro' a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, 190 Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, "Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!"

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears, Of all the lost adventurers my peers,— How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met To view the last of me, a living frame 200 For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

* * * * *



AN EPISTLE

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN

Karshish, the picker up of learning's crumbs, The not incurious in God's handiwork (This man's flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) —To Abib, all sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such deg.— deg.14 The vagrant Scholar to his Sage deg. at home deg.15 Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snake-stone deg.—rarer still, deg.17 One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms deg. than drugs) deg.19 And writeth now the twenty-second time. 20