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 SONNETS
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 m 
 
 SIR JOHN HANMER, BART. 
 
 ' I apparecchiava a sostener la guerra 
 
 1> \ SITE, 
 
 LONDON: 
 (WARD MOXON, DOVEB STREET 
 
 WDCCCXL.
 
 LONDON : 
 HUAimuKY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, U'MIl RJUIARS.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 England .......... i. 
 
 America ...... . . . ii. 
 
 Petrarca . . ....... iii. 
 
 Bertrand de Born . ... . . . iv. 
 
 The Steam-Boat . ....... v. 
 
 Winter in the Riviera of Genoa . . . . . . vi. 
 
 The Two Columns vii. 
 
 The Widow of Ephesua . . viii. 
 
 To the Fountain at Frascati ...... ix. 
 
 A Way-Side Landscape in Italy . . . . . . x. 
 
 Silence ..... ..... xi. 
 
 To the Chartists xii. 
 
 The Millennium xiii. 
 
 Ciullo of Alcamo xiv. 
 
 Origin <>f New Languages ....... xv. 
 
 Chaucer xvi. 
 
 Romeo . . ... xvii. 
 
 Winter . ■ xviii. 
 
 917
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 Written on an old Spanish Chronicle .... nix. 
 
 To a Friend ... . . . . xx. 
 
 'J'u a Pine. Addressed in a Sonnet on Spring, formerly 
 
 Published xxi. 
 
 The Crucifix xxii. 
 
 Unsectariau Education .... . xxiii. 
 
 Spring ....... . xxiv. 
 
 The Spider xxv. 
 
 The Oak xxvi. 
 
 New Year's Day . . ..... xxvii. 
 
 The Pine Woods ........ xxviii. 
 
 Past and Future xxix. 
 
 The Rook ... xxx. 
 
 Bacchante Dolorosa ... . . xxxi. 
 
 Singing Birds ......... xxxii. 
 
 Art .......... xxxiii. 
 
 Evening xxxiv. 
 
 Orpheus ... . xxxv. 
 
 Anteros xxxvi. 
 
 The Ballot xxxvii. 
 
 Thoughts under a Walnut-tree xxxviii. 
 
 On the Monument, at Lucerne, inscribed, " Fidei et 
 Virtuti Helvetiorum," in Memory of the Swiss 
 Guards of the King of France, who fell at the 
 
 Tnileries, Aug. 10th, 1792 xxxix. 
 
 Evening in Germany ... . . . \l. 
 
 To the Sibyls x ]j p
 
 CONTENTS, vii 
 
 Venice ........•• xlii. 
 
 The Old Fisher xliii. 
 
 The Fiumara xliv. 
 
 Folco Portinari ......... xlv. 
 
 Dcsenzano .......... xlvi. 
 
 On a Monument with the Figures of Hope and Contem 
 
 |>lati<m . xlvii. 
 
 The Suppressed < onvent .... . xlviii. 
 
 Galileo to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany .... xlix. 
 
 A Rencontre .......... 1. 
 
 Effect of the Suppression of Chantries in England . . li. 
 
 Poetry by the Way-Side lii. 
 
 Ar<jiia .......... liii. 
 
 i ame liv. 
 
 German Witches, Hearing of tin- Indulgences granted by 
 
 Leo X. lv. 
 
 '■ One --;iit!i to the other, wrinkling u\> her eye," . . . lvi. 
 
 " She mutters ; loud anil long lor many a day" . . lvii. 
 
 Mycena ....... lviii. 
 
 Ih' Merchant ......... lix. 
 
 On a Pebble used in making Glass . . . . . lx.
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Arise up, England, from the smoky cloud 
 That covers thee ; the din of whirling wheels : 
 Not the pale spinner, prematurely bowed 
 By his hot toil, alone the influence feels 
 Of all this deep necessity for gain : 
 Gain still ; but deem not only by the strain 
 Of engines on the sea and on the shore, 
 Glory, that was thy birthright, to retain. 
 Oh thou that knewest not a conqueror, 
 Unchecked desires have multiplied in thee, 
 Till with their bat- wings they shut out the sun 
 So in tin; dusk thou gocst moodily, 
 With a bent head, as one who gropes for ore 
 I [eedless of living streams that round him run.
 
 II. 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 Great people, whom across the Atlantic seas, 
 Our thoughts, expanding with the space, behold ; 
 And know thy starry front, serene and bold, 
 E'en as Orion, when the winters freeze ; 
 Thy distance fades by changing moon's degrees ; 
 Peace hovers o'er the middle depths, to hold 
 On either side her scales of antique gold, 
 Spanning the depths ; but not alone for these ; 
 But that ye come from an ancestral line, 
 That hence departed, keeping freedom's ways ; 
 And speak the language that the band divine, 
 And storied memories of great deeds did raise, 
 When the old world was wondrous ; let the sign 
 Of love shine out betwixt us, in our days.
 
 III. 
 
 PETRARCA. 
 
 Not vainly didst thou sing, thy lifetime long, 
 Petrarca, of a fair and gentle dame ; 
 And with the winds fan love's enduring flame ; 
 Wandering the hills and the quick streams among ; 
 For Time hath listened to thy passionate song ; 
 Whose years like pilgrims to Valchiusa came ; 
 Sighing thou wontest all thy days ; but Fame 
 Filled her clear trump with thine imagined wrong. 
 Then from the banks of that Provencal river, 
 Soared loftier accents, 'neath the Alps' blue gleam ; 
 And at thy voice rose one, who would deliver 
 1 1 is Rome and thine ; oh noble poet-dream : 
 The Belisarian weeds did stir and shiver 
 On her old walls, at that electric theme.
 
 IV. 
 
 BERTRAND DE BORN. 
 
 ■ ♦ ■ 
 
 >V r ARRioR, and poet, in this balanced day 
 
 "T would nuzzle thue, T doubt, Messire de Born *, 
 
 To rouse up princes into chivalrous scorn 
 
 Of peace, with thy sirventes ; and bid the array 
 
 Of battle gather proudly, with the lay 
 
 That stirred King Philip, like a stream i 1 the morn 
 
 Waking the sluggard ; as thy speech outworn, 
 
 The moon of thy vocation fades away. 
 
 For 'tis a staid and reasonable time, 
 
 That debt would to morality endear ; 
 
 Counting the clink of taxes, 'stead of rhyme : 
 
 But not the less doth passion's flame appear 
 
 Rending the earth, in many another clime, 
 
 From the old volcano, though it bursts not here. 
 
 * E perch6 tu di me novella porti, 
 
 Sappi, ch' i' son Bertram dal Bornio, quelli, 
 
 Che diedi al re Giovanni i ma' conforti. — Dante, Inferno, c. xxvii. 
 
 Bertram! de Horn, whose bad counsels to John of England are thus commemorated by Dante. 
 was lord of llautefort, and a celebrated Provencal poet. Richard I., at a diplomatic conference 
 on the frontier of Touraine, called Philip of France " a vile renegade;" " C'e dont Bertram! de 
 Born fut fort joyeux," says Thierry, translating an old chronicle, " et tit un sirventes dans lequel 
 il pique fort lc roi de France de commeneer la guerre a feu et a sang, ct lui reprocbe d'aimer la 
 paix plus qu'un limine. JIais pour choses que dit Bertrand de Born en sirventes ct en couplets 
 auroi Philippe, il nc voulait gucrroyer contre le roi Richard ; mais Richard saillit contre lui ; ce 
 dont tous les barons, a qui deplaisait la paix, furent fort joyeux, ct Bertrand dc Born fit un 
 autre sii vent s. pour affermir lc roi Richard dans son propos." 
 
 Ipril, i::4o.
 
 THE STEAM-BOAT. 
 
 White wings, that o'er the hyacinthine sea 
 
 With joy or hope or sorrow long have sped ; 
 
 Since first he voyaged whom the Colehian wed ; 
 
 Bearing lone ships o'er many a salt degree : 
 
 A voice came thence where ye were wont to be ; 
 
 A strange and serpent utterance ; high o'er head, 
 
 Trailed its dark breath; and with Ixion's tread 
 
 A keel passed by, mocking the stormy lee. 
 
 Into the rack, far lessening, on it went, 
 
 As once that antique lover of the cloud: 
 
 While ye to veering winds were bowed and bent ; 
 
 \nd Ocean roared with his great voice aloud ; 
 
 Lashing his waves 'gainst isle and continent, 
 
 Vexed with the wake that wheel-borne ship had ploughed
 
 VI. 
 
 WINTER IN THE RIVIERA OF GENOA. 
 
 Now the fair face of Nature is obscure ; 
 
 Ay, if 'tis ever, in this southern clime ; 
 
 Upon the mountain sits the cloud sublime ; 
 
 And incense to the Virgin dear and pure, 
 
 Ere the tumultuous seas he will endure, 
 
 And spread his sails, and to the topmast climb, 
 
 The shipman offers. 'Tis the wintry time 
 
 When rich men crowd in cities ; and the poor 
 
 Kindle their fires of wreck along the coast ; 
 
 Or in slow barges from Lavenza creep ; 
 
 Bearing her marble for proud Genoa's boast : 
 
 And still, at intervals, along the deep, 
 
 Dim trails of smoke arise, and then are lost, 
 
 Where steamers their rough way undaunted keep.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE TWO COLUMNS. 
 
 I saw two Columns, by a southern shore ; 
 One, standing in its Dorian majesty, 
 Simple, and stern, and natural it might be ; 
 So blended with the hills the shape it wore. 
 Rut some Cyclopean hand, ere time was hoar, 
 Had reared it up to Neptune ; and his sea 
 Still bellows out beneath, memorially ; 
 Marking the moments' 1 flight with tumbling roar 
 Overthrown the other, of inferior race ; 
 Spiral and fretted, as a becchen bole, 
 That thin green stems of ivy overlace ; 
 Between their dates did twenty ages roll ; 
 And still the first, with his Homeric grace, 
 Stood scathless ; lifting up the gazer's soul.
 
 vnr. 
 
 THE WIDOW OF EPHESUS. 
 
 •' Oh weak unstable wandering memory ;" 
 
 Came forth a sudden voice from an old tomb, 
 
 By the way-side, like Pompeii's : " for the doom 
 
 Of Ephesus, so, justly clings to me ; 
 
 Making my love a byword ; I am she 
 
 Thenceforward called The Widow, since the gloom 
 
 ( )f funeral caverns was my bridal room ; 
 
 Hut how that deed unholy came to be, 
 
 Ask many a feeble utterance of strong will, 
 
 Many a faint priest of fame's divinity ;" 
 
 So said the mourning voice, and then was still : 
 
 But from the thronging drear infinity 
 
 Of shades, that answered to the summons, I 
 
 Sped, as the heron speeds, under a hill.
 
 IX, 
 
 TO THE FOUNTAIN AT FRASCATI. 
 
 Not by Aldobrandini's watery show, 
 Still plashing at his portal never dumb, 
 Minished of my devotion, shalt thou come, 
 Leaving thy natural fount on Algido, 
 Wild winged daughter of the Sabine snow ; 
 Now creeping under quiet Tusculum ; 
 Now gushing from those caverns old and numb ; 
 Dull were his heart who gazed upon thee so. 
 Emblem art thou of Time, memorial stream, 
 Which in ten thousand fancies, being here, 
 We waste, or use, or fashion, as we deem ; 
 But if its backward voice comes ever near, 
 As thine upon the hill, how doth it seem 
 Solemn, and stern, sepulchral and severe !
 
 X. 
 
 A WAY-SIDE LANDSCAPE IN ITALY. 
 
 Easier Eggs. 
 
 There stands a fortress by a Roman way, 
 
 With battered base, and dark imperious towers ; 
 
 And massy grates that scorned the irregular powers, 
 
 Colonna, or Savelli, in their day ; 
 
 But ilexes with foreheads round and grey, 
 
 Grow now upon the moat ; and slanting showers 
 
 Chase sunshine through the open gate ; with flowers 
 
 The windows high above are bright and gay. 
 
 For 'tis the vernal time, when in the woods 
 
 Springs the ranunculus ; and the holy tide 
 
 Of Easter comes, by rituals led along ; 
 
 And in the streets go flocking multitudes, 
 
 With painted eggs, of many a colour pied ; 
 
 But not so motley as the moving throng.
 
 XI. 
 
 SILENCE. 
 
 When at the sound of noon-proclaiming bell, 
 Quick as the note, throws by his spade the clown, 
 And from his forehead clears the careful frown, 
 With which, his work, before, he measured well ; 
 Comes Silence with admonitory spell : 
 Oh changeful Silence, on the sedgy crown 
 Of a blue mere as lights a wild bird down, 
 Watching the air's vibration — thou dost dwell. 
 Vague spirit, whom nor hymn nor voice evokes ; 
 But gazing Nature from her depths ; and so 
 E'en the cessation of dull earthly strokes 
 Doth sanctify ; behold the feathery snow 
 Palls on a wood of monumental oaks, 
 Stern and unmoved ; and not a wind doth blow.
 
 XII. 
 
 TO THE CHARTISTS. 
 
 With doubtful purpose, through the doubtful night, 
 Your spearheads glimmering in the misty moon, 
 Why gather ye ; and with wild lyric tune 
 Call up the wondering cocks before the light ? 
 Oh what conflicting sense of wrongs or right 
 Marshalled ye thus ; and in the star-led noon 
 Of sleep bade forth I Hers is a better boon, 
 Dear countrymen, than that for which ye fight. 
 Think ye to utter, as the Sybil doth, 
 Rugged, and strange, but perdurable things ; 
 The world's ordained counsel with mad mouth ? 
 Now heavy-laden Time wild stories brings 
 Of Nostradamus ; and the world is drowth, 
 Gaping for clouds— but Truth keeps the old springs.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE MILLENNIUM. 
 
 Darkness and tumult till the thousandth year ; 
 
 As in the dreary nights, when men lie dumb, 
 
 Listening the whirlwind ; then pale lights to some 
 
 Shine, as the gusty morning climbs the sphere. 
 
 The thunders of Time's chariot wheel draw near : 
 
 It hath gone by — the dread Millennium* — 
 
 Shout, for the world hath ages yet to come ; 
 
 Rise man, that like a bull-rush crouched for fear. 
 
 He rises. — O'er the mighty Lombard plain, 
 
 By far Transalpine cities, domes and spires, 
 
 And baptisteries, sweet charm of mortal sorrow, 
 
 Spring up ; like flowers dew-glittering, when the quires 
 
 Of birds from winter loosed break forth again, 
 
 In a new note, from the old that yet doth borrow -f-. 
 
 * Tin- period of the Millennium bad passed by; and men again recovering from their fright, 
 and shaking off their torpor, fell ashamed of their long neglect of holy edifices, and every where 
 again iii-Kan to repair and rebuild churches and monasteries in greater numbers and on a greater 
 scale than before. -Hopk's IrchiUcture, chap. x.\i. 
 
 ; Pew things are more Interesting than the transit I languages, which probably was in 
 
 active operation at this time, though the effects do not begin to b< apparent to us, until more 
 than a hundred years later,
 
 XIV. 
 
 CIULLO OF ALCAMO. 
 
 " Why call those ages dark ? from the old speech 
 By what gradations pass'd the world away, 
 Ye know not : for your thoughts are dull to reach 
 (Being late awake) the springing of the day." 
 I knew the voice was Ciullo^ * : he whose lay 
 In Alcamo the grace of words did teach, 
 And accent and sweet meaning give to each ; 
 And I, for more still listening, answered " Nay, 
 If the long avenue of sphynx-like years 
 Tend to a point of dim perspective now ; 
 Bright in the midst a starry line appears, 
 Fame's children ; and if Dante's sovereign brow 
 Loftier and nearer shine, or through his tears 
 Petrarca, seen, though far remote, art thou." 
 
 * The few lines attributed to the Sicilian C'iullo, which are said t<|fbe the earliest genuine 
 Italian extant, are supposed to have been written between 11»7 a' W'JS.—^cc Mr. IIallam's 
 Literature of Europe, vol. i.
 
 XV. 
 
 ORIGIN OF NEW LANGUAGES. 
 
 From the bright paths of Time-beloved Aurore, 
 Changeful as hers, a Sybil's voice proceeds ; 
 And poets hear it, where the lizard feeds, 
 On some old hill-top ruin, proud and hoar. 
 They hear, and ask not where she hath been before, 
 New rising with the trumpet-summoned steeds ; 
 But each her sweet prophetic utterance heeds, 
 And to himself repeats it, o'er and o'er. 
 
 Bird of the morning, rhythmical wild lark, 
 That to thy song dost beat thine airy wings, 
 And lookest then in silence to the sun ; 
 Whose deep ordained music thou dost mark, 
 High in the heavens, of thine own the springs ; 
 So was on earth another speech begun.
 
 XVI. 
 
 CHAUCER. 
 
 When I remember, how, nor separate chance, 
 Nor restless traffic peopling many a shore, 
 Nor old tradition with innumerous lore, 
 But poets wrought our best inheritance ; 
 Sweet words and noble ; in their gai science 
 That England heard, and then for evermore 
 Loved as her own, and did with deeds adore ; 
 I bless thee with a kindred heart, Provence : 
 For to thy tales, like waves that come and go, 
 Sat Chaucer listening with exulting ear ; 
 And casting his own phrase in giant mould : 
 That still had charms for sorrow's gentlest tear, 
 Telling the story of Griselda's woe, 
 " Under the roots of Vesulus the cold. 11
 
 XVII. 
 
 ROMEO. 
 
 Four daughters like the lilies, each a queen, 
 
 In his Toulouse had Raimond Berengare ; 
 
 But he who set them in the regions fair, 
 
 That loved them, was a man of cheerful mien, 
 
 Who on a little mule at eve was seen, 
 
 Coming from Compostella : when the air 
 
 Breathed evil on long years of prosperous care, 
 
 Onward he went arrayed as he had been. 
 
 And in the towers of Provence bright and blue, 
 
 Through Langue d'Oc, and the city-girded shore, 
 
 Where was Romeo, none thereafter knew. 
 
 With his old pilgrim's staff his way ho bore; 
 
 Seen only of the Tuscan*, when he too, 
 
 From the world's bitter wrong to heaven could soar. 
 
 Romeo, whom Dante commemorates in Mb Vision of Paradise, was an unknown pilgrim 
 Compostella: he was received in the house of Raimond Berenger, and became 
 for many years his steward ; being at last unju < i. accu ni of fraud, he produced a statement of 
 ;iil that in- bad done, and departed as he c-.uu'-. The advice which he gave him, and which 
 became the means of marrying iiis four daughters to kings, is alluded to in a letter of 
 Machiavelli to Chiicciardini : — " to vi ricordo quel consiglio ohe dette quel Romeo al duca di 
 
 Provenza, ohe aveva quattro ngUuole femmlne, e lo conforto a maritare la prima evolmente, 
 
 diccndoll che quella darebbe regola ed ordine all' altre, tantochelui la marit6al red! Francia, 
 o dettegll mezza la Provenza pei dot Questo feceche marito con poca dote le altre a tre re, 
 onde l (anti dice : — 
 
 ., , ;./„ , , eiatcuna regina, 
 , ota al tuttofii cagiotu 
 i;. in. ,,. j„ rtona umiU 1 1" regrina.' " 
 
 D
 
 XVIII. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 To the short days, and the great vault of shade, 
 
 The whitener of the hills, we come — alas, 
 
 There is no colour in the faded grass, 
 
 Save the thick frost on its hoar stems arrayed. 
 
 Cold is it, as a melancholy maid, 
 
 The latest of the seasons now doth pass, 
 
 With a dead garland, in her icy glass 
 
 Setting its spikes about her crisped braid. 
 
 The streams shall breathe, along the orchards laid, 
 
 In the soft spring-time ; and the frozen mass 
 
 Melt from the snow-drift ; flowerets where it was 
 
 Shoot up — the cuckoo shall delight the glade ; 
 
 But to new glooms through some obscure crevasse* 
 
 She will have past — that melancholy maid. 
 
 • It 'gan out crepe at some crevasse." 
 
 Chaucer's House of Faun-.
 
 XIX. 
 
 WRITTEN ON AN OLD SPANISH 
 CHRONICLE. 
 
 Lest the great deeds of many a passing year 
 
 Should down to dusty dull oblivion go, 
 
 The noble monk Don Roderic doth show 
 
 All things, as in a mirror deep and clear. 
 
 How went ambassador the valorous peer, 
 
 That was his grandsire, to the Moorish foe ; 
 
 And heard the voice of Guadalquivers flow, 
 
 By moonlight, when Giralda's shade was near. 
 
 Praise to the saints ; by those unchristian daughters 
 
 Ne'er was he snared, but came true knight away ; 
 
 And reared over Lleren his gentle towers. 
 
 His name was as a shade o'er many waters, 
 
 ( last ever as he stood in glory's ray ; 
 
 And lengthening as came on the evening hours.
 
 XX. 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Dear , from those far eastern climes, 
 
 Over whose border I was hovering, 
 Once, as an eagle, whose uncertain wing 
 Turns backward from the Danube, and sublimes 
 His flight into a vision, scenes and times 
 Of travel-quickened thought to ours you bring ; 
 Leading us by the Terek's Lesghian spring ; 
 I, nothing in return can give, but rhymes. 
 But yet in these, o'erpassing time and tide, 
 Your name to Casbeck's spirit I commend ; 
 To write it as a stream on his gaunt side, 
 Whose joyous southern windings may descend 
 To Teflis, or that sea by which abide, 
 Rivalling his, the shades of Demavend.
 
 XXI. 
 
 TO A PINE. 
 
 ADDRESSED IN A SONNET ON SPRING, FORMERLY PL'ULISHED. 
 
 Pine, whose green branches to my vernal song 
 Were as the coronal, gracing its close ; 
 Now, forth his painted portals, Autumn goes 
 Over the woods, that will be bare ere long. 
 He leads them, reeling like a Thracian throng ; 
 And each in turn his leafy chaplet throws 
 Down at his feet ; only the Ilex knows 
 A spell superior to the enchanter strong. 
 He hath a hollow root, in which the mice 
 Dream out the winter, or some woodland bee ; 
 Yet bravely doth his dusk head front the stars ; 
 Through whose dread gates hath pass'd a century twice, 
 Since he was planted ; flourish thus my tree, 
 And see a prosperous end of civil jars.
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIX. 
 
 O thou, of temper captious, and of soul 
 
 Too dull, save outward things to comprehend ; 
 
 Whom that small wooden crucifix doth offend ; 
 
 And water in its pine or beechen bowl ; 
 
 By which, when bells for Ave Mary toll, 
 
 The peasant on these hills doth lowly bend ; 
 
 Praying good angels will his house defend ; 
 
 While o'er his sleeping head the planets roll. 
 
 Why railest at such ordinance ? for thus 
 
 Did Augustine, and venerable Bede, 
 
 And saints whose names above doth Peter know. 
 
 Not as of binding force it comes to us ; 
 
 But, when the emblem ye abjure, take heed, 
 
 Lest ye forget the inner meaning so.
 
 XXIII. 
 
 UNSECTARIAN EDUCATION. 
 
 Ye who the plumes of wisdom would put on, 
 
 "Why shun ye then with other daws to perch 
 
 Under the ancestral angles of the Church, 
 
 In the spring time ? though in summer ye be gone, 
 
 And make your haunt by some earth-cumbered stone, 
 
 In the deep woods ; which ye with curious search 
 
 Discover : even there, the oak, and birch, 
 
 Though different, keep assimilating tone. 
 
 And oh fair moon of youth, canst thou not make 
 
 Of hard disputed questions vague the lines ? 
 
 As sea, and shore, beneath thy lustrous wake : 
 
 Wise men have loved wide limit*, that assigns 
 
 A silent hallowed path, for faith to take, 
 
 Where things too great expression ill defines. 
 
 I II f.inf Bouvent dans Irs decisions de 1'Eglise s'en tenir a des expressions generates, pour 
 
 •i surer dans <■< tte mesure de aagesse tan< louee par St. Paul, et a'Gtie p;in eontre son pr£cepte 
 
 plus savant qull ne tout.— Bossubt, Hitt. '
 
 XXIV. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Soft comes the breath of spring, it shakes the pear 
 White blooming ; like a garden seems the mead, 
 Thick with young grass, on which the cattle feed, 
 Tossing their heads at their dull wintry fare. 
 The bees seek honey through the moving air, 
 That rocks the wild-duck on her nest of reed, 
 By the sunlit water : Man doth say " God speed," 
 For joy the year's increase so soon to share. 
 Low, to himself, he says it ; where, alas, 
 Are the old rites ? a dullard race are we ; 
 Clear shows of inner feeling fade and pass ; 
 There are no pomps to greet Eiarine. 
 Our hearts reflect as a smoke-darkened glass, 
 When like a prism of crystal they should be.
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE SPIDER. 
 
 I r any of the Araehnean race, 
 
 Fat and well-filled be near, let him beware 
 
 Of thee, old Spider ; with such stealthy pace 
 
 That travellest through the frore autumnal air : 
 
 So fierce a hunger drives thee from thy lair, 
 
 To feed like Ugolino on thy kind ; 
 
 Rapine is all before thee ; and behind 
 
 Thy broken web — that on its film doth bear 
 
 Thick drops of cold uncomfortable dew, 
 
 Like those which on the dying leaves arc spread. 
 
 The flics creep doors and window corners through ; 
 
 Gaunt are thy sides — no more by tree or shed, 
 
 Can they that pensile; citadel renew, 
 
 In which thy gluttonous youth so full was fed.
 
 XXVI. 
 
 THE OAK. 
 
 Say not that always on immortal things 
 Did the old Greeks their lyric thoughts bestow ; 
 Not always from his fountain's highest flow 
 Called they the steed with cloud-surpassing wings. 
 But the sweet voice of Heliconian springs 
 Came leaping to their hearts in plains below ; 
 Under some oak : and they the Gods let go ; 
 Hymning his shade to their memorial strings. 
 Few are they now on the impatient earth, 
 Those harborous giants, sons of many days ; 
 For time bears hardly on heroic birth ; 
 Bringing vile use to eke his cold decays : 
 Or hurls them down for winter's boisterous mirth ; 
 But birds and poets still find some to praise.
 
 XXVII. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S DAY. 
 
 It is a misty morning, that may turn 
 
 To tears or sunshine ; I see nothing now, 
 
 But great trees looming dim, with quiet bough, 
 
 Over the shadowy deer that cross the fern. 
 
 All things seem vague as an oracle, Old Urn, 
 
 Wreck of the augurial Tuscan ; ay, e'en thou 
 
 Hast on thy gloomy side figures enow, 
 
 Whose dark ideal sense we scarce discern. 
 
 And as I scan them, near the frosty glass, 
 
 Whose marks seem like a web, to some near thorn, 
 
 Or arbutus, or laurel, loosely spun ; 
 
 My thoughts, quick rising, to the future pass ; 
 
 For, out the stillness of this wintry morn, 
 
 A New Year hath its solemn march begun.
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 THE PINE WOODS. 
 
 We stand upon the moorish mountain side, 
 From age to age, a solemn company ; 
 There are no voices in our paths, but we 
 Hear the great whirlwinds roaring loud and wide ; 
 And like the sea-waves have our boughs replied, 
 From the beginning, to their stormy glee ; 
 The thunder rolls above us, and some tree 
 Smites with his bolt, yet doth the race abide ; 
 Answering all times ; but joyous, when the sun 
 Glints on the peaks that clouds no longer bear ; 
 And the young shoots to flourish have begun ; 
 And the quick seeds through the blue odorous air 
 From the expanding cones fall one by one ; 
 And silence, as in temples, dwelleth there.
 
 XXIX. 
 
 PAST AND FUTURE. 
 
 In their unceasing round the seasons come ; 
 
 Seed time, and harvest, flowers, and fruit, and snow ; 
 
 And still, whate'er the month-led earth may show, 
 
 Time to the future points with many a gnome. 
 
 Telling old tales by the tide's ebbing foam, 
 
 Stand yet the fishers ; ere again they go 
 
 Onward over the flood ; and ever so 
 
 Man looks, as double Janus in his Rome. 
 
 Now scans he the before, rather than after ; 
 
 And as the present fleets, then first doth weigh 
 
 In a vain-balanced scale its tears or laughter : 
 
 Now, shunning still the unreturning day, 
 
 Of fancies on vague hopes a keen engrafter, 
 
 " To-morrow, ay to-morrow," ho doth say.
 
 XXX 
 
 THE ROOK. 
 
 Thou skimmest up and down in the blue air, 
 Year after year, companionable bird, 
 Making the murmur of thy coming heard, 
 As a great fleet's, in the still evening glare. 
 Thou hast the corn-fields in thy tutelar care, 
 Yet 'mongst them is thy name an evil word ; 
 Ever thy multitudinous flight is stirred 
 By a young villain set the rooks to scare. 
 "Tis a churl's deed ; but in the quiet night, 
 .When he is stretched upon his pallet board, 
 Why do ye rise, with wakeful accents so ? 
 Then, 'tis the owlet's immemorial right, 
 On his vague quest over the dewy sward, 
 Hearing nought else but muttering winds, to go.
 
 XXXI. 
 
 BACCHANTE DOLOROSA. 
 
 Under a poplar, in that mournful clime 
 
 Whose shadows change not ever, but the stars 
 
 Shine out, the cold and melancholy Lars 
 
 Of the abode of Gods of the elder time, 
 
 Pale sat Agave ; weeping for the crime 
 
 That stained with her own blood the Bromian cars : 
 
 A sistrum at her feet, whose golden bars 
 
 Bore long unreckoned tears, like frosty rime. 
 
 E'en as some moonlit marble, seemed she there ; 
 
 That Phidias might have wrought, on the same day 
 
 When his unresting thought with Jove's could share 
 
 Still was the place, save when, as in the spray 
 
 Of the Pine forest moves the fitful air, 
 
 Stole up a low sad voice and sighed away.
 
 XXXII. 
 
 SINGING BIRDS. 
 
 Sweet is thy voice, embowered Nightingale ; 
 
 But for thy praise would fail my weaker song ; 
 
 Sweet all thine airy kindred, that belong 
 
 To Nature's happiest haunts, by field or vale : 
 
 And some there are, that in the shadows pale 
 
 Of cavernous dim towns, make yearn the throng ; 
 
 Prisoners are they, and blind, yet seems more strong 
 
 The melody of their lives'' remembered tale. 
 
 Ye are the accepted poets ; wheresoe'er 
 
 Your notes have sounded, joy hath thither come ; 
 
 As flowers to forest wells serene and clear : 
 
 Fame wears ye not, that eats the hearts of some ; 
 
 Those unambitious accents man doth hear, 
 
 And straight the importunate voice of self is dumb.
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 ART. 
 
 As o'er the sea's deep world-sustaining breast, 
 Climbing the steep horizon, onward bear 
 The thought- wing'd ships ; and each his track more fair 
 Believes, for 'tis his own, than all the rest ; 
 Which not the less doth fade as 'tis imprest; 
 And the great waters, and cloud- traversed air, 
 With their enduring might, are only there; 
 And space of days unmeasured, East, and West : 
 Dread realms of Art, illimitable as ocean, 
 So fares man's spirit o'er your region waves ; 
 Proudly, and lonely, with a choral motion ; 
 Sunshine he courts, but tempests too ho braves ; 
 Seeking the port, where, for their heart's devotion, 
 I'aine lights her star over such seamen's graves.
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 It were as easy we should never sleep, 
 
 As pass in dreams half-conscious hours away, 
 
 Had Nature willed ; or that the unresting Day 
 
 Round the great world at once his watch should keep : 
 
 But thus 't was set in Paradise ; some steep 
 
 Seemed there an altar, as the sinking ray 
 
 Flamed on its peak ; and stars had quiet sway, 
 
 Till o'er the barriers mighty morn did leap. 
 
 Leap morn, and with thy might bear all things on, 
 
 Mounting the arch of noon the fiery-eyed ; 
 
 Where art thou now, from that mid-height descending ? 
 
 Oh still with songs and love thou art espied 
 
 Far off, while Eve comes here, with bell and gun, 
 
 And the big plashing waves her Moon attending.
 
 XXXV. 
 
 ORPHEUS. 
 
 I thought of Orpheus, stretched a summer's day 
 
 'Neath a green plane-tree glittering in the sun, 
 
 While o'er his head her web Arachne spun, 
 
 With quiet toil ; and he divined his lay, 
 
 That deepest things aimed like the gods to say, 
 
 Joying the earth with great comparison : 
 
 The wild birds went and came, and every one 
 
 Clove with a steady wing his airy way : 
 
 They turned not from his silence : plants and flowers 
 
 ( 1 iew o'er the place, more fair than wisest art 
 
 Shapes them in temples of bright stones or gold : 
 
 Then, with the music of those passing hours 
 
 Tossest, rose up the poet to depart ; 
 
 And his lit eye was glorious to behold.
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 ANTEROS. 
 
 I do believe that who of Comus' crew 
 
 Are numbered, tasting of the berry or root 
 
 That in man's heart sows such accursed fruit, 
 
 Little thereafter have with Fame to do ; 
 
 Little with Love ; that yet with heavenly dew 
 
 Watches again their nature to transmute ; 
 
 Nor e'er forgets how once some wandering foot 
 
 With her beneath the stars sweet passage knew. 
 
 Oh Love, beware ; than Beatrice's strain 
 
 If thine be less, or earthlier, thou art snared ; 
 
 And shoutest to the panther-ruling train 
 
 A lost lost song, with all thy bosom bared ; 
 
 Silenus answers in a broad refrain, 
 
 And many-knotted snakes with heads uprearcd.
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 THE BALLOT. 
 
 Lest in each vein thenceforth a poison flow, 
 Making thee one pale mass of quickening ill, 
 Rife with new monsters 'neath the Moon, until 
 In some prodigious night a Cajsar grow ; 
 England, abjure the voice, that loud, or low, 
 With subtle change as if 'twere natural, still 
 Urges " The Ballot" on thy feverish will ; 
 Thy rights of old were never conquered so : 
 But men in whom Plantagenet's red blood 
 Ran bright, or Tudor's, on their cousin kings 
 Looked sternly, and for popular rights upstood. 
 Time changes all— if it hath changed these things, 
 ( )li see not yet, within a box of wood, 
 A place for Peace to fold her famous wings.
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 THOUGHTS UNDER A WALNUT-TREE, 
 
 Bright walnut, as along this Rhenish road 
 Spring greets us both, the hills of Armenie 
 Rise on my thought ; deep forests, where the bee 
 Rears in your hollow arras her populous brood, 
 Seeking (like poets) in the solitude 
 Of consular cities, for sweet store. — Oh tree ! 
 Honey thy kind hives there ; but here, for me, 
 Far-ranging thoughts, of fancy long pursued. 
 Yet not on o'ergrown cornices of the dead 
 Lies the great wreath of noble quest, nor 'mid 
 Vain relics of the satrapies of Rome. 
 He who would win it for his living head, 
 Must conquer to himself the power that's hid, 
 Like lightning in the region, o'er his home.
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 ON THE MONUMENT, AT LUCERNE, 
 
 INSCRIBED, 
 
 "FIDEI ET VIRTUTI HELVETIORUM," 
 
 IN MEMORY OF THE SWISS GUARDS OF THE KING OF FRANCE, WHO FEE 
 AT THE TU1LERIES, AUGUST lOTII, 179-. 
 
 The faith and valour of the Swiss, for pay, 
 
 But not the pay, this monument records ; 
 
 Perchance they had it not, and so the words 
 
 Duly omitted, leave the rest to say 
 
 All that the warriors in Thcrmopylai 
 
 Wrung from their country, for these chaffering hordes ; 
 
 O Fame forbid that any venal swords 
 
 Should feel the living glory of thy ray. 
 
 What, 'gainst that terrible and ravening crowd, 
 
 What ranked them, but mere traffic, and the instinct 
 
 Of camp and guard-room, when they sourly died '. 
 
 Republicans, to the cause of kings thus linked, 
 
 Of palace-stairs and their red story proud, 
 
 Think ye with Louis memory to divide?
 
 XL. 
 
 EVENING IN GERMANY. 
 
 How each sharp hammer of the minster clock 
 
 Cuts off a point of time, until the bell, 
 
 Up-carolling to the clouds with silvery swell, 
 
 The sullen presage like a bird doth mock : 
 
 But the day fleets, and the shadow of the rock 
 
 Falls opposite to where at morn it fell ; 
 
 The bees come home, each to her angular cell ; 
 
 Up to his hostel flies the roosting cock. 
 
 Now creep the beggars, some with misery pined 
 
 To dungeon-pits ; some where the woodland yields 
 
 Small shelter, thinned for comfortable fires : 
 
 Some to lone huts, such as the shepherd builds 
 
 Under a bank, to shield him from the wind, 
 
 In an old tree set round with thorns and briars.
 
 XL1. 
 
 TO THE SIBYLS. 
 
 Where arc ye, Sibyls, yc who on far shores, 
 
 Persic, or Libyan, or Cumsean cave, 
 
 Awing the world with age or beauty, gave 
 
 Response that Time e'en yet fears and adores, 
 
 Still questioning ; for each stroke of Charon's oars, 
 
 As ghosts of years go by his icy wave, 
 
 Sends upwards through the portals of the grave 
 
 A vague dread voice, that like an earthquake roars ; 
 
 And, " when above the dust and unclean bones 
 
 Of this vile generation shall be cast 
 
 A little earth," some listening seer exclaims, 
 
 " Thus shall it be, and thus," — meanwhile the blast 
 
 Of strife goes on ; and battling codes, or thrones, 
 
 From the blue sky the quiet rainbow shames. 
 
 >■
 
 XLII. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Pale queen of the Adriatic, thou dost wear 
 
 Thy diadem eY-n yet, although it be 
 
 Of sad wan stones, and funeral empery, 
 
 Like that rude hands from Charlemagne did tear, 
 
 With the sacrilege of his sepulchre ; but the air 
 
 Breathes hot and sultry, and the languid sea 
 
 Creeps through thy vague canals, whoso apathy 
 
 Summer weighs down, with dull and heavy glare. 
 
 Not so "'twas in thy summer, which if now 
 
 Making men's hearts like theirs who long have past 
 
 To their immortal fashioning, it shone ; 
 
 The piecemeal East might in thy mould re-cast 
 
 Rise a Colossus of St. Mark ; and thou 
 
 Bid him look north, and keep the Pontic throne.
 
 XLIII. 
 
 THE OLD FISHER. 
 
 Thou art a fisher of Mazorbo ; lone, 
 
 Drifting a usual shadow o'er the sea, 
 
 With thine old boat, that like a barkless tree 
 
 Creaks in the wind, a pitchless dreary moan ; 
 
 And there thy life and all thy thoughts have flown, 
 
 Pouncing on crabs in shallows, till thy knee 
 
 Crooked as theirs, now halts unsteadily. 
 
 Going about to move the anchor-stone : 
 
 And when the waves roll inward from the east, 
 
 Takest thy net, and for some few sardines 
 
 ToiFst, in the morning's wild and chilly ray ; 
 
 Then dost thou go to where yon bell-tower leans, 
 
 And in the sunshine sit, the poor man's feast, 
 
 Else abstinent in thy poverty, all the day.
 
 XLIV. 
 
 THE FIUMARA. 
 
 They say that river, now beneath the sun 
 
 Spreading his waste of shingle, broad and bare, 
 
 With clear green pools in the shadow here and there, 
 
 Doth in the winter like a deluge run ; 
 
 And not with streams that since the world begun 
 
 Were loved, or glorious, doth he fear compare ; 
 
 So wildly do his nymphs their beryl hair 
 
 Toss up and down, nor sight then coyly shun. 
 
 And by his rising, so doth fame report, 
 
 Far Hying as the rack in those loud days, 
 
 The chorus of the Msenades remain ; 
 
 For on his waves come trophies of their sport, 
 
 Ivy, and trees uprooted, pines, and bays, 
 
 And evermore a fierce exulting strain.
 
 XLV, 
 
 FOLCO PORTINARI. 
 
 If, Folco Portinari, to thy name 
 
 But this had been affixed, to wit, that thou 
 
 Ruildedst a hospital *, and didst ondow 
 
 With a large gift, like a river still the same ; 
 
 Whence many centuries of poor, and lame, 
 
 Prayers from pale lips, and looks from speechless brow. 
 
 Have blest thee, o'er the blue abyss, where now, 
 
 And long ago thou waitcst ; earthly fame 
 
 Scantly had been of thy great use : but she 
 
 Who on thy branches like a short-lived flower 
 
 Flourished, and fell, the frailest of the tree, 
 
 Beatrice, with such sweetness breathed, that power 
 
 Grew from it like a spirit, thence to be 
 
 Thy witness here, till the all-summoning hour. 
 
 ITie great hospital ol Santa Maria Nuova, al Florence was founded In 1207 
 liy Folco Portinari, the father ol Beatrice-
 
 XLVI. 
 
 DESENZANO. 
 
 From dust and travel of the Brescian way 
 
 Who rests at Desenzano, shall behold 
 
 A little trading port, with steamers bold 
 
 To tempt Benacus, fair or stormy day ; 
 
 And the great Alps, and sail-uplifting bay, 
 
 Shut from the world save it those wings unfold ; 
 
 And Sirmio, to whose cliffs Catullus told 
 
 His greeting, in that simple mighty lay, 
 
 Enduring as the waters ; that from out 
 
 A thousand springs in the cold hills between 
 
 Camonica and Garda gather here * ; 
 
 Through the blue smoke of whose tumultuous rout, 
 
 Two prophet forms, one gloomier, one serene, 
 
 The guider, and the guided, oft appear. 
 
 * Per milk' fonti credo, et pin si bagna 
 Tra Garda, et Val Camonica Apennino 
 l>e 1' acqua, che nel detto lago stagna. 
 
 Inkerno, Canto xx.
 
 XLVTI. 
 
 ON A MONUMENT WTTH THE FIGURES OF 
 HOPE AND CONTEMPLATION. 
 
 Yes, it is fit Carrara's regal stone 
 
 With imaged thought should rise above the dead ; 
 
 Or softly bow with pale ideal head, 
 
 Like cherished sorrow into beauty grown : 
 
 These are the forms that joy can look upon, 
 
 And then beyond them, like an angel sped ; 
 
 Lovest thou rather the material bed 
 
 Of earthy death — or else — oblivion i 
 
 There was no death for that rejoicing spirit, 
 
 There should be no oblivion, gaze, so may 
 
 Noble and pure perchance thine own become : 
 
 Of one in heaven, who on the earth was near it, 
 
 The record this ; but nothing doth it say ; 
 
 For Hope and Contemplation both are dumb.
 
 XLVin. 
 
 THE SUPPRESSED CONVENT. 
 
 The vine builds o'er the broken convent tower 
 God's architecture, hiding that of man ; 
 The soft blue brook runs on as first it ran, 
 Fed by the mountain rills, the forest shower ; 
 Gone is the Benedictine garb, and dower, 
 Marble, and pomp, and then amain began 
 Ruin, last phase of beauty ; but the plan 
 That reared these walls outlasts the levelling hour. 
 To the fair city over Arno's side, 
 That when its lily on Arcetri smiles, 
 Doth celebrate the festival of St. John *, 
 Might such still come as wont to fill these aisles, 
 The light from darkness in their thought divide, 
 And let the world, e'en as it will, go on. 
 
 * Florence.
 
 XL I \ 
 
 GALILEO TO THE GRAND-DUCHESS 
 OF TUSCANY. 
 
 Lady, whose gracious intellect could divine, 
 
 Long since, the organic powers that guide the sphere ; 
 
 And sometimes deigned to express the love, and fear, 
 
 Such themes can kindle in a heart like thine ; 
 
 Again that thunder fierce and leonine 
 
 Rolls through the twilight on my wakeful ear ; 
 
 Again the sacerdotal voice I hear, 
 
 Banning the truth, as if 'twere man's design : 
 
 Aye, as if with my own hand I could plant 
 
 Those things within the heavens, to disturb 
 
 Nature, and science, from their path serene; 
 
 But in bis might comes Time, the hierophant ; 
 
 And never shall another Joshua curb 
 
 The sun's due course, till the last day hath been.
 
 A RENCONTRE. 
 
 When the chill morning from the mountain-tops 
 
 Forecasting, sped its shadows o'er the clow ; 
 
 And all the cocks, as once for Peter, crew, 
 
 Greeting the wind that waved the moorland crops ; 
 
 Came a foul crone towards me from a copse, 
 
 With weeds in her long fingers, dank and blue, 
 
 And a sharp hook, that 'cross the air she drew, 
 
 Beckoning to me as one that charmed stops. 
 
 And I bethought me, if committed sin 
 
 Takes ever elvish shape, then this might be 
 
 Image of some of old this wood within ; 
 
 But then superior to her witchery 
 
 I past, for cheerful daylight did begin, 
 
 And I the sun through the forest boughs could see.
 
 LI. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE SUPPRESSION OF 
 CHANTRIES IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Amid this multiplicity of creeds, 
 
 This liberty of all that into one 
 
 Should knit men's hearts, and of Religion 
 
 Thence hath the name, how strong thy tide proceeds, 
 
 Deep Rome; as the sea-wave o'er the rocks and weeds 
 
 Lifting its utterance, thou dost hold thine own ; 
 
 Making thy sins, with that harmonic tone, 
 
 Seem but as tales that the wild ocean breeds. 
 
 Wiser than she, who the apostolic name 
 
 ( Haims emulously, and for her patron Paul ; 
 
 Self-stripped, denuded of all spiritual awe, 
 
 Save from one source ; so cold wo grow and tame, 
 
 Siiicr the sweet voice hath vanished from the wall 
 
 Wearily echoing to the parson's saw*. 
 
 ■ Winn coughing drowna the parson's saw. 
 
 8h IKBPl
 
 LII. 
 
 POETRY BY THE WAY-SIDE. 
 
 Wandering along the vision-haunted way, 
 
 One did I meet, whom straight my heart did know ; 
 
 But in strange seeming he was pleased to go, 
 
 And quaint, as by the forest-brook the jay ; 
 
 The leaf-hid brook, with one particular ray 
 
 That the sun gilds, and of his orbed glow 
 
 Gives thence suggestion to the sense ; e'en so 
 
 On mine the quick poetic spirit did play, 
 
 From a feather in the head of one who followed 
 
 A trade associate with the tortoise-shell, 
 
 Client of Mercury, through the towns and shires, 
 
 A rude A utolycus with hat rain-hollowed ; 
 
 And still, as droopt fantastically it fell, 
 
 The shows of things conformed to his desires *. 
 
 * " It (Poetry) doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shewn 
 of things to the desires of the mind. "—Lord Bacon.
 
 L1II. 
 
 ARQUA. 
 
 — • — 
 
 Over the vast and seven-vaulted dome 
 That holds thy shrine, St. Anthony, the shade 
 Had shifted quite; and in each long arcade, 
 Hanging its curtain in the sunshine's room : 
 ( hiward we went to a memorial tomb, 
 Peacefully in the vine-covered mountains laid ; 
 And evening came, and the luccioli made 
 Their road-side flashes in the willowy gloom ; 
 And we with silent and considerate pace 
 Returned, as what we sought for having seen ; 
 Till rose the turrets of that antique place 
 Padova in the dusk air.— home serene, 
 That wearest by his grave Petrarca's grac< 
 Ofl now I see thee, as in a fountain's sheen
 
 L1V. 
 
 FAME. 
 
 Dante, how many, long ere half their age, 
 
 Have thought them in a gloomy wood, like thee, 
 
 Astray from the true path ; that others see, 
 
 And follow, therefore, in the golden page 
 
 Of Hope inscribed. But some their battle wage 
 
 Then haughtier 'gainst oblivion, and shall be 
 
 As thou by Virgil onward led, or he 
 
 That over Lethe bore the Sibyl's gage : 
 
 One waits their coming ; not with tongues and eyes, 
 
 As the vain-glorious dream, and her vague throne 
 
 Would fill, though 'twere the winds and stars of heaven ; 
 
 But oft she foils, still points to high emprise, 
 
 And they shall know not, till their wrestling's done, 
 
 1 1 is an angel, with whom they have striven.
 
 LV. 
 
 GERMAN WITCHES, 
 
 HEARING OF TITE INDULGENCES GRANTED HY LEO \ 
 
 I. 
 
 Far flics the raven over the German land ; 
 Over brown heaths and castles gocth he, 
 Perching on tower and city linden-tree, 
 He hath the earth and air at his command. 
 What saith the maiden with the jewelled hand, 
 From her bright lattice, raven dark, to thee, 
 Noble, and knight, and burgher round and free, 
 That thou before his gate so long dost stand I 
 1 Tis a wild saying, like the wind's ; but eve 
 Comes on apace ; and earth- o'crscattered fires 
 SI lino out, with light and darkness strangely blending 
 There is one spot that thou art loath to leave, 
 Where green-worn steps, by ;i cathedral's spires. 
 Two croaking withered beldams are descending.
 
 I.\ I 
 
 II. 
 Onb saith to the other, wrinkling up her eye, 
 
 " Hast thou no sins, old gossip Ursula V 
 And she respondeth with a hoarse " Ha, ha, 
 Well, we were young, but now those days are by ; " 
 She twirls her distaff with a muttering sigh, 
 And strives to pass ; the other still doth bar 
 The wayside — " It were well to balk the star 
 Thou know'st of," whispers she, " once ere we die : 
 Aye, marry, these are comfortable times, 
 Tis a good church to balk his spite, that there 
 Would whirl us but in mockery, like the snow — " 
 Then, as a rat that some old witch berhymes, 
 She who doth listen, at the Prince of air 
 Muttering, goes on, with feeble steps and slow.
 
 I. VII 
 
 111. 
 She mutters ; loud and long for many a day 
 J lath one been crying ; and at eve it went 
 Still through the silence — " Come, repent, repent ;" 
 But not like John the Baptist's was the way. 
 Albrecht of Mayence hath his pall to pay*; 
 Ten thousand florins must to Rome be sent ; 
 Thrice ten ; 'tis therefore do they cry " repent ;" 
 And against sins gold in the balance weigh. 
 The while, beneath Bolsena's shady boughs, 
 Spurs the great father f of the Church, and swears 
 This brach or that is keenest at the game ; 
 And crowns at eve some ribald's stupid brows J 
 With laurel wreath, and of a patron wears 
 With jovial pride the Medicean name. 
 
 For his pallium, and cardinal's hat, he had to pay 30,000 florins, to defray which 
 
 the I'op m: i him I lie farm of the sin , oi Germany. 
 
 then the guest "i Cardinal aUessandro Fi Be, afterwards Popi I 
 
 thi Third. 
 
 j Poralau habl Insta f this see a note at tb< end extracted from Oingudnl 
 
 1
 
 LVIII. 
 
 MYCENAE. 
 
 There's not a dog, nor note of any bird, 
 
 Nor shepherd's laugh, nor echo's lightest tones, 
 
 Only the lizard on the giant stones 
 
 Moves in Mycenae moves, for this vain word 
 
 Affrights him from his wont, where lies interred 
 The treasure of Agamemnon ; aye, the bones 
 Perchance, then Greece, in him of all her thrones 
 The leader, when in Aulis there was heard 
 The gathering after Helen, and the wind 
 Sighing among the congregated shrouds, 
 The waves, the songs, the augurs on the shore. 
 O solitude far deeper than the clouds'', 
 For voices in their dwellings ye may find ; 
 Here is the sun and shadow, and no more !
 
 LIX. 
 
 THE MERCHANT. 
 
 Naked wast thou, at thy birth-time, utterly, 
 
 Merchant whose sails are furled ; and now the birds 
 
 Build under thy broad cornices, and the herds 
 
 Sleep in the shadow of thy planted tree : 
 
 The waves have borno thee onward, thou may'st see 
 
 The stars in new perspective ; the full thirds 
 
 Of thy great wealth no more are inky words, 
 
 Paper and trust, but woods and swelling lea. 
 
 Then wilt thou keep the balance in thine house, 
 
 Emblem of its just seignory, and the cause ; 
 
 Or with those harlequin heralds poorly feign ? 
 
 Keep it, for noble citizenship thus, 
 
 And truth, the fountain that doth never pause, 
 
 Free from the weeds of folly thou wilt maintain.
 
 Ixii NOTE. 
 
 S. Cosmc ct de S. Damien, patrons de la famille des Medicis. Apres 
 y avoir longtemps fait pompe de son talent par les vers les plus 
 ridicules, Baraballo descendit sur la place du Vatican. La, sous 
 les yeux du pape, il raonta sur un elephant tout caparaconne d'or, 
 et qui portait une chaire triomphale ; mais cet animal, en quelque 
 sorte plus sense que lui, et d'ailleurs etourdi par le bruit des 
 tambours, des trompettes et des acclamations de la foule immense 
 du peuple, ne voulut jamais faire un pas au-dela du pont St. Ange, 
 et Baraballo revint a pied, aux hue'es de la populace et a la grande 
 joie du pape et de ses cardinaux. — Ginguene, Hist. Lit. d? Italic 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HnADlU'RV AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHrf RFRIA RS.
 
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