r 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 (UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 . SAN DIEGO i
 
 THE POETIC AND DRAMATIC WORKS 
 OF ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 IN SIX VOLUMES 
 VOLUME I.
 
 /
 
 PAULINE: PARACELSUS 
 
 STRAFFORD: SORDELLO: PIPPA PASSES 
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING 
 
 CHARLES 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 WITH THE AUTHOR'S LATEST CORRECTIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1891
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by n. 0. Iloughton & Company.
 
 PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 IN issuing a new American edition of Mr. Browning's works 
 the Publishers purpose not only to place before the reader in 
 convenient form the entire body of the poet's writings, but to 
 follow with scrupulous care his latest revision of the text. It 
 is well known that Mr. Browning has taken occasion, in each 
 successive issue of his works, both to redistribute collections of 
 poems and to alter, often materially, the form of many verses. 
 Before the publication of The Ring and the Book, Mr. Brown- 
 ing gathered all of his previous poems and dramas and issued 
 them, rearranged and revised, in a series of six volumes. The 
 present edition follows that series, and continues with the other 
 writings in the order of their first appearance. Dates or the 
 author's memoranda sufficiently indicate the original publication. 
 When issuing the collective edition referred to above, Mr. 
 Browning prefixed the following note : 
 
 The poems that follow are printed in the order of their publication. 
 The first piece in the series (Pauline), I acknowledge and retain with 
 extreme repugnance, indeed purely of necessity ; for not long ago I 
 inspected one, and am certified of the existence of other transcripts, 
 intended sooner or later to be published abroad : by forestalling 
 these, I can at least correct some misprints (no syllable is changed) 
 and introduce a boyish work by an exculpatory word. The thing 
 was my earliest attempt at " poetry always dramatic in principle, 
 and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine," 
 which I have since written according to a scheme less extrava- 
 gant and scale less impracticable than were ventured upon in this 
 crude preliminary sketch a sketch that, on reviewal, appears not 
 altogether wide of some hint of the characteristic features of that
 
 Vl PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 particular dramatis persona it would fain have reproduced : good 
 draughtsmanship, however, and right handling were far beyond the 
 artist at that time. 
 
 R. B. 
 LONDON, December 25, 1867. 
 
 In the final volume of this series will be found Indexes of 
 contents and of first lines. The portrait prefacing the present 
 volume is from a steel-plate executed by J. A. J. Wilcox in 
 1887 from a recent photograph. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 The above advertisement was prefixed to the first edition of 
 this series of volumes in 1887. In the year following, Mr. 
 Browning began the issue of a still later, revised, edition of his 
 poems, and the American publishers accordingly have made the 
 present edition conform to that. So many changes appear in 
 " Pauline," as indicated by Mr. Browning's prefatory note, that 
 it has been deemed of interest to students to print the earlier 
 text, that of 1833 revised in 1865, as an appendix to the pres- 
 ent volume ; the pages are numbered to correspond with the 
 equivalent pages of the 1888 text, which takes its place as the 
 initial poem. The note which here follows is that prefixed by 
 Mr. Browning to his latest edition. 
 
 I preserve, in order to supplement it, the foregoing' preface. I had 
 thought, when compelled to include in my collected works the poem to 
 which it refers, that the honest coarse would be to reprint, and leave mere 
 literary errors unaltered. Twenty years' endurance of an eyesore seems 
 more than sufficient :' my faults remain duly recorded against me, and I 
 claim permission to somewhat diminish these, so far as style is concerned, 
 in the present and final edition, where " Pauline" must needs, first of my 
 performances, confront the reader. I have simply removed solecisms, 
 mended the metre a little, and endeavored to strengthen the phraseology 
 experience helping, in some degree, the helplessness of juvenile haste 
 and heat in their untried adventure long ago. 
 
 The poems that follow are again, as before, printed in chronological 
 order ; but only so far as proves compatible with the prescribed size of 
 each volume, which necessitates an occasional change in the distribution of 
 its contents. Every date is subjoined as before. 
 
 LONDON, February 27, 1888.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PAULINE: A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION . . . 1 
 PARACELSUS : 
 
 I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES ... 27 
 
 II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS 46 
 
 III. PARACELSUS 61 
 
 IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES . . 85 
 
 V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS 101 
 
 NOTE 123 
 
 STRAFFORD: A TRAGEDY ' 129 
 
 SORDELLO ... 193 
 
 PIPPA PASSES: A DRAMA 327 
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES: A TRAGEDY . . . .309
 
 {Prefixed to the three-volume edition issued in 1863.") 
 
 I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES TO MV OLD FRIEND JOHN FORSTER, GLAD 
 AND GRATEFUL THAT HE WHO, FROM THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THE 
 VARIOUS POEMS THEY INCLUDE, HAS BEEN THEIR PROMPTEST AND 
 STAUNCHEST HELPER, SHOULD SBKM EVEN NEARER TO MB NOW THAN 
 ALMOST THIRTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 R. B. 
 
 London, April 21, f86j.
 
 PAULINE : 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION. 
 
 Plus ne suis ce quej'ai &, 
 Et ne le s^aurois jamais etre. 
 
 MAROT. 
 
 Now dubito, qnin titulus libri nostri raritate sua quamplurimos alliciat 
 ad legendum : inter quos nonnulli obliquae opinionis, mente languid! , multi 
 etiam maligni, et in-ingenium nostrum ingreti accedent, qui temeraria sua 
 ignorantia, vix conspecto titulo clamabunt. New vetita docere, haeresium 
 semina jacere : piis auribus offendienlo, praeclaris ingeniis scandalo esse : 
 . . . adeo conscientiae suae consulentes, ut nee Apollo, nee Musae omnes. 
 neque Angelus de ccelo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant : quibus 
 et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nee intelligent, nee memine- 
 rint : nam noxia suut, venenosa sunt : Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, 
 lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui aequa 
 mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prudential discretionem adhibneritis, 
 quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto namque vos et 
 utilitatis hand parum et voluptatis plurimum aceepturos. Quod si qu<i 
 repereritis, quae vobis non placeant, mittite ilia, nee utimini. NAM ET EGO 
 VOBIS ILLA HOW PROBO, SED NAKBO. Caetera tamen propterea non re- 
 spuite . . . Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiae nos- 
 trae, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui. Hen. Corn. Agrippa, 
 De Occult. Philosaph. in Prcefat. 
 LONDON : January, 1833. 
 V. A. XX. 
 
 [This introduction would appear less absurdly pretentious did it apply, 
 as was intended, to a completed structure of which the poem was meant 
 for only a beginning and remains a fragment.] 
 
 PAULINE, mine own, bend o'er me thy soft breast 
 Shall pant to mine bend o'er me thy sweet eyes, 
 And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms 
 Drawing me to thee these build up a screen 
 To shut me in with thee, and from all fear ; 
 So that I might unlock the sleepless brood 
 Of fancies from my soul, their lurking-place, 
 Nor doubt that each would pass, ne'er to return 
 To one so watched, so loved and so secured. 
 But what can guard thee but thy naked love ? 
 Ah dearest, whoso sucks a poisoned wound 
 Envenoms his own veins ! Thou art so good. 
 So calm if thou shouldst wear a brow less light 
 For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept 
 From out thy soul as from a sacred star ! 
 Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain
 
 PAULINE 
 
 To hope to sing ; some woe would light on me ; 
 Nature would point at one whose quivering lip 
 Was bathed in her enchantments, whose brow burned 
 Beneath the crown to which her secrets knelt, 
 Who learned the spell which can call up the dead, 
 And then departed smiling like a fiend 
 Who has deceived God, if such one should seek 
 Again her altars and stand robed and crowned 
 Amid the faithful ! Sad confession first, 
 Remorse and pardon and old claims renewed, 
 Ere I can be as I shall be no more. 
 
 I had been spared this shame if I had sat 
 
 By thee forever from the first, in place 
 
 Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good, 
 
 Or with them, as an earnest of their truth : 
 
 No thought nor hope having been shut from thee, 
 
 No vague wish unexplained, no wandering aim 
 
 Sent back to bind on fancy's wings and seek 
 
 Some strange fair world where it might be a law ; 
 
 But, doubting nothing, had been led by thee, 
 
 Through youth, and saved, as one at length awaked 
 
 Who has slept through a peril. Ah vain, vain ! 
 
 Thou lovest me ; the past is in its grave 
 Though its ghost haunts us ; still this much is ours, 
 To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing 
 Wait for us in the dark. Thou lovest me ; 
 And thou art to receive not love but faith, 
 For which thou wilt be mine, and smile and take 
 All shapes and shames, and veil without a fear 
 That form which music follows like a slave : 
 And I look to thee and I trust in thee, 
 As in a Northern night one looks alway 
 Unto the East for morn and spring and joy. 
 Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state, 
 And, resting on some few old feelings won 
 Back by thy beauty, wouldst that I essay 
 The task which was to me what now thou art : 
 And why should I conceal one weakness more ? 
 
 Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter 
 Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath 
 Blew soft from the moist hills ; the black-thorn boughs, 
 So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
 In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
 
 Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
 
 Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 
 
 I walked with thee who knew'st not a deep shame 
 
 Lurked beneath smiles and careless words which sought 
 
 To hide it till they wandered and were mute, 
 
 As we stood listening on a sunny mound 
 
 To the wind murmuring in the damp copse, 
 
 Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing 
 
 Betrayed by sleep ; until the feeling rushed 
 
 That I was low indeed, yet not so low 
 
 As to endure the calmness of thine eyes. 
 
 And so I told thee all, while the cool breast 
 
 I leaned on altered not its quiet beating : 
 
 And long ere words like a hurt bird's complaint 
 
 Bade me look up and be what I had been, 
 
 I felt despair could never live by thee : 
 
 Thou wilt remember. Thou art not more dear 
 
 Than song was once to me ; and I ne'er sung 
 
 But as one entering bright halls where all 
 
 Will rise and shout for him : sure I must own 
 
 That I am fallen, having chosen gifts 
 
 Distinct from theirs that I am sad and fain 
 
 Would give up all to be but where I was, 
 
 Not high as I had been if faithful found, 
 
 But low and weak yet full of hope, and sure 
 
 Of goodness as of life that I would lose 
 
 All this gay mastery of mind, to sit 
 
 Once more with them, trusting in truth and love 
 
 And with an aim not being what I am. 
 
 Pauline, I am ruined who believed 
 
 That though my soul had floated from its sphere 
 Of wild dominion into the dim orb 
 Of self that it was strong and free as ever ! 
 It has conformed itself to that dim orb, 
 Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now 
 Must stay where it alone can be adored. 
 
 1 have felt this in dreams in dreams in which 
 I seemed the fate from which I fled ; I felt 
 
 A strange delight in causing my decay. 
 
 I was a fiend in darkness chained forever 
 
 Within some ocean-cave ; and ages rolled, 
 
 Till through the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came 
 
 A white swan to remain with me ; and ages 
 
 Rolled, yet I tired not of my first free joy 
 
 In gazing on the peace of its pure wings :
 
 PAULINE 
 
 And then I said, " It is most fair to me, 
 Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change 
 From the thick darkness, sure its eyes are dim, 
 Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed 
 With sleeping ages here ; it cannot leave me, 
 For it would seem, in light beside its kind, 
 Withered, though here to me most beautiful." 
 And then I was a young witch whose blue eyes, 
 As she stood naked by the river springs, 
 Drew down a god : I watched his radiant form 
 Growing less radiant, and it gladdened me ; 
 Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine 
 Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven, 
 He turned to look at me, ere I could lose 
 The grin with which I viewed his perishing : 
 And he shrieked and departed and sat long 
 By his deserted throne, but sunk at last 
 Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled 
 Around him, " I am still a god to thee." 
 
 Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall, 
 
 Since all the wandering and all the weakness 
 
 Will be a saddest comment on the song : 
 
 And if, that done, I can be young again, 
 
 I will give up all gained, as willingly 
 
 As one gives up a charm which shuts him out 
 
 From hope or part or care in human kind. 
 
 As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil 
 
 Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees 
 
 Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass 
 
 Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, 
 
 The morning swallows with their songs like words, 
 
 All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts : 
 
 So, aught connected with my early life, 
 
 My rude songs or my wild imaginings, 
 
 How I look on them most distinct amid 
 
 The fever and the stir of after years ! 
 
 I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this, 
 Had not the glow I felt at His award, 
 Assured me all was not extinct within : 
 His whom all honor, whose renown springs up 
 Like sunlight which will visit all the world. 
 So that e'en they who sneered at him at first, 
 Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls 
 From his foul nets which some lit torch invades, 
 Yet spinning still new films for his retreat.
 
 PAULINE 
 
 Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive ? 
 
 Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever ! 
 
 Thou art gone from us ; years go by and spring 
 
 Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 
 
 Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise, 
 
 But none like thee : they stand, thy majesties, 
 
 Like mighty works which tell some spirit there 
 
 Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, 
 
 Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 
 
 And left us, never to return, and all 
 
 Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. 
 
 The air seems bright with thy past presence yet, 
 
 But thou art still for me as thou hast been 
 
 When I have stood with thee as on a throne 
 
 With all thy dim creations gathered round 
 
 Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them, 
 
 And with them creatures of my own were mixed, 
 
 Like things half-lived, catching and giving life. 
 
 But thou art still for me who have adored 
 
 Though single, panting but to hear thy name 
 
 Which I believed a spell to me alone, 
 
 Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men ! 
 
 As one should worship long a sacred spring 
 
 Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross, 
 
 And one small tree embowers droopingly 
 
 Joying to see some wandering insect won 
 
 To live in its few rushes, or some locust 
 
 To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird 
 
 Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air : 
 
 And then should find it but the fountain-head, 
 
 Long lost, of some great river washing towns 
 
 And towers, and seeing old woods which will live 
 
 But by its banks untrod of human foot, 
 
 Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering 
 
 In light as some thing lieth half of life 
 
 Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change ; 
 
 Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay 
 
 Its course in vain, for it does ever spread 
 
 Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on, 
 
 Being the pulse of some great country so 
 
 Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world ! 
 
 And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret 
 
 That I am not what I have been to thee : 
 
 Like a girl one has silently loved long 
 
 In her first loneliness in some retreat, 
 
 When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view 
 
 Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom
 
 PAULINE 
 
 Like a mountain berry : doubtless it is sweet 
 
 To see her thus adored, but there have been 
 
 Moments when all the world was in our praise, 
 
 Sweeter than any pride of after hours. 
 
 Yet, sun-treader, all hail ! From my heart's heart 
 
 I bid thee hail ! E'en in my wildest dreams, 
 
 I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust 
 
 The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me, 
 
 To see thee for a moment as thou art. 
 
 And if thou livest, if thou lovest, spirit ! 
 Remember me who set this final seal 
 To wandering thought that one so pure as thou 
 Could never die. Remember me who flung 
 All honor from my soul, yet paused and said, 
 " There is one spark of love remaining yet, 
 For I have naught in common with him, shapes 
 Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms 
 Seek me, which ne'er could fasten on his mind ; 
 And though I feel how low I am to him, 
 Yet I aim not even to catch a tone 
 Of harmonies he called profusely up ; 
 So, one gleam still remains, although the last." 
 Remember me who praise thee e'en with tears, 
 For never more shall I walk calm with thee ; 
 Thy sweet imaginings are as an air, 
 A melody some wondrous singer sings, 
 Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve, 
 They dream not to essay ; yet it no less 
 But more is honored. I was thine in shame, 
 And now when all thy proud renown is out, 
 I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim 
 With looking for some star which breaks on him 
 Altered and worn and weak and full of tears. 
 
 Autumn has come like spring returned to us, 
 
 Won from her girlishness ; like one returned 
 
 A friend that was a lover, nor forgets 
 
 The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts 
 
 Of fading years ; whose soft mouth quivers yet 
 
 With the old smile, but yet so changed and still ! 
 
 And here am I the scoffer, who have probed 
 
 Life's vanity, won by a word again 
 
 Into my own life by one little word 
 
 Of this sweet friend who lives in loving me, 
 
 Lives strangely on my thoughts and looks and words,
 
 PAULINE 
 
 As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing 
 Its silent course of quietness and joy. 
 
 dearest, if indeed I tell the past, 
 May'st thou forget it as a sad sick dream ! 
 Or if it linger my lost soul too soon 
 Sinks to itself and whispers we shall be 
 
 But closer linked, two creatures whom the earth 
 Bears singly, with strange feelings unrevealed 
 Save to each other ; or two lonely things 
 Created by some power whose reign is done, 
 Having no part in God or his bright world. 
 
 1 am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft, 
 As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book, 
 And in the heaven stars steal out one by one 
 As hunted men steal to their mountain watch. 
 I must not think, lest this new impulse die 
 
 In which I trust ; I have no confidence : 
 So, I will sing on fast as fancies come ; 
 Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints. 
 
 I strip my mind bare, whose first elements 
 I shall unveil not as they struggled forth 
 In infancy, nor as they now exist, 
 When I am grown above them and can rule 
 But in that middle stage when they were full 
 Yet ere I had disposed them to my will ; 
 And then I shall show how these elements 
 Produced my present state, and what it is. 
 
 I am made up of an intensest life, 
 
 Of a most clear idea of consciousness 
 
 Of sel, distinct from all its qualities, 
 
 From all affections, passions, feelings, powers ; 
 
 And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all : 
 
 But linked, in me, to self-supremacy, 
 
 Existing as a centre to all things, 
 
 Most potent to create and rule and call 
 
 Upon all things to minister to it ; 
 
 And to a principle of restlessness 
 
 Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all 
 
 This is myself ; and I should thus have been 
 
 Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. 
 
 And of my powers, one springs up to save 
 From utter death a soul with such desire 
 Confined to clay of powers the only one
 
 PA ULINE 
 
 Which marks me an imagination which 
 Has been a very angel, coining not 
 In fitful visions, but beside me ever 
 And never failing me ; so, though my mind 
 Forgets not, not a shred of life forgets, 
 Yet I can take a secret pride in calling 
 The dark past up to quell it regally. 
 
 A mind like this must dissipate itself, 
 
 But I have always had one lode-star ; now. 
 
 As I look hack, I see that I have halted 
 
 Or hastened as I looked towards that star 
 
 A need, a trust, a yearning after God : 
 
 A feeling I have analyzed but late, 
 
 But it existed, and was reconciled 
 
 With a neglect of all I deemed his laws, 
 
 Which yet, when seen in others, I abhorred. 
 
 I felt as one beloved, and so shut in 
 
 From fear : and thence I date my trust in signs 
 
 And omens, for I saw God everywhere ; 
 
 And I can only lay it to the fruit 
 
 Of a sad after-time that I could doubt 
 
 Even his being e'en the while I felt 
 
 His presence, never acted from myself, 
 
 Still trusted in a hand to lead me through 
 
 All danger ; and this feeling ever fought 
 
 Against my weakest reason and resolve. 
 
 And I can love nothing and this dull truth 
 Has come the last : but sense supplies a love 
 Encircling me and mingling with my life. 
 
 These make myself : I have long sought in vain 
 To trace how they were formed by circumstance, 
 Yet ever found them mould my wildest youth 
 Where they alone displayed themselves, converted 
 All objects to their use : now see their course ! 
 
 They came to me in my first dawn of life 
 Which passed alone with wisest ancient books 
 All halo-girt with fancies of my own ; 
 And I myself went with the tale a god 
 Wandering after beauty, or a giant 
 Standing vast in the sunset an old hunter 
 Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief 
 Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos.
 
 PAULINE 
 
 I tell you, naught has ever been so clear : 
 
 As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives : 
 
 I had not seen a work of lofty art, 
 
 Nor woman's beauty nor sweet nature's face, 
 
 Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those 
 
 On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, 
 
 The deep groves and white temples and wet caves, 
 
 And nothing ever will surprise me now 
 
 Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, 
 
 Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. 
 
 And strange it is that I who could so dream 
 
 Should e'er have stooped to aim at aught beneath 
 
 Aught low or painful ; but I never doubted : 
 
 So, as I grew, I rudely shaped my life 
 
 To my immediate wants ; yet strong beneath 
 
 Was a vague sense of power though folded up 
 
 A sense that, though those shades and times were past, 
 
 Their spirit dwelt in me, with them should rule. 
 
 Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down 
 My soul till it was changed. I lost myself, 
 And were it not that I so loathe that loss, 
 I could recall how first I learned to turn 
 My mind against itself ; and the effects 
 In deeds for which remorse were vain as for 
 The wanderings of delirious dream ; yet thence 
 Came cunning, envy, falsehood, all world's wrong 
 That spotted me : at length I cleansed my soul. 
 Yet long world's influence remained ; and naught 
 But the still life I led, apart once more, 
 Which left me free to seek soul's old delights, 
 Could ere have brought me thus far back to peace. 
 
 As peace returned, I sought out some pursuit ; 
 And song rose, no new impulse but the one 
 With which all others best could be combined. 
 My life has not been that of those whose heaven 
 Was lampless save where poesy shone out ; 
 But as a clime where glittering mountain-tops 
 And glancing sea and forests steeped in light 
 Give back reflected the far-flashing sun ; 
 For music (which is earnest of a heaven, 
 Seeing we know emotions strange by it, 
 Not else to be revealed,) is like a voice, 
 A low voice calling fancy, as a friend,
 
 10 PAULINE 
 
 To the green woods in the gay summer time : 
 And she fills all the way with dancing shapes 
 Which have made painters pale, and they go on 
 Till stars look at them and winds call to them 
 As they leave life's path for the twilight world 
 Where the dead gather. This was not at first, 
 For I scarce knew what I would do. I had 
 An impulse but no yearning only sang. 
 
 And first I sang as I in dream have seen 
 
 Music wait on a lyrist for some thought, 
 
 Yet singing to herself until it came. 
 
 I turned to those old times and scenes where all 
 
 That 's beautiful had birth for me, and made 
 
 Rude verses on them all ; and then I paused 
 
 I had done nothing, so I sought to know 
 
 What other minds achieved. No fear outbroke 
 
 As on the works of mighty bards I gazed, 
 
 In the first joy at finding my own thoughts 
 
 Recorded, my own fancies justified, 
 
 And their aspirings but my very own. 
 
 With them I first explored passion and mind, 
 
 All to begin afresh ! I rather sought 
 
 To rival what I wondered at than form 
 
 Creations of my own ; if much was light 
 
 Lent by the others, much was yet my own. 
 
 I paused again : a change was coming came : 
 
 I was no more a boy, the past was breaking 
 
 Before the future and like fever worked. 
 
 I thought on my new self, and all my powers 
 
 Burst out. I dreamed not of restraint, but gazed 
 
 On all things : schemes and systems went and came, 
 
 And I was proud (being vainest of the weak) 
 
 In wandering o'er thought's world to seek some one 
 
 To be my prize, as if you wandered o'er 
 
 The White Way for a star. 
 
 And my choice fell 
 Not so much on a system as a man 
 On one, whom praise of mine shall not offend, 
 Who was as calm as beauty, being such 
 Unto mankind as thou to me, Pauline, 
 Believing in them and devoting all 
 His soul's strength to their winning back to peace ;
 
 PA ULINE 
 
 Who sent forth hopes and longings for their sake, 
 
 Clothed in all passion's melodies : such first 
 
 Caught me and set me, slave of a sweet task, 
 
 To disentangle, gather sense from song : 
 
 Since, song-inwoven, lurked there words which seemed 
 
 A key to a new world, the muttering 
 
 Of angels, something yet unguessed by man. 
 
 How my heart leapt as still I sought and found 
 
 Much there, I felt my own soul had conceived, 
 
 But there living and burning ! Soon the orb 
 
 Of his conceptions dawned on me ; its praise 
 
 Lives in the tongues of men, men's brows are high 
 
 When his name means a triumph and a pride, 
 
 So, my weak voice may well forbear to shame 
 
 What seemed decreed my fate : I threw myself 
 
 To meet it, I was vowed to liberty, 
 
 Men were to be as gods and earth as heaven, 
 
 And I ah, what a life was mine to prove ! 
 
 My whole soul rose to meet it. Now, Pauline, 
 
 I shall go mad, if I recall that time ! 
 
 Oh let me look back ere I leave forever 
 The time which was an hour one fondly waits 
 For a fair girl that comes a withered hag ! 
 And I was lonely, far from woods and fields, 
 And amid dullest sights, who should be loose 
 As a stag ; yet I was full of bliss, who lived 
 With Plato and who had the key to life ; 
 And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, 
 And many a thought did I build up on thought, 
 As the wild bee hangs cell to cell ; in vain, 
 For I must still advance, no rest for mind. 
 
 'T was in my plan to look on real life, 
 
 The life all new to me ; my theories 
 
 Were firm, so them I left, to look and learn 
 
 Mankind, its cares, hopes, fears, its woes and joys ; 
 
 And, as I pondered on their ways, I sought 
 
 How best life's end might be attained an end 
 
 Comprising every joy. I deeply mused. 
 
 And suddenly without heart-wreck I awoke 
 
 As from a dream : I said, " 'T was beautiful, 
 
 Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it ! " 
 
 As some world-wanderer sees in a far meadow 
 
 Strange towers and high-walled gardens thick with trees,
 
 12 PA ULINE 
 
 Where song takes shelter and delicious mirth 
 From laughing fairy creatures peeping over, 
 And on the morrow when he conies to lie 
 Forever 'neath those garden-trees fruit-flushed 
 Sung round by fairies, all his search is vain. 
 First went my hopes of perfecting mankind, 
 Next faith in them, and then in freedom's self 
 And virtue's self, then my own motives, ends 
 And aims and loves, and human love went last. 
 I felt this no decay, because new powers 
 Rose as old feelings left wit, mockery, 
 Light-heartedness ; for I had oft been sad, 
 Mistrusting my resolves, but now I cast 
 Hope joyously away : I laughed and said, 
 " No more of this ! " I must not think : at length 
 I looked again to see if all went well. 
 
 My powers were greater : as some temple seemed 
 My soul, where naught is changed and incense rolls 
 Around the altar, only God is gone 
 And some dark spirit sitteth in his seat. 
 So, I passed through the temple and to me 
 Knelt troops of shadows, and they cried, " Hail, king ! 
 We serve thee now and thou shalt serve no more ! 
 Call on us, prove us, let us worship thee ! " 
 And I said, " Are ye strong ? Let fancy bear me 
 Far from the past ! " And I was borne away, 
 As Arab birds float sleeping in the wind, 
 O'er deserts, towers and forests, I being calm. 
 And I said, " I have nursed up energies, 
 They will prey on me." And a band knelt low 
 And cried, " Lord, we are here and we will make 
 Safe way for thee in thine appointed life ! 
 But look on us ! " And I said, " Ye will worship 
 Me ; should my heart not worship too ? " They shouted, 
 * Thyself, thou art our king ! " So, I stood there 
 Smiling oh, vanity of vanities ! 
 For buoyant and rejoicing was the spirit 
 With which I looked out how to end my course ; 
 I felt once more myself, my powers all mine ; 
 I knew while youth and health so lifted me 
 That, spite of all life's nothingness, no grief 
 Came nigh me, I must ever be light-hearted ; 
 And that this knowledge was the only veil 
 Betwixt joy and despair : so, if age came, 
 I should be left a wreck linked to a soul
 
 PAULINE 13 
 
 Yet fluttering, or mind-broken and aware 
 Of my decay. So a long summer morn 
 Found me ; and ere noon came, I had resolved 
 No age should come on me ere youth was spent, 
 For I would wear myself out, like that morn 
 Which wasted not a sunbeam ; every hour 
 I would make mine, and die. 
 
 And thus I sought 
 
 To chain my spirit down which erst I freed 
 For flights to fame : I said, " The troubled life 
 Of genius, seen so gay when working forth 
 Some trusted end, grows sad when all proves vain 
 How sad when men have parted with truth's peace 
 For falsest fancy's sake, which waited first 
 As an obedient spirit when delight 
 Came without fancy's call : but alters soon, 
 Comes darkened, seldom, hastens to depart, 
 Leaving a heavy darkness and warm tears. 
 But I shall never lose her ; she will live 
 Dearer for such seclusion. I but catch 
 A hue, a glance of what I sing : so, pain 
 Is linked with pleasure, for I ne'er may tell 
 Half the bright sights which dazzle me ; but now 
 Mine shall be all the radiance : let them fade 
 Untold others shall rise as fair, as fast ! 
 And when all 's done, the few dim gleams transferred," 
 (For a new thought sprang up how well it were, 
 Discarding shadowy hope, to weave such lays 
 As straight encircle men with praise and love, 
 So, I should not die utterly, should bring 
 One branch from the gold forest, like the knight 
 Of old tales, witnessing I had been there) 
 And when all 's done, how vain seems e'en success 
 The vaunted influence poets have o'er men ! 
 'T is a fine thing that one weak as myself 
 Should sit in his lone room, knowing the words 
 He utters in his solitude shall move 
 Men like a swift wind that though dead and gone, 
 New eyes shall glisten when his beauteous dreams 
 Of love come true in happier frames than his. 
 Ay, the still night brings thoughts like these, but morn 
 Comes and the mockery again laughs out 
 At hollow praises, smiles allied to sneers ; 
 And my soul's idol ever whispers me 
 To dwell with him and his unhonored song :
 
 14 PA ULINE 
 
 And I foreknow nay spirit, that would press 
 First in the struggle, fail again to make 
 All bow enslaved, and I again should sink. 
 
 " And then know that this curse will come on us, 
 To see our idols perish ; we may wither, 
 No marvel, we are clay, but our low fate 
 Should not extend to those whom trustingly 
 We sent before into time's yawning gulf 
 To face what dread may lurk in darkness there. 
 To find the painter's glory pass and feel 
 Music can move us not as once, or, worst, 
 To weep decaying wits ere the frail body 
 Decays ! Naught makes me trust some love is true, 
 But the delight of the contented lowness 
 With which I gaze on him I keep forever 
 Above me ; I to rise and rival him ? 
 Feed his fame rather from ray heart's best blood, 
 Wither unseen that he may flourish still." 
 
 Pauline, my soul's friend, thou dost pity yet 
 
 How this mood swayed me when that soul found thine, 
 
 When I had set myself to live this life, 
 
 Defying all past glory. Ere thou earnest 
 
 I seemed defiant, sweet, for old delights 
 
 Had flocked like birds again ; music, my life, 
 
 Nourished me more than ever ; then the lore 
 
 Loved for itself and all it shows that king 
 
 Treading the purple calmly to his death, 
 
 While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk, 
 
 The giant shades of fate, silently flitting, 
 
 Pile the dim outline of the coming doom ; 
 
 And him sitting alone in blood while friends 
 
 Are hunting far in the sunshine ; and the boy 
 
 With his white breast and brow and clustering curls 
 
 Streaked with his mother's blood, but striving hard 
 
 To tell his story ere his reason goes. 
 
 And when I loved thee as love seemed so oft, 
 
 Thou lovedst me indeed : I wondering searched 
 
 My heart to find some feeling like such love, 
 
 Believing I was still much I had been. 
 
 Too soon I found all faith had gone from me, 
 
 And the late glow of life, like change on clouds, 
 
 Proved not the morn-blush widening into day, 
 
 But eve faint-colored by the dying sun 
 
 While darkness hastens quickly. I will tell
 
 PAULINE 15 
 
 My state as though 'twere none of mine despair 
 Cannot come near us this it is, my state. 
 
 Souls alter not, and mine must still advance ; 
 
 Strange that I knew not, when I flung away 
 
 My youth's chief aims, their loss might lead to loss 
 
 Of what few I retained, and no resource 
 
 Be left me : for behold how changed is all ! 
 
 I cannot chain my soul : it will not rest 
 
 In its clay prison, this most narrow sphere : 
 
 It has strange impulse, tendency, desire, 
 
 Which nowise I account for nor explain, 
 
 But cannot stifle, being bound to trust 
 
 All feelings equally to hear all sides : 
 
 How can my life indulge them ? yet they live, 
 
 Referring to some state of life unknown. 
 
 My selfishness is satiated not, 
 
 It wears me like a flame ; my hunger for 
 
 All pleasure, howsoe'er minute, grows pain ; 
 
 I envy how I envy him whose soul 
 
 Turns its whole energies to some one end, 
 
 To elevate an aim, pursue success 
 
 However mean ! So, my still baffled hope 
 
 Seeks out abstractions ; I would have one joy, 
 
 But one in life, so it were wholly mine, 
 
 One rapture all my soul could fill : and this 
 
 Wild feeling places me in dream afar 
 
 In some vast country where the eye can see 
 
 No end to the far hills and dales bestrewn 
 
 With shining towers and towns, till I grow mad 
 
 Well-nigh, to know not one abode but holds 
 
 Some pleasure, while my soul could grasp the world, 
 
 But must remain this vile form's slave. I look 
 
 With hope to age at last, which quenching much, 
 
 May let me concentrate what sparks it spares. 
 
 This restlessness of passion meets in me 
 A craving after knowledge : the sole proof 
 Of yet commanding will is in that power 
 Repressed ; for I beheld it in its dawn, 
 The sleepless harpy with just-budding wings, 
 And I considered whether to forego 
 All happy ignorant hopes and fears, to live, 
 Finding a recompense in its wild eyes. 
 And when I found that I should perish so, 
 I bade its wild eyes close from me forever,
 
 16 PAULINE 
 
 And I am left alone with old delights ; 
 
 See ! it lies in me a chained thing, still prompt 
 
 To serve me if I loose its slightest bond : 
 
 I cannot but be proud of my bright slave. 
 
 How should this earth's life prove my only sphere ? 
 
 Can I so narrow sense but that in life 
 
 Soul still exceeds it ? In their elements 
 
 My love outsoars my reason ; but since love 
 
 Perforce receives its object from this earth 
 
 While reason wanders chainless, the few truths 
 
 Caught from its wanderings have sufficed to quell 
 
 Love chained below ; then what were love, set free, 
 
 Which, with the object it demands, would pass 
 
 Reason companioning the seraphim ? 
 
 No, what I feel may pass all human love 
 
 Yet fall far short of what my love should be. 
 
 And yet I seem more warped in this than aught, 
 
 Myself stands out more hideously : of old 
 
 I could forget myself in friendship, fame, 
 
 Liberty, nay, in love of mightier souls ; 
 
 But I begin to know what thing hate is 
 
 To sicken and to quiver and grow white 
 
 And I myself have furnished its first prey. 
 
 Hate of the weak and ever-wavering will, 
 
 The selfishness, the still-decaying frame . . . 
 
 But I must never grieve whom wing can waft 
 
 Far from such thoughts as now. Andromeda ! 
 
 And she is with me : years roll, I shall change, 
 
 But change can touch her not so beautiful 
 
 With her fixed eyes, earnest and still, and hair 
 
 Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, 
 
 And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, 
 
 Resting upon her eyes and hair, such hair, 
 
 As she awaits the snake on the wet beach 
 
 By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking 
 
 At her feet ; quite naked and alone ; a thing 
 
 I doubt not, nor fear for, secure some god 
 
 To save will come in thunder from the stars. 
 
 Let it pass ! Soul requires another change. 
 
 I will be gifted with a wondrous mind, 
 
 Yet sunk by error to men's sympathy, 
 
 And in the wane of life, yet only so 
 
 As to call up their fears ; and there shall come 
 
 A time requiring youth's best energies ; 
 
 And lo, I fling age, sorrow, sickness off, 
 
 And rise triumphant, triumph through decay.
 
 PAULINE 17 
 
 And thus it is that I supply the chasm 
 'Twixt what I am and all I fain would be : 
 But then to know nothing, to hope for nothing, 
 To seize on life's dull joys from a strange fear 
 Lest, losing them, all 's lost and naught remains ! 
 
 There 's some vile juggle with my reason here ; 
 
 I feel I but explain to my own loss 
 
 These impulses : they live no less the same. 
 
 Liberty ! what though I despair ? my blood 
 
 Rose never at a slave's name proud as now. 
 
 Oh sympathies, obscured by sophistries ! 
 
 Why else have I sought refuge in myself, 
 
 But from the woes I saw and could not stay ? 
 
 Love ! is not this to love thee, my Pauline ? 
 
 I cherish prejudice, lest I be left 
 
 Utterly loveless ? witness my belief 
 
 In poets, though sad change has come there too ; 
 
 No more I leave myself to follow them 
 
 Unconsciously I measure me by them 
 
 Let me forget it : and I cherish most 
 
 My love of England how her name, a word 
 
 Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat ! 
 
 Pauline, could I but break the spell ! Not now 
 
 All 's fever but when calm shall come again, 
 
 I am prepared : I have made life my own. 
 
 I would not be content with all the change 
 
 One frame should feel, but I have gone in thought 
 
 Through all conjuncture, I have lived all life 
 
 When it is most alive, where strangest fate 
 
 New-shapes it past surmise the throes of men 
 
 Bit by some curse or in the grasps of doom 
 
 Half-visible and still-increasing round, 
 
 Or crowning their wide being's general aim. 
 
 These are wild fancies, but I feel, sweet friend, 
 As one breathing his weakness to the ear 
 Of pitying angel dear as a winter flower, 
 A slight flower growing alone, and offering 
 Its frail cup of three leaves to the cold sun, 
 Yet joyous and confiding like the triumph 
 Of a child : and why am I not worthy thee ? 
 I can live all the life of plants, and gaze 
 Drowsily on the bees that flit and play, 
 Or bare my breast for sunbeams which will kill,
 
 18 PAULINE 
 
 Or open in the night of sounds, to look 
 
 For the dim stars ; I can mount with the bird 
 
 Leaping airily his pyramid of leaves 
 
 And twisted boughs of some tall mountain tree, 
 
 Or rise cheerfully springing to the heavens ; 
 
 Or like a fish breathe deep the morning air 
 
 In the misty sun-warm water ; or with flower 
 
 And tree can smile in light at the sinking sun 
 
 Just as the storm comes, as a girl would look 
 
 On a departing lover most serene. 
 
 Pauline, come with me, see how I could build 
 A home for us, out of the world, in thought ! 
 I am uplifted : fly with me, Pauline ! 
 
 Night, and one single ridge of narrow path 
 Between the sullen river and the woods 
 Waving and muttering, for the moonless night 
 Has shaped them into images of life, 
 Like the uprising of the giant-ghosts, 
 Looking on earth to know how their sons fare : 
 Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell 
 Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting 
 Of thy soft breasts. No, we will pass to morning 
 Morning, the rocks and valleys and old woods. 
 How the sun brightens in the mist, and here, 
 Half in the air, like creatures of the place, 
 Trusting the element, living on high boughs 
 That swing in the wind look at the silver spray 
 Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract 
 Amid the broken rocks ! Shall we stay here 
 With the wild hawks ? No, ere the hot noon come, 
 Dive we down safe ! See this our new retreat 
 Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, 
 Dark, tangled, old and green, still sloping down 
 To a small pool whose waters lie asleep 
 Amid the trailing boughs turned water-plants : 
 And tall trees overarch to keep us in, 
 Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts, 
 And in the dreamy water one small group 
 Of two or three strange trees are got together 
 Wondering at all around, as strange beasts herd 
 Together far from their own land : all wildness. 
 No turf nor moss, for boughs and plants pave all, 
 And tongues of bank go shelving in the lymph, 
 Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head, 
 And old gray stones lie making eddies there,
 
 PAULINE 19 
 
 The wild-mice cross them dry-shod. Deeper in ! 
 
 Shut thy soft eyes now look still deeper in ! 
 
 This is the very heart of the woods all round 
 
 Mountain-like heaped above us ; yet even here 
 
 One pond of water gleams ; far off the river 
 
 Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land ; but one 
 
 One thin clear sheet has overleaped and wound 
 
 Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies 
 
 Still, as but let by sufferance ; the trees bend 
 
 O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl, 
 
 And through their roots long creeping plants out-stretch 
 
 Their twined hair, steeped and sparkling ; farther on, 
 
 Tall rushes and thick flag-knots have combined 
 
 To narrow it ; so, at length, a silver thread, 
 
 It winds, all noiselessly through the deep wood 
 
 Till through a cleft-way, through the moss and stone, 
 
 It joins its parent-river with a shout. 
 
 Up for the glowing day, leave the old woods ! 
 See, they part, like a ruined arch : the sky ! 
 Nothing but sky appears, so close the roots 
 And grass of the hill-top level with the air 
 Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats laden 
 With light, like a dead whale that white birds pick, 
 Floating away in the sun in some north sea. 
 Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air, 
 The clear, dear breath of God that loveth us, 
 Where small birds reel and winds take their delight ! 
 Water is beautiful, but not like air : 
 See, where the solid azure waters lie 
 Made as of thickened air, and down below, 
 The fern-ranks like a forest spread themselves 
 As though each pore could feel the element ; 
 Where the quick glancing serpent winds his way, 
 Float with me there, Pauline ! but not like air. 
 
 Down the hill ! Stop a clump of trees, see, set 
 
 On a heap of rock, which look o'er the far plain : 
 
 So, envious climbing shrubs would mount to rest 
 
 And peer from their spread boughs ; wide they wave, looking 
 
 At the muleteers who whistle on their way, 
 
 To the merry chime of morning bells, past all 
 
 The little smoking cots, mid fields and banks 
 
 And copses bright in the sun. My spirit wanders : 
 
 Hedgerows for me those living hedgerows where 
 
 The bushes close and clasp above and keep 
 
 Thought in I am concentrated I feel ;
 
 20 PAULINE 
 
 But my soul saddens when it looks beyond : 
 I cannot be immortal, taste all joy. 
 
 God, where do they tend these struggling aims ? * 
 What would I have ? What is this " sleep " which seems 
 To bound all ? can there be a " waking " point 
 
 Of crowning life ? The soul would never rule ; 
 It would be first in all things, it would have 
 Its utmost pleasure filled, but, that complete, 
 Commanding, for commanding, sickens it. 
 The last point I can trace is rest beneath 
 Some better essence than itself, in weakness ; 
 This is " myself," not what I think should be : 
 And what is that I hunger for but God ? 
 
 My God, my God, let me for once look on thee 
 As though naught else existed, we alone ! 
 And as creation crumbles, my soul's spark 
 Expands till I can say, Even from myself 
 
 1 need thee and I feel thee arid I love thee. 
 I do not plead my rapture in thy works 
 For love of thee, nor that I feel as one 
 Who cannot die : but there is that in me 
 
 Which turns to thee, which loves or which should love. 
 
 1 Je crains bien que mon pauvre ami ne soit pas toujours parfaitement 
 compris dans ce qui reste a lire de cet Strange fragment, mais il est moins 
 propre que tout autre a e'claircir ce qui de sa nature ne pent jamais etre 
 que songe et confusion. D'ailleurs je ne sais trop si en cherchant a mieux 
 co-ordonner certaines parties 1'on ne courrait pas le risque de nuire au seul 
 me'rite auquel une production si singuliere peut pre'tendre, celui de donner 
 une id4e assez precise du genre qu'elle n'a fait qu'e'baucher. Ce de'but 
 sans pre'tention, ce remuement des passions qui va d'abord en accroissant 
 et puis s'apaise par degre's, ces elans de 1'ame. ce retour soudain sur soi- 
 meme, et par-dessus tout, la tournure d' esprit tout particuliere de mon 
 ami, rendent les changemens presque impossibles. Les raisons qu'il fait 
 valoir ailleurs, et d'autres encore plus puissantes, ont fait trouver grace a 
 mes yeux pour cet e'crit qu'autrement je lui eusse conseill^ de Jeter au feu. 
 Je n'en crois pas moins au grand principe de toute composition a ce prin- 
 cipe de Shakespeare, de Rafaelle, de Beethoven, d'ou il suit que la concen- 
 tration des ide'es est due bien plus a leur conception qu'a leur raise en exe 1 - 
 cution : j'ai tout lieu de craindre que la premiere de ces quality's ne soit 
 encore e'trangcre a mon ami, et je doute fortqu'un redoublement de travail 
 lui fasse acque'rir la seconde. Le mieux serait de brfiler ceci ; mais que faire ? 
 
 Je crois que dans ce qui suit il fait allusion a un certain examen qu'il fit 
 autrefois de 1'ame, ou plutot de son ame, pour d^couvrir la suite des ob- 
 jets auxquels il lui serait possible d'atteindre, et dont chacun une fois ob- 
 tenu devait former une espfcce de plateau d'ou 1'on pouvait apercevoir 
 d'autres buts, d'autres projets, d'autres jouissances qui a leur tour, devaient 
 etre surmont^s. II en re'sultait que 1'oubli et le sommt'il devaient tout ter- 
 miner Cette ide"e, qne je ne saisis pas parfaitement, lui est peut-f-tre 
 aussi inintelligible qu'a moi. PAULINE.
 
 PAULINE 21 
 
 Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress ? 
 
 Why have I labored to put out my life ? 
 
 Is it not in my nature to adore, 
 
 And e'en for all my reason do I not 
 
 Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him now ? 
 
 Can I forego the trust that he loves me ? 
 
 Do I not feel a love which only ONE . . . 
 
 thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed ! 
 
 1 have denied thee calmly do I not 
 Pant when I read of thy consummate power, 
 And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash 
 The brightest gleams of earth's philosophy ? 
 Do I not shake to hear aught question thee ? 
 If I am erring save me, madden me, 
 
 Take from me powers and pleasures, let me die 
 
 Ages, so I see thee ! I am knit round 
 
 As with a charm by sin and lust and pride, 
 
 Yet though my wandering dreams have seen all shapes 
 
 Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee 
 
 Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee 
 
 In the damp night by weeping Olivet, 
 
 Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less, 
 
 Or dying with thee on the lonely cross, 
 
 Or witnessing thine outburst from the tomb. 
 
 A mortal, sin's familiar friend, doth here 
 Avow that he will give all earth's reward, 
 But to believe and humbly teach the faith, 
 In suffering and poverty and shame, 
 Only believing he is not unloved. 
 
 And now, my Pauline, I am thine forever ! 
 
 I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up 
 
 Desert me, and old shades are gathering fast ; 
 
 Yet while the last light waits, I would say much, 
 
 This chiefly, it is gain that I have said 
 
 Somewhat of love I ever felt for thee 
 
 But seldom told ; our hearts so beat together 
 
 That speech seemed mockery ; but when dark hours come, 
 
 And joy departs, and thou, sweet, deem'st it strange 
 
 A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove, 
 
 Look on this lay I dedicate to thee, 
 
 Which through thee I began, which thus I end, 
 
 Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell 
 
 How I am thine, and more than ever now 
 
 That I sink fast : yet though I deeplier sink,
 
 22 PAULINE 
 
 No less song proves one word has brought me bliss, 
 Another still may win bliss surely back. 
 Thou knowest, dear, I could not think all calm, 
 For fancies followed thought and bore me off, 
 And left all indistinct ; ere one was caught 
 Another glanced ; so, dazzled by my wealth, 
 I knew not which to leave nor which to choose, 
 For all so floated, naught was fixed and firm. 
 And then thou said'st a perfect bard was one 
 Who chronicled the stages of all life, 
 And so thou bad'st me shadow this first stage. 
 'T is done, and even now I recognize 
 The shift, the change from last to past discern 
 Faintly how life is truth and truth is good. 
 And why thou must be mine is, that e'en now 
 In the dim hush of night, that I have done, 
 Despite the sad forebodings, love looks through 
 Whispers, E'en at the last I have her still, 
 With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven 
 When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, 
 And clouds float white above like broods of swans. 
 How the blood lies upon her cheek, outspread 
 As thinned by kisses ! only in her lips 
 It wells and pulses like a living thing, 
 And her neck looks like marble misted o'er 
 With love-breath, a Pauline from heights above, 
 Stooping beneath me, looking up one look 
 As I might kill her and be loved the more. 
 
 So, love me me, Pauline, and naught but me, 
 Never leave loving ! Words are wild and weak, 
 Believe them not, Pauline ! I stained myself 
 But to behold thee purer by my side, 
 To show thou art my breath, my life, a last 
 Resource, an extreme want : never believe 
 Aught better could so look on thee ; nor seek 
 Again the world of good thoughts left for mine ! 
 There were bright troops of undiscovered suns, 
 Each equal in their radiant course ; there were 
 Clusters of far fair isles which ocean kept 
 For his own joy, and his waves broke on them 
 Without a choice ; and there was a dim crowd 
 Of visions, each a part of some grand whole : 
 And one star left his peers and came with peace 
 Upon a storm, and all eyes pined for him ; 
 And one isle harbored a sea-beaten ship,
 
 PA ULINE 23 
 
 And the crew wandered in its bowers and plucked 
 Its fruits and gave up all their hopes of home ; 
 And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep, 
 And he said, u I am singled oat by God, 
 No sin must touch me." Words are wild and weak, 
 But what they would express is, Leave me not, 
 Still sit by me with beating breast and hair 
 Loosened, be watching earnest by my side, 
 Turning my books or kissing me when I 
 Look up like summer wind ! Be still to me 
 A help to music's mystery which mind fails 
 To fathom, its solution, no mere clue ! 
 
 reason's pedantry, life's rule prescribed ! 
 
 1 hopeless, I the loveless, hope and love. 
 Wiser and better, know me now, not when 
 You loved me as I was. Smile not ! I have 
 Much yet to dawn on you, to gladden you. 
 
 No more of the past ! I '11 look within no more. 
 I have too trusted my own lawless wants, 
 Too trusted my vain self, vague intuition 
 Draining soul's wine alone in the still night, 
 And seeing how, as gathering films arose, 
 As by an inspiration life seemed bare 
 And grinning in its vanity, while ends 
 Foul to be dreamed of, smiled at me as fixed 
 And fair, while others changed from fair to foul 
 As a young witch turns an old hag at night. 
 No more of this ! We will go hand in hand, 
 I with thee, even as a child love's slave, 
 Looking no farther than his liege commands. 
 
 And thou hast chosen where this life shall be : 
 
 The land which gave me thee shall be our home, 
 
 Where nature lies all wild amid her lakes 
 
 And snow-swathed mountains and vast pines begirt 
 
 With ropes of snow where nature lies all bare, 
 
 Suffering none to view her but a race 
 
 Or stinted or deformed, like the mute dwarfs 
 
 Which wait upon a naked Indian queen. 
 
 And there (the time being when the heavens are thick 
 
 With storm) I '11 sit with thee while thou dost sing 
 
 Thy native songs, gay as a desert bird 
 
 Which crieth as it flies for perfect joy, 
 
 Or telling me old stories of dead knights ; 
 
 Or I will read great lays to thee how she, 
 
 The fair pale sister, went to her chill grave
 
 24 PAULINE 
 
 With power to love and to be loved and live : 
 
 Or we will go together, like twin gods 
 
 Of the infernal world, with scented lamp 
 
 Over the dead, to call and to awake, 
 
 Over the unshaped images which lie 
 
 Within my mind's cave : only leaving all, 
 
 That tells of the past doubt. So, when spring comes 
 
 With sunshine back again like an old smile, 
 
 And the fresh waters and awakened birds 
 
 And bndding woods await us, I shall be 
 
 Prepared, and we will question life once more, 
 
 Till its old sense shall come renewed by change, 
 
 Like some clear thought which harsh words veiled before ; 
 
 Feeling God loves us, and that all which errs 
 
 Is but a dream which death will dissipate. 
 
 And then what need of longer exile ? Seek 
 
 My England, and, again there, calm approach 
 
 All I once fled from, calmly look on those 
 
 The works of my past weakness, as one views 
 
 Some scene where danger met him long before. 
 
 Ah that such pleasant life should be but dreamed ! 
 
 But whate'er come of it, and though it fade, 
 
 And though ere the cold morning all be gone, 
 
 As it may be ; though music wait to wile, 
 
 And strange eyes and bright wine lure, laugh like sin 
 
 Which steals back softly on a soul half saved, 
 
 And I the first deny, decry, despise, 
 
 With this avowal, these intents so fair, 
 
 Still be it all my own, this moment's pride ! 
 
 No less I make an end in perfect joy. 
 
 E'en in my brightest time, a lurking fear 
 
 Possessed me : I well knew my weak resolves, 
 
 I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep 
 
 Over its treasure, as one half afraid 
 
 To make his riches definite : but now 
 
 These feelings shall not utterly be lost, 
 
 I shall not know again that nameless care 
 
 Lest, leaving all undone in youth, some new 
 
 And undreamed end reveal itself too late : 
 
 For this song shall remain to tell forever 
 
 That when I lost all hope of such a change, 
 
 Suddenly beauty rose on me again. 
 
 No less I make an end in perfect joy, 
 
 For I, who thus again was visited, 
 
 Shall doubt not many another bliss awaits,
 
 PAULINE 25 
 
 And, though this weak soul sink and darkness whelm, 
 
 Some little word shall light it, raise aloft, 
 
 To where I clearlier see and Better love, 
 
 As I again go o'er the tracts of thought 
 
 Like one who has a right, and I shall live 
 
 With poets, calmer, purer still each time, 
 
 And beauteous shapes will come for me to seize, 
 
 And unknown secrets will be trusted me 
 
 Which were denied the waverer once ; but now 
 
 I shall be priest and prophet as of old. 
 
 Sun-treader, I believe in God and truth 
 And love ; and as one just escaped from death 
 Would bind himself in bands of friends to feel 
 He lives indeed, so, I would lean on thee ! 
 Thou must be ever with me, most in gloom 
 If such must come, but chiefly when I die, 
 For I seem, dying, as one going in the dark 
 To fight a giant : but live thou forever, 
 And be to all what thou hast been to me ! 
 All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me 
 Know my last state is happy, free from doubt 
 Or touch of fear. Love me and wish me well. 
 
 RICHMOND, October 22, 1832.
 
 PARACELSUS 
 
 INSCRIBED TO 
 
 AMEDEE DE RIPERT-MONCLAR 
 
 BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FKIEKD 
 LOMDOW, March 15, 1835. R. B. 
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 AUREOLUS PARACELSUS, a student. 
 FESTUS and MICHAL, his friends. 
 APRILK, an Italian poet. 
 
 I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES. 
 
 SCENE, Wiirzburg; a garden in the environs. 1512. 
 FESTUS, PARACELSUS, MICHAL. 
 
 Par. Come close to me, dear friends ; still closer ; thus ! 
 Close to the heart which, though long time roll by 
 Ere it again beat quicker, pressed to yours, 
 As now it beats perchance a long, long time 
 At least henceforth your memories shall make 
 Quiet and fragrant as befits their home. 
 Nor shall my memory want a home in yours 
 Alas, that it requires too well such free 
 Forgiving love as shall embalm it there ! 
 For if you would remember me aright, 
 As I was born to be, you must forget 
 All fitful, strange and moody waywardness 
 Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell 
 Only on moments such as these, dear friends ! 
 My heart no truer, but my words and ways 
 More true to it : as Michal, some months hence, 
 Will say, " this autumn was a pleasant time," 
 For some few sunny days ; and overlook 
 Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves. 
 Autumn would fain be sunny ; I would look
 
 28 PARACELSUS 
 
 Liker my nature's truth : and both are frail, 
 And both beloved, for all our frailty. 
 
 Mich. Aureole ! 
 
 Par. Drop by drop ! she is weeping like a child ! 
 Not so ! I am content more than content ; 
 Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute 
 Appeal to sympathy for its decay : 
 Look up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less 
 Your stained and drooping vines their grapes bow down, 
 Nor blame those creaking trees bent with their fruit, 
 That apple-tree with a rare after-birth 
 Of peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among ! 
 Then for the winds what wind that ever raved 
 Shall vex that ash which overlooks you both, 
 So proud it wears its berries ? Ah, at length, 
 The old smile meet for her, the lady of this 
 Sequestered nest ! this kingdom, limited 
 Alone by one old populous green wall 
 Tenanted by the ever-busy flies, 
 Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders, 
 Each family of the silver-threaded moss 
 Which, look through near, this way, and it appears 
 A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh 
 Of bulrush whitening in the sun : laugh now ! 
 Fancy the crickets, each one in his house, 
 Looking out, wondering at the world or best, 
 Yon painted snail with his gay shell of dew, 
 Travelling to see the glossy balls high up 
 Hung by the caterpillar, like gold lamps. 
 
 Mich. In truth we have lived carelessly and well. 
 
 Par. And shall, myperfect pair ! each, trust me, born 
 For the other ; nay, your very hair, when mixed, 
 Is of one hue. For where save in this nook 
 Shall you two walk, when I am far away, 
 And wish me prosperous fortune ? Stay : that plant 
 Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly, 
 As a queen's languid and imperial arm 
 Which scatters crowns among her lovers, but you 
 Shall be reminded to predict to me 
 Some great success ! Ah see, the sun sinks broad 
 Behind Saint Saviour's : wholly gone, at last ! 
 
 Fest. Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile ! 
 You are ours to-night, at least ; and while you spoke 
 Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none 
 Could willing leave what he so seemed to love : 
 But that last look destroys my dream that look
 
 PARACELSUS 29 
 
 As if, where'er you gazed, there stood a star ! 
 How far was Wiirzburg with its church and spire 
 And garden-walls and all things they contain^ 
 From that look's far alighting ? 
 
 Par. I hut spoke 
 
 And looked alike from simple joy to see 
 The beings I love best, shut in so well 
 From all rude chances like to be my lot, 
 That, when afar, my weary spirit, disposed 
 Tx> lose awhile its care in soothing thoughts 
 Of them, their pleasant features, looks and words, 
 Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend 
 Encroaching trouble may have reached them too, 
 Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid 
 And fashion even a wish in their behalf 
 Beyond what they possess already here ; 
 But, unobstructed, may at once forget 
 Itself in them, assured how well they fare. 
 Beside, this Festns knows he holds me one 
 Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain, 
 One scarce aware of all the joys I quit, 
 Too filled with airy hopes to make account 
 Of soft delights his own heart garners up : 
 Whereas behold how much our sense of all 
 That's beauteous proves alike ! When Festus learns 
 That every common pleasure of the world 
 Affects me as himself ; that I have just 
 As varied appetite for joy derived 
 From common things ; a stake in life, in short, 
 Like his ; a stake which rash pursuit of aims 
 That life affords not, would as soon destroy ; 
 He may convince himself that, this in view, 
 I shall act well advised. And last, because, 
 Though heaven and earth and all things were at stake, 
 Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve. 
 
 Fest. True : and the eve is deepening, and we sit 
 As little anxious to begin our talk 
 As though to-morrow I could hint of it 
 As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town 
 At sun-dawn ; or could whisper it by fits 
 (Trithemius busied with his class the while) 
 In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer 
 Half-frightened by the awful tomes around ; 
 Or in some grassy lane unbosom all 
 From even-blush to midnight : but, to-morrow ! 
 Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind ?
 
 30 I'ARACELSUS 
 
 We have been brothers, and henceforth the world 
 Will rise between us : all my freest mind ? 
 T is the last night, dear Aureole ! 
 
 Par. Oh, say on ! 
 
 Devise some test of love, some arduous feat 
 To be performed for you : say on I If night 
 Be spent the while, the better ! Recall how oft 
 My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears 
 Have never wearied you, oh no ! as I 
 Recall, and never vividly as now, 
 Your true affection, born when Einsiedeln 
 And its green hills were all the world to us ; 
 And still increasing to this night which ends 
 My further stay at Wiirzburg. Oh, one day 
 You shall be very proud ! Say on, dear friends ! 
 
 Fest. In truth ? 'T is for my proper peace, indeed, 
 Rather than yours ; for vain. all projects seem 
 To stay your course : I said my latest hope 
 Is fading even now. A story tells 
 Of some far embassy dispatched to win 
 The favor of an eastern king, and how 
 The gifts they offered proved but dazzling dust 
 Shed from the ore-beds native to his clime. 
 Just so, the value of repose and love, 
 I meant should tempt you, better far than I 
 You seem to comprehend ; and yet desist 
 No whit from projects where repose nor love 
 Have part. 
 
 Par. ' Once more ? Alas ! As I foretold. 
 
 Fest. A soKtary brier the bank puts forth 
 To save our swan's nest floating out to sea. 
 
 Par. Dear Festas, hear me. What is it you wish ? 
 That I should lay aside my heart's pursuit, 
 Abandon the sole ends for which I live, 
 Reject God's great commission, and so die ! 
 You bid me listen for your true love's sake : 
 Yet how has grown that love ? Even in a long 
 And patient cherishing of the self-same spirit 
 It- now would quell ; as though a mother hoped 
 To stay the lusty manhood of the child 
 Once weak upon her knees. I was not born 
 Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank 
 From aught which marked me out apart from men : 
 I would have lived their life, and died their death, 
 Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny : 
 But you first guided me through doubt and fear,
 
 PARACELSUS 31 
 
 Taught me to know mankind and know myself ; 
 And now that I am strong and full of hope, 
 That, from my soul, I can reject all aims 
 Save those your earnest words made plain to me, 
 Now that I touch the brink of my design, 
 When I would have a triumph in their eyes, 
 A glad cheer in their voices Michal weeps, 
 And Festus ponders gravely ! 
 
 Fest. When you deign 
 
 To hear my purpose . . . 
 
 Par. Hear it ? I can say 
 
 Beforehand all this evening's conference ! 
 'T is this way, Michal, that he uses : first, 
 Or he declares, or I, the leading points 
 Of our best scheme of life, what is man's end 
 And what God's will ; no two faiths e'er agreed 
 As his with mine. Next, each of us allows 
 Faith should be acted on as best we may ; 
 Accordingly, I venture to submit 
 My plan, in lack of better, for pursuing 
 The path which God's will seems to authorize. 
 Well, he discerns much good in it, avows 
 This motive worthy, that hope plausible, 
 A danger here to be avoided, there 
 An oversight to be repaired : in fine, 
 Our two minds go together all the good 
 Approved by him, I gladly recognize, 
 All he counts bad, I thankfully discard, 
 And nought forbids my looking up at last 
 For some stray comfort in his cautious brow, 
 When, lo ! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks 
 Some innate and inexplicable germ 
 Of failure in my scheme ; so that at last 
 It all amounts to this the sovereign proof 
 That we devote ourselves to God, is seen 
 In living just as though no God there were ; 
 A life which, prompted by the sad and blind 
 Folly of man, Festus abhors the most ; 
 But which these tenets sanctify at once, 
 Though to less subtle wits it seems the same, 
 Consider it how they may. 
 
 Mich. Is it so, Festus ? 
 
 He speaks so calmly and kindly : is it so ? 
 
 Par. Reject those glorious visions of God's love 
 And man's design ; laugh loud that God should send 
 Vast longings to direct us ; say how soon
 
 32 PARACELSUS 
 
 Power satiates these, or lust, or gold ; I know 
 The world's cry well, and how to answer it. 
 But this ambiguous warfare . . . 
 
 Fest. . . . Wearies so 
 
 That you will grant no last leave to your friend 
 To urge it ? for his sake, not yours ? I wish 
 To send my soul in good hopes after you ; 
 Never to sorrow that uncertain words 
 Erringly apprehended, a new creed 
 111 understood, begot rash trust in you, 
 Had share in your undoing. 
 
 Par. Choose your side, 
 
 Hold or renounce : but meanwhile blame me not 
 Because I dare to act on your own views, 
 Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy 
 A peril where they most ensure success. 
 
 Fest. Prove that to me but that ! Prove you abide 
 Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast 
 God's labor laid on you ; prove, all you covet, 
 A mortal may expect ; and, most of all, 
 Prove the strange course you now affect, will lead 
 To its attainment and I bid you speed, 
 Nay, count the minutes till you venture forth ! 
 You smile ; but I had gathered from slow thought 
 Much musing on the fortunes of my friend 
 Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain ; 
 But it all leaves me at my need : in shreds 
 And fragments I must venture what remains. 
 
 Mich. Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should scorn. 
 
 Fest. Stay, Michal : Aureole, I speak guardedly 
 And gravely, knowing well, whate'er your error, 
 This is no ill-considered choice of yours, 
 No sudden fancy of an ardent boy. 
 Not from your own confiding words alone 
 Am I aware your passionate heart long since 
 Gave birth to, nourished and at length matures 
 This scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln, 
 Where I was born your elder by some'years 
 Only to watch you fully from the first : 
 In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed 
 Even then 't was mine to have you in my view 
 As you had your own soul and those intents 
 Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish, 
 With a tumultuous heart, you left with me 
 Our childhood's home to join the favored few 
 Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach
 
 PARACELSUS 33 
 
 A portion of his lore : and not one youth 
 
 Of those so favored, whom you now despise, 
 
 Came earnest as you came, resolved, like you, 
 
 To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve 
 
 By patient toil a wide renown like his. 
 
 Now, this new ardor which supplants the old 
 
 I watched, too ; 't was significant and strange, 
 
 In one matched to his soul's content at length 
 
 With rivals in the search for wisdom's prize, 
 
 To see the sudden pause, the total change ; 
 
 From contest, the transition to repose 
 
 From pressing onward as his fellows pressed, 
 
 To a blank idleness, yet most unlike 
 
 The dull stagnation of a soul, content, 
 
 Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest. 
 
 That careless bearing, free from all pretence 
 
 Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek 
 
 Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving 
 
 What it professed to praise though not so well 
 
 Maintained but that rare outbreaks, tierce and brief, 
 
 Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed. 
 
 That ostentatious show of past defeat, 
 
 That ready acquiescence in contempt, 
 
 I deemed no other than the letting go 
 
 His shivered sword, of one about to spring 
 
 Upon his foe's throat ; but it was not thus : 
 
 Not that way looked your brooding purpose then. 
 
 For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed, 
 
 That you prepared to task to the uttermost 
 
 Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim 
 
 Which while it bore the name your rivals gave 
 
 Their own most puny efforts was so vast 
 
 In scope that it included their best flights, 
 
 Combined them, and desired to gain one prize 
 
 In place of many, the secret of the world, 
 
 Of man, and man's true purpose, path and fate. 
 
 That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream 
 
 This purpose, with the sages of the past, 
 
 Have struck upon a way to this, if all 
 
 You trust be true, which following, heart and soul, 
 
 You, if a man may, dare aspire to KNOW : 
 
 And that this aim shall differ from a host 
 
 Of aims alike in character and kind, 
 
 Mostly in this, that in itself alone 
 
 Shall its reward be, not an alien end 
 
 Blending therewith ; no hope nor fear nor joy
 
 34 PARACELSUS 
 
 Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure 
 Devotion to sustain you or betray : 
 Thus you aspire. 
 
 Par. You shall not state it thus : 
 I should not differ from the dreamy crew 
 You speak of. I profess no other share 
 In the selection of my lot, than this 
 My ready answer to the will of God 
 Who summons me to be his organ. All 
 Whose innate strength supports them shall succeed 
 No better than the sages. 
 
 Fest. Such the aim, then, 
 
 God sets before you ; and 't is doubtless need 
 That he appoint no less the way of praise 
 Than the desire to praise ; for, though I hold, 
 With you, the setting forth such praise to be 
 The natural end and service of a man, 
 And hold such praise is best attained when man 
 Attains the general welfare of his kind 
 Yet this, the end, is not the instrument. 
 Presume not to serve God apart from such 
 Appointed channel as he wills shah 1 gather 
 Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience 
 Valued perchance. He seeks not that his altars 
 Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze. 
 Suppose this, then ; that God selected you 
 To KNOW (heed well your answers, for my faith 
 Shall meet implicitly what they affirm), 
 I cannot think you dare annex to such 
 Selection aught beyond a steadfast will, 
 An intense hope ; nor let your gifts create 
 Scorn or neglect of ordinary means 
 Conducive to success, make destiny 
 Dispense with man's endeavor. Now, dare you search 
 Your inmost heart, and candidly avow 
 Whether you have not rather wild desire 
 For this distinction than security 
 Of its existence ? whether you discern 
 The path to the fulfilment of your purpose 
 Clear as that purpose and again, that purpose 
 Clear as your yearning to be singled out 
 For its pursuer. Dare you answer this ? 
 
 Par. (after a pause). No, I have nought to fear ! W 
 
 will may know 
 
 The secret'st workings of my soul. What though 
 It be so ? if indeed the strong desire
 
 PARACELSUS 3 
 
 Eclipse the aim in me ? if splendor break 
 
 Upon the outset of my path alone, 
 
 And duskest shade succeed ? What fairer seal 
 
 Shall I require to my authentic mission 
 
 Than this fierce energy ? this instinct striving 
 
 Because its nature is to strive ? enticed 
 
 By the security of no broad course, 
 
 Without success forever in its eyes ! 
 
 How know I else such glorious fate my own, 
 
 But in the restless irresistible force 
 
 That works within me ? Is it for human will 
 
 To institute such impulses ? still less, 
 
 To disregard their promptings ! What should I 
 
 Do, kept among you all ; your loves, your cares, 
 
 Your life all to be mine ? Be sure that God 
 
 Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart! 
 
 Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once 
 
 Into the vast and unexplored abyss, 
 
 What full-grown power informs her from the first, 
 
 Why she not marvels, strenuously beating 
 
 The silent boundless regions of the sky ! 
 
 Be sure they sleep not whom God needs ! Nor fear 
 
 Their holding light his charge, when every hour 
 
 That finds that charge delayed, is a new death. 
 
 This for the faith in which I trust ; and hence 
 
 I can abjure so well the idle arts 
 
 These pedants strive to learn and teach ; Black Arts, 
 
 Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth 
 
 Let others prize : too intimate a tie 
 
 Connects me with our God ! A sullen fiend 
 
 To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites 
 
 To help me what are these, at best, beside 
 
 God helping, God directing everywhere, . 
 
 So that the earth shall yield her secrets up, 
 
 And every object there be charged to strike, 
 
 Teach, gratify her master God appoints ? 
 
 And I am young, my Festus, happy and free ! 
 
 I can devote myself ; I have a life 
 
 To give ; I, singled out for this, the One ! 
 
 Think, think ; the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung ; 
 
 The bright South, where she dwelt ; the hopeful North, 
 
 All are passed o'er it lights on me ! 'T is time 
 
 New hopes should animate the world, new light 
 
 Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
 
 Weighed down so long, forgotten so long ; thus shall 
 
 The heaven reserved for us at last receive
 
 36 PARACELSUS 
 
 Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, 
 But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze, 
 Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, 
 Not seldom glorified their life below. 
 
 Fest. My words have their old fate and make faint sta 
 Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth 
 Why not pursue it in a fast retreat, 
 Some one of Learning's many palaces. 
 After approved example ? seeking there 
 Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul, 
 Who laid up treasure with the like intent 
 So lift yourself into their airy place, 
 And fill out full their unfulfilled careers, 
 Unravelling the knots their baffled skill 
 Pronounced inextricable, true ! but left 
 Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand, 
 Might do much at their vigor's waning-point ; 
 Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force, 
 As at old games the runner snatched the torch 
 From runner still : this way success might be. 
 But you have coupled with your enterprise 
 An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme 
 Of seeking it in strange and untried paths. 
 What books are in the desert ? Writes the sea 
 The secret of her yearning in vast caves 
 Where yours will fall the first of human feet ? 
 Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught 
 You press to read ? Why turn aside from her 
 To visit, where her vesture never glanced, 
 Now solitudes consigned to barrenness 
 By God's decree, which who shall dare impugn ? 
 Now ruins where she paused but would not stay, 
 Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her, 
 She called an endless curse on, so it came : 
 Or worst of all, now men you visit, men, 
 Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice 
 Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome 
 Or Athens, these shall Aureole's teachers be ! 
 Rejecting past example, practice, precept, 
 Aidless 'mid these he thinks to stand alone : 
 Thick like a glory round the Stagirite 
 Your rivals throng, the sages : here stand you ! 
 Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not 
 Paramount in your love ; or for her sake 
 You would collect all help from every source 
 Rival, assistant, friend, foe, all would merge
 
 PARACELSUS 37 
 
 In the broad class of those who showed her haunts, 
 And those who showed them not. 
 
 Par. What shall I say ? 
 
 Festus, from childhood I have been possessed 
 By a fire by a true fire, or faint or fierce, 
 As from without some master, so it seemed, 
 Repressed or urged its current : this but ill 
 Expresses what I would convey : but rather 
 I will believe an angel ruled me thus, 
 Than that my soul's own workings, own high nature, 
 So became manifest. I knew not then 
 What whispered in the evening, and spoke out 
 Atf midnight. If some mortal, born too soon, 
 Were laid away in some great trance the ages 
 Coming and going all the while till dawned 
 His true time's advent ; and could then record 
 The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, 
 Then I might tell more of the breath so light 
 Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light 
 Among my hair. Youth is confused ; yet never 
 So dull was I but, when that spirit passed, 
 I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns 
 A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep. 
 And having this within me and about me 
 While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods 
 Confined me what oppressive joy was mine 
 When life grew plain, and I first viewed the thronged, 
 The everlasting concourse of mankind ! 
 Believe that ere I joined them, ere I knew 
 The purpose of the pageant, or the place 
 Consigned me in its ranks while, just awake, 
 Wonder was freshest and delight most pure 
 'T was then that least supportable appeared 
 A station with the brightest of the crowd, 
 A portion with the proudest of them all. 
 And from the tumult in my breast, this only 
 Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die 
 Or elevate myself far, far above 
 The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long 
 At once to trample on yet save mankind, 
 To make some unexampled sacrifice 
 In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good 
 From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning 
 Eternal weal in the act : as who should dare 
 Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud, 
 That, all its gathered flame discharged on him,
 
 38 PARACELSUS 
 
 No storm might threaten summer's azure sleep : 
 Yet never to be mixed with men so much 
 As to have part even in my own work, share 
 In my own largess. Once the feat achieved, 
 I would withdraw from their officious praise, 
 Would gently put aside their profuse thanks. 
 Like some knight traversing a wilderness, 
 Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe 
 Of desert-people from their dragon-foe ; 
 When all the swarthy race press round to kiss 
 His feet, and choose him for their king, and yield 
 Their poor tents, pitched among the sand-hills, for 
 His realm : and he points, smiling, to his scarf 
 Heavy with riveled gold, his burgonet 
 Gay set with twinkling stones and to the East, 
 Where these must be displayed ! 
 
 Fest. Good : let us hear 
 
 No more about your nature, " which first shrank 
 From all that marked you out apart from men ! " 
 
 Par. I touch on that; these words but analyze 
 The first mad impulse : 't was as brief as fond, 
 For as I gazed again upon the show, 
 I soon distinguished here and there a shape 
 Palm-wreathed and radiant, forehead and full eye. 
 Well pleased was I their state should thus at once 
 Interpret my own thoughts : " Behold the clue 
 To all," I rashly said, " and what I pine 
 To do, these have accomplished : we are peers. 
 They know and therefore rule : I, too, will know ! " 
 You were beside me, Festus, as you say ; 
 You saw me plunge in their pursuits whom fame 
 Is lavish to attest the lords of mind, 
 Not pausing to make sure the prize in view 
 Would satiate my cravings when obtained, 
 But since they strove I strove. Then came a slow 
 And strangling failure. We aspired alike, 
 Yet not the meanest plodder, Tritheim counts 
 A marvel, but was all-sufficient, strong, 
 Or staggered only at his own vast wits ; 
 While I was restless, nothing satisfied, 
 Distrustful, most perplexed. I would slur over 
 That struggle ; suffice it, that I loathed myself 
 As weak compared with them, yet felt somehow 
 A mighty power was brooding, taking shape 
 Within me ; and this lasted till one night 
 When, as I sat revolving it and more r
 
 PARACELSUS 39 
 
 A still voice from without said " Seest thou not, 
 Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss ? 
 Even from thy strength. Consider : hast thou gazed 
 Presumptuously on wisdom's countenance, 
 No veil between ; and can thy faltering hands, 
 Unguided by the brain the sight absorbs, 
 Pursue their task as earnest blinkers do 
 Whom radiance ne'er distracted ? Live their life 
 If thou wouldst share their fortune, choose their eyes 
 Unfed, by splendor. Let each task present 
 Its petty good to thee. Waste not thy gifts 
 In profitless waiting for the gods' descent, 
 But have some idol of thine own to dress 
 With their array. Know, not for knowing's sake, 
 But to become a star to men forever ; 
 Know, for the gain it gets, the praise it brings, 
 The wonder it inspires, the love it breeds : 
 Look one step onward, and secure that step ! " 
 And I smiled as one never smiles but once, 
 Then first discovering my own aim's extent, 
 Which sought to comprehend the works of God, 
 And God himself, and all God's intercourse 
 With the human mind ; I understood, no less, 
 My fellows' studies, whose true worth I saw, 
 But smiled not, well aware who stood by me. 
 And softer came the voice " There is a way: 
 'T is hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued 
 With frailty hopeless, if indulgence first 
 Have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength : 
 Wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's, 
 Apart from all reward ? " And last it breathed 
 " Be happy, my good soldier ; I am by thee, 
 Be sure, even to the end ! " I answered not, 
 Knowing him. As he spoke, I was endued 
 With comprehension and a steadfast will ; 
 And when he ceased, my brow was sealed his own. 
 If there took place no special change in me, 
 How comes it all things wore a different hue 
 Thenceforward ? pregnant with vast consequence, 
 Teeming with grand result, loaded with fate ? 
 So that when, quailing at the mighty range 
 Of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste 
 To contemplate undazzled some one truth, 
 Its bearings and effects alone at once 
 What was a speck expands into a star, 
 Asking a life to pass exploring thus,
 
 40 PARACELSUS 
 
 Till I near craze. I go to prove my soul ! 
 I see my way as birds their trackless way* 
 I shall arrive ! what time, what circuit first, 
 I ask not : but unless God send his hail 
 Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, 
 In some time, his good time, I shall arrive : 
 He guides me and the bird. In his good time ! 
 
 Mich. Vex him no further, Festus ; it is so ! 
 
 Fest. Just thus you help me ever. This would hold 
 Were it the trackless air, and not a path 
 Inviting you, distinct with footprints yet 
 Of many a mighty marcher gone that way. 
 You may have purer views than theirs, perhaps, 
 But they were famous in their day the proofs 
 Remain. At least accept the light they lend. 
 
 Par. Their light ! the sum of all is briefly this : 
 They labored and grew famous, and the fruits 
 Are best seen in a dark and groaning earth 
 Given over to a blind and endless strife 
 With evils, what of all their lore abates ? 
 No ; I reject and spurn them utterly 
 And all they teach. Shall I still sit beside 
 Their dry wells, with a white lip and filmed eye, 
 While in the distance heaven is blue above 
 Mountains where sleep the unsunned tarns ? 
 
 Fest. And yet 
 
 As strong delusions have prevailed ere now. 
 Men have set out as gallantly to seek 
 Their ruin. I have heard of such : yourself 
 Avow all hitherto have failed and fallen. 
 
 Mich. Nay, Festus, when but as the pilgrims faint 
 Through the drear way, do you expect to see 
 Their city dawn amid the clouds afar ? 
 
 Par. Ay, sounds it not like some old well-known tale ? 
 For me, I estimate their works and them 
 So rightly, that at times I almost dream 
 I too have spent a life the sages' way, 
 And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance 
 I perished in an arrogant self-reliance 
 Ages ago ; and in that act, a prayer 
 For one more chance went up so earnest, so 
 Instinct with better light let in by death, 
 That life was blotted out not so completely 
 But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, 
 Dim memories, as now, when once more seems 
 The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
 
 PARACELSUS 41 
 
 Is foolish, and only means the flesh I wear, 
 The earth I tread, are not more clear to me 
 Than my belief, explained to you or no. 
 
 Fest. And who am I, to challenge and dispute 
 That clear belief ? I will divest all fear. 
 
 Mich. Then Aureole is God's commissary ! he shall 
 Be great and grand and all for us ! 
 
 Par. No, sweet! 
 
 Not great and grand. If I can serve mankind 
 'T is well ; but there our intercourse must end : 
 I never will be served by those I serve. 
 
 Fest. Look well to this ; here is a plague-spot, here, 
 Disguise it how you may ! 'T is true, you utter 
 This scorn while by our side and loving us ; 
 'T is but a spot as yet : but it will break 
 Into a hideous blotch if overlooked ; 
 How can that course be safe which from the first 
 Produces carelessness to human love? 
 It seems you have abjured the helps which men 
 Who overpass their kind, as you would do, 
 Have humbly sought ; I dare not thoroughly probe 
 This matter, lest I learn too much. Let be 
 That popular praise would little instigate 
 Your efforts, nor particular approval 
 Reward you ; put reward aside; alone 
 You shall go forth upon your arduous task, 
 None shall assist you, none partake your toil, 
 None share your triumph : still you must retain 
 Some one to cast your glory on, to share 
 Your rapture with. Were I elect like you, 
 I would encircle me with love, and raise 
 A rampart of my fellows ; it should seem 
 Impossible for me to fail, so watched 
 By gentle friends who made my cause their own. 
 They should ward off fate's envy the great gift, 
 Extravagant when claimed by me alone, 
 Being so a gift to them as well as me. 
 If danger dausted me or ease seduced, 
 How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach ! 
 
 Mich. O Aureole, can I sing when all alone, 
 Without first calling, in my fancy, both 
 To listen by my side even I ! And you ? 
 Do you not feel this ? Say that you feel this ! 
 
 Par. I feel 't is pleasant that my aims, at length 
 Allowed their weight, should be supposed to need 
 A further strengthening in these goodly helps !
 
 42 PARACELSUS 
 
 My course allures for its own sake, its sole 
 Intrinsic worth ; and ne'er shall boat of mine 
 Adventure forth for gold and apes at once. 
 Your sages say, " if human, therefore weak : " 
 If weak, more need to give myself entire 
 To my pursuit ; and by its side, all else . . . 
 No matter ! I deny myself but little 
 In waiving all assistance save its own. 
 Would there were some real sacrifice to make"! 
 Your friends the sages threw their joys away, 
 While I must be content with keeping mine. 
 
 Fest. But do not cut yourself from human weal ! 
 You cannot thrive a man that dares affect 
 To spend his life in service to his kind 
 For no reward of theirs, unbound to them 
 By any tie ; nor do so, Aureole ! No 
 There are strange punishments for such. Give up 
 (Although no visible good flow thence) some part 
 Of the glory to another ; hiding thus, 
 Even from yourself, that all is for yourself. 
 Say, say almost to God "I have done all 
 For her, not for myself ! " 
 
 Par. And who but lately 
 
 Was to rejoice in my success like you ? 
 Whom should I love but both of you ? 
 
 Fest. I know not : 
 
 But know this, you, that 't is no will of mine 
 You should abjure the lofty claims you make ; 
 And this the cause I can no longer seek 
 To overlook the truth, that there would be 
 A monstrous spectacle upon the earth, 
 Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees : 
 A being knowing not what love is. Hear me ! 
 You are endowed with faculties which bear 
 Annexed to them as 't were a dispensation 
 To summon meaner spirits to do their will 
 And gather round them at their need ; inspiring 
 Such with a love themselves can never fel, 
 Passionless 'mid their passionate votaries. 
 I know not if you joy in this or no, 
 Or ever dream that common men can live 
 On objects you prize lightly, but which make 
 Their heart's sole treasure : the affections seem 
 Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste 
 Or die : and this strange quality accords, 
 I know not how, with you ; sits well upon
 
 PARACELSUS 43 
 
 That luminous brow, though in another it scowls 
 
 An eating brand, a shame. I dare not judge you. 
 
 The rules of right and wrong thus set aside, 
 
 There 's no alternative I own you one 
 
 Of higher order, under other laws 
 
 Than bind us ; therefore, curb not one bold glance ! 
 
 'T is best aspire. Once mingled with us all ... 
 
 Mich. Stay with us, Aureole ! cast those hopes away, 
 And stay with us ! An angel warns me, too, 
 Man should be humble ; you are very proud : 
 And God, dethroned, has doleful plagues for such ! 
 Warns me to have in dread no quick repulse, 
 No slow defeat, but a complete success : 
 You will find all you seek, and perish so ! 
 
 Par. (after a pause). Are these the barren first-fruits 
 
 of my quest ? 
 
 Is love like this the natural lot of all ? 
 How many years of pain might one such hour 
 O'erbalance ? Dearest Michal, dearest Festus, 
 What shall I say, if not that I desire 
 To justify your love ; and will, dear friends, 
 In swerving nothing from my first resolves. 
 See, the great moon ! and ere the mottled owls 
 Were wide awake, I was to go. It seems 
 You acquiesce at last in all save this 
 If I am like to compass what I seek 
 By the untried career I choose ; and then, 
 If that career, making but small account 
 Of much of life's delight, will yet retain 
 Sufficient to sustain my soul : for thus 
 I understand these fond fears just expressed. 
 And first ; the lore you praise and I neglect, 
 The labors and the precepts of old time, 
 I have not lightly disesteemed. But, friends, 
 Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
 From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 
 There is an inmost centre in us all, 
 Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, 
 Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
 This perfect, clear perception which is truth, 
 A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
 Binds it, and makes all error : and, to KNOW, 
 Rather consists in opening out a way 
 Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, 
 Than in effecting entry for a light 
 Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly
 
 44 PARACELSUS 
 
 The demonstration of a truth, its birth, 
 
 And you trace back the effluence to its spring 
 
 And source within us ; where broods radiance vast, 
 
 To be elicited ray by ray, as chance 
 
 Shall favor : chance for hitherto, your sage 
 
 Even as he knows not how those beams are born, 
 
 As little knows he what unlocks their fount. 
 
 And men have oft grown old among their books 
 
 To die case-hardened in their ignorance, 
 
 Whose careless youth had promised what long years 
 
 Of unremitted labor ne'er performed : 
 
 While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day, 
 
 To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free 
 
 As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last 
 
 To truth produced mysteriously as cape 
 
 Of cloud grown out of the invisible air. 
 
 Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all, 
 
 The lowest as the highest ? some slight film 
 
 The interposing bar which binds a soul 
 
 And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage 
 
 Some film removed, the happy outlet whence 
 
 Truth issues proudly ? See this soul of ours ! 
 
 How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed 
 
 In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled 
 
 By age and waste, set free at last by death : 
 
 Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones ? 
 
 What is this flesh we have to penetrate ? 
 
 Oh, not alone when life flows still, do truth 
 
 And power emerge, but also when strange chance 
 
 Ruffles its current ; in unused conjuncture, 
 
 When sickness breaks the body hunger, watching, 
 
 Excess or languor oftenest death's approach, 
 
 Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl 
 
 Through life surrounded with all stirring things, 
 
 Unmoved ; and he goes mad : and from the wreck 
 
 Of what he was, by his wild talk alone, 
 
 You first collect how great a spirit he hid. 
 
 Therefore, set free the soul alike in all, 
 
 Discovering the true laws by which the flesh 
 
 Accloys the spirit ! We may not be doomed 
 
 To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest 
 
 Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God, 
 
 But elevate the race at once ! We ask 
 
 To put forth just our strength, our human strength, 
 
 All starting fairly, all equipped alike, 
 
 Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted
 
 PARACELSUS 45 
 
 See if we cannot beat thine angels yet ! 
 
 Such is my task. I go to gather this 
 
 The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed 
 
 About the world, long lost or never found. 
 
 And why should I be sad or lorn of hope ? 
 
 Why ever make man's good distinct from God's, 
 
 Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust ? 
 
 Who shall succeed if not one pledged like me ? 
 
 Mine is no mad attempt to build a world 
 
 Apart from his, like those who set themselves 
 
 To find the nature of the spirit they bore, 
 
 And, taught betimes that all their gorgeous dreams 
 
 Were only born to vanish in this life, 
 
 Refused to fit them to its narrow sphere, 
 
 But chose to figure forth another world 
 
 And other frames meet for their vast desires, 
 
 And all a dream ! Thus was life scorned ; but life 
 
 Shall yet be crowned : twine amaranth ! I am priest ! 
 
 And all for yielding with a lively spirit 
 
 A poor existence, parting with a youth 
 
 Like those who squander every energy 
 
 Convertible to good, on painted toys, 
 
 Breath-bubbles, gilded dust ! And though I spurn 
 
 All adventitious aims, from empty praise 
 
 To love's award, yet whoso deems such helps 
 
 Important, and concerns himself for me, 
 
 May know even these will follow with the rest 
 
 As in the steady rolling Mayne, asleep 
 
 Yonder, is mixed its mass of schistous ore. 
 
 My own affections, laid to rest awhile, 
 
 Will waken purified, subdued alone 
 
 By all I have achieved. Till then till then . , . 
 
 Ah, the time-wiling loitering of a page 
 
 Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring 
 
 The stately lady's presence whom he loves 
 
 The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat 
 
 Enwraps the queenly pearl these are faint types ! 
 
 See, see they look on me : I triumph now ! 
 
 But one thing, Festus, Michal ! I have told 
 
 All I shall e'er disclose to mortal : say 
 
 Do you believe I shall accomplish this ? 
 
 Fest. I do believe ! 
 
 Mich. I ever did believe ! 
 
 Par. Those words shall never fade from out my brain ! 
 This earnest of the end shall never fade ! 
 Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,
 
 46 PARACELSUS 
 
 Two points in the adventure of the diver, 
 One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, 
 One when, a prince, he rises with his pearl ? 
 Festus, I plunge ! 
 
 Fest. We wait you when you rise ! 
 
 II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS. 
 SCENE, Constantinople; Hie house of a Greek conjurer. 1521. 
 
 PARACELSUS. 
 
 Over the waters in the vaporous West 
 
 The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold 
 
 Behind the arm of the city, which between, 
 
 With all that length of domes and minarets, 
 
 Athwart the splendor, black and crooked runs 
 
 Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. 
 
 There lie, sullen memorial, and no more 
 
 Possess my aching sight ! 'T is done at last. 
 
 Strange and the juggles of a sallow cheat 
 
 Have won me to this act ! *T is as yon cloud 
 
 Should voyage unwrecked o'er many a mountain-top 
 
 And break upon a molehill. I have dared 
 
 Come to a pause with knowledge ; scan for once 
 
 The heights already reached, without regard 
 
 To the extent above ; fairly compute 
 
 All I have clearly gained ; for once excluding 
 
 A brilliant future to supply and perfect 
 
 All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes : 
 
 And all because a fortune-teller wills 
 
 His credulous seekers should inscribe thus much 
 
 Their previous life's attainment, in his roll, 
 
 Before his promised secret, as he vaunts, 
 
 Make up the sum : and here, amid the scrawled 
 
 Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this 
 
 Old arch-genethliac, Ke my life's results ! 
 
 A few blurred characters suffice to note 
 
 A stranger wandered long through many lands 
 
 And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few 
 
 Discoveries, as appended here and there, 
 
 The fragmentary produce of much toil, 
 
 Tn a dim heap, fact and surmise together 
 
 Confusedly massed as when acquired ; he was
 
 PARACELSUS 47 
 
 Intent on gain to come too much to stay 
 And scrutinize the little gained : the whole 
 Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber 
 And a mad lover's ditty there it lies. 
 
 And yet those blottings chronicle a life 
 A whole life, and my life ! Nothing to do, 
 No problem for the fancy, but a life 
 Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve 
 Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this 
 Remembrancer set down concerning "life " ? 
 " ' Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,' 
 It is the echo of time ; and he whose heart 
 Beat first beneath a human heart, whose speech 
 Was copied from a human tongue, can never 
 Recall when he was living yet knew not this. 
 Nevertheless long seasons pass o'er him 
 Till some one hour's experience shows what nothing, 
 It seemed, could clearer show ; and ever after, 
 An altered brow and eye and gait and speech 
 Attest that now he knows the adage true, 
 * Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.' " 
 
 Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same hour 
 As well as any : now, let my time be ! 
 
 Now ! I can go no farther ; well or ill, 
 
 'T is done. I must desist and take my chance. 
 
 I cannot keep on the stretch : 't is no back-shrinking 
 
 For let but some assurance beam, some close 
 
 To my toil grow visible, and I proceed 
 
 At any price, though closing it, I die. 
 
 Else, here I pause. The old Greek's prophecy 
 
 Is like to turn out true : " I shall not quit 
 
 His chamber till I know what I desire ! " 
 
 Was it the light wind sang it o'er the sea ? 
 
 An end, a rest ! strange how the notion, once 
 Encountered, gathers strength by moments ! Rest ! 
 Where has it kept so long ? this throbbing brow 
 To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel 
 And gnawing thoughts to cease ! To dare let down 
 My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve 
 My harassed o'ertasked frame, to know my place, 
 My portion, my reward, even my failure, 
 Assigned, made sure forever .' To lose myself
 
 48 PARACELSUS 
 
 Among the common creatures of the world, 
 
 To draw some gain from having been a man, 
 
 Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length ! 
 
 Even in failure, rest ! But rest in truth 
 
 And power and recompense ... I hoped that once ! 
 
 What, sunk insensibly so deep ? Has all 
 
 Been undergone for this ? This the request 
 
 My labor qualified me to present 
 
 With no fear of refusal ? Had I gone 
 
 Slightingly through my task, and so judged fit 
 
 To moderate my hopes ; nay, were it now 
 
 My sole concern to exculpate myself, 
 
 End things or mend them, why, I could not choose 
 
 A humbler mood to wait for the event ! 
 
 No, no, there needs not this ; no, after all, 
 
 At worst I have performed my share of the task ; 
 
 The rest is God's concern ; mine, merely this, 
 
 To know that I have obstinately held 
 
 By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot 
 
 Has trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far 
 
 That he descries at length the shrine of shrines, 
 
 Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes, 
 
 Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now 
 
 Upon him, fairly past their power ; no, no 
 
 He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last, 
 
 Having a charm to baffle them ; behold, 
 
 He bares his front : a mortal ventures thus 
 
 Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms ! 
 
 If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up 
 
 The god of the place to ban and blast him there, 
 
 Both well ! What 's failure or success to me ? 
 
 I have subdued my life to the one purpose 
 
 Whereto I ordained it ; there alone I spy, 
 
 No doubt, that way I may be satisfied. 
 
 Yes, well have I subdued my life ! beyond 
 
 The obligation of my strictest vow, 
 
 The contemplation of my wildest bond, 
 
 Which gave my nature freely up, in truth, 
 
 But in its actual state, consenting fully 
 
 All passionate impulses its soil was formed 
 
 To rear, should wither ; but foreseeing not 
 
 The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness, 
 
 Would seem one day, remembered as it was, 
 
 Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is, 
 
 Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then.
 
 PARACELSUS 49 
 
 I ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail 
 I felt them not ; yet now, 't is very plain 
 Some soft spots had their birth in me at first, 
 If not love, say, like love : there was a time 
 When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge 
 Set not remorselessly love's claims aside. 
 This heart was human once, or why recall 
 Einsiedeln, now, and Wiirzburg which the Mayne 
 Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm ? 
 
 And Festus my poor Festus, with his praise 
 And counsel and grave fears where is he now 
 With the sweet maiden, long ago his bride ? 
 I surely loved them that last night, at least, 
 When we ... gone ! gone ! the better. I am saved 
 The sad review of an ambitious youth 
 Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth, 
 But let grow up and wind around a will 
 Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone 
 Purging my patli successively of aught 
 Wearing the distant likeness of such lusts. 
 I have made life consist of one idea : 
 Ere that was master, up till that was born, 
 I bear a memory of a pleasant life 
 Whose small events 1 treasure ; till one morn 
 I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields, 
 Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell 
 Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy, 
 To leave all trouble for my future plans, 
 Since I had just determined to become 
 The greatest and most glorious man on earth. 
 And since that morn all life has been forgotten ; 
 All js one day, one only step between 
 The outset and the end : one tyrant ail- 
 Absorbing aim fills up the interspace, 
 One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up 
 Through a career apparently adverse 
 To its existence : life, death, light and shadow, 
 The shows of the world, were bare receptacles 
 Or indices of truth to be wrung thence, 
 Not ministers of sorrow or delight : 
 A wondrous natural robe in which she went. 
 For some one truth would dimly beacon me 
 From mountains rough with pines, and flit and wink 
 O'er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble 
 Into assured light in some branching mine
 
 50 PARACELSUS 
 
 Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold 
 And all the beauty, all the wonder fell 
 On either side the truth, as its mere robe ; 
 I see the robe now then I saw the form. 
 So far, then, I have voyaged with success, 
 So much is good, then, in this working sea 
 Which parts me from that happy strip of land : 
 But o'er that happy strip a sun shone, too ! 
 And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough, 
 And still more faint as the sea widens ; last 
 I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light 
 From its own putrefying depths alone. 
 Then, God was pledged to take me by the hand ; 
 Now, any miserable juggle can bid 
 My pride depart. All is alike at length : 
 God may take pleasure in confounding pride 
 By hiding secrets with the scorned and base 
 I am here, in short : so little have I paused 
 Throughout ! I never glanced behind to know 
 If I had kept my primal light from wane, 
 And thus insensibly am what I am ! 
 
 Oh, bitter ; very bitter ! 
 
 And more bitter, 
 
 To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin, 
 Plague beneath plague, the last turning the first 
 To light beside its darkness. Let me weep 
 My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone, 
 In tears which burn ! Would I were sure to win 
 Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture 
 Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed 
 Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change 
 To opal shafts ! only that, hurling it 
 Indignant back, I might convince myself 
 My aims remained supreme and pure as ever ! 
 Even now, why not desire, for mankind's sake, 
 That if I fail, some fault may be the cause, 
 That, though I sink, another may succeed ? 
 O God, the despicable heart of us ! 
 Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart ! 
 
 T was politic in you, Aureole, to reject 
 Single rewards, and ask them in the lump ; 
 At all events, once launched, to hold straight on : 
 For now 't is all or nothing. Mighty profit 
 Your gains will bring if they stop short of such
 
 PARACELSUS 51 
 
 Full consummation ! As a man, you had 
 A certain share of strength ; and that is gone 
 Already in the getting these you boast. 
 Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say 
 " Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth 
 To light ; this hast thou done : be glad ! Now, seek 
 The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting ! " 
 
 And yet 't is much, surely 't is very much, 
 Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts, 
 To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn 
 Arrived with inexhaustible light ; and lo, 
 I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not ! 
 And I am left with gray hair, faded hands, 
 And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all, 
 Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast ? 
 Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recompense ! 
 Was she who glided through my room of nights, 
 Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed 
 The damp locks, whose sly soothings just began 
 When my sick spirit craved repose awhile 
 God ! was I fighting sleep off for death's sake ? 
 
 God ! Thou art mind ! Unto the master-mind 
 
 Mind should be precious. Spare my mind alone ! 
 
 All else I will endure ; if, as I stand 
 
 Here, with my gains, thy thunder smite me down, 
 
 I bow me ; 't is thy will, thy righteous will ; 
 
 I o'erpass life's restrictions, and I die ; 
 
 And if no trace of my career remain 
 
 Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind 
 
 In these bright chambers level with the air, 
 
 See thou to it ! But if my spirit fail, 
 
 My once proud spirit forsake me at the last, 
 
 Hast thou done well by me ? So do not thou ! 
 
 Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be crushed ! 
 
 Hold me before the frequence of thy seraphs 
 
 And say "I crushed him, lest he should disturb 
 
 My law. Men must not know their strength : behold, 
 
 Weak and alone, how he had raised himself ! " 
 
 But if delusions trouble me, and thou, 
 Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help 
 Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend 
 To work man's welfare through my weak endeavor, 
 To crown my mortal forehead with a beam
 
 52 PARACELSUS 
 
 From thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide 
 
 This puny hand and let the work so wrought 
 
 Be styled my work, hear me ! I covet not 
 
 An influx of new power, an angel's soul : 
 
 It were no marvel then but 1 have reached 
 
 Thus far, a man ; let me conclude, a man ! 
 
 Give but one hour of my first energy, 
 
 Of that invincible faith, but only one ! 
 
 That I may cover with an eagle-glance 
 
 The truths I have, and spy some certain way 
 
 To mould them, and completing them, possess ! 
 
 Yet God is good : I started sure of that. 
 
 And why dispute it now ? I '11 not believe 
 
 But some undoubted warning long ere this 
 
 Had reached me : a fire-labarum was not deemed 
 
 Too much for the old founder of these M r alls. 
 
 Then, if my life has not been natural, 
 
 It has been monstrous : yet, till late, my course 
 
 So ardently engrossed me, that delight, 
 
 A pausing and reflecting joy, 't is plain, 
 
 Could find no place in it. True, I am worn ; 
 
 But who clothes summer, who is life itself ? 
 
 God, that created all things, can renew ! 
 
 And then, though after-life to please me now 
 
 Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders 
 
 Reward from springing out of toil, as changed 
 
 As bursts the flower from earth and root and stalk ? 
 
 What use were punishment, unless some sin 
 
 Be first detected ? let me know that first ! 
 
 No man could ever offend as I have done . . . 
 
 (A voice from within. ) 
 
 I hear a voice, perchance I heard 
 
 Long ago, but all too low, 
 
 So that scarce a care it stirred 
 
 If the voice were real or no : 
 
 I heard it in my youth when first 
 
 The waters of my life outburst : 
 
 But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear 
 
 That voice, still low, but fatal-clear 
 
 As if all poets, God ever meant 
 
 Should save the world, and therefore lent 
 
 Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused 
 
 To do his work, or lightly used 
 
 Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavor,
 
 PARACELSUS 63 
 
 So, mourn cast off by him forever, 
 
 As if these leaned in airy ring 
 
 To take me; this the song they sing. 
 
 Lost, lost ! yet come, 
 
 With our wan troop make thy home. 
 
 Come, come ! for we 
 
 Will not breathe, so much as breathe 
 
 Reproach to thee, 
 
 Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. 
 
 So sank we in those old years, 
 
 We who bid thee, come ! thou last 
 
 Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. 
 
 And altogether we, thy peers, 
 
 Will pardon crave for thee, the last 
 
 Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast 
 
 With those who watch but work no more, 
 
 Who gaze on life but live no more. 
 
 Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak 
 
 The message which our lips, too weak, 
 
 Refused to utter, shouldst redeem 
 
 Our fault : such trust, and all a dream ! 
 
 Yet we chose thee a birthplace 
 
 Where the richness ran to flowers : 
 
 Couldst not sing one song for grace ? 
 
 Not make one blossom man's and ours ? 
 
 Must one more recreant to his race 
 
 Die with un exerted powers, 
 
 And join us, leaving as he found 
 
 The world, he was to loosen, bound ? 
 
 Anguish ! ever and forever ; 
 
 Still beginning, ending never ! 
 
 Yet, lost and last one, come ! 
 
 How couldst understand, alas, 
 
 What our pale ghosts strove to say, 
 
 As their shades did glance and pass 
 
 Before thee night and day ? 
 
 Thou wast blind as we were dumb : 
 
 Once more, therefore, come, O come ! 
 
 How should we clothe, how arm the spirit 
 
 Shall next thy post of life inherit 
 
 How guard him from thy speedy ruin ? 
 
 Tell us of thy sad undoing 
 
 Here, where we sit, ever pursuing 
 
 Our weary task, ever renewing 
 
 Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave 
 
 Our powers, and man they could not save '. *
 
 PARACELSUS 
 
 (ApRiLE enters.) 
 
 Ha, ha ! our king that wouldst be, here at last ? 
 Art thou the poet who shall save the world ? 
 Thy hand to mine ! Stay, fix thine eyes on mine ! 
 Thou wouldst be king ? Still fix thine eyes on mine ! 
 
 Par. Ha, ha ! why crouchest not ? Am I not king ? 
 So torture is not wholly unavailing ! 
 Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair ? 
 Art thou the sage I only seemed to be, 
 Myself of after-time, my very self 
 With sight a little clearer, strength more firm, 
 Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown 
 For just a fault, a weakness, a neglect ? 
 I scarcely trusted God with the surmise 
 That such might come, and thou didst hear the while ! 
 
 Apr. Thine eyes are lustreless to mine ; my hau- 
 ls soft, nay silken soft : to talk with thee 
 Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale. 
 Truly, thou hast labored, hast withstood her lips, 
 The siren's ! Yes, 't is like thou hast attained ! 
 Tell me, dear master, wherefore now thou comest ? 
 I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed 
 In after-time ; that I should hear the earth 
 Exult in thee and echo with thy praise, 
 While I was laid forgotten in my grave. 
 
 Par. Ah fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe ! 
 Thou art ordained to follow in my track, 
 Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reap 
 The harvest sown by sages passed away. 
 Thou art the sober searcher, cautious striver, 
 As if, except through me, thou hast searched or striven ! 
 Ay, tell the world ! Degrade me after all, 
 To an aspirant after fame, not truth 
 To all but envy of thy fate, be sure ! 
 
 Apr. Nay, sing them to me ; I shall envy not : 
 Thou shalt be king ! Sing thou, and I will sit 
 Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs, 
 And worship thee, as I had ne'er been meant 
 To fill thy throne : but none shall ever know ! 
 Sing to me ; for already thy wild eyes 
 Unlock my heart-strings, as some crystal-shaft 
 Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount 
 After long time : so thou reveal'st my soul. 
 All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear ! 
 
 Par. (His secret ! I shall get his secret fool !) 
 I am he that aspired to KNOW : and thou ?
 
 PARACELSUS 55 
 
 Apr. I would LOVE infinitely, and be loved ! 
 
 Par. Poor slave ! I am thy king indeed. 
 
 Apr. Thou deem'st 
 
 That born a spirit, dowered even as thou, 
 Born for thy fate because I could not curb 
 My yearnings to possess at once the full 
 Enjoyment, but neglected all the means 
 Of realizing even the frailest joy, 
 Gathering no fragments to appease my want, 
 Yet nursing up that want till thus I die 
 Thou deem'st I cannot trace thy safe sure march 
 O'er perils that o'erwhelm me, triumphing, 
 Neglecting nought below for aught above, 
 Despising nothing and ensuring all 
 Nor that I could (my time to come again) 
 Lead thus my spirit securely as thine own. 
 Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well. 
 I would love infinitely . . . Ah, lost ! lost ! 
 Oh ye who armed me at such cost, 
 How shall I look on all of ye 
 With your gifts even yet on me ? 
 
 Par. (Ah, 't is some moonstruck creature after all ! 
 Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den : 
 They spread contagion, doubtless : yet he seemed 
 To echo one foreboding of my heart 
 So truly, that ... no matter ! How he stands 
 With eve's last sunbeam staying on his hair 
 Which turns to it as if they were akin : 
 And those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue 
 Nearly set free, so far they rise above 
 The painful fruitless striving of the brow 
 And enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set 
 In slow despondency's eternal sigh ! 
 Has he, too, missed life's end, and learned the cause ?) 
 I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm ! 
 Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am. 
 
 Apr. I would love infinitely, and be loved. 
 First : I would carve in stone, or cast in brass, 
 The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted 
 Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph 
 Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree 
 Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star, 
 Should be too hard for me ; no shepherd-king 
 Regal for his white locks ; no youth who stands 
 Silent and very calm amid the throng, 
 His right hand ever hid beneath his robe
 
 56 I'AKACELSUS 
 
 Until the tyrant pass ; no lawgiver, 
 
 No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils 
 
 Given by a god for love of her too hard ! 
 
 Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man, 
 
 Would I express and clothe it in its right form, 
 
 Or blend with others struggling in one form, 
 
 Or show repressed by an ungainly form. 
 
 Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit 
 
 With a fit frame to execute its will 
 
 Even unconsciously to work its will 
 
 You should be moved no less beside some strong 
 
 Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body, 
 
 Endeavoring to subdue it and inform it 
 
 With its own splendor ! All this I would do : 
 
 And I would say, this done, " His sprites created, 
 
 God grants to each a sphere to be its world, 
 
 Appointed with the various objects needed 
 
 To satisfy its own peculiar want ; 
 
 So, I create a world for these my shapes 
 
 Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength ! " 
 
 And, at the word, I would contrive and paint 
 
 Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes, 
 
 Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed, 
 
 Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun, 
 
 And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking 
 
 A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice 
 
 Around them, and fare onward all to hold 
 
 The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone : 
 
 Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt, 
 
 Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, 
 
 Marts, theatres and wharfs all filled with men, 
 
 Men everywhere ! And this performed in turn, 
 
 When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes 
 
 And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd, 
 
 I would throw down the pencil as the chisel, 
 
 And I would speak ; no thought which ever stirred 
 
 A human breast should be untold ; all passions, 
 
 All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir 
 
 Within a heart fed with desires like mine, 
 
 To the last comfort shutting the tired lids 
 
 Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away 
 
 Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well : 
 
 And this in language as the need should be, 
 
 Now poured at once forth in a burning flow, 
 
 Now piled up in a grand array of words. 
 
 This done, to perfect and consummate all,
 
 PARACELSUS 57 
 
 Even as a luminous haze links star to star, 
 
 I would supply all chasms with music, breathing 
 
 Mysterious motions of the soul, no way 
 
 To be defined save in strange melodies. 
 
 Last, having thus revealed all I could love, 
 
 Having received all love bestowed on it, 
 
 I would die : preserving so throughout my course 
 
 God full on me. as I was full on men : 
 
 He would approve my prayer, " I have gone through 
 
 The loveliness of life ; create for me 
 
 If not for men, or take me to thyself, 
 
 Eternal, infinite love ! " 
 
 If thou hast ne'er 
 
 Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire, 
 Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art 
 No king of mine. 
 
 Par. Ah me ! 
 
 Apr. But thou art here ! 
 
 Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end 
 Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss 
 Were blind with glory ; nor grow mad to grasp 
 At once the prize long patient toil should claim, 
 Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I 
 Would do as thou, a second time : nay, listen ! 
 Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, 
 Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse 
 The means so limited, the tools so rude 
 To execute our purpose, life will fleet, 
 And we shall fade, and leave our task undone. 
 We will be wise in time : what though our work 
 Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service, 
 Be crippled every way ? 'T were little praise 
 Did full resources wait on our goodwill 
 At every turn. Let all be as it is. 
 Some say the earth is even so contrived 
 That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal 
 A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means 
 Answering to our mind ! But now I seem 
 Wrecked on a savage isle : how rear thereon 
 My palace ? Branching palms the props shall be, 
 Fruit glossy mingling ; gems are for the East ; 
 Who heeds them ? I can pass them. Serpents' scales, 
 And painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins 
 Must help me ; and a little here and there 
 Is all I can aspire to : still my art 
 Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime.
 
 58 PARACELSUS 
 
 " Had I green jars of malachite, this way 
 I 'd range them : where those sea-shells glisten above, 
 Cressets should hang, by right : this way we set 
 The purple carpets, as these mats are laid, 
 Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag." 
 Or if, by fortune, some completer grace 
 Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample 
 Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts, 
 Some trifle little heeded there, but here 
 The place's one perfection with what joy 
 Would I enshrine the relic, cheerfully 
 Foregoing all the marvels out of reach ! 
 Could I retain one strain of all the psalm 
 Of the angels, one word of the fiat of God, 
 To let my followers know what such things are ! 
 I would adventure nobly for their sakes : 
 When nights were still, and still the moaning sea, 
 And far away I could descry the land 
 Whence I departed, whither I return, 
 I would dispart the waves, and stand once more 
 At home, and load my bark, and hasten back, 
 And fling my gains to them, worthless or true. 
 
 " Friends," I would say, " I went far, far for them, 
 Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds 
 Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out, 
 Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand, 
 Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly 
 Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud, 
 In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds, 
 But happy plucking them at any price. 
 To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil, 
 They are scarce lovely : plait and wear them, you ! 
 And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed them. 
 The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night, 
 The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew ! " 
 Thus for my higher loves ; and thus even weakness 
 Would win me honor. But not these alone 
 Should claim my care ; for common life, its wants 
 And ways, would I set forth in beauteous hues : 
 The lowest hind should not possess a hope, 
 A fear, but I 'd be by him, saying better 
 Than he his own heart's language. I would live 
 Forever in the thoughts I thus explored, 
 As a discoverer's memory is attached 
 To all he finds ; they should be mine henceforth, 
 Imbued with me, though free to all before :
 
 PARACELSUS 59 
 
 For clay, once cast into my soul's rich mine, 
 Should come up crusted o'er with gems. Nor this 
 Would need a meaner spirit than the first ; 
 Nay, 't would be but the selfsame spirit, clothed 
 In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit : 
 As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow 
 And comforts violets in their hermitage. 
 
 But, master, poet, who hast done all this, 
 
 How didst thou 'scape the ruin whelming me ? 
 
 Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt, 
 
 Ne'er range thy mind's extent, as some wide hall, 
 
 Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light, 
 
 Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey, 
 
 That will not wait thy summons, will not rise 
 
 Singly, nor when thy practised eye and hand 
 
 Can well transfer their loveliness, but crowd 
 
 By thee forever, bright to thy despair ? 
 
 Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er 
 
 Resolve to single out one, though the rest 
 
 Should vanish, and to give that one, entire 
 
 In beauty, to the world ; forgetting, so, 
 
 Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power ? 
 
 And, this determined, wast thou ne'er seduced 
 
 By memories and regrets and passionate love, 
 
 To glance once more farewell ? and did their eves 
 
 Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until 
 
 Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet, 
 
 And laugh that man's applause or welfare ever 
 
 Could tempt thee to forsake them ? Or when years 
 
 Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly, 
 
 When from without some murmur startled thee 
 
 Of darkling mortals famished for one ray 
 
 Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light, 
 
 Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells 
 
 And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil 
 
 Thy early mission, long ago renounced, 
 
 And to that end, select some shape once more ? 
 
 And did not mist-like influences, thick films, 
 
 Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long 
 
 Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off, 
 
 As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads 
 
 A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm ? 
 
 Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall ; 
 
 Say, I was tempted sorely : say but this, 
 
 Dear lord, Aprile's lord ! 
 
 Par. Clasp me not thus,
 
 60 PARACELSUS 
 
 Aprile ! That the truth should reach me thus ! 
 We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not or I faint ! 
 
 Apr. My king ! and envious thoughts could outrage 
 
 thee? 
 
 Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice 
 In thy success, as thou ! Let our God's praise 
 Go bravely through the world at last ! What care 
 Through me or thee ? I feel thy breath. Why, tears ? 
 Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me ? 
 
 Par. Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn 
 To love ; and, merciful God, forgive us both ! 
 We wake at length from weary dreams ; but both 
 Have slept in fairy-land : though dark and drear 
 Appears the world before us, we no less 
 Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still. 
 I too have sought to KNOW as thou to LOVE 
 Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge. 
 Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake : 
 What penance canst devise for both of us ? 
 
 Apr. I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness ! Even 
 Thine eyes are hid. 'T is as I knew : I speak, 
 And now I die. But I have seen thy face ! 
 
 poet, think of me, and sing of me ! 
 But to have seen thee and to die so soon ! 
 
 Par. Die not, Aprile ! We must never part. 
 Are we not halves of one dissevered world, 
 Whom this strange chance unites once more ? Part ? 
 
 never ! 
 
 Till thou the lover, know ; and I, the knower, 
 Love until both are saved. Aprile, hear ! 
 We will accept our gains, and use them now ! 
 God, he will die upon my breast ! Aprile ! 
 
 Apr. To speak but once, and die ! yet by his side. 
 Hush! hush! 
 
 Ha ! go you ever girt about 
 With phantoms, powers ? I have created such, 
 But these seem real as I. 
 
 Par. Whom can you see 
 
 Through the accursed darkness ? 
 
 Apr. Stay ; I know, 
 
 1 know them : who should know them well as I ? 
 White brows, lit up with glory ; poets all ! 
 
 Par. Let him but live, and I have my reward ! 
 
 Apr. Yes ; I see now. God is the perfect poet, 
 Who in his person acts his own creations. 
 Had you but told me this at first ! Hush ! hush !
 
 PARACELSUS 61 
 
 Par. Live ! for my sake, because of my great sin, 
 To help my brain, oppressed by these wild words 
 And their deep import. Live ! 't is not too late. 
 I have a quiet home for us, and friends. 
 Michal shall smile on you. Hear you ? Lean thus, 
 And breathe my breath. I shall not lose one word 
 Of all your speech, one little word, Aprile ! 
 
 Apr. No, no. Crown me ? I am not one of you ! 
 'T is he, the king, you seek. I am not one. 
 
 Par. Thy spirit, at least, Aprile ! Let me love. 
 
 I have attained, and now I may depart. 
 
 III. PARACELSUS. 
 
 SCENE, Basel ; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526. 
 PARACELSUS, FESTUS. 
 
 Par. Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out ! 
 
 Fest. True, true ! 
 
 'T is very fit all, time and chance and change 
 Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to face 
 And soul to soul all cares, far-looking fears, 
 Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies brejd 
 By your long absence, should be cast away, 
 Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal 
 Of our affections. 
 
 Par. Oh, omit not aught 
 
 Which witnesses your own and Michal's own 
 Affection : spare not that ! Only forget 
 The honors and the glories and what not, 
 It pleases you to tell profusely out. 
 
 Fest. Nay, even your honors, in a sense, I waive : 
 The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser, 
 Fate's commissary, idol of the schools 
 And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still, 
 Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted 
 Some twenty years ago, and I restrained 
 As best I could the promptings of my spirit 
 Which secretly advanced you, from the first, 
 To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your own 
 Adventurous ardor, nobly triumphing, 
 Has won for you. 
 
 Par. Yes, yes. And Michal's face 
 
 Still wears that quiet and peculiar light 
 Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl ?
 
 62 PARACELSUS 
 
 Fest. Just so. 
 
 Par. And yet her calm sweet countenance, 
 
 Though saintly, was not sad ; for she would sing 
 Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like, 
 Not dreaming you are near ? Her carols dropt 
 In flakes through that old leafy bower built under 
 The sunny wall at Wilrzburg, from her lattice 
 Among the trees above, while I, unseen, 
 Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves, 
 Much wondering notes so simple could divert 
 My mind from study. Those were happy days. 
 Respect all such as sing when all alone ! 
 
 Fest. Scarcely alone : her children, you may guess, 
 Are wild beside her. 
 
 Par. Ah, those children quite 
 
 Unsettle the pure picture in my mind : 
 A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct : 
 No change, no change ! Not but this added grace 
 May blend and harmonize with its compeers, 
 And Michal may become her motherhood ; 
 But 't is a change, and I detest all change, 
 And most a change in aught I loved long since. 
 So, Michal you have said she thinks of me ? 
 
 Fest. O very proud will Michal be of you ! 
 Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights, 
 Scheming and wondering, shaping your presumed 
 Adventure, or devising its reward ; 
 Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope. 
 For it was strange how, even when most secure 
 In our domestic peace, a certain dim 
 And flitting shade could sadden all ; it seemed 
 A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning, 
 A sense of something wanting, incomplete 
 Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided 
 By mute consent but, said or unsaid, felt 
 To point to one so loved and so long lost. 
 And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears 
 How you would laugh should I recount them now ! 
 I still predicted your return at last 
 With gifts beyond the greatest of them all, 
 All Tritheim's wondrous troop ; did one of which 
 Attain renown by any chance, I smiled, 
 As well aware of who would prove his peer. 
 Michal was sure some woman, long ere this, 
 As beautiful as you were sage, had loved . . . 
 
 Par. Far-seeing, truly, to discern so much
 
 PARACELSUS 63 
 
 In the fantastic projects and day-dreams 
 Of a raw restless boy ! 
 
 Fest. Oh, no : the sunrise 
 
 Well warranted our faith in this full noon ! 
 Can I forget the anxious voice which said, 
 " Festus, have thoughts like these e'er shaped themselves 
 In other brains than mine ? have their possessors 
 Existed in like circumstance ? were they weak 
 As I, or ever constant from the first, 
 Despising youth's allurements and rejecting 
 As spider-films the shackles I endure ? 
 Is there hope for me ? " and I answered gravely 
 As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser, 
 More gifted mortal. O you must remember, 
 For all your glorious . . . 
 
 Par. Glorious ? ay, this hair, 
 
 These hands nay, touch them, they are mine ! Recall 
 With all the said recallings, times when thus 
 To lay them by your own ne'er turned you pale 
 As now. Most glorious, are they not ? 
 
 Fest. Why why 
 
 Something must be subtracted from success 
 So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous, truly, 
 Who should object such drawbacks. Still, still, Aureole, 
 You are changed, very changed ! 'T were losing nothing 
 To look well to it : you must not be stolen 
 From the enjoyment of your well-won meed. 
 
 Par. My friend ! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt : 
 You will best gain your point, by talking, not 
 Of me, but of yourself. 
 
 Fest. Have I not said 
 
 All touching Michal and my children ? Sure 
 You know, by this, full well how Aennchen looks 
 Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair ; 
 And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet builds 
 Amid the birch-trees by the lake. Small hope 
 Have I that he will honor (the wild imp) 
 His namesake. Sigh not ! 't is too much to ask 
 That all we love should reach the same proud fate. 
 But you are very kind to humor me 
 By showing interest in my quiet life ; 
 You, who of old could never tame yourself 
 To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . . 
 
 Par. Festus, strange secrets are let out by death 
 Who blabs so oft the follies of this world : 
 And I am death's familiar, as you know.
 
 64 PARACELSUS 
 
 I helped a man to die, some few weeks since, 
 
 A\ arped even from his go-cart to one end 
 
 The living on princes' smiles, reflected from 
 
 A mighty herd of favorites. No mean trick 
 
 He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed 
 
 All traces of God's finger out of him : 
 
 Then died, grown old. And just an hour before, 
 
 Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes, 
 
 He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice 
 
 Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors 
 
 God told him it was June ; and he knew well, 
 
 Without such telling, harebells grew in June ; 
 
 And all that kings could ever give or take 
 
 Would not be precious as those blooms to him. 
 
 Just so, allowing I am passing sage, 
 
 It seems to me much worthier argument 
 
 Why pansies,* eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize 
 
 From violets, eyes that dream (your Michal's choice) 
 
 Than all fools find to wonder at in me 
 
 Or in my fortunes. And be very sure 
 
 I say this from no prurient restlessness, 
 
 No self-complacency, itching to turn, 
 
 Vary and view its pleasure from all points, 
 
 And, in this instance, willing other men 
 
 May be at pains, demonstrate to itself 
 
 The realness of the very joy it tastes. 
 
 What should delight me like the news of friends 
 
 Whose memories were a solace to me oft, 
 
 As mountain-paths to wild fowls in their flight ? 
 
 Ofter than you had wasted thought on me 
 
 Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss. 
 
 But there 's no taming nor repressing hearts : 
 
 God knows I need such ! So, you heard me speak ? 
 
 Fest. Speak ? when ? 
 
 Par. When but this morning at my class ? 
 
 There was noise and crowd enough. I saw you not. 
 Surely you know I am engaged to fill 
 The chair here ? that 't is part of my proud fate 
 To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths 
 As please, each day, to throng the theatre, 
 To my great reputation, and no small 
 Danger of Basel's benches long unused 
 To crack beneath such honor? 
 
 Fest. I was there ; 
 
 I mingled with the throng : shall I avow 
 * Citrinula (flammula) herba Paracelso niultum familiaris. 

 
 PARACELSUS 65 
 
 Small care was mine to listen ? too intent 
 On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd 
 A full corroboration of my hopes ! 
 What can I learn about your powers ? but they 
 Know, care for nought beyond your actual state, 
 Your actual value ; yet they worship you, 
 Those various natures whom you sway as one ! 
 But ere I go, be sure I shall attend . . . 
 
 Par. Stop, o' God's name : the thing 's by no means yet 
 Past remedy ! Shall I read this morning's labor 
 
 At least in substance ? Nought so worth the gaining 
 As an apt scholar i Thus then, with all due 
 Precision and emphasis you, beside, are clearly 
 Guiltless of understanding more, a whit, 
 
 The subject than your stool - allowed to be 
 A notable advantage. 
 
 Fest. Surely, Aureole, 
 
 You laugh at me ! 
 
 Par. I laugh ? Ha, ha ! thank heaven, 
 
 I charge you, if 't be so ! for I forget 
 Much, and what laughter should be like. No less, 
 However, I forego that luxury 
 Since it alarms the friend who brings it back. 
 True, laughter like my own must echo strangely 
 To thinking men ; a smile were better far ; 
 So, make me smile ! If the exulting look 
 You wore but now be smiling, 't is so long 
 Since I have smiled ! Alas, such smiles are born 
 Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls 
 Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks, 
 Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven, 
 And in the earth a stage for altars only. 
 Never change, Festus : I say, never change ! 
 
 Fest. My God, if he be wretched after all ! 
 
 Par. When last we parted, Festus, you declared, 
 
 Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered words 
 I have preserved. She told me she believed 
 
 I should succeed (meaning, that in the search 
 I then engaged in, I should meet success) 
 And yet be wretched : now, she augured false. 
 
 Fest. Thank heaven ! but you spoke strangely : could 1 
 
 venture 
 
 To think bare apprehension lest your friend, 
 Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find 
 Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move 
 Such earnest mood in you ? Fear not, dear friend,
 
 66 PARACELSUS 
 
 That I shall leave you, inwardly repining 
 Your lot was not my own ! 
 
 Par. And this forever ! 
 
 Forever ! gull who may, they will be gulled ! 
 They will not look nor think ; 't is notning new 
 In them : but surely he is not of them ! 
 My Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you 
 Though all beside were sand-blind you, my friend, 
 Would look at me, once close, with piercing eye 
 Untroubled by the false glare that confounds 
 A weaker vision : would remain serene, 
 Though singular amid a gaping throng. 
 I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this, 
 To Einsiedeln. Well, error has no end, 
 And Rhasis is a sage, and Basel boasts 
 A tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest 
 Past all dispute ! 'T is vain to fret at it. 
 I have vowed long ago my worshippers 
 Shall owe to their own deep sagacity 
 All further information, good or bad. 
 Small risk indeed my reputation runs, 
 Unless perchance the glance now searching me 
 Be fixed much longer ; for it seems to spell 
 Dimly the characters a simpler man 
 Might read distinct enough. Old eastern books 
 Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space 
 Remained unchanged in semblance ; nay, his brow 
 Was hued with triumph : every spirit then 
 Praising, his heart on flame the while : a tale ! 
 Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray ? 
 
 Fest. Some foul deed sullies then a life which else 
 Were raised supreme ? 
 
 Par. Good : I do well, most well ! 
 
 Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves 
 With what 't is past their power to comprehend ? 
 I should not strive now : only, having nursed 
 The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth, 
 One, at least, not the utter fool of show, 
 Not absolutely formed to be the dupe 
 Of shallow plausibilities alone : 
 One who, in youth, found wise enough to choose 
 The happiness his riper years approve, 
 Was yet so anxious for another's sake, 
 That, ere his friend could rush upon a mad 
 And ruinous course, the converse of his own, 
 His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for him
 
 PARACELSUS 67 
 
 The perilous path, foresaw its destiny, 
 And warned the weak one in such tender words, 
 Such accents his whole heart in every tone 
 That oft their memory comforted that friend 
 When it by right should have increased despair : 
 Having believed, I say, that this one man 
 Could never lose the light thus from the first 
 His portion how should I refuse to grieve 
 At even my gain if it disturb our old 
 Relation, if it make me out more wise ? 
 Therefore, once more reminding him how well 
 He prophesied, I note the single flaw 
 That spoils his prophet's title. In plain words, 
 You were deceived, and thus were you deceived 
 I have not been successful, and yet am 
 Most miserable ; 't is said at last ; nor you 
 Give credit, lest you force me to concede 
 That common sense yet lives upon the world ! 
 
 Fest. You surely do not mean to banter me ? 
 
 Par. You know, or if you have been wise enough 
 To cleanse your memory of such matters knew, 
 As far as words of mine could make it clear, 
 That 't was my purpose to find joy or grief 
 Solely in the fulfilment of my plan 
 Or plot or whatsoe'er it was ; rejoicing 
 Alone as it proceeded prosperously, 
 Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded 
 Its progress. That was in those Wiirzburg days ! 
 Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate, 
 I have pursued this plan with all my strength ; 
 And having failed therein most signally, 
 Cannot object to ruin utter and drear 
 As all-excelling would have been the prize 
 Had fortune favored me. I scarce have right 
 To vex your frank good spirit late so glad 
 In my supposed prosperity, I know, 
 And, were I lucky in a glut of friends, 
 Would well agree to let your error live, 
 Nay, strengthen it with fables of success. 
 But mine is no condition to refuse 
 The transient solace of so rare a godsend, 
 My solitary luxury, my one friend : 
 Accordingly I venture to put off 
 The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me, 
 Secure when he is by. I lay me bare, 
 Prone at his mercy but he is my friend !
 
 68 PARACELSUS 
 
 Not that he needs retain his aspect grave ; 
 That answers not my purpose ; for 't is like, 
 Some sunny morning Basel being drained 
 Of its wise population, every corner 
 Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks, 
 Here OZcolampadius, looking worlds of wit, 
 Here Castellanus, as profound as he, 
 Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed 
 And staring, that the zany of the show, 
 Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them 
 His trappings with a grace but seldom judged 
 Expedient in such cases : the grim smile 
 That will go round ! Is it not therefore best 
 To venture a rehearsal like the present 
 In a small way ? Where are the signs I seek, 
 The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn 
 Due to all quacks ? Why, this will never do ! 
 
 Fest. These are foul vapors, Aureole ; nought beside ! 
 The effect of watching, study, weariness. 
 Were there a spark of truth in the confusion 
 Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus 
 Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard 
 These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study. 
 'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me, 
 To Michal's friend. 
 
 Par. I have said it, dearest Festus ! 
 
 For the manner, 't is ungracious probably ; 
 You may have it told in broken sobs, one day, 
 And scalding tears, ere long : but I thought best 
 To keep that off as long as possible. 
 Do you wonder still ? 
 
 Fest. No ; it must oft fall out 
 
 That one whose labor perfects any work. 
 Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he 
 Of all men least can measure the extent 
 Of what he has accomplished. He alone 
 Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too, 
 May clearly scan the little he effects : 
 But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, 
 Estimate each aright. 
 
 Par. This worthy Festus 
 
 Is one of them, at last ! 'T is so with all ! 
 First, they set down all progress as a dream ; 
 And next, when he whose quick discomfiture 
 Was counted on, accomplishes some few 
 And doubtful steps in his career, behold,
 
 PARACELSUS 69 
 
 They look for every inch of ground to vanish 
 Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success ! 
 
 Fest. Few doubtful steps ? when death retires before 
 Your presence when the noblest of mankind, 
 Broken in body or subdued in soul, 
 May through your skill renew their vigor, raise 
 The shattered frame to pristine stateliness ? 
 When men in racking pain may purchase dreams 
 Of what delights them most, swooning at once 
 Into a sea of bliss or rapt along 
 As in a flying sphere of turbulent light ? 
 When we may look to you as one ordained 
 To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees 
 Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul ? 
 When . . . 
 
 Par. When and where, the devil, did you get 
 
 This notable news ? 
 
 Fest. Even from the common voice , 
 
 From those whose envy, daring not dispute 
 The wonders it decries, attributes them 
 To magic and such folly. 
 
 Par. Folly ? Why not 
 
 To magic, pray ? You find a comfort doubtless 
 In holding, God ne'er troubles him about 
 Us or our doings : once we were judged worth 
 The devil's tempting ... I offend : forgive me, 
 And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole 
 Was fair enough as prophesyings go ; 
 At fault a little in detail, but quite 
 Precise enough in the main ; and hereupon 
 I pay due homage : you guessed long ago 
 (The prophet !) I should fail and I have failed. 
 
 Fest. You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed 
 Your youth have not been realized as yet ? 
 Some obstacle has barred them hitherto ? 
 Or that their innate . . . 
 
 Par. As I said but now, 
 
 You have a very decent prophet's fame, 
 So you but shun details here. Little matter 
 Whether those hopes were mad, the aims they sought, 
 Safe and secure from all ambitious fools ; 
 Or whether my weak wits are overcome 
 By what a better spirit would scorn : I fail. 
 And now methinks 't were best to change a theme 
 I am a sad fool to have stumbled on. 
 I say confusedly what comes uppermost ;
 
 70 PARACELSUS 
 
 But there are times when patience proves at fault, 
 
 As now : this morning's strange encounter you 
 
 Beside me once again ! you, whom I guessed 
 
 Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave) 
 
 No friend have I among the saints at peace, 
 
 To judge by any good their prayers effect. 
 
 I knew you would have helped me why not he, 
 
 My strange competitor in enterprise, 
 
 Bound for the same end by another path, 
 
 Arrived, or ill or well, before the time, 
 
 At our disastrous journey's doubtful close ? 
 
 How goes it with Aprile ? Ah, they miss 
 
 Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven, 
 
 Our martyrs for the world's sake ; heaven shuts fast : 
 
 The poor mad poet is howling by this time ! 
 
 Since you are my sole friend then, here or there, 
 
 I could not quite repress the varied feelings 
 
 This meeting wakens ; they have had their vent, 
 
 And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still 
 
 Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what 
 
 In my time was a gate) fronting the road 
 
 JFrom Einsiedeln to Lachen? 
 
 Fest. Trifle not : 
 
 Answer me, for my sake alone ! You smiled 
 Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy 
 Yourself, might blot the else so bright result ; 
 Yet if your motives have continued pure, 
 Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this, 
 You have experienced a defeat, why then 
 I say not you would cheerfully withdraw 
 From contest mortal hearts are not so fashioned 
 But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw. 
 You sought not fame nor gain nor even love, 
 No end distinct from knowledge, I repeat 
 Your very words : once satisfied that knowledge 
 Is a mere dream, you would announce as much, 
 Yourself the first. But how is the event ? 
 You are defeated and I find you here .' 
 
 Par. As though " here " did not signify defeat ! 
 I spoke not of my little labors here, 
 But of the break-down of my general aims : 
 For you, aware of their extent and scope, 
 To look on these sage lecturings, approved 
 By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse, 
 As a fit consummation of such aims, 
 Is worthy notice. A professorship
 
 PARACELSUS 71 
 
 At Basel ! Since you see so much in it, 
 
 And think my life was reasonably drained 
 
 Of life's delights to render me a match 
 
 For duties arduous as such post demands, 
 
 Be it far from me to deny my power 
 
 To fill the petty circle lotted out 
 
 Of infinite space, or justify the host 
 
 Of honors thence accruing. So, take notice, 
 
 This jewel dangling from my neck preserves 
 
 The features of a prince, my skill restored 
 
 To plague his people some few years to come : 
 
 And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth 
 
 For me, but that the droll despair which seized 
 
 The vermin of his household, tickled me. 
 
 I came to see. Here, drivelled the physician, 
 
 Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault ; 
 
 There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope 
 
 Had promised him interminable years ; 
 
 Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth 
 
 With some undoubted relic a sudary 
 
 Of the Virgin ; while another piebald knave 
 
 Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever) 
 
 Was actively preparing 'neath his nose 
 
 Such a suffumigation as, once fired, 
 
 Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan. 
 
 I cursed the doctor and upset the brother, 
 
 Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust 
 
 Of stench from the ingredients just alight 
 
 Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword, 
 
 Not easily laid : and ere an hour the prince 
 
 Slept as he never slept since prince he was. 
 
 A day and I was posting for my life, 
 
 Placarded through the town as one whose spite 
 
 Had near availed to stop the blessed effects 
 
 Of the doctor's nostrum which, well seconded 
 
 By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke 
 
 Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up 
 
 Hard by in the abbey raised the prince to life : 
 
 To the great reputation of the seer 
 
 Who, confident, expected all along 
 
 The glad event the doctor's recompense 
 
 Much largess from his highness to the monks 
 
 And the vast solace of his loving people, 
 
 Whose general satisfaction to increase, 
 
 The prince was pleased no longer to defer 
 
 The burning of some dozen heretics
 
 72 PARACELSUS 
 
 Remanded till God's mercy should be shown 
 
 Touching his sickness : last of all were joined 
 
 Ample directions to all loyal folk 
 
 To swell the complement by seizing me 
 
 Who doubtless some rank sorcerer endeavored 
 
 To thwart these pious offices, obstruct 
 
 The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help 
 
 Of certain devils dwelling in his sword. 
 
 By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks 
 
 Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest 
 
 Of further favors. This one case may serve 
 
 To give sufficient taste of many such, 
 
 So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile 
 
 Of patents, licenses, diplomas, titles 
 
 From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy ; 
 
 They authorize some honor ; ne'ertheless, 
 
 I set more store by this Erasmus sent ; 
 
 He trusts me ; our Frobenius is his friend, 
 
 And him " I raised " (nay, read it) " from the dead.' 1 
 
 I weary you, I see. I merely sought 
 
 To show, there 's no great wonder after all 
 
 That, while I fill the class-room and attract 
 
 A crowd to Basel, I get leave to stay, 
 
 And therefore need not scruple to accept 
 
 The utmost they can offer, if I please : 
 
 For 't is but right the world should be prepared 
 
 To treat with favor e'en fantastic wants 
 
 Of one like me, used up in serving her. 
 
 Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part 
 
 Devoured, received in place of his lost limb 
 
 Some virtue or other cured disease, I think ; 
 
 You mind the fables we have read together. 
 
 Fest. You do not think I comprehend a word. 
 The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough 
 To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath ; 
 But surely you must feel how vague and strange 
 These speeches sound. 
 
 Par. Well, then : you know my hopes 
 
 I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain ; 
 That truth is just as far from me as ever ; 
 That I have thrown my life away ; that sorrow 
 On that account is idle, and further effort 
 To mend and patch what 's marred beyond repairing, 
 As useless : and all this Avas taught your friend 
 By the convincing good old-fashioned method 
 Of force by sheer compulsion. Is that plain ?
 
 PARACELSUS 73 
 
 Fest. Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just ? 
 God wills not . . . 
 
 Par. Now, 't is this I most admire 
 
 The constant talk men of your stamp keep up 
 Of God's will, as they style it ; one would swear 
 Man had but merely to uplift his eye, 
 And see the will in question charactered 
 On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to moot 
 Such topics : doubts are many and faith is weak. 
 I know as much of any will of God 
 As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man, 
 His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows 
 That plague him every way ; but there, of course, 
 Where least he suffers, longest he remains 
 My case ; and for such reasons I plod on, 
 Subdued but not convinced. I know as little 
 Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped 
 Better things in my youth. I simply know 
 I am no master here, but trained and beaten 
 Into the path I tread ; and here I stay, 
 Until some further intimation reach me, 
 Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer 
 To view the whole thing as a task imposed 
 Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done 
 Yet, I deny not, there is made provision 
 Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect ; 
 Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride 
 Pleasures that once were pains : the iron ring 
 Festering about a slave's neck grows at length 
 Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer 
 A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of 
 Or spurned before ; such now supply the place 
 Of my dead aims : as in the autumn woods 
 Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots 
 Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale, 
 Chill mushrooms colored like a corpse's cheek. 
 
 Fest. If I interpret well your words, I own 
 It troubles me but little that your aims, 
 Vast in their dawning and most likely grown 
 Extravagantly since, have baffled you. 
 Perchance I am glad ; you merit greater praise ; 
 Because they are too glorious to be gained, 
 You do not blindly cling to them and die ; 
 You fell, but have not sullenly refused 
 To rise, because an angel worsted you 
 In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer ;
 
 74 PARACELSUS 
 
 And though too harsh and sudden is the change 
 To yield content as yet, still you pursue 
 The ungracious path as though 't were rosy-strewn. 
 'T is well : and your reward, or soon or late, 
 Will come from him whom no man serves in vain. 
 
 Par. Ah, very tine ! For my part, I conceive 
 The very pausing from all further toil, 
 Which you find heinous, would become a seal 
 To the sincerity of all my deeds. 
 To be consistent I should die at once ; 
 I calculated on no after-life ; 
 Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not) 
 Here am I with as passionate regret 
 For youth and health and love so vainly lavished, 
 As if their preservation had been first 
 And foremost in my thoughts ; and this strange fact 
 Humbled me wondrously, and had due force 
 In rendering me the less averse to follow 
 A certain counsel, a mysterious warning 
 You will not understand but 't was a man 
 With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine, 
 With the same fervor and no more success, 
 Perishing in my sight ; who summoned me, 
 As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw, 
 To serve my race at once ; to wait no longer 
 That God should interfere in my behalf, 
 But to distrust myself, put pride away, 
 And give my gains, imperfect as they were, 
 To men. I have not leisure to explain 
 How, since, a singular series of events 
 Has raised me to the station you behold, 
 Wherein I seem to turn to most account 
 The mere wreck of the past, perhaps receive 
 Some feeble glimmering token that God views 
 And may approve my penance : therefore here 
 You find me, doing most good or least harm. 
 And if folks wonder much and profit little 
 'T is not my fault ; only, I shall rejoice 
 When my part in the farce is shuffled through, 
 And the curtain falls : I must hold out till then. 
 
 Fest. Till when, dear Aureole ? 
 
 Par. Till I 'm fairly thrust 
 
 From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle 
 And even professors fall : should that arrive, 
 I see no sin in ceding to my bent. 
 You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us
 
 PARACELSUS 75 
 
 We sin ; God's intimations rather fail 
 In clearness than in energy : 't were well 
 Did they but indicate the course to take 
 Like that to be forsaken. I would fain 
 Be spared a further sample. Here I stand, 
 And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit. 
 
 Fest. Be you but firm on that head ! long ere then 
 All I expect will come to pass, I trust : 
 The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared. 
 Meantime, I see small chance of such event : 
 They praise you here as one whose lore, already 
 Divulged, eclipses all the past can show, 
 But whose achievements, marvellous as they be, 
 Are faint anticipations of a glory 
 About to be revealed. When Basil's crowds 
 Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content 
 That he depart. 
 
 Par. This favor at their hands 
 
 I look for earlier than your view of things 
 Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day, 
 Remove the full half sheer amazement draws, 
 Mere novelty, nought else ; and next, the tribe 
 Whose innate blockish dulness just perceives 
 That unless miracles (as seem my works) 
 Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is slight 
 To puzzle the devil ; next, the numerous set 
 Who bitterly hate established schools, and help 
 The teacher that oppugns them, till he once 
 Have planted his own doctrine, when the teacher 
 May reckon on their rancor in his turn ; 
 Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves 
 Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue, 
 But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing, 
 To force my system to a premature 
 Short-lived development. Why swell the list ? 
 Each has his end to serve, and his best way 
 Of serving it : remove all these, remains 
 A scantling, a poor dozen at the best, 
 Worthy to look for sympathy and service, 
 And likely to draw profit from my pains. 
 
 Fest. 'T is no encouraging picture : still these few 
 Redeem their fellows. Once the germ implanted, 
 Its growth, if slow, is sure. 
 
 Par. God grant it so ! 
 
 I would make some amends : but if I fail, 
 The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge,
 
 76 PARACELSUS 
 
 That much is in my method and my manner, 
 
 My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit, 
 
 Which hinders of reception and result 
 
 My doctrine : much to say, small skill to speak ! 
 
 These old aims suffered not a looking-off 
 
 Though for an instant ; therefore, only when 
 
 I thus renounced them and resolved to reap 
 
 Some present fruit to teach mankind some truth 
 
 So dearly purchased only then I found 
 
 Such teaching was an art requiring cares 
 
 And qualities peculiar to itself : 
 
 That to possess was one thing to display 
 
 Another. With renown first in my thoughts, 
 
 Or popular praise, I had soon discovered it : 
 
 One grows but little apt to learn these things. 
 
 Fest. If it be so, which nowise I believe, 
 There needs no waiting fuller dispensation 
 To leave a labor of so little use. 
 Why not throw up the irksome charge at once ? 
 
 Par. A task, a task ! 
 
 But wherefore hide the whole 
 Extent of degradation, once engaged 
 In the confessing vein ? Despite of all 
 My fine talk of obedience and repugnance, 
 Docility and what not, 't is yet to learn 
 If when the task shall really be performed, 
 My inclination free to choose once more, 
 I shall do aught but slightly modify 
 The nature of the hated task I quit. 
 In plain words, I am spoiled ; my life still tends 
 As first it tended ; I am broken and trained 
 To my old habits : they are part of me. 
 I know, and none so well, my darling ends 
 Are proved impossible : no less, no less, 
 Even now what humors me, fond fool, as when 
 Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter me 
 And send me back content to my dull round ? 
 How can I change this soul ? this apparatus 
 Constructed solely for their purposes, 
 So well adapted to their every want, 
 To search out and discover, prove and perfect ; 
 This intricate machine whose most minute 
 And meanest motions have their charm to me 
 Though to none else an aptitude I seize, 
 An object I perceive, a use, a meaning, 
 A property, a fitness, I explain
 
 PARACELSUS 77 
 
 And I alone : how can I change my soul ? 
 
 And this wronged body, worthless save when tasked 
 
 Under that soul's dominion used to care 
 
 For its bright master's cares and quite subdue 
 
 Its proper cravings not to ail nor pine 
 
 So he but prosper whither drag this poor 
 
 Tried patient body ? God ! how I essayed 
 
 To live like that mad poet, for a while, 
 
 To love alone ; and how I felt too warped 
 
 And twisted and deformed ! What should I do, 
 
 Even though released from drudgery, but return 
 
 Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore, 
 
 To my old life and die as I began ? 
 
 I cannot feed on beauty for the sake 
 
 Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm 
 
 From lovely objects for their loveliness ; 
 
 My nature cannot lose her first imprint ; 
 
 I still must hoard and heap and class all truths 
 
 With one ulterior purpose : I must know ! 
 
 Would God translate me to his throne, believe 
 
 That I should only listen to his word 
 
 To further my own ami ! For other men, 
 
 Beauty is prodigally strewn around, 
 
 And I were happy could I quench as they 
 
 This mad and thriveless longing, and content me 
 
 With beauty for itself alone : alas, 
 
 I have addressed a frock of heavy mail 
 
 Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights ; 
 
 And now the forest-creatures fly from me, 
 
 The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more. 
 
 Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive, 
 
 I shall o'ertake the company and ride 
 
 Glittering as they ! 
 
 Fest. I think I apprehend 
 
 What you would say : if you, in truth, design 
 To enter once more on the life thus left, 
 Seek not to hide that all this consciousness 
 Of failure is assumed ! 
 
 Par. My friend, my friend, 
 
 I toil, you listen ; I explain, perhaps 
 You understand : there our communion ends. 
 Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse ? 
 When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state 
 We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft 
 The hot brow, look upon the languid eye, 
 And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare
 
 78 PARACELSUS 
 
 My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up 
 
 My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem 
 
 Enough made known ? You ! who are you, forsooth ? 
 
 That is the crowning operation claimed 
 
 By the arch-demonstrator heaven the hall, 
 
 And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you 
 
 Secure good places : 't will be worth the while. 
 
 Fest. Are you mad, Aureole ? What can I have said 
 To call for this ? I judged from your own words. 
 
 Par. Oh, doubtless ! A sick wretch describes the ape 
 That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely 
 You thither turn at once : or he recounts 
 The perilous journey he has late performed, 
 And you are puzzled much how that could be ! 
 You find me here, half stupid and half mad ; 
 It makes no part of my delight to search 
 Into these matters, much less undergo 
 Another's scrutiny ; but so it chances 
 That I am led to trust my state to you : 
 And the event is, you combine, contrast 
 And ponder on my foolish words as though 
 They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here 
 Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage ! 
 Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame ? 
 Will you guess nothing ? will you spare me nothing ? 
 Must I go deeper ? Ay or no ? 
 
 Fest. Dear friend . . . 
 
 Par. True : I am brutal 't is a part of it ; 
 The plague's sign you are not a lazar-haunter, 
 How should you know ? Well then, you think it strange 
 I should profess to have failed utterly, 
 And yet propose an ultimate return 
 To courses void of hope : and this, because 
 You know not what temptation is, nor how 
 'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part. 
 You are to understand that we who make 
 Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end : 
 There is not one sharp volley shot at us, 
 Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace 
 And gather by the wayside herbs and roots 
 To stanch our wounds, secure from further harm : 
 We are assailed to life's extremest verge. 
 It will be well indeed if I return, 
 A harmless busy fool, to my old ways ! 
 I would forget hints of another fate, 
 Significant enough, which silent hours 
 Have lately scared me with.
 
 PARACELSUS 79 
 
 Fest. Another ! and what ? 
 
 Par. After all, Festus, you say well : I am 
 A man yet : I need never humble me. 
 I would have been something, I know not what ; 
 But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. 
 There are worse portions than this one of mine. 
 You say well ! 
 
 Fest. Ah ! 
 
 Par. And deeper degradation ! 
 
 If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise, 
 If vanity should become the chosen food 
 Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish 
 To find its early aspirations true, 
 
 Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath 
 An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies ; 
 Should make it proud to emulate, surpass 
 Base natures in the practices which woke 
 Its most indignant loathing once . . . No, no ! 
 Utter damnation is reserved for hell ! 
 I had immortal feelings ; such shall never 
 Be wholly quenched : no, no ! 
 
 My friend, you wear 
 A melancholy face, and certain 't is 
 There 's little cheer in all this dismal work. 
 But was it my desire to set abroach 
 Such memories and forebodings ? I foresaw 
 Where they would drive. 'T were better we discuss 
 News from Lucerne or Zurich ; ask and tell 
 Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves. 
 
 Fest. I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass 
 
 away ! 
 
 I know you and the lofty spirit you bear, 
 And easily ravel out a clue to all. 
 These are the trials meet for such as you, 
 Nor must you hope exemption : to be mortal 
 Is to be plied with trials manifold. 
 Look round ! The obstacles which kept the rest 
 From your ambition, have been spurned by you ; 
 Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind them all, 
 Were flax before your resolute soul, which nought 
 Avails to awe save these delusions bred 
 From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised, 
 Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole ! Since 
 The rabbit has his shade to frighten him, 
 The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares, 
 And higher natures yet would slight and laugh
 
 80 PARACELSUS 
 
 At these entangling fantasies, as you 
 
 At trammels of a weaker intellect, 
 
 Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts ! 
 
 I know you. 
 
 Par. And I know you, dearest Festus ! 
 
 And how you love unworthily ; and how 
 All admiration renders blind. 
 
 Fest. You hold 
 
 That admiration blinds ? 
 
 Par. Ay and alas ! 
 
 Fest. Nought blinds you less than admiration, friend! 
 Whether it be that all love renders wise 
 In its degree ; from love which blends with love 
 Heart answering heart to love which spends itself 
 In silent mad idolatry of some 
 Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls, 
 Which ne'er will know how well it is adored. 
 I say, such love is never blind ; but rather 
 Alive to every the minutest spot 
 Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed 
 So vigilant and searching) dreams not of. 
 Love broods on such : what then ? When first perceived 
 Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change, 
 To overflush those blemishes with all 
 The glow of general goodness they disturb ? 
 To make those very defects an endless source 
 Of new affection grown from hopes and fears ? 
 And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand 
 Made even for much proved weak ? no shrinking-back 
 Lest, since all love assimilates the soul 
 To what it loves, it should at length become 
 Almost a rival of its idol ? Trust me, 
 If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt, 
 To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest spirits 
 Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love, 
 Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause ; 
 And least from those who hate, who most essay 
 By contumely and scorn to blot the light 
 Which forces entrance even to their hearts : 
 For thence will our defender tear the veil 
 And show within each heart, as in a shrine, 
 The giant image of perfection, grown 
 In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned 
 In the untroubled presence of its eyes. 
 True admiration blinds not ; nor am I 
 So blind. I call your sin exceptional ;
 
 PARACELSUS 81 
 
 It springs from one whose life has passed the bounds 
 Prescribed to life. Compound that fault with God ! 
 I speak of men ; to common men like me 
 The weakness you reveal endears you more, 
 Like the far traces of decay in suns. 
 I bid you have good cheer ! 
 
 Par. Prceclare ! Optime ! 
 
 Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered priest 
 Instructing Paracelsus ! yet 't is so. 
 Come, I will show you where my merit lies. 
 'Tis in the advance of individual minds 
 That the slow crowd should ground their expectation 
 Eventually to follow ; as the sea 
 Waits ages in its bed till some one wave 
 Out of the multitudinous mass, extends 
 The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps, 
 Over the strip of sand which could confine 
 Its fellows so long time : thenceforth the rest, 
 Even to the meanest, hurry in at once, 
 And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad 
 If all my labors, failing of aught else, 
 Suffice to make such inroad and procure 
 A wider range for thought : nay, they do this ; 
 For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge 
 And a legitimate success, may be, 
 I am not blind to my undoubted raixk 
 When classed with others : I precede my age : 
 And whoso wills is very free to mount 
 These labors as a platform whence his own 
 May have a prosperous outset. But, alas ! 
 My followers they are noisy as you heard ; 
 But, for intelligence, the best of them 
 So clumsily wield the weapons I supply 
 And they extol, that I begin to doubt 
 Whether their own rude clubs and pebble-stones 
 Would not do better service than my arms 
 Thus vilely swayed if error will not fall 
 Sooner before the old awkward batterings 
 Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned. 
 
 Fest. I would supply that art, then, or withhold 
 New arms until you teach their mystery. 
 
 Par. Content you, 't is my wish ; I have recourse 
 To the simplest training. Day by day I seek 
 To wake the mood, the spirit which alone 
 Can make those arms of any use to men. 
 Of course they are for swaggering forth at once
 
 82 PARACELSUS 
 
 Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield 
 Flash on us, all in armor, thou Achilles ! 
 Make onr hearts dance to thy resounding step ! 
 A proper sight to scare the crows away ! 
 
 Fest. Pity you choose not then some other method 
 Of coming at your point. The marvellous art 
 At length established in the world bids fair 
 To remedy all hindrances like these : 
 Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore 
 Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit 
 For raw beginners ; let his types secure 
 A deathless monument to after-time ; 
 Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy 
 The ultimate effect : sooner or later 
 You shall be all-revealed. 
 
 Par. The old dull question 
 
 In a new form ; no more. Thus : I possess 
 Two sorts of knowledge ; one, vast, shadowy, 
 Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued : 
 The other consists of many secrets, caught 
 While bent on nobler prize, perhaps a few 
 Prime principles which may conduct to much : 
 These last I offer to my followers here. 
 Now, bid me chronicle the first of these, 
 My ancient study, and in effect you bid 
 Revert to the wild courses just abjured : 
 I must go find them scattered through the world. 
 Then, for the principles, they are so simple 
 (Being chiefly of the overturning sort), 
 That one time is as proper to propound them 
 As any other to-morrow at my class, 
 Or half a century hence embalmed in print. 
 For if mankind intend to learn at all, 
 They must begin by giving faith to them 
 And acting on them : and I do not see 
 But that my lectures serve indifferent well : 
 No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth, 
 For all their novelty and rugged setting. 
 I think my class will not forget the day 
 I let them know the gods of Israel, 
 Actius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis, 
 Serapion, Avicenna, Averroes, 
 Were blocks ! 
 
 Fest. And that reminds me, I heard something 
 
 About your waywardness : you burned their books, 
 It seems, instead of answering those sages.
 
 PARACELSUS 83 
 
 Par. And who said that ? 
 
 Fest. Some I met yesternight 
 
 With (Ecolampadius. As you know, the purpose 
 Of this short stay at Basil was to learn 
 His pleasure touching certain missives sent 
 For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was he 
 Apprised me that the famous teacher here 
 Was my old friend. 
 
 Par. Ah, I forgot : you went . . . 
 
 Fest. From Zurich with advices for the ear 
 Of Luther, now at Wittenberg (you know, 
 I make no doubt, the differences of late 
 With Carolostadius) and returning sought 
 Basil and . . . 
 
 Par. I remember. Here 's a case, now, 
 
 Will teach you why I answer not, but burn 
 The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream 
 His arguments convince by their own force 
 The crowds that own his doctrine ? No, indeed ! 
 His plain denial of established points 
 Ages had sanctified and men supposed 
 Could never be oppugned while earth was under 
 And heaven above them points which chance or time 
 Affected not did more than the array 
 Of argument which followed. Boldly deny ! 
 There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening 
 Awhile ; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting 
 The thunderbolt which does not come ; and next, 
 Reproachful wonder and inquiry : those 
 Who else had never stirred, are able now 
 To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps 
 To outstrip him who set the whole at work, 
 As never will my wise class its instructor. 
 And you saw Luther ? 
 
 Fest. 'T is a wondrous soul ! 
 
 Par. True : the so-heavy chain which galled mankind 
 Is shattered, and the noblest of us all 
 Must bow to the deliverer nay, the worker 
 Of our own project we who long before 
 Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd, 
 We should have taught, still groaned beneath the load : 
 This he has done and nobly. Speed that may ! 
 Whatever be my chance or my mischance, 
 What benefits mankind must glad me too ; 
 And men seem made, though not as I believed, 
 For something better than the times produce.
 
 84 PARACELSUS 
 
 Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights 
 From Suabia have possessed, whom Mimzer leads, 
 And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector 
 Will calm in blood ! Well, well ; 't is not my world ! 
 
 Fest. Hark! 
 
 Par. 'T is the melancholy wind astir 
 
 Within the trees ; the embers too are gray : 
 Morn must be near. 
 
 Fest. Best ope the casement : see, 
 
 The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars, 
 Is blank and motionless : how peaceful sleep 
 The tree-tops altogether ! Like an asp, 
 The wind slips whispering from bough to bough. 
 
 Par. Ay ; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree 
 By the hour, nor count time lost. 
 
 Fest. So you shall gaze : 
 
 Those happy times will come again. 
 
 Par. Gone, gone, 
 
 Those pleasant times ! Does not the moaning wind 
 Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains 
 And bartered sleep for them ? 
 
 Fest. It is our trust 
 
 That there is yet another world to mend 
 All error and mischance. 
 
 Par. Another world ! 
 
 And why this world, this common world, to be 
 A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever, 
 To some fine life to come ? Man must be fed 
 With angels' food, forsooth ; and some few traces 
 Of a diviner nature which look out 
 Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him 
 In a supreme contempt of all provision 
 For his inferior tastes some straggling marks 
 Which constitute his essence, just as truly 
 As here and there a gem would constitute 
 The rock, their barren bed, one diamond. 
 But were it so were man all mind he gains 
 A station little enviable. From God 
 DOWJI to the lowest spirit ministrant, 
 Intelligence exists which casts our mind 
 Into immeasurable shade. No, no : 
 Love, hope, fear, faith these make humanity ; 
 These are its sign and note and character, 
 And these I have lost ! gone, shut from me forever, 
 Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more ! 
 See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
 
 PARACELSUS 85 
 
 Diluted, gray and clear without the stars ; 
 
 The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as if 
 
 Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go 
 
 His hold ; and from the East, fuller and fuller 
 
 Day, like a mighty river, flowing in ; 
 
 But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold. 
 
 Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant, 
 
 Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves 
 
 All thick and glistering with diamond dew. 
 
 And you depart for Einsiedeln this day, 
 
 And we have spent all night in talk like this ! 
 
 If you would have me better for your love, 
 
 Revert no more to these sad themes. 
 
 Fest. One favor, 
 
 And I have done. I leave you, deeply moved ; 
 Unwilling to have fared so well, the while 
 My friend has changed so sorely. If this mood 
 Shall pass away, if light once more arise 
 Where all is darkness now, if you see fit 
 To hope and trust again, and strive again, 
 You will remember not our love alone 
 But that my faith in God's desire that man 
 Should trust on his support, (as I must think 
 You trusted) is obscured and dim through you : 
 For you are thus, and this is no reward. 
 Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole ? 
 
 IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES. 
 
 SCENE, Colmar in Alsalia an Inn. 1528. 
 PARACELSUS, FESTUS. 
 
 Par. (to JOHANNES OPORINUS, his secretary). Sic itur 
 
 ad astra ! Dear Von Visenburg 
 Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralyzed, 
 And every honest soul that Basil holds 
 Aghast ; and yet we live, as one may say, 
 Just as though Liechtenfels had never set 
 So true a value on his sorry carcass, 
 And learned Putter had not frowned us dumb. 
 We live ; and shall as surely start to-morrow 
 For Nuremberg, as we drink speedy scathe 
 To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused
 
 86 PARACELSUS 
 
 A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born 
 I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John 
 " Basil ; a hot plague ravage it, and Putter 
 Oppose the plague ! " Even so ? Do you too share 
 Their panic, the reptiles ? Ha, ha ; faint through these. 
 Desist for these ! They manage matters so 
 At Basil, 'tis like : but others may find means 
 To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe 
 Once more to crouch in silence means to breed 
 A stupid wonder in each fool again, 
 Now big with admiration at the skill 
 Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes : 
 And, that done, means to brand each slavish brow 
 So deeply, surely, ineffaceably, 
 That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it 
 Out of the furrow ; there that stamp shall stay 
 To show the next they fawn on, what they are, 
 This Basil with its magnates, fill my cup, 
 Whom I curse soul and limb. And now dispatch, 
 Dispatch, my trusty John ; and what remains 
 To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip 
 Are yet to be completed, see you hasten 
 This night ; we '11 weather the storm at least : to-morrow 
 For Nuremberg ! Now leave us ; this grave clerk 
 Has divers weighty matters for my ear : 
 
 [OPORINUS goes out 
 
 And spare my lungs. At last, my gallant Festus, 
 I am rid of this arch-knave that dogs my heels 
 As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep ; at last 
 May give a loose to my delight. How kind, 
 How very kind, my first best only friend ! 
 Why, this looks like fidelity. Embrace me ! 
 Not a hair silvered yet ? Right ! you shall live 
 Till I am worth your love ; you shall be proud, 
 And I but let time show ! Did you not wonder ? 
 I sent to you because our compact weighed 
 Upon my conscience (you recall the night 
 At Basil, which the gods confound !) because 
 Once more I aspire. I call you to my side : 
 You come. You thought my message strange ? 
 
 Fest. So strange 
 
 That I must hope, indeed, your messenger 
 Has mingled his own fancies with the words 
 Purporting to be yours. 
 
 Par. He said no more, 
 
 'T is probable, than the precious folk 1 leave
 
 PARACELSUS 87 
 
 Said fiftyfold more roughly. Well-a-day, 
 
 'T is true ! poor Paracelsus is exposed 
 
 At last ; a most egregious quack he proves : 
 
 And those he overreached must spit their hate 
 
 On one who, utterly beneath contempt, 
 
 Could yet deceive their topping wits. You heard 
 
 Bare truth ; and at my bidding you come here 
 
 To speed me on my enterprise, as once 
 
 Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend ! 
 
 Fest, What is your purpose, Aureole ? 
 
 Par. Oh, for purpose, 
 
 There is no lack of precedents in a case 
 Like mine ; at least, if not precisely mine, 
 The case of men cast off by those they sought 
 To benefit. 
 
 Fest. They really cast you off ? 
 
 I only heard a vague tale of some priest, 
 Cured by your skill, who wrangled at your claim, 
 Knowing his life's worth best ; and how the judge 
 The matter was referred to, saw no cause 
 To interfere, nor you to hide your full 
 Contempt of him ; nor he, again, to smother 
 His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a flame 
 That Basil soon was made no place for you. 
 
 Par. The affair of Liechtenfels ? the shallowest fable, 
 The last and silliest outrage mere pretence ! 
 I knew it, I foretold it from the first, 
 How soon the stupid wonder you mistook 
 For genuine loyalty a cheering promise 
 Of better things to come would pall and pass ; 
 And every word comes true. Saul is among 
 The prophets ! Just so long as I was pleased 
 To play off the mere antics of my art, 
 Fantastic gambols leading to no end, 
 I got huge praise : but one can ne'er keep down 
 Our foolish nature's weakness. There they flocked, 
 Poor devils, jostling, swearing and perspiring, 
 Till the walls rang again ; and all for me ! 
 I had a kindness for them, which was right ; 
 But then I stopped not till I tacked to that 
 A trust in them and a respect a sort 
 Of sympathy for them ; I must needs begin 
 To teach them, not amaze them, " to impart 
 The spirit which should instigate the search 
 Of truth," just what you bade me ! I spoke out. 
 Forthwith a mighty squadron, in disgust,
 
 88 PARACELSUS 
 
 Filed off " the sifted chaff of the sack," I said. 
 
 Redoubling my endeavors to secure 
 
 The rest. When lo ! one man had tarried BO long 
 
 Only to ascertain if I supported 
 
 This tenet of his, or that ; another loved 
 
 To hear impartially before he judged. 
 
 And having heard, now judged ; this bland disciple 
 
 Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems, 
 
 Spied error where his neighbors marvelled most ; 
 
 That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend, 
 
 Did it because my by-paths, once proved wrong 
 
 And beaconed properly, would commend again 
 
 The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er, 
 
 Though not their squeamish sons ; the other worthy 
 
 Discovered divers verses of St. John, 
 
 "Which, read successively, refreshed the soul, 
 
 But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone, 
 
 The colic and what not. Quid mult a ? The end 
 
 Was a clear class-room, and a quiet leer 
 
 From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance 
 
 From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed 
 
 The new professor scarce a year before ; 
 
 And a vast flourish about patient merit 
 
 Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure 
 
 Sooner or later to emerge in splendor 
 
 Of which the example was some luckless wight 
 
 Whom my arrival had discomfited, 
 
 But now, it seems, the general voice recalled 
 
 To fill my chair and so efface the stain 
 
 Basil had long incurred. I sought no better, 
 
 Only a quiet dismissal from my post, 
 
 And from my heart I wished them better suited 
 
 And better served. Good night to Basil, then ! 
 
 But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe 
 
 Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them 
 
 The pleasure of a parting kick, 
 
 Fest. You smile : 
 
 Despise them as they merit ! 
 
 Par. If I smile, 
 
 'T is with as very contempt as ever turned 
 Flesh into stone. This courteous recompense, 
 This grateful . . . Festus, were your nature fit 
 To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache 
 At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains. 
 The ulcerous barky scurf of lepi 
 Which finds a man, and leaves a hideous thing
 
 PARACELSUS 89 
 
 That cannot but be mended by hell-fire, 
 
 I would lay bare to you the human heart 
 
 Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since 
 
 Their pet nest and their never-tiring home. 
 
 Oh, sages have discovered we are born 
 
 For various ends to love, to know : has ever 
 
 One stumbled, in his search, on any signs 
 
 Of a nature in us formed to hate ? To hate ? 
 
 If that be our true object which evokes 
 
 Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate ! 
 
 Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest 
 
 Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone. 
 
 I had not the monopoly of fools, 
 
 It seems, at Basil. 
 
 Fest. But your plans, your plans ! 
 
 I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole ! 
 
 Par. Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame, 
 To shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo 
 In silence and desist from further toil, 
 And so subside into a monument 
 Of one their censure blasted ? or to bow 
 Cheerfully as submissively, to lower 
 My old pretensions even as Basil dictates, 
 To drop into the rank her wits assign me 
 And live as they prescribe, and make that use 
 Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow, 
 Proud to be patted now and then, and careful 
 To practise the true posture for receiving 
 The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance 
 When they shall condescend to tutor me ? 
 Then, one may feel resentment like a flame 
 Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb, 
 And tangle and entwine mankind with error, 
 And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood 
 For a possession, ages : or one may mope 
 Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse 
 Into a dreamless sleep and so die off. 
 But I, now Festus shall divine ! but I 
 Am merely setting out once more, embracing 
 My earliest aims again ! What thinks he now ? 
 
 Fest. Your aims ? the aims ? to Know ? and where 
 
 is found 
 The early trust . . . 
 
 Par. Nay, not so fast ; I say, 
 
 The aims not the old means. You know they made me 
 A laughing-stock ; I was a fool ; you know
 
 90 PARACELSUS 
 
 The when and the how : hardly those means again ! 
 Not hut they had their heauty ; who should know 
 Their passing heauty, if not I ? Still, dreams 
 They were, so let them vanish, yet in beauty 
 If that may be. Stay : thus they pass in song ! 
 
 [He sings. 
 
 Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes 
 
 Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, 
 Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes 
 
 From out her hair : such balsam falls 
 
 Down sea-side mountain pedestals, 
 From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, 
 Spent with the vast and howling main, 
 To treasure half their island-gain. 
 
 And strew faint sweetness from some old 
 
 Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 
 Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; 
 Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 
 From closet long to quiet vowed, 
 With mothed and dropping arras hung, 
 Mouldering her lute and books among, 
 As when a queen, long dead, was young. 
 
 Mine, every word ! And on such pile shall die 
 My lovely fancies, with fair perished things, 
 Themselves fair and forgotten ; yes. forgotten, 
 Or why abjure them ? So, I made this rhyme 
 That fitting dignity might be preserved ; 
 No little proud was I ; though the list of drugs 
 Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse 
 Halts like the best of Luther's psalms. 
 
 Fest. But, Aureole, 
 
 Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here 
 Did you know all ! I have travelled far, indeed, 
 To learn your wishes. Be yourself again ! 
 For in this mood I recognize you less 
 Than in the horrible despondency 
 1 witnessed last. You may account this, joy ; 
 But rather let me gaze on that despair 
 Than hear these incoherent words and see 
 This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye. 
 
 Par. Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime, 
 I am light-hearted now ; what would you have ? 
 Aprile was a poet, I make songs
 
 PARACELSUS 91 
 
 'T is the very augury of success I want ! 
 Why should I not be joyous now as then? 
 
 Fest. Joyous ! and how ? and what remains for joy ? 
 You have declared the ends (which I am sick 
 Of naming) are impracticable. 
 
 Par. Ay, 
 
 Pursued as I pursued them the arch-fool ! 
 Listen : my plan will please you not, 't is like, 
 But you are little versed in the world's ways. 
 This is my plan - (first drinking its good luck) 
 I will accept all helps ; all I despised 
 So rashly at the outset, equally 
 With early impulses, late years have quenched : 
 I have tried each way singly : now for both ! 
 All helps ! no one sort shall exclude the rest. 
 I seek to know and to enjoy at once, 
 Not one without the other as before. 
 Suppose my labor should seem God's own cause 
 Once more, as first I dreamed, it shall not balk me 
 Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight 
 That may be snatched ; for every joy is gain, 
 And gain is gain, however small. My soul 
 Can die then, nor be taunted " what was gained ? " 
 Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure follow 
 As though I had not spurned her hitherto, 
 Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt communion 
 With the tumultuous past, the teeming future, 
 Glorious with visions of a full success. 
 
 Fest. Success ! 
 
 Par. And wherefore not ? Why not prefer 
 
 Results obtained in my best state of being, 
 To those derived alone from seasons dark 
 As the thoughts they bred ? When I was best, my youth 
 TJnwasted, seemed success not surest too ? 
 It is the nature of darkness to obscure. 
 I am a wanderer : I remember well 
 One journey, how I feared the track was missed, 
 So long the city I desired to reach 
 Lay hid ; when suddenly its spires afar 
 Flashed through the circling clouds ; you may conceive 
 My transport. Soon the vapors closed again, 
 But I had seen the city, and one such glance 
 No darkness could obscure : nor shall the present 
 A few dull hours, a passing shame or two, 
 Destroy the vivid memories of the past. 
 I will fight the battle out ; a little spent
 
 92 PARACELSUS 
 
 Perhaps, but still an able combatant. 
 
 You look at my gray hair and furrowed brow ? 
 
 But I can turn even weakness to account : 
 
 Of many tricks I know, 't is not the least 
 
 To push the ruins of my frame, whereon 
 
 The fire of vigor trembles scarce alive, 
 
 Into a heap, and send the flame aloft. 
 
 What should I do with age ? So, sickness lends 
 
 An aid ; it being, I fear, the source of all 
 
 We boast of : mind is nothing but disease, 
 
 And natural health is ignorance. 
 
 Fest. I see 
 
 But one good symptom in this notable scheme. 
 I feared your sudden journey had in view 
 To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes. 
 'T is not so : I am glad. 
 
 Par. And if I please 
 
 To spit on them, to trample them, what then ? 
 'T is sorry warfare truly, but the fools 
 Provoke it. I would spare their self-conceit 
 But if they must provoke me, cannot suffer 
 Forbearance on my part, if I may keep 
 No quality in the shade, must needs put forth 
 Power to match power, my strength against their strength, 
 And teach them their own game with their own arms _ 
 Why, be it so and let them take their chance ! 
 I am above them like a god, there 's no 
 Hiding the fact : what idle scruples, then, 
 Were those that ever bade me soften it, 
 Communicate it gently to the world, 
 Instead of proving my supremacy, 
 Taking my natural station o'er their head, 
 Then owning all the glory was a man's ! 
 And in my elevation man's would be. 
 But live and learn, though life 's short, learning, hard ! 
 And therefore, though the wreck of my past self, 
 I fear, dear Putter, that your lecture-room 
 Must wait awhile for its best ornament, 
 The penitent empiric, who set up 
 For somebody, but soon was taught his place ; 
 Now, but too happy to be let confess 
 His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate 
 (Fiat experientia corpore vili) 
 Your medicine's soundness in his person. Wait, 
 Good Putter ! 
 
 Fest. He who sneers thus, is a god !
 
 PARACELSUS 98 
 
 Par. Ay, ay, laugh at me ! I am very glad 
 You are not gulled by all this swaggering ; you 
 Can see the root of the matter ! how I strive 
 To put a good face on the overthrow 
 I have experienced, and to bury and hide 
 My degradation in its length and breadth ; 
 How the mean motives I would make you think 
 Just mingle as is due with nobler aims, 
 The appetites I modestly allow 
 May influence me as being mortal still 
 Do goad me, drive me on, and fast supplant 
 My youth's desires. You are no stupid dupe: 
 You find me out ! Yes, I had sent for you 
 To palm these childish lies upon you, Festus ! 
 Laugh you shall laugh at me ! 
 
 Fest. The past, then, Aureole, 
 
 Proves nothing ? Is our interchange of love 
 Yet to begin ? Have I to swear I mean 
 No flattery in this speech or that ? For you, 
 Whate'er you say, there is no degradation ; 
 These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind, 
 Or wherefore this disorder ? You are vexed 
 
 As much by the intrusion of base views, 
 
 Familiar to your adversaries, as they 
 
 Were troubled should your qualities alight 
 
 Amid their murky souls ; not otherwise, 
 
 A stray wolf which the winter forces down 
 
 From our bleak hills, suffices to affright 
 
 A village in the vales while foresters 
 
 Sleep calm, though all night long the famished troop 
 
 Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts. 
 
 These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee. 
 Par. May you be happy, Festus, my own friend ! 
 Fest. Nay, further ; the delights you fain would think 
 
 The superseders of your nobler aims, 
 
 Though ordinary and harmless stimulants, 
 
 Will ne'er content you. . . . 
 
 Par. Hush ! I once despised them 
 
 But that soon passes. We are high at first 
 
 In our demand, nor will abate a jot 
 
 Of toil's strict value ; but time passes o'er, 
 
 And humbler spirits accept what we refuse : 
 
 In short, when some such comfort is doled out 
 
 As these delights, we cannot long retain 
 
 Bitter contempt which urges us at first 
 
 To hurl it back, but hug it to our breast
 
 94 PARACELSUS 
 
 And thankfully retire. This life of mine 
 
 Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned : 
 
 I am just fit for that and nought beside. 
 
 I told you once, I cannot now enjoy, 
 
 Unless I deem my knowledge gains throngh joy ; 
 
 Nor can I know, but straight warm tears reveal 
 
 My need of linking also joy to knowledge : 
 
 So, on I drive, enjoying all I can, 
 
 And knowing all I can. I speak, of course, 
 
 Confusedly ; this will better explain feel here ! 
 
 Quick beating, is it not ? a fire of the heart 
 
 To work off some way, this as well as any. 
 
 So, Festus sees me fairly launched ; his calm 
 
 Compassionate look might have disturbed me once, 
 
 But now, far from rejecting, I invite 
 
 What bids me press the closer, lay myself 
 
 Open before him, and be soothed with pity ; 
 
 I hope, if he command hope, and believe 
 
 As he directs me satiating myself 
 
 With his enduring love. And Festus quits me 
 
 To give place to gome credulous disciple 
 
 Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus 
 
 Has his peculiar merits : I suck in 
 
 That homage, chuckle o'er that admiration, 
 
 And then dismiss the fool ; for night is come. 
 
 And I betake myself to study again, 
 
 Till patient searchings after hidden lore 
 
 Half wring some bright truth from its prison ; my frame 
 
 Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair 
 
 Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn 
 
 Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp 
 
 And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores ; 
 
 When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow, 
 
 I must review my captured truth, sum up 
 
 Its value, trace what ends to what begins, 
 
 Its present power with its eventual bearings, 
 
 Latent affinities, the views it opens, 
 
 And its full length in perfecting my scheme. 
 
 I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down 
 
 From the high place my fond hopes yielded it, 
 
 Proved worthless which, in getting, yet had cost 
 
 Another wrench to this fast-falling frame. 
 
 Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow ! 
 
 I lapse back into youth, and take again 
 
 My fluttering pulse for evidence that God 
 
 Means good to me, will make my cause his own.
 
 PARACELSUS 
 
 See ! I have cast off this remorseless care 
 
 Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free, 
 
 And my dim chamber has become a tent, 
 
 Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . . 
 
 Why do you start ? I say, she listening here, 
 
 (For yonder Wiirzburg through the orchard-bough !) 
 
 Motions as though such ardent words should find 
 
 No echo in a maiden's quiet soul, 
 
 But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast 
 
 With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while ! 
 
 Ha, ha ! 
 
 Fest. It seems, then, you expect to reap 
 No unreal joy from this your present course, 
 But rather . . . 
 
 Par. Death ! To die ! I owe that much 
 
 To what, at least, I was. I should be sad 
 To live contented after such a fall, 
 To thrive and fatten after such reverse ! 
 The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last 
 My time. 
 
 Fest. And you have never mused and said, 
 u I had a noble purpose, and the strength 
 To compass it ; but I have stopped half-way. 
 And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil 
 To objects little worthy of the gift. 
 Why linger round them still ? why clench my fault ? 
 Why seek for consolation in defeat, 
 In vain endeavors to derive a beauty 
 From ugliness ? why seek to make the most 
 Of what no power can change, nor strive instead 
 With mighty effort to redeem the past 
 And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down, 
 To hold a steadfast course till I arrive 
 At their fit destination and my own ? " 
 You have never pondered thus ? 
 
 Par. Have I, you ask ? 
 
 Often at midnight, when most fancies come, 
 Would some such airy project visit me : 
 But ever at the end ... or will you hear 
 The same thing in a tale, a parable ? 
 You and I, wandering over the world wide, 
 Chance to set foot upon a desert coast. 
 Just as we cry, " No human voice before 
 Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks ! " 
 Their querulous echo startles us ; we turn : 
 What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea ?
 
 96 PARACELSUS 
 
 Some characters remain, too ! While we read, 
 The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last 
 Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes, 
 Or sings what we recover, mocking it. 
 This is the record ; and my voice, the wind's. 
 
 [He sings. 
 
 Over the sea our galleys went, 
 With cleaving prows in order brave 
 To a speeding wind and a bounding wave, 
 
 A gallant armament : 
 Each bark built out of a forest-tree 
 
 Left leafy and rough as first it grew, 
 And nailed all over the gaping sides, 
 Within and without, with black bull-hides, 
 Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, 
 To bear the playful billows' game : 
 So, each good ship was rude to see, 
 Rude and bare to the outward view, 
 
 But each upbore a stately tent 
 Where cedar pales in scented row 
 Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, 
 And an awning drooped the mast below, 
 In fold on fold of the purple fine, 
 That neither noontide nor starshine 
 Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, 
 
 Might pierce the regal tenement. 
 When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad 
 We set the sail and plied the oar ; 
 But when the night-wind blew like breath, 
 For joy of one day's voyage more, 
 We sang together on the wide sea, 
 Like men at peace on a peaceful shore ; 
 Each sail was loosed to the wind so free, 
 Each helm made sure by the twilight star, 
 And in a sleep as calm as death, 
 We, the voyagers from afar, 
 
 Lay stretched along, each weary crew 
 In a circle round its wondrous tent 
 Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent, 
 
 And with light and perfume, music too : 
 So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past, 
 And at morn we started beside the mast, 
 And still each ship was sailing fast. 
 
 Now, one morn, land appeared a speck 
 Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky :
 
 PARACELSUS 97 
 
 " Avoid it," cried our pilot, " check 
 
 The shout, restrain the eager eye ! " 
 But the heaving sea was black behind 
 For many a night and many a day, 
 And land, though but a rock, drew nigh ; 
 So, we broke the cedar pales away, 
 Let the purple awning flap in the wind, 
 
 And a statue bright was on every deck ! 
 We shouted, every man of us, 
 And steered right into the harbor thus, 
 With pomp and paean glorious. 
 
 A hundred shapes of lucid stone ! 
 
 All day we built its slirine for each, 
 A shrine of rock for every one, 
 Nor paused till in the westering sun 
 
 We sat together on the beach 
 To sing because our task was done. 
 When lo ! what shouts and merry songs ! 
 What laughter all the distance stirs ! 
 A loaded raft with happy throngs 
 Of gentle islanders ! 
 " Our isles are just at hand," they cried, 
 
 " Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping. 
 Our temple-gates are opened wide, 
 
 Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping 
 For these majestic forms " they cried. 
 Oh, then we awoke with sudden start 
 From our deep dream, and knew, too late, 
 How bare the rock, how desolate, 
 Which had received our precious freight : 
 
 Yet we called out " Depart ! 
 Our gifts, once given, must here abide. 
 
 Our work is done ; we have no heart 
 To mar our work," we cried. 
 
 Fest. In truth ? 
 
 Par. Nay, wait : all this in tracings faint 
 
 On rugged stones strewn here and there, but piled 
 In order once : then follows mark what follows ! 
 " The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung 
 To their first fault, and withered in their pride." 
 
 Fest. Come back then, Aureole ; as you fear God, come ! 
 This is foul sin ; come back ! Renounce the past, 
 Forswear the future ; look for joy no more, 
 But wait death's summons amid holy sights,
 
 98 PARACELSUS 
 
 And trust me for the event peace, if not joy. 
 Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole ! 
 
 far- No way, no way ! it would not turn to good. 
 A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss 
 'T is well for him ; but when a sinful man, 
 Envying such slumber, may desire to put 
 His guilt away, shall he return at once 
 To rest by lying there ? Our sires knew well 
 (Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons) 
 The fitting course for such : dark cells, dim lamps, 
 A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm : 
 No mossy pillow blue with violets ! 
 
 Fest. I see no symptom of these absolute 
 And tyrannous passions. You are calmer now. 
 This verse-making can purge you well enough 
 Without the terrible penance you describe. 
 You love me still : the lusts you fear will never 
 Outrage your friend. To Einsiedeln, once more ! 
 Say but the word ! 
 
 Par. No, no ; those lusts forbid : 
 
 They crouch, I know, cowering with half-shut eye 
 Beside you ; 't is their nature. Thrust yourself 
 Between them and their prey ; let some fool style me 
 Or king or quack, it matters not then try 
 Your wisdom, urge them to forego their treat ! 
 No, no ; learn better and look deeper, Festus ! 
 If you knew how a devil sneers within me 
 While you are talking now of this, now that, 
 As though we differed scarcely save in trifles ! 
 
 Fest. Do we so differ ? True, change must proceed, 
 Whether for good or ill ; keep from me, which ! 
 Do not confide all secrets : I was born 
 To hope, and you . . . 
 
 Par. To trust : you know the fruits! 
 
 Fest. Listen : I do believe, what you call trust 
 Was self-delusion at the best : for, see !~ 
 So long as God would kindly pioneer 
 A path for you, and screen you from the world, 
 Procure you full exemption from man's lot, 
 Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext 
 Of your engagement in his service yield you 
 A limitless license, make you God, in fact, 
 And turn your slave you were content to say 
 Most courtly praises ! What is it, at last, 
 But selfishness without example ? None 
 Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours
 
 PARACELSUS 99 
 
 Remained implied in it ; but now you fail, 
 And we, who prate about that will, are fools ! 
 In short, God's service is established here 
 As he determines fit, and not your way, 
 And this you cannot brook. Such discontent 
 Is weak. Renounce all creatureship at once ! 
 Affirm an absolute right to have and use 
 Your energies ; as though the rivers should say 
 " We rush to the ocean ; what have we to do 
 With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales, 
 Sleeping in lazy pools ? " Set up that plea, 
 That will be bold at least ! 
 
 Par. 'Tis like enough. 
 
 The serviceable spirits are those, no doubt, 
 The East produces : lo, the master bids, 
 And they raise terraces and garden-grounds 
 In one night's space ; and, this done, straight begin 
 Another century's sleep, to the great praise 
 Of him that framed them wise and beautiful, 
 Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin, 
 Wake them again. I am of different mould. 
 I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for him 
 And done him service past my narrow bond, 
 And thus I get rewarded for my pains ! 
 Beside, 't is vain to talk of forwarding 
 God's glory otherwise ; this is alone 
 The sphere of its increase, as far as men 
 Increase it ; why, then, look beyond this sphere ? 
 We are his glory ; and if we be glorious, 
 Is not the thing achieved ? 
 
 Fest. Shall one like me 
 
 Judge hearts like yours ? Though years have changed you 
 
 much, 
 
 And you have left your first love, and retain 
 Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways, 
 Yet I still hold that you have honored God. 
 And who shall call your course without reward ? 
 For, wherefore this repining at defeat 
 Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes ? 
 I urge you to forsake the life you curse, 
 And what success attends me ? simply talk 
 Of passion, weakness and remorse ; in short, 
 Anything but the naked truth you choose 
 This so-despised career, and cheaply hold 
 My happiness, or rather other men's. 
 Once more, return !
 
 100 PARACELSUS 
 
 Par. And quickly. John the thief 
 
 Has pilfered half my secrets by this time : 
 And we depart by daybreak. I am weary, 
 I know not how ; not even the wine-cup soothes 
 My brain to-night . . . 
 Do you not thoroughly despise me, Festus ? 
 No flattery ! One like you needs not be told 
 We live and breathe deceiving and deceived. 
 Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts, 
 Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge, 
 My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words, 
 My glozing self-deceit, my outward crust 
 Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew, furfair 
 Wrap the sound flesh ? so, see you flatter not ! 
 Even God flatters : but my friend, at least, 
 Is true. I would depart, secure henceforth 
 Against all further insult, hate and wrong 
 From puny foes ; my one friend's scorn shall brand me 
 No fear of sinking deeper ! 
 
 Fest. No, dear Aureole ! 
 
 No, no ; I came to counsel faithfully. 
 There are old rules, made long ere we were born, 
 By which I judge you. I, so fallible, 
 So infinitely low beside your mighty 
 Majestic spirit ! even I can see 
 You own some higher law than ours which call 
 Sin, what is no sin weakness, what is strength. 
 But I have only these, such as they are, 
 To guide me ; and I blame you where they bid, 
 Only so long as blaming promises 
 To win peace for your soul : the more, that sorrow 
 Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped me 
 So that I faint not under my distress. 
 But wherefore should I scruple to avow 
 In spite of all, as brother judging brother, 
 Your fate is most inexplicable to me ? 
 And should you perish without recompense 
 And satisfaction yet too hastily 
 I have relied on love : you may have sinned, 
 But you have loved. As a mere human matter 
 As I would have God deal with fragile men 
 In the end I say that you will triumph yet ! 
 
 Par. Have you felt sorrow, Festus ? 't is because 
 You love me. Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours ! 
 Well thought on : never let her know this last 
 Dull winding-tip of all : these miscreants dared 
 Insult me me she loved : so, grieve her not !
 
 PARACELSUS 101 
 
 Fest. Your ill success can little grieve her now. 
 
 Par. Michal is dead ! pray Christ we do not craze ! 
 
 Fest. Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus ! 
 Fool, fool ! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof 
 I cannot bear those eyes. 
 
 Par. Nay, really dead ? 
 
 Fest. 'T is scarce a month. 
 
 Par. Stone dead I then you have laid her 
 
 Among the flowers ere this. Now, do you know, 
 I can reveal a secret which shall comfort 
 Even you. I have no julep, as men think, 
 To cheat the grave ; but a far better secret. 
 Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love 
 To the cold earth : I have thought much of it : 
 For I believe we do not wholly die. 
 
 Fest. Aureole.' 
 
 Par. Nay, do not laugh ; there is a reason 
 
 For what I say : I think the soul can never 
 Taste death. I am, just now, as you may see, 
 Very unfit to put so strange a thought 
 In an intelligible dress of words ; 
 But take it as my trust, she is not dead. 
 
 Fest. But not on this account alone ? you surely, 
 Aureole, you have believed this all along ? 
 
 Par. And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews, 
 While I am moved at Basil, and full of schemes 
 For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing, 
 As though it mattered how the farce plays out, 
 So it be quickly played. Away, away ! 
 Have your will, rabble ! while we fight the prize, 
 Troop you in safety to the snug back-seats 
 And leave a clear arena for the brave 
 About to perish for your sport ! Behold ! 
 
 V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS. 
 
 SCENE, Salzburg ; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541. 
 FESTUS, PARACELSUS. 
 
 Fest. No change ! The weary night is well-nigh spent, 
 The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars 
 Gray morning glimmers feebly : yet no change ! 
 Another night, and still no sigh has stirred 
 That fallen discolored mouth, no pang relit 
 Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body, 
 Like torch-flame choked in dust. While all beside
 
 102 PARACELSUS 
 
 Was breaking, to the last they held out bright, 
 As a stronghold where life intrenched itself ; 
 But they are dead now very blind and dead : 
 He will drowse into death without a groan. 
 
 My Aureole my forgotten, ruined Aureole ! 
 The days are gone, are gone ! How grand thou wast ! 
 And now not one of those who struck thee down 
 Poor glorious spirit concerns him even to stay 
 And satisfy himself his little hand 
 Could turn God's image to a livid thing. 
 
 Another night, and yet no change ! 'T is much 
 
 That 1 should sit by him, and bathe his brow, 
 
 And chafe his hands ; 't is much : but he will sure 
 
 Know me, and look on me, and speak to me 
 
 Once more but only once ! His hollow cheek 
 
 Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh 
 
 At his own state were just about to break 
 
 From the dying man : my brain swam, my throat swelled, 
 
 And yet I could not turn away. In truth, 
 
 They told me how, when first brought here, he seemed 
 
 Resolved to live, to lose no faculty ; 
 
 Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength, 
 
 Until they bore him to this stifling cell : 
 
 When straight his features fell, an hour made white 
 
 The flushed face< and relaxed the quivering limb, 
 
 Only the eye remained intense awhile 
 
 As though it recognized the tomb-like place, 
 
 And then he lay as here he lies. 
 
 Ay, here ! 
 
 Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded 
 Her bravest champion with his well-won prize 
 Her best achievement, her sublime amends 
 For countless generations fleeting fast 
 And followed by no trace ; the creature-god 
 She instances when angels would dispute 
 The title of her brood to rank with them. 
 Angels, this is our angel ! Those bright forms 
 We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones, 
 Are human, but not his ; those are but men 
 Whom other men press round and kneel before ; 
 Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind; 
 Higher provision is for him you seek 
 Amid our pomps and glories : see it here ! 
 Behold earth's paragon ! Now, raise thee, clay !
 
 PARACELSUS 103 
 
 God ! Thou art love ! I build my faith on that 
 
 Even as I watch beside thy tortured child 
 
 Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him, 
 
 So doth thy right hand guide us through the world 
 
 Wherein we stumble. God ! what shall we say ? 
 
 How has he sinned ? How else should he have done ? 
 
 Surely he sought thy praise thy praise, for all 
 
 He might be busied by the task so much 
 
 As half forget awhile its proper end. 
 
 Dost thou well, Lord ? Thou canst not but prefer 
 
 That I should range myself upon his side 
 
 How could he stop at every step to set 
 
 Thy glory forth ? Hadst thou but granted him 
 
 Success, thy honor would have crowned success, 
 
 A halo round a star. Or, say he erred, 
 
 Save him, dear God ; it will be like thee : bathe him 
 
 In light and life ! Thou art not made like us ; 
 
 We should be wroth in such a case ; but thou 
 
 Forgivest so, forgive, these passionate thoughts 
 
 Which come unsought and will not pass away ! 
 
 I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made 
 
 Light for me- in the darkness, tempering sorrow 
 
 So that it reached me like a solemn joy ; 
 
 It were too strange that I should doubt thy love. 
 
 But what am I ? Thou madest him and knowest 
 
 How he was fashioned. I could never err 
 
 That way : the quiet place beside thy feet, 
 
 Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts : 
 
 But he thou shouldst have favored him as well ! 
 
 Ah ! he wakens ! Aureole, I am here I 't is Festus ! 
 
 I cast away all wishes save one wish 
 
 Let him but know me, only speak to me ! 
 
 He mutters ; louder and louder ; any other 
 
 Than I, with brain less laden, could collect 
 
 What he pours forth. Dear Aureole, do but look ! 
 
 Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast ? 
 
 Misery that he should fix me with his eye, 
 
 Quick talking to some other all the while ! 
 
 If he would husband this wild vehemence 
 
 Which frustrates its intent ! I heard, I know 
 
 I heard my name amid those rapid words. 
 
 Oh, he will know me yet ! Could I divert 
 
 This current, lead it somehow gently back 
 
 Into the channels of the past ! His eye 
 
 Brighter than ever ! It must recognize me !
 
 104 PARACELSUS 
 
 I am Erasmus : I am here to pray 
 That Paracelsus use his skill for me. 
 The schools of Paris and of Padua send 
 These questions for your learning to resolve. 
 We are your students, noble master : leave 
 This wretched cell, what business have you here ? 
 Our class awaits you ; come to us once more ! 
 (O agony ! the utmost I can do 
 Touches him not ; how else arrest his ear ?) 
 I am commissioned ... I shall craze like him. 
 Better be mute and see what God shall send. 
 
 Par. Stay, stay with me ! 
 
 Fest. I will ; I am come here 
 
 To stay with you Festus, you loved of old ; 
 Festus, you know, you must know ! 
 
 Par. Festus ! Where 's 
 
 Aprile, then ? Has he not chanted softly 
 The melodies I heard all night ? I could not 
 Get to him for a cold hand on my breast, 
 But I made out his music well enough, 
 
 well enough ! If they have filled him full 
 With magical music, as they freight a star 
 With light, and have remitted all his sin, 
 They will forgive me too, I too shall know ! 
 
 Fest. Festus, your Festus ! 
 Par. Ask him if Aprile 
 
 Knows as he Loves if I shall Love and Know ? 
 
 1 try ; but that cold hand, like lead so cold ! 
 
 Fest. My hand, see ! 
 
 Par. Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprile ! 
 
 We get so near so very, very near ! 
 'Tis an old tale : Jove strikes the Titans down, 
 Not when they set about their mountain-piling 
 But when another rock would crown the work. 
 And Phaeton doubtless his first radiant plunge 
 Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm, 
 And Jove prepared his thunder : all old tales ! 
 
 Fest. And what are these to you ? 
 
 Par. Ay, fiends must laugh 
 
 So cruelly, so well ! most like I never 
 Could tread a single pleasure underfoot, 
 But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling 
 To see me toil and drop away by flakes ! 
 Hell-spawn ! I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail ! 
 Your cunning has o'ershot its aim. One year, 
 One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn !
 
 PARACELSUS 105 
 
 You should have curbed your spite awhile. But now, 
 
 Who will believe 't was you that held me T j>ack ? 
 
 Listen : there 's shame and hissing and contempt, 
 
 And none but laughs who names me, none but spits 
 
 Measureless scorn upon me, me alone, 
 
 The quack, the cheat, the liar, all on me ! 
 
 And thus your famous plan to sink mankind 
 
 In silence and despair, by teaching them 
 
 One of their race had probed the inmost truth, 
 
 Had done all man could do, yet failed no less 
 
 Your wise plan proves abortive. Men despair ? 
 
 Ha, ha ! why, they are hooting the empiric, 
 
 The ignorant and incapable fool who rushed 
 
 Madly upon a work beyond his wits ; 
 
 Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves 
 
 Could bring the matter to triumphant issue. 
 
 So, pick and choose among them all, accursed ! 
 
 Try now, persuade some other to slave for you, 
 
 To ruin body and soul to work your ends ! 
 
 No, no ; I am the first and last, I think. 
 
 Fest. Dear friend, who are accursed ? who has done . . . 
 
 Par. What have I done ? Fiends dare ask that ? or you, 
 Brave men ? Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed 
 By the others ! What had you to do, sage peers ? 
 Here stand my rivals ; Latin, Arab, Jew, 
 Greek, join dead hands against me : all I ask 
 Is, that the world enroll my name with theirs, 
 And even this poor privilege, it seems, 
 They range themselves, prepared to disallow. 
 Only observe ! why, fiends may learn from them ! 
 How they talk calmly of my throes, my fierce 
 Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming 
 Its price of blood and brain ; how they dissect 
 And sneeringly disparage the few truths 
 Got at a life's cost ; they too hanging the while 
 About my neck, their lies misleading me 
 And their dead names browbeating me ! Gray crew, 
 Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell, 
 Is there a reason for your hate ? My truths 
 Have shaken a little the palm about each prince ? 
 Just think, Aprile, all these leering dotards 
 Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned 
 As we ! That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief 
 To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect, 
 Galen of Pergamos and hell nay speak 
 The tale, old man ! We met here face to face :
 
 106 PARACELSUS 
 
 I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more 
 
 We meet as in that ghastly vestibule : 
 
 Look to my brow ! Have I redeemed my pledge ? 
 
 Fest. Peace, peace ; ah, see ! 
 
 Par. Oh, emptiness of fame ! 
 
 Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars ! 
 
 Who said these old renowns, dead long ago, 
 
 Could make me overlook the living world 
 
 To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed, 
 
 But stand no longer ? What a warm light life 
 
 After the shade ! In truth, my delicate witch, 
 
 My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide 
 
 The juggles I had else detected. Fire 
 
 May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours ! 
 
 The cave was not so darkened by the smoke 
 
 But that your white limbs dazzled me : oh, white, 
 
 And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing ! 
 
 1 cajed not for your passionate gestures then, 
 But now I have forgotten the charm of charms, 
 The foolish knowledge which I came to seek, 
 While I remember that quaint dance ; and thus 
 I am come back, not for those mummeries, 
 But to love you, and to kiss your little feet 
 Soft as an ermine's winter coat ! 
 
 Fest. A light 
 
 Will struggle through these thronging words at last, 
 As in the angry and tumultuous West 
 A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds. 
 These are the strivings of a spirit which hates 
 So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up 
 The past to stand between it and its fate. 
 Were he at Einsiedeln or Michal here ! 
 
 Par. Cruel ! I seek her now I kneel I shriek 
 I clasp her vesture but she fades, still fades ; 
 And she is gone ; sweet human love is gone ! 
 'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels 
 Reveal themselves to yon ; they sit all day 
 Beside you, and lie down at night by you 
 Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
 And all at once they leave you, and you know them ! 
 We are so fooled, so cheated ! Why, even now 
 I am not too secure against foul play ; 
 The shadows deepen and the walls contract : 
 No doubt some treachery is going on. 
 'T is very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile ? 
 Have they left us in the lurch ? This murky loathsome
 
 PARACELSUS 107 
 
 Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the hall 
 In the golden city ! Keep by me, Aprile ! 
 There is a hand groping amid the blackness 
 To catch us. Have the spider-fingers got you, 
 Poet ? Hold on me for your life ! If once 
 They pull you ! Hold ! 
 
 'T is but a dream no more ! 
 I have you still ; the sun comes out again ; 
 Let us be happy : all will yet go well ! 
 Let us confer : is it not like, Aprile, 
 That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed, 
 The value of my labors ascertained, 
 Just as some stream foams long among the rocks 
 But after glideth glassy to the sea, 
 So, full content shall henceforth be my lot ? 
 What think you, poet ? Louder ! Your clear voice 
 Vibrates too like a harp-string. Do you ask 
 How could I still remain on earth, should God 
 Grant me the great approval which I seek ? 
 I, you, and God can comprehend each other, 
 But men would murmur, and with cause enough ; 
 For when they saw me, stainless of all sin, 
 Preserved and sanctified by inward light, 
 They would complain that comfort, shut from them, 
 1 drank thus unespied ; that they live on, 
 Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy, 
 For ache and care and doubt and weariness, 
 While I am calm ; help being vouchsafed to me, 
 And hid from them. 'T were best consider that ! 
 You reason well, Aprile ; but at least 
 Let me know this, and die ! Is this too much ? 
 I will learn this, if God so please, and die ! 
 
 If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please ! 
 
 We are so weak, we know our motives least 
 
 In their confused beginning. If at first 
 
 I sought . . . but wherefore bare my heart to thee ? 
 
 I know thy mercy ; and already thoughts 
 
 Flock fast about my soul to comfort it, 
 
 And intimate I cannot wholly fail, 
 
 For love and praise would clasp me willingly 
 
 Could I resolve to seek them. Thou art good, 
 
 And I should be content. Yet yet first show 
 
 I have done wrong in daring ! Rather give 
 
 The supernatural consciousness of strength 
 
 Which fed my youth ! Only one hour of that, 
 
 With thee to help O what should bar me then !
 
 108 PARACELSUS 
 
 Lost, lost ! Thus things are ordered here ! God's crea- 
 tures, 
 
 And yet he takes no pride in us ! none, none ! 
 Truly there needs another life to come ! 
 If this be all (I must tell Festus that) 
 And other life await us not for one, 
 I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, 
 A wretched failure. I, for one, protest 
 Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn. 
 
 Well, onward though alone ! Small time remains, 
 
 And much to do : I must have fruit, must reap 
 
 Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body 
 
 Will hardly serve me through ; while I have labored 
 
 It has decayed ; and now that I demand 
 
 Its best assistance, it will crumble fast : 
 
 A sad thought, a sad fate ! How very full 
 
 Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service, 
 
 The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke, 
 
 When glory dawns and all is at the best, 
 
 The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint 
 
 And die for want of a wood-piler's help ! 
 
 Thus fades the flagging body, and the soul 
 
 Is pulled down in the overthrow. Well, well 
 
 Let men catch every word, let them lose nought 
 
 Of what I say ; something may yet be done. 
 
 They are ruins ! Trust me who am one of you ! 
 All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now. 
 It makes my heart sick to behold you crouch 
 Beside your desolate fane : the arches dim, 
 The crumbling columns grand against the moon, 
 Could I but rear them up once more but that 
 May never be, so leave them ! Trust me, friends, 
 Why should you linger here when I have built 
 A far resplendent temple, all your own ? 
 Trust me, they are but ruins ! See, Aprile, 
 Men will not heed ! Yet were I not prepared 
 With better refuge for them, tongue of mine 
 Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is : 
 I would sit down in silence with the rest. 
 
 Ha, what ? you spit at me, you grin and shriek 
 Contempt into my ear my ear which drank 
 God's accents once ? you curse me ? Why men, men, 
 I am not formed for it ! Those hideous eyes
 
 PARACELSUS 109 
 
 Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying, 
 They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me, 
 Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me 
 The horrible scorn ! You thought I could support it. 
 But now you see what silly fragile creature 
 Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough, 
 Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved 
 From Hate like this. Let me but totter back ! 
 Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep 
 Into my very brain, and shut these scorched 
 Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out. 
 
 Listen, Aprile ! I am very calm : 
 
 Be not deceived, there is no passion here 
 
 "Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing: 
 
 I am calm : I will exterminate the race ! 
 
 Enough of that : 't is said and it shall be. 
 
 And now be merry : safe and sound am I 
 
 Who broke through their best ranks to get at you. 
 
 And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile ! 
 
 Fest. Have you no thought, no memory for me, 
 Aureole ? I am so wretched my pure Miclial 
 Is gone, and you alone are left me now, 
 And even you forget me. Take my hand 
 Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole ? 
 
 Par. Festus, my own friend, you are come at last ? 
 As you say, 't is an awful enterprise ; 
 But you believe I shall go through with it : 
 'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me, 
 Dear Michal ! See how bright St. Saviour's spire 
 Flames in the sunset ; all its figures quaint 
 Gay in the glancing light : you might conceive them 
 A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews 
 Bound for their own land where redemption dawns. 
 
 Fest. Not that blest time not our youth's time, dear 
 God! 
 
 Par. Ha stay ! true, I forget all is done since, 
 And he is come to judge me. How he speaks, 
 How calm, how well ! yes, it is true, all true ; 
 All quackery ; all deceit ; myself can laugh 
 The first at it, if you desire : but still 
 You know the obstacles which taught me tricks 
 So foreign to my nature envy and hate, 
 Blind opposition, brutal prejudice, 
 Bald ignorance what wonder if I sunk 
 To humor men the way they most approved ? 
 My cheats were never palmed on such as you,
 
 110 PARACELSUS 
 
 Dear Festus ! I will kneel if you require me, 
 
 Impart the meagre knowledge I possess, 
 
 Explain its bounded nature, and avow 
 
 My insufficiency whate'er you will : 
 
 I give the fight up : let there be an end, 
 
 A privacy, an obscure nook for me. 
 
 I want to be forgotten even by God. 
 
 But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me, 
 
 When I shall die, witliin some narrow grave, 
 
 Not by itself for that would be too proud 
 
 But where such graves are thickest ; let it look 
 
 Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round, 
 
 So that the peasant at his brother's bed 
 
 May tread upon my own and know it not ; 
 
 And we shall all be equal at the last, 
 
 Or classed according to life's natural ranks, 
 
 Fathers, sons, brothers, friends not rich, nor wise, 
 
 Nor gifted : lay me thus, then say, " He lived 
 
 Too much advanced before his brother men ; 
 
 They kept him still in front : 't was for their good 
 
 But yet a dangerous station. It were strange 
 
 That he should tell God he had never ranked 
 
 With men : so, here at least he is a man." 
 
 Fest. That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit, 
 Unto his breast, be sure ! and here on earth 
 Shall splendor sit upon thy name forever. 
 Sun ! all the heaven is glad for thee : what care 
 If lower mountains light their snowy phares' 
 At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not 
 The source of day ? Their theft shall be their bale : 
 For after-ages shall retrack thy beams, 
 And put aside the crowd of busy ones 
 And worship thee alone the master-mind, 
 The thinker, the explorer, the creator ! 
 Then, who should sneer at the convulsive throes 
 With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well 
 The sheet of winding subtorraneous fire 
 Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last 
 Huge islands up amid the simmering sea. 
 Behold thy might in me ! thou hast infused 
 Thy soul in mine ; and I am grand as thou, 
 Seeing I comprehend thee I so simple, 
 Thou so august. I recognize thee first ; 
 I saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late, 
 And though no glance reveal thou dost accept 
 My homage thus no less I proffer it, 
 And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
 
 PARACELSUS 111 
 
 Par. Festus! 
 
 Fest. I am for noble Aureole, God ! 
 
 I am upon his side, come weal or woe. 
 His portion shall be mine. He has done well. 
 I would have sinned, had I been strong enough, 
 As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive 
 Reward ! If thou canst find no place for him, 
 He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be 
 His slave forever. There are two of us. 
 Par. Dear Festus ! 
 
 Fest. Here, dear Aureole ! ever by you ! 
 
 Par. Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on ! 
 Some story, anything only your voice. 
 I shall dream else. Speak on ! ay, leaning so ! 
 Fest. Thus the Mayne glideth 
 
 Where my Love abideth. 
 
 Sleep 's no softer : it proceeds 
 
 On through lawns, on through meads, 
 
 On and on, what-e'er befall, 
 
 Meandering and musical, 
 
 Though the niggard pasturage 
 
 Bears not on its shaven ledge 
 
 Aught but weeds and waving grasses 
 
 To view the river as it passes, 
 
 Save here and there a scanty patch 
 
 Of primroses too faint to catch 
 
 A weary bee. 
 
 Par. More, more ; say on ! 
 Fest. And scarce it pushes 
 
 Its gentle way through strangling rushes 
 
 Where the glossy kingfisher 
 
 Flutters when noon-heats are near, 
 
 Glad the shelving banks to shun, 
 
 Red and steaming in the sun, 
 
 Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat 
 
 Burrows, and the speckled stoat ; 
 
 Where the quick sandpipers flit 
 
 In and out the marl and grit 
 
 That seems to breed them, brown as they : 
 
 Nought disturbs its quiet way, 
 
 Save some lazy stork that springs, 
 
 Trailing it with legs and wings, 
 
 Whom the shy fox from the hill 
 
 Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. 
 
 Par. My heart ! they loose my heart, those simple words ; 
 Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch :
 
 112 PARACELSUS 
 
 Like some dark snake that force may not expel, 
 
 Which glideth out to music sweet and low. 
 
 What were you doing when your voice broke through 
 
 A chaos of ugly images ? You, indeed ! 
 
 Are you alone here ? 
 
 Fest. All alone : you know me ? 
 
 This cell ? 
 
 Par. An unexceptionable vault : 
 Good brick and stone : the bats kept out, the rats 
 Kept in : a snug nook : how should I mistake it ? 
 
 Fest. But wherefore am I here ? 
 
 Par. Ah, well remembered ! 
 
 Why, for a purpose for a purpose, Fest us ! 
 'T is like me : here I trifle while time fleets, 
 And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return. 
 You are here to be instructed. I will tell 
 God's message ; but I have so much to say, 
 I fear to leave half out. All is confused 
 No doubt ; but doubtless you will learn in time. 
 He would not else have brought you here : no doubt 
 I shall see clearer soon. 
 
 Fest. Tell me but this 
 
 You are not in despair ? 
 
 Par. I ? and for what ? 
 
 Fest. Alas, alas ! he knows not, as I feared ! 
 
 Par. What is it you would ask me with that earnest 
 Dear searching face ? 
 
 Fest. How feel you, Aureole ? 
 
 Par. Well : 
 
 Well. 'T is a strange thing : I am dying, Festus, 
 And now that fast the storm of life subsides, 
 I first perceive how great the whirl has been. 
 I was calm then, who am so dizzy now 
 Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less 
 A partner of its motion and mixed up 
 With its career. The hurricane is spent, 
 And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather 
 But is it earth or sea that heaves below ? 
 The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn 
 With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore ; 
 And now some islet, loosened from the land, 
 Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean ; 
 And now the air is full of uptorn canes, 
 Light strappings from the fan-trees, tamarisks 
 Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them, 
 All high in the wind. Even so my varied life
 
 PARACELSUS 113 
 
 Drifts by me ; I am young, old, happy, sad, 
 
 Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest, 
 
 And all at once : that is, those past conditions 
 
 Float back at once on me. If I select 
 
 Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but 
 
 To will, and straight the rest dissolve away, 
 
 And only that particular state is present 
 
 With all its long-forgotten circumstance 
 
 Distinct and vivid as at first myself 
 
 A careless looker-on and nothing more, 
 
 Indifferent and amused, but nothing more. 
 
 And this is death : I understand it all. 
 
 New being waits me ; new perceptions must 
 
 Be born in me before I plunge therein ; 
 
 Which last is Death's affair ; and while I speak, 
 
 Minute by minute he is filling me 
 
 With power ; and while my foot is on the threshold 
 
 Of boundless life the doors unopened yet, 
 
 All preparations not complete within 
 
 I turn new knowledge upon old events, 
 
 And the effect is ... but I must not tell ; 
 
 It is not lawful. Your own turn will come 
 
 One day. Wait, Festus ! You will die like me. 
 
 Fest. 'T is of that past life that I burn to hear. 
 
 Pan. You wonder it engages me just now ? 
 In truth, I wonder too. What 's life to me ? 
 Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen 
 Music, and where I tend bliss evermore. 
 Yet how can I refrain ? 'T is a refined 
 Delight to view those chances, one last view. 
 I am so near the perils I escape, 
 That I must play with them and turn them over, 
 To feel how fully they are past and gone. 
 Still, it is like, some further cause exists 
 For this peculiar mood some hidden purpose ; 
 Did I not tell you something of it, Festus ? 
 I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt 
 Away from me ; it will return anon. 
 
 Fest. (Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice 
 Complete with its old tones : that little laugh 
 Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye, 
 As though one stooped above his head to whom 
 He looked for confirmation and approval, 
 Where was it gone so long, so well preserved ? 
 Then, the forefinger pointing as he speaks, 
 Like one who traces in an open book
 
 114 PARACELSUS 
 
 The matter he declares ; 't is many a year 
 Since I remarked it last : and this in him, 
 But now a ghastly wreck 1) 
 
 And can it be, 
 
 Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last 
 That worldly things are utter vanity ? 
 That man is made for weakness, and should wait 
 In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . . 
 
 Par. Ha, the purpose : the true purpose : that is it ! 
 How could I fail to apprehend ! You here, 
 I thus ! But no more trifling : I see all, 
 I know all : my last mission shall be done 
 If strength suffice. No trifling ! Stay ; this posture 
 Hardly befits one thus about to speak : 
 I will arise. 
 
 Fest. Nay, Aureole, are you wild ? 
 
 You cannot leave your couch. 
 
 Par. No help ; no help ; 
 
 Not even your hand. So ! there, I stand once more ! 
 Speak from a couch ? I never lectured thus. 
 My gown the scarlet lined with fur ; now put 
 The chain about my neck ; my signet-ring 
 Is still upon my hand, I think even so ; 
 Last, my good sword ; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest 
 Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time ? 
 This couch shall be my throne : I bid these walls 
 Be consecrate, this wretched cell become 
 A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me. 
 Now, Festus, I am ready to begin. 
 
 Fest. I am dumb with wonder. 
 
 Par. Listen, therefore, Festus ! 
 
 There will be time enough, but none to spare. 
 I must content myself with telling only 
 The most important points. You doubtless feel 
 That I am happy, Festus ; very happy. 
 
 Fest. 'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus ! 
 Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin ? 
 
 Par. Ay, pardoned : yet why pardoned ? 
 
 Fest. 'T is God's praise 
 
 That man is bound to seek, and you . . . 
 
 Par. Have lived ! 
 
 We have to live alone to set forth well 
 God's praise. 'Tis true, I sinned much, as I thought, 
 And in effect need mercy, for I strove 
 To do that very thing ; but, do your best 
 Or worst, praise rises, and will rise forever.
 
 PARACELSUS 115 
 
 Pardon from him, because of praise denied 
 Who calls me to himself to exalt himself ? 
 He might laugh as I laugh ! 
 
 Fest. But all comes 
 
 To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for mankind 
 To fret themselves with what concerns them not ; 
 They are no use that way : they should lie down 
 Content as God has made them, nor go mad 
 In thriveless cares to better what is ill. 
 
 Par. No, no ; mistake me not ; let me not work 
 More harm than I have worked ! This is my case : 
 If I go joyous back to God, yet bring 
 No offering, if I render up my soul 
 Without the fruits it was ordained to bear, 
 If I appear the better to love God 
 For sin, as one who has no claim on him, 
 Be not deceived ! It may be surely thus 
 With me, while higher prizes still await 
 The mortal persevering to the end. 
 Beside I am not all so valueless : 
 I have been something, though too soon I left 
 Following the instincts of that happy time. 
 
 Fest. What happy time ? For God's sake, for man's 
 
 sake, 
 
 What time was happy ? All I hope to know 
 That answer will decide. What happy time ? 
 
 Par. When but the time I vowed myself to man ? 
 
 Fest. Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable ! 
 
 Par. Yes, it was in me ; I was born for it 
 I, Paracelsus : it was mine by right. 
 Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul 
 Might learn from its own motions that some task 
 Like this awaited it about the world ; 
 Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours 
 For fit delights to stay its longings vast ; 
 And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her 
 To fill the creature full she dared thus frame 
 Hungry for joy ; and, bravely tyrannous, 
 Grow in demand, still craving more and more, 
 And make each joy conceded prove a pledge 
 Of other joy to follow bating nought 
 Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence 
 To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung 
 As an extreme, last boon, from destiny, 
 Into occasion for new covetings, 
 New strifes, new triumphs : doubtless a strong soul,
 
 116 PARACELSUS 
 
 Alone, unaided might attain to this, 
 
 So glorious is our nature, so august 
 
 Man's inborn uninstructed impulses, 
 
 His naked spirit so majestical ! 
 
 But this was born in me ; I was made so ; 
 
 Thus much time saved : the feverish appetites, 
 
 The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed 
 
 Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind, 
 
 Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears 
 
 Were saved me ; thus I entered on my course. 
 
 You may be sure I was not all exempt 
 
 From human trouble ; just so much of doubt 
 
 As bade me plant a surer foot upon 
 
 The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid 
 
 The fierce and flashing splendor, set my heart 
 
 Trembling so much as warned me I stood there 
 
 On sufferance not to idly gaze, but cast 
 
 Light on a darkling race ; save for that doubt, 
 
 I stood at first where all aspire at last 
 
 To stand : the secret of the world was mine. 
 
 I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, 
 
 Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, 
 
 But somehow felt and known in every shift 
 
 And change in the spirit, nay, in every pore 
 
 Of the body, even,) what God is, what we are, 
 
 What life is how God tastes an infinite joy 
 
 In infinite ways one everlasting bliss, 
 
 From whom all being emanates, all power 
 
 Proceeds ; in whom is life forevermore, 
 
 Yet whom existence in its lowest form 
 
 Includes ; where dwells enjoyment there is he : 
 
 With still a flying point of bliss remote, 
 
 A happiness in store afar, a sphere 
 
 Of distant glory in full view ; thus climbs 
 
 Pleasure its heights forever and forever. 
 
 The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, 
 
 And the earth changes like a human face ; 
 
 The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, 
 
 Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright 
 
 In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, 
 
 Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask 
 
 God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged 
 
 With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, 
 
 When, in the solitary waste, strange groups 
 
 Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, 
 
 Staring together with their eyes on flame
 
 PARACELSUS 117 
 
 God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. 
 
 Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod : 
 
 But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 
 
 Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure 
 
 Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
 
 The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, 
 
 Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 
 
 The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms 
 
 Like chrysalids impatient for the air, 
 
 The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run 
 
 Along the furrows, ants make their ado ; 
 
 Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 
 
 Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ; 
 
 Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls 
 
 Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
 
 Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 
 
 Their loves in wood and plain and God renews 
 
 His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, 
 
 From life's minute beginnings, up at last 
 
 To man the consummation of this scheme 
 
 Of being, the completion of this sphere 
 
 Of life : whose attributes had here and there 
 
 Been scattered o'er the visible world before, 
 
 Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant 
 
 To be united in some wondrous whole, 
 
 Imperfect qualities throughout creation, 
 
 Suggesting some one creature yet to make, 
 
 Some point where all those scattered rays should meet 
 
 Convergent in the faculties of man. 
 
 Power neither put forth blindly, nor controlled 
 
 Calmly by perfect knowledge ; to be used 
 
 At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear : 
 
 Knowledge not intuition, but the slow 
 
 Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, 
 
 Strengthened by love : love not serenely pure, 
 
 But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant 
 
 Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds 
 
 And softer stains, unknown in happier climes ; 
 
 Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed 
 
 And cherished, suffering much and much sustained, 
 
 And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love, 
 
 A half-enlightened, often-checkered trust : 
 
 Hints and previsions of which faculties, 
 
 Are strewn confusedly everywhere about 
 
 The inferior natures, and all lead up higher. 
 
 All shape out dimly the superior race,
 
 118 PARACELSUS 
 
 The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, 
 
 And man appears at last. So far the seal 
 
 Is put on life ; one stage of being complete, 
 
 One scheme wound up : and from the grand result 
 
 A supplementary reflux of light, 
 
 Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains 
 
 Each back step in the circle. Not alone 
 
 For their possessor dawn those qualities. 
 
 But the new glory mixes with the heaven 
 
 And earth ; man, once descried, imprints forever 
 
 His presence on all lifeless things : the winds 
 
 Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, 
 
 A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, 
 
 Never a senseless gust now man is born. 
 
 The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts, 
 
 A secret they assemble to discuss 
 
 When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare 
 
 Like grates of hell : the peerless cup afloat 
 
 Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph 
 
 Swims bearing high above her head : no bird 
 
 Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above 
 
 That let light in upon the gloomy woods, 
 
 A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top, 
 
 Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye. 
 
 The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops 
 
 With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour, 
 
 Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn 
 
 Beneath a warm moon like a happy face : 
 
 And this to fill us with regard for man, 
 
 With apprehension of his passing worth, 
 
 Desire to work his proper nature out, 
 
 And ascertain his rank and final place, 
 
 For these things tend still upward, progress is 
 
 The law of life, man is not Man as yet. 
 
 Nor shall I deem his object served, his end 
 
 Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, 
 
 While only here and there a star dispels 
 
 The darkness, here and there a towering mind 
 
 O'erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host 
 
 Is out at once to the despair of night, 
 
 When all mankind alike is perfected, 
 
 Equal in full-blown powers then, not till then, 
 
 I say, begins man's general infancy. 
 
 For wherefore make account of feverish starts 
 
 Of restless members of a dormant whole, 
 
 Impatient nerves which quiver while the body
 
 PARACELSUS 119 
 
 Slumbers as in a grave ? Oh, long ago 
 
 The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, 
 
 The peaceful mouth disturbed ; half-uttered speech 
 
 Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set, 
 
 The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched 
 
 stronger, 
 
 As it would pluck a lion by the jaw ; 
 The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep ! 
 But when full roused, each giant-limb awake, 
 Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, 
 He shall start up and stand on his own earth, 
 Then shall his long triumphant march begin, 
 Thence shall his being date, thus wholly roused, 
 What he achieves shall be set down to him. 
 When all the race is perfected alike 
 As man, that is ; all tended to mankind, 
 And, man produced, all has its end thus far : 
 But in completed man begins anew 
 A tendency to God. Prognostics told 
 Man's near approach ; so in man's self arise 
 August anticipations, symbols, types 
 Of a dim splendor ever on before 
 In that eternal circle life pursues. 
 For men begin to pass their nature's bound, 
 And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
 Their proper joys and griefs ; they grow too great 
 For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
 Before the unmeasured thirst for good : while peace 
 Rises within them ever more and more. 
 Such men are even now upon the earth, 
 Serene amid the half-formed creatures round 
 Who should be saved by them and joined with them. 
 Such was my task, and I was born to it 
 Free, as I said but now, from much that chains 
 Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed 
 By a divided and delusive aim, 
 A shadow mocking a reality 
 Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse 
 The flitting mimic called up by itself, 
 And so remains perplexed and nigh put out 
 By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam. 
 I, from the first, was never cheated thus ; 
 I never fashioned out a fancied good 
 Distinct from man's ; a service to be done, 
 A glory to be ministered unto 
 With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn
 
 120 . PARACELSUS 
 
 From laboring in his behalf ; a strength 
 
 Denied that might avail him. I cared not 
 
 Lest his success ran counter to success 
 
 Elsewhere : for God is glorified in man, 
 
 And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb. 
 
 Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed, 
 
 I failed : I gazed on power till I grew blind. 
 
 Power ; I could not take my eyes from that : 
 
 That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased 
 
 At any risk, displayed, struck out at once 
 
 The sign and note and character of man. 
 
 I saw nd use in the past : only a scene 
 
 Of degradation, ugliness and tears, 
 
 The record of disgraces best forgotten, 
 
 A sullen page in human chronicles 
 
 Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man 
 
 Should not stand all-sufficient even now, 
 
 Or why his annals should be forced to tell 
 
 That once the tide of light, about to break 
 
 Upon the world, was sealed within its spring : 
 
 I would have had one day, one moment's space, 
 
 Change man's condition, push each slumbering claim 
 
 Of mastery o'er the elemental world 
 
 At once to full maturity, then roll 
 
 Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man 
 
 What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear child 
 
 Of after-days, wilt thou reject the past 
 
 Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure 
 
 By which thou hast the earth : for thee the present 
 
 Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen 
 
 Beside that past's own shade when, in relief, 
 
 Its brightness shall stand out : nor yet on thee 
 
 Shall burst the future, as successive zones 
 
 Of several wonder open on some spirit 
 
 Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven : 
 
 But thou shalt painfully attain to joy, 
 
 While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man ! 
 
 All this was hid from me : as one by one 
 
 My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed, 
 
 As actual good within my reach decreased, 
 
 While obstacles sprung up this way and that 
 
 To keep me from effecting half the sum, 
 
 Small as it proved ; as objects, mean within 
 
 The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least, 
 
 Itself a match for my concentred strength 
 
 What wonder if I saw no way to shun
 
 PARACELSUS 121 
 
 Despair ? The power I sought for man, seemed God's. 
 
 In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die, 
 
 A strange adventure made me know, one sin 
 
 Had spotted my career from its uprise ; 
 
 I saw Aprile my Aprile there ! 
 
 And as the poor melodious wretch disburdened 
 
 His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear, 
 
 I learned my own deep error ; love's undoing 
 
 Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, 
 
 And what proportion love should hold with power 
 
 In his right constitution ; love preceding 
 
 Power, and with much power, always much more love ; 
 
 Love still too straitened in his present means, 
 
 And earnest for new power to set love free. 
 
 I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned : 
 
 And thus, when men received with stupid wonder 
 
 My first revealings, would have worshipped me, 
 
 And I despised and loathed their proffered praise 
 
 When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge 
 
 For past credulity in casting shame 
 
 On my real knowledge, and I hated them 
 
 It was not strange I saw no good in man, 
 
 To overbalance all the wear and waste 
 
 Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born 
 
 To prosper in some better sphere : and why ? 
 
 In my own heart love had not been made wise 
 
 To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
 
 To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
 
 To see a good in evil, and a hope 
 
 In ill-success ; to sympathize, be proud 
 
 Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
 
 Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, 
 
 Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts ; 
 
 All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
 
 Their error, upward tending all though weak, 
 
 Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
 
 But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
 
 And do their best to climb and get to him. 
 
 All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men 
 
 Kegard me, and the poet dead long ago 
 
 Who loved too rashly ; and shape forth a third 
 
 And better-tempered spirit, warned by both : 
 
 As from the over-radiant star too mad 
 
 To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself 
 
 And the dark orb which borders the abyss, 
 
 Ingulfed in icy night, might have its course,
 
 122 PARACELSUS 
 
 A temperate and equidistant world. 
 Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well. 
 As yet men cannot do without contempt ; 
 'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile 
 That they reject the weak, and scorn the false, 
 Rather than praise the strong and true, in me : 
 But after, they will know me. If I stoop 
 Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, 
 It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 
 Close to my breast ; its splendor, soon or late, 
 Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day. 
 You understand me ? I have said enough ! 
 
 Fest. Now die, dear Aureole ! 
 
 Par. Festus, let my hand 
 
 This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend ! 
 Aprile ! Hand in hand with you, Aprile ! 
 
 Fest. And this was Paracelsus !
 
 NOTE 
 
 THE liberties I have taken with my subject are very trifling ; and the 
 reader may slip the foregoing 1 scenes between the leaves of any memoir of 
 Paracelsus he pleases, by way of commentary. To prove this, I subjoin a 
 popular account, translated from the Biographic Universelle, Paris, 1822, 
 which I select, not as the best, certainly, but as being at hand, and suffi- 
 ciently concise for my purpose. I also append a few notes, in order to 
 correct those parts which do not bear out my own view of the character of 
 Paracelsus ; and have incorporated with them a notice or two, illustrative 
 of the poem itself. 
 
 " PARACELSUS (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hohen- 
 heim) was born in 1493 at Einsiedeln, 1 a little town in the canton of 
 Schwyz, some leagues distant from Zurich. His father, who exercised the 
 profession of medicine at Villach in Carinthia, was nearly related to George 
 Bombast de Hohenheim, who became afterward Grand Prior of the Order 
 of Malta : consequently Paracelsus could not spring from the dregs of the 
 people, as Thomas Erastus, his sworn enemy, pretends.* It appears that 
 his elementary education was much neglected, and that he spent part of 
 his youth in pursuing the life common to the travelling literati of the 
 age ; that is to say, in wandering from country to country, predicting the 
 future by astrology and cheiromancy, evoking apparitions, and practising 
 the different operations of magic and alchemy, in which he had been ini- 
 tiated whether by his father or by various ecclesiastics, among the num- 
 ber of whom he particularizes the Abbot Tritheim, 2 and many German 
 bishops. 
 
 ' ' As Paracelsus displays everywhere an ignorance of the rudiments of 
 the most ordinary knowledge, it is not probable that he ever studied seri- 
 ously in the schools : he contented himself with visiting the universities of 
 Germany, France, and Italy ; and in spite of his boasting himself to have 
 been the ornament of those institutions, there is no proof of his having 
 legally acquired the title of Doctor, which he assumes. It is only known 
 that he applied himself long, under the direction of the wealthy Sigismond 
 Fugger of Schwatz, to the discovery of the Magnum Opus. 
 
 " Paracelsus travelled among the mountains of Bohemia, in the East, and 
 in Sweden, in order to inspect the labors of the miners, to be initiated in 
 the mysteries of the oriental adepts, and to observe the secrets of nature 
 and the famous mountain of loadstone. 3 He professes also to have 
 visited Spain, Portugal, Prussia, Poland, and Transylvania; everywhere 
 communicating freely, not merely with the physicians, but the old women, 
 charlatans, and conjurers of these several lands. It is even believed that 
 he extended his journeyings as far as Egypt and Tartary, and that he 
 accompanied the son of the Khan of the Tartars to Constantinople, for the 
 
 * I shall disguise M. Renauldin's next sentence a little. " Hie (Erastus sc.) Para- 
 celsum trinmm a milite quodam, alii a sue exectum ferunt : constat imberbem ilium, 
 mulierumque osorem fuisse." A standing High-Dutch joke in those days at the expense 
 of a number of learned men, as may be seen by referring to such rubbish as Melander's 
 Jocoxeria, etc. In the prints from his portrait by Tintoretto, painted a year before 
 his death, Paracelsus is ba-rbntitliix, at all events. But Erastus was never without a good 
 reason for his faith e. g., " Helvetium fuisse (Paracelsum) vix credo, vix eniui ea regio 
 tale monstrum ediderit." (De Medicina Nova.)
 
 124 NOTE 
 
 purpose of obtaining the secret of the tincture of Trismegistus from a Greek 
 who inhabited that capital. 
 
 " The period of his return to Germany is unknown : it is only certain 
 that, at about the age of thirty-three, many astonishing cures which he 
 wroug-ht on eminent personages procured him such a celebrity, that he was 
 called in 1526, on the recommendation of CEcolampadius. 4 to fill a chair 
 of physic and surgery at the University of Basil. There Paracelsus began 
 by burning publicly in the amphitheatre the works of Avicenna and Galen, 
 assuring his auditors that the latchets of his shoes were more instructed 
 than those two physicians ; that all universities, all writers put together, 
 were less gifted thaii the hairs of his beard and of the crown of his head ; 
 and that, in a word, he was to be regarded as the legitimate monarch of 
 medicine. ' You shall follow me, ' cried he, ' yon, Avicenna, Galen, Rhasis, 
 Montagnana, Mesues, you, gentlemen of Paris, Montpellier, Germany, 
 Cologne, Vienna,* and whomsoever the Rhine and Danube nourish ; you who 
 inhabit the isles of the sea ; you, likewise, Dalmatians, Athenians ; thou, 
 Arab ; thou, Greek ; thou, Jew : all shall follow me, and the monarchy 
 shall be mine.' t 
 
 ' ' But at Basil it was speedily perceived that the new Professor was no 
 better than an egregious quack. Scarcely a year elapsed before his lec- 
 tures had fairly driven away an audience incapable of comprehending their 
 emphatic jargon. That which above all contributed to sully his reputation 
 was the debauched life he led. According to the testimony of Oporinus, 
 who lived two years in his intimacy, Paracelsus scarcely ever ascended the 
 lecture-desk unless half drunk, and only dictated to his secretaries when in 
 a state of intoxication : if summoned to attend the sick, he rarely proceeded 
 thither without previously drenching himself with wine. He was accustomed 
 to retire to bed without changing bis clothes ; sometimes he spent the night 
 in pot-houses with peasants, and in the morning knew no longer what he 
 was about ; and, nevertheless, up to the age of twenty-five his only drink 
 had been water. 5 
 
 ' ' At length, fearful of being punished for a serious outrage on a mag- 
 istrate, 6 he fled from Basil towards the end of the year 1527, and took 
 refuge in Alsatia, whither he caused Oporinus to follow with his chemical 
 apparatus. 
 
 ' ' He then entered once more upon the career of ambulatory theosophist. \ 
 Accordingly we find him at Colmar in 1528 ; at Nuremberg in 1529 ; at St. 
 Gall in 1531 ; at Pfeffers in 1535 ; and at Augsburg in 153(5 : he next made 
 some stay in Moravia, where he still further compromised his reputation 
 by the loss of many distinguished patients, which compelled him to betake 
 himself to Vienna ; from thence he passed into Hungary ; and in 15:ls was 
 at Villach, where he dedicated his Chronicle to the States of Carinthia, 
 in gratitude for the many kindnesses with which they had honored his 
 
 * Erastus, who relates this, here oddly remarks, " mirum quod non et Garamantos, 
 Indos et Anglos adjuuxit." Not so wonderful neither, if we believe what another ad- 
 versary " had heard somewhere," that all Paracelsus' system came of his pillaging 
 "Anglum quendam, Rogerium Bacchonem." 
 
 t See his works, passim. I must give one specimen : Somebody had been styling 
 him "Luther alter." "And why not?" (he asks, as he well might.) "Luther is 
 abundantly learned, therefore you hate him and me ; but we are at least a match for 
 you. Namet contra vos et vestros universes principes Avicennara, Galenmn, Ari-tutc- 
 lem, etc. me satis superque munituin esse novi. Et vertex iste meus calms ac depilis 
 multo plura et sublimiora novit quam vester vel Avicenna vel universe academic. 
 Prodite, et signum date, qui viri sitis, quid roboris habeatis ? quid autem sitis ? Doctores 
 et magistri, pediculos pectcntes et fricantes podicem." (Frag. Med.) 
 
 t "So migratory a life could afford Paracelsus but little leisure for application to 
 books, and accordingly he informs us that for the space of ten years he never opened > 
 single volume, and that his whole medical library was not composed of six sheets: in 
 effect, the inventory drawn up after his death states that the only books which he left 
 were the Bible, the New Testament, the Commentaries of St. Jerome on the Gospels, 
 printed volume on Medicine, and seven manuscripts."
 
 NOTE 125 
 
 father. Finally, from Mindelheim, which he visited in 1540, Paracelsus 
 proceeded to Salzburg, where he died in the Hospital of St. Stephen (Sebas- 
 tian is meant), Sept. 24, 1541." (Here follows a criticism on his writ- 
 ings, which I omit. ) 
 
 1 Paracelsus would seem to be a fantastic version of Von Hohenheim; 
 Einsiedeln is the Latinized Eremus, whence Paracelsus is sometimes called, 
 as in the correspondence of Erasmus, Eremita. Bombast, his proper name, 
 probably acquired, from the characteristic phraseology of his lectures, that 
 unlucky signification which it has ever since retained. 
 
 2 Then Bishop of Spanheim, and residing at Wurzburg in Franconia ; 
 a town situated in a grassy fertile country, whence its name, Herbipolis. 
 He was much visited there by learned men, as may be seen by his Epis- 
 tolte Familiares, Hag. 1536: among others, by his stanch friend Corne- 
 lius Agrippa, to whom he dates thence, in lolO, a letter in answer to the 
 dedicatory epistle prefixed to the treatise De Occult. Philosophy which 
 last contains the following ominous allusion to Agrippa's sojourn : " Quum 
 nuper tecum, R. P. in coanobio tuo apud Herbipolim aliquamdiu conver- 
 satus, multa de chymicis, multa de magicis, multa de cabalisticis, caeteris- 
 qne quaa a dime in occulto delitescunt, arcanis scientiis atque artibus ana 
 contulissemus," etc. 
 
 3 " Inexplebilis ilia aviditas naturae perscmtandi secreta et recondita- 
 rum supellectile scientiarum animnm locupletandi, uno eodemque loco diu 
 persistere non patiebatur, sed Mereurii instar, omnes terras, nationes et 
 urbes perlustrandi igniculos supponebat, ut cum. viris naturae scrutatoribus, 
 chymicis prsesertim, ore tenus conferret, et quas diurturnis laboribus noc- 
 turnisque vigiliis invenerant una vel altera communicatione obtineret." 
 .(Bitiskius in Prcefat. ) ' ' Patris auxilio primum. deinde propria industria 
 doctissimos viros in Germania, Italia, Gallia, Hispania, aliisque Europaa 
 regionibus, nactus est praeceptores ; quorum liberal! doctrina, et potissi- 
 mum propria inquisitione ut qui esset ingenio acutissimo ac fere divino, 
 tantum profecit, ut multi testati sint, in universa philosophia, tarn ardua, 
 tarn arcana et abdita eruisse mortalium neminem." (Melch. Adam, in 
 Vit. Germ. Medic.) "Paracelsus qui in intima naturaj viscera sic penitus 
 introierit, metallorum stirpiumque vires et facultates tarn incredibili in- 
 genii acumine exploraverit ac perviderit, ad morbos omnes vel desperates 
 et opinione hominum insanabiles percurandum ; ut cum Theophrasto nata 
 primum medicina perfectaque videtur." (Petri Kami Orat. de Basilea. ) 
 His passion for wandering is best described in his own words : " Ecce ama- 
 torem adolescentem difficillimi itineris baud piget, ut venustam saltern 
 puellam vel foeminam aspiciat: quanto minus nobilissimarum artium 
 amore laboris ac cujuslibet taadii pigebit ? " etc. (Defensiones Septem 
 adversus cemulos suos. 1573. Def . 4ta. "De peregrinationibusetexilio.") 
 
 4 The reader may remember that it was in conjunction with CEcolam- 
 padius, then Divinity Professor at Basil, that Zuinglius published in 1528 
 an answer to Luther's Confession of Faith ; and that both proceeded in 
 company to the subsequent conference with Luther and Melancthon at 
 Marburg. Their letters fill a large volume. " D. D. Johannis (Ecolam- 
 padii et Huldrichi Zuinglii Epistolarum lib. quotum." Bas. 1536. It must 
 be also observed that Zuinglius began to preach in 1516, and at Zurich 
 in 1519, and that in 1525 the Mass was abolished in the cantons. The 
 tenets of CEcolampadius were supposed to be more evangelical than those 
 up to that period maintained by the glorious German, and our brave 
 Bishop Fisher attacked them as the fouler heresy : "About this time 
 arose out of Luther's school one (Ecolampadius, like a mighty and fierce
 
 126 NOTE 
 
 giant ; who, as his master had gone beyond the Church, went beyond his 
 master (or else it had been impossible he could have been reputed the 
 better scholar), who denied the real presence ; him, this worthy champion 
 (the Bishop) sets upon, and with five books \like so many smooth stones 
 taken out of the river that doth always run with living water) slays the 
 Philistine; which five books were written in the year of our Lord l-'d-Ti, at 
 which time he had governed the See of Rochester twenty years. ' ' ( Life 
 of Bishop Fisher, 1655. ) Now, there is no doubt of the Protestantism of 
 Paracelsus, Erasmus, Agrippa, etc., but the nonconformity of Paracelsus 
 was always scandalous. L. Crasso (Elogj d'Huomini Letterati. Ven. 
 1006) informs us that his books were excommunicated by the Church. 
 Quenstedt (de Patr. Doct. ) affirms ' ' nee tantum novae medicinae, verum 
 etiam nova? theologiae autor est" Delrio, in his Disquisit. Magicar., 
 classes him among those "partim atheos, partim hsereticos " (lib. I. cap. 
 3). " Omnino tamen multa theologica in ejusdem script is plane atheismnm 
 olent, ac duriuscule sonant in auribus vere Christiaiii." (D. Gabrielis 
 Clanderi Schediasma de Tinct. Univ. Norimb. 1736.) I shall only add 
 one more authority: " Oporinus (licit se (Paracelsum) aliqnando Lu- 
 thernm et Papam, non minus quam nunc Galenum et Hippocratem redactu- 
 rtuu in ordinem minabatur, neque enim eorum qui hactenus in scripturam 
 sac- ram scripsissent, sive veteres, sive recentiores, quenquam scripturas 
 nucleum recte ernisse, sed circa corticein et quasi membranam tantum 
 haerere." (Th. Erastus, Disputat. de Med. Nova.) These and similar 
 notions had their due effect on Oporinus, who, says Zuingerus, in his 
 Theatruta., " longum vale dixit ei (Paracelso), ne ob prseceptoris, alioqui 
 amicissimi, horrendas blasphemias ipse quoque aliquando pumas Deo Opt. 
 Max. lueret." 
 
 6 His defenders allow the drunkenness. Take a sample of their ex- 
 cuses: " Gentis hoc, non viri vitiolum est, a Taciti seculo ad nostrum usqn 
 non interrnpto filo devolutum, sinceritati forte Germanae eoaevum, et nescio 
 an aliquo consangninitatis vinculo junctum." (JBitiskius. ) The other 
 charges were chiefly trumped up by Oporinus : " Domi, quod Oporinus 
 amanuensis ejus saepe narravit, nunquam nisi potus ad explicanda sua ac- 
 cessit, atqne in raedio conclavi ad columnam reTix^iafjuevos adsistens, appre- 
 henso manibus capulo ensis, cujus Koi\w/jM hospitium prasbuit, ut aitint. 
 spiritui f amiliari, imaginationes ant concepts sua protnlit : alii illtid quod 
 in capnlo habuit, ab ipso Azoth appellatum, medicinara fuisse preestantis- 
 simam aut lapidem Philosophicum pntant." (Melch. Adam.) This fa- 
 mous sword was no laughing-matter in those days, and it is now a material 
 feature in the popular idea of Paracelsus. I recollect a couple of allusions 
 to it in our own literature, at the moment. 
 
 Ne had been known the Danish Gnnswart, 
 Or Paracelsus with his long sword. 
 
 rolpone, Act ii. Scene 2. 
 
 Bumbastus kept a devil's bird 
 Shut in the pummel of his sword, 
 That taught him all the cunning pranks 
 Of past aiul future mountebanks. 
 
 Hudibrai, Part ii. Cant 3. 
 
 This Azoth was simply "laudanum SMMTO." But in his time he was 
 commonly believed to possess the double tincture the power of curing 
 diseases and transmuting metals. Oporinus often witnessed, as he de- 
 clares, both these effects, as did also Franciscns, the servant of Paracelsus, 
 who describes, in a letter to Neander, a successful projection at which he 
 was present, and the results of which, good golden ingots, were confided 
 to his keeping. For the other quality, let the following notice voucL
 
 NOTE 127 
 
 among many others : " Degebat Theophrastus Norimbergse procitus a 
 medentibus illius urbis, et vaniloquns deceptorque proclamatus, qui, ut 
 laboranti famae subveniat, viros quosdam authoritatis summae in Republica 
 ilia adit, et infamise amoliendae, artique suae asserendae, specimen ejus pol- 
 licetur editurum, nullo stipendio vel accepto pretio, horum faciles prasben- 
 tium aiires jussu elephantiacos aliquot, a communione hominnm caeterorum 
 segregates, et in valetndinarium detrusos, alieno arbitrio eliguntur, quos 
 virtute singulari remediorum suorum Tlieophrastus a f ceda Graecorum lepra 
 mundat, pristina^que sanitati restituit ; conservat illustre harum curatio- 
 nuni urbs in archivis suis testimonium. " ( Bitiskius. ) * It is to be re- 
 marked that Oporinus afterwards repented of his treachery : " Sed resipuit 
 tandem, et quern vivum convitiis insectatus f uerat def unctum veneratione 
 prosequutus, infames famse praeceptoris morsus in remorsus conscientiae 
 conversi poenitentia, heu nimis tarda, vulnera clausere exanimi quae spiranti 
 inflixerant. " For these "bites" of Oporinus, see Disputat. Erasti, and 
 Andreas Jocisci Oratio de Vit.ob. Opor 1 ; for the "remorse," Mic. Toxita 
 in pref. Testamenti, and Conringius (otherwise an enemy of Paracelsus), 
 who says it was contained in a letter from Oporinus to Doctor Vegerus. t 
 
 Whatever the moderns may think of these marvellous attributes, the 
 title of Paracelsus to be considered the father of modern chemistry is in- 
 disputable. Gerardus Vossius, De Philos" et Philos um sectis, thus prefaces 
 the ninth section of cap. 9, De Chymia " Nobilem hanc medicinae par- 
 tern, diu sepultam avorum setate, quasi ab orco revocavit Th. Paracel- 
 sus." I suppose many hints lie scattered in his neglected books, which 
 clever appropriators have since developed with applause. Thus, it ap- 
 pears from his treatise De Phlebotomia, and elsewhere, that he had dis- 
 covered the circulation of the blood and the sanguification of the heart ; 
 as did after him Realdo Colombo, and still more perfectly Andrea Cesal- 
 pino of Arezzo, as Bayle and Bartoli observe. Even Lavater quotes a 
 passage from his work De Natura Rerum, on practical Physiognomy, in 
 which the definitions and axioms are precise enough: he adds, "though 
 an astrological enthusiast, a man of prodigious genius." See Holcroft's 
 Translation, vol. iii. p. 179 "The Eyes." While on the subject of the 
 writings of Paracelsus, I may explain a passage in the third part of the 
 Poem. He was, as I have said, unwilling to publish his works, but in 
 effect did publish a vast number. Valentius (in Free fat. in Paramyr.) de- 
 clares ' ' quod ad librorum Paracelsi copiam attinet, audio, a Germanis 
 prope trecentos recenseri. " " O f oecunditas ingenii ! " adds he, appositely. 
 Many of these were, however, spurious ; and Fred. Bitiskius gives his good 
 edition (3 vols. fol. Gen. 1658) "rejectis suppositis solo ipsius nomine 
 Buperbientibus quorum ingens circumfertur numerus." The rest were 
 "charissimum et pretiosissimum authoris pignus, extorsum potius ab illo 
 quam obtentum. " " Jam minime eo volente atque jubente haec ipsius scripta 
 in lucem prodisse videntur ; quippe quae muro inclusa ipso absente, servi 
 cnjusdam indicio, furto surrepta atque sublata sunt," says Valentius. 
 These have been the study of a host of commentators, amongst whose 
 labors are most notable, Petri Severini, Idea Medicinw Philosaphice. Bas. 
 1571 ; Mic. Toxetis, Onomastica. Arg. 1574 ; Dornei, Diet. Parac. Franc. 
 
 * The premature death of Paracelsus casts no manner of doubt on the fact of his hav- 
 ing possessed the Elixir Vita- : the alchemists have abundant reasons to adduce, from 
 which I select the following, as explanatory of a property of the Tincture not calculated 
 on by its votaries : " Objectionem illam, quod Paracelsus non fuerit longsevus, non- 
 nulli quoque solvunt per rationes pbysicas : vifce nimirum abbreviationem fortasse tali- 
 bus accidere posse, ob Tincturam frequentiore ac largiore dosi sumtam, duin a sutnme 
 pfflcaci et penetrabili hujus virtute calor innatus quasi suffocatur." (Gabrielis Clauderi 
 Bchedinsma.) 
 
 t For a good defence of Paracelsus I refer the reader to Olaus Borrichius' treatise 
 Hermetis etc. Sapientia vindicata, 1674. Or, if he is no more learned than myself in 
 such matters, I mention simply that Paracelsus introduced the use of Mercury and Lau- 
 danum.
 
 128 NOTE 
 
 1584 ; and P Philos* Compendium cum sckoliis auctore Leone Suavio. 
 Paris. (This last, a good book.) 
 
 6 A disgraceful affair. One Liechtenfels, a canon, having been rescued 
 in extremis by the "laudanum " of Paracelsus, refused the stipulated fee, 
 and was supported in his meanness by the authorities, whose interference 
 Paracelsus would not brook. His own liberality was allowed by his bit- 
 terest foes, who found a ready solution of his indifference to profit in the 
 aforesaid sword-handle and its guest. His freedom from the besetting sin 
 of a profession he abhorred (as he curiously says somewhere, " Quis 
 q i i.-i 'si > deinceps honorem def erat prof essione tali, quae a tarn f acinorosis ne- 
 bulonibus obitur et administrator ? ") is recorded in his epitaph, which 
 affirms ' ' Bona sua in pauperes distribuenda collocandaque erogavit, ' ' 
 honoravit, or ordinavit for accounts differ.
 
 STRAFFORD 
 
 A TRAGEDY 
 
 DEDICATED, IN ALL AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION, 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM C. MACREADY. 
 
 LONDON, April 23, 1837. 
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 CHAKLES I. DENZIL HOLLIS. 
 
 Earl of HOLLAND. BENJAMIN RUDYARD. 
 
 Lord SAVILE. NATHANIEL FIENNES. 
 
 Sir HENRY VANE. Earl of LOUDON. 
 
 WENT WORTH, Viscount WENT- MAXWELL, Usher of the Black Rod. 
 . WORTH, Earl of STRAFFORD. BALFOUR, Constable of the Tower. 
 
 JOHN PYM. A Puritan. 
 
 JOHN HAMPDEN. Queen HENRIETTA. 
 
 The younger VANE. LUCY PERCY, Countess of Carlisle. 
 
 Presbyterians, Scots Commissioners, Adherents of Strafford, Secretaries, 
 Officers of the Court, etc. Two of Strafford's children. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. A House near Whitehall. HAMPDEN, HOLLIS, the younger 
 VANE, RUDYARD, FIENNES and many of the Presbyterian Party : 
 LOUDON and other Scots Commissioners. 
 
 Vane. I say, if he be here 
 
 Rud. (And he is here !) 
 
 Hoi. For England's sake let every man be still 
 Nor speak of him, so much as say his name, 
 Till Pym rejoin us ! Rudyard ! Henry Vane ! 
 One rash conclusion may decide our course 
 And with it England's fate think England's fate ! 
 Hampden, for England's sake they should be still ! 
 
 Vane. You say so, Hollis ? Well, I must be still. 
 It is indeed too bitter that one man,
 
 130 STRAP FORD 
 
 Any one man's mere presence, should suspend 
 England's combined endeavor : little need 
 To name him ! 
 
 Hud. For you are his brother, Hollis ! 
 
 Hamp. Shame on you, Rudyard ! time to tell him that, 
 When he forgets the Mother of us all. 
 
 Hud. Do I forget her ? 
 
 Hamp. You talk idle hate 
 
 Against her foe : is that so strange a thing ? 
 Is hating Wentworth all the help she needs ? 
 
 A Puritan. The Philistine strode, cursing as he went : 
 But D<vid five smooth pebbles from the brook 
 Within his scrip . . . 
 
 Rud. Be you as still as David ! 
 
 Fien. Here 's Rudyard not ashamed to wag a tongue 
 Stiff with ten years' disuse of Parliaments ; 
 Why, when the last sat, Wentworth sat with us ! 
 
 Rud. Let 's hope for news of them now he returns 
 He that was safe in Ireland, as we thought ! 
 
 But I '11 abide Pym's coming. 
 
 Vane. Now, by Heaven, 
 
 Then may be cool who can, silent who will 
 Some have a gift that way ! Wentworth is here, 
 Here, and the King 's safe closeted with him 
 Ere this. And when I think on all that 's past 
 Since that man left us, how his single arm 
 Rolled the advancing good of England back 
 And set the woful past up in its place, 
 Exalting Dagon where the Ark should be, 
 How that man has made firm the fickle King 
 (Hampden, I will speak out !) in aught he feared 
 To venture on before ; taught tyranny 
 Her dismal trade, the use of all her tools, 
 To ply the scourge yet screw the gag so close 
 That strangled agony bleeds mute to death 
 How he turns Ireland to a private stage 
 For training infant villanies, new ways 
 Of wringing treasure out of tears and blood, 
 Unheard oppressions nourished in the dark 
 To try how much man's nature can endure 
 
 If he dies under it, what harm ? if not, 
 Why, one more trick is added to the rest 
 Worth a king's knowing, and what Ireland bears 
 England may learn to bear : how all this while 
 That man has set himself to one dear task, 
 
 The bringing Charles to relish more and more
 
 STR AFFORD 131 
 
 Power, power without law, power and blood too 
 Can I be still ? 
 
 Hamp. For that you should be still. 
 
 Vane. Oh Hampden, then and now ! The year he left us, 
 The People in full Parliament could wrest 
 The Bill of Rights from the reluctant King ; 
 And now, he '11 find in an obscure small room 
 A stealthy gathering of great-hearted men 
 That take up England's cause : England is here ! 
 
 Hamp. And who despairs of England ? 
 
 Rud. That do I, 
 
 If Wentworth comes to rule her. I am sick 
 To think her wretched masters, Hamilton, 
 The muckworm Cottington, the maniac Laud, 
 May yet be longed-for back again. I say, 
 I do despair. 
 
 Vane. And, Rudyard, I '11 say this 
 
 Which all true men say after me, not loud 
 But solemnly and as you 'd say a prayer ! 
 This King, who treads our England underfoot, 
 Has just so much ... it may be fear or craft, 
 As bids him pause at each fresh outrage ; friends, 
 He needs some sterner hand to grasp his own, 
 Some voice to ask, " Why shrink ? Am I not by ? " 
 Now, one whom England loved for serving her, 
 Found in his heart to say, " I know where best 
 The iron heel shall bruise her, for she leans 
 Upon me when you trample." Witness, you ! 
 So Wentworth heartened Charles, so England fell. 
 But inasmuch as life is hard to take 
 From England . . . 
 
 Many Voices. Go on, Vane ! 'T is well said, Vane ! 
 
 Vane. Who has not so forgotten Runnymead ! 
 
 Voices. 'T is well and bravely spoken, Vane ! Go on ! 
 
 Vane. There are some little signs of late she knows 
 The ground no place for her. She glances round, 
 Wentworth has dropped the hand, is gone his way 
 On other service : what if she arise ? 
 No ! the King beckons, and beside him stands 
 The same bad man once more, with the same smile 
 And the same gesture. Now shall England crouch. 
 Or catch at us and rise ? 
 
 Voices. The Renegade ! 
 
 Haman ! Ahithophel ! 
 
 Hamp. Gentlemen of the North, 
 
 It was not thus the night your claims were urged,
 
 lo- STRAP FORD 
 
 And we pronounced the League and Covenant, 
 The cause of Scotland, England's cause as well : 
 Vane there, sat motionless the whole night through. 
 
 Vane. Hampden ! 
 
 Fien. Stay, Vane! 
 
 Lou. Be just and patient, Vane '. 
 
 Vane. Mind how you counsel patience, Loudon ! you 
 Have still a Parliament, and this your League 
 To back it ; you are free in Scotland still : 
 While we are brothers, hope ' for England yet. 
 But know you wherefore Wentworth comes ? to quench 
 This last of hopes ? that he brings war with him ? 
 Know you the man's self ? what he dares ? 
 
 Lou. We know, 
 
 All know 't is nothing new. 
 
 Vane. And what 's new, then, 
 
 In calling for his life ? Why, Pyin himself 
 You must have heard ere Wentworth dropped our cause 
 He would see Pym first ; there were many more 
 Strong on the people's side and friends of his, 
 Eliot that 's dead, Rudyard and Hampden here, 
 But for these Wentworth cared not ; only, Pym 
 He would see Pym and he were sworn, 't is said, 
 To live and die together ; so, they met 
 At Greenwich. Wentworth. you are sure, was long, 
 Specious enough, the devil's argument 
 Lost nothing on his lips ; he 'd have Pym own 
 A patriot could not play a purer part 
 Than follow in his track ; they two combined 
 Might put down England. Well, Pym heard him out ; 
 One glance you know Pym's eye one word was all : 
 " You leave us, Wentworth ! while your head is on, 
 I '11 not leave you." 
 
 Hamp. Has he left Wentworth, then ? 
 
 Has England lost him ? Will you let him speak, 
 Or put your crude surmises in his mouth ? 
 Away with this ! Will you have Pym or Vane ? 
 
 Voices. Wait Pym's arrival ! Pym shall speak. 
 
 Hamp. Meanwhile 
 
 Let Loudon read the Parliament's report 
 From Edinburgh : our last hope, as Vane says, 
 Is in the stand it makes. London ! 
 
 Vane. No, no ! 
 
 Silent I can be : not indifferent ! 
 
 Hamp. Then each keep silence, praying God to spare 
 His anger, cast not England quite away 
 In this her visitation !
 
 STRAFFORD 133 
 
 A Puritan. Seven years long 
 
 The Midianite drove Israel into dens 
 And caves. Till God sent forth a mighty man, 
 
 (PTM enters.) 
 Even Gideon ! 
 
 Pym, Wentworth 's come : nor sickness, care, 
 
 The ravaged body nor the ruined soul, 
 More than the winds and waves that beat his ship, 
 Could keep him from the King. He has not reached 
 Whitehall : they 've hurried up a Council there 
 To lose no time and find him work enough. 
 Where 's Loudon ? your Scots' Parliament . . . 
 
 Lou. Holds firm : 
 
 We were about to read reports. 
 
 Pym. The King 
 
 Has just dissolved your Parliament. 
 
 Lou. and other Scots. Great God ! 
 
 An oath-breaker ! Stand by us, England, then ! 
 
 Pym. The King 's too sanguine ; ' doubtless Wentworth 's 
 
 here ; 
 But still some little form might be kept up. 
 
 Hamp. Now speak, Vane ! Rudyard, you had much to say ! 
 
 Hoi. The rumor 's false, then . . . 
 
 Pym. Ay, the Court gives out 
 
 His own concerns have brought him back : I know 
 'Tis the King calls him. Wentworth supersedes 
 The tribe of Cottingtons and Hamiltons 
 Whose part is played ; there 's talk enough, by this, 
 Merciful talk, the King thinks : time is now 
 To turn the record's last and bloody leaf 
 Which, chronicling a nation's great despair, 
 Tells they were long rebellious, and their lord 
 Indulgent, till, all kind expedients tried, 
 He drew the sword on them and reigned in peace. 
 Laud 's laying his religion on the Scots 
 Was the last gentle entry : the new page 
 Shall run, the King thinks, " Wentworth thrust it down 
 At the sword's point." 
 
 A Puritan. I '11 do your bidding, Pym, 
 
 England's and God's one blow ! 
 
 Pym. A goodly thing 
 
 We all say, friends, it is a goodly thing 
 To right that England. Heaven grows dark above : 
 Let 's snatch one moment ere the thunder fall, 
 To say how well the English spirit comes out 
 Beneath it ! All have done their best, indeed,
 
 134 STR AFFORD 
 
 From lion Eliot, that grand Englishman, 
 
 To the least here : and who, the least one here, 
 
 When she is saved (for her redemption dawns 
 
 Dimly, most dimly, but it dawns it dawns) 
 
 Who 'd give at any price his hope away 
 
 Of heing named along with the Great Men ? 
 
 We would not no, we would not give that up ! 
 
 Hamp. And one name shall be dearer than all names, 
 When children, yet unborn, are taught that name 
 After their fathers', taught what matchless man . . . 
 
 Pym. . . . Saved England? What if Wentworth's should 
 
 be still 
 That name ? 
 
 Rud. and others. We have just said it, Pym ! His death 
 Saves her ! We said it there 's no way beside ! 
 I '11 do God's bidding, Pym ! They struck down Joab 
 And purged the land. 
 
 Vane. No villanous striking-down ! 
 
 Rud.^fo, a calm vengeance : let the whole land rise 
 And shout for it. No Feltons ! 
 
 Pym. Rudyard, no ! 
 
 England rejects all Feltons ; most of all 
 Since Wentworth . . . Hampden, say the trust again 
 Of England in her servants but I '11 think 
 You know me, all of you. Then, I believe, 
 Spite of the past, Wentworth rejoins you, friends ! 
 
 Vane and others. Wentworth ? Apostate ! Judas ! Double' 
 
 dyed 
 A traitor ! Is it Pym, indeed . . . 
 
 Pym. . . . Who says 
 
 Vane never knew that Wentworth, loved that man, 
 Was used to stroll with him, arm locked in arm, 
 Along the streets to see the people pass, 
 And read in every island-countenance 
 Fresh argument for God against the King, 
 Never sat down, say, in the very house 
 Where Eliot's brow grew broad with noble thoughts, 
 (You 've joined us, Hampden Hollis, you as well,) 
 And then left talking over Gracchus' death . . . 
 
 Vane. To frame, we know it well, the choicest clause 
 In the Petition of Right : he framed such clause 
 One month before he took at the King's hand 
 His Northern Presidency, which that Bill 
 Denounced. 
 
 Pym. Too true ! Never more, never more 
 Walked we together ! Most alone I went.
 
 STR AFFORD 135 
 
 I have had friends all here are fast my friends 
 
 But I shall never quite forget that friend. 
 
 And yet it could not but be real in him ! 
 
 You, Vane, you, Rudyard, have no right to trust 
 
 To Wentworth : but can no one hope with me ? 
 
 Hampden, will Wentworth dare shed English blood 
 
 Like water ? 
 
 Hump. Ireland is Aceldama. 
 
 Pym. Will he turn Scotland to a hunting-ground 
 To please the King, now that he knows the King ? 
 The People or the King ? and that King, Charles ! 
 
 Hamp. Pym, all here know you : you '11 not set your heart 
 On any baseless dream. But say one deed 
 Of Wentworth's, since he left us ... [Shouting without 
 
 Vane. There ! he comes, 
 
 And they shout for him ! Wentworth 's at Whitehall, 
 The King embracing him, now, as we speak, 
 And he, to be his match in courtesies, 
 Taking the whole war's risk upon himself, 
 Now, while you tell us here how changed he is ! 
 Hear you ? 
 
 Pym. And yet if 't is a dream, no more, 
 That Wentworth chose their side, and brought the King 
 To love it as though Laud had loved it first, 
 And the Queen after ; that he led their cause 
 Calm to success, and kept it spotless through, 
 So that our very eyes could look upon 
 The travail of our souls, and close content 
 That violence, which something mars even right 
 Which sanctions it, had taken off no grace 
 From its serene regard. Only a dream ! 
 
 Hamp. We meet here to accomplish certain good 
 By obvious means, and keep tradition up 
 Of free assemblages, else obsolete, 
 In this poor chamber : nor without effect 
 Has friend met friend to counsel and confirm, 
 As, listening to the beats of England's heart, 
 We spoke its wants to Scotland's prompt reply 
 By these her delegates. Remains alone 
 That word grow deed, as with God's help it shall 
 But with the devil's hindrance, who doubts too ? 
 Looked we or no that tyranny should turn 
 Her engines of oppression to their use ? 
 Whereof, suppose the worst be Wentworth here 
 Shall we break off the tactics which succeed 
 In drawing out our formidablest foe,
 
 136 STRAP FORD 
 
 Let bickering and disunion take their place ? 
 Or count his presence as our conquest's proof, 
 And keep the old arms at their steady play ? 
 Proceed to England's work ! Fiennes, read the list ! 
 
 Fiennes. Ship-money is refused or fiercely paid 
 In every county, save the northern parts 
 Where Wentworth's influence . . . [Shouting. 
 
 Vane. I, in England's name, 
 
 Declare her work, this way, at end ! Till now, 
 Up to this moment, peaceful strife was best. 
 We English had free leave to think ; till now, 
 We had a shadow of a Parliament 
 
 In Scotland. But all 's changed : they change the first, 
 They try brute-force for law, they, first of all ... 
 
 Voices. Good ! Talk enough ! The old true hearts with Vane \ 
 
 Vane. Till we crush Wentworth for her, there's no act 
 Serves England ! 
 
 Voices. Vane for England ! 
 
 Pym. Pym should be 
 
 Something to England. I seek Wentworth, friends. 
 
 SCENE II. Whitehall. 
 Lady CARLISLE and WENTWORTH. 
 
 Went. And the King? 
 
 Lady Car. Wentworth, lean on me ! Sit then ! 
 
 I '11 tell you all ; this horrible fatigue 
 Will kill you. 
 
 Went. No ; or, Lucy, just your arm ; 
 
 I '11 not sit till I 've cleared this up with him : 
 After that, rest The King ? 
 
 Lady Car. Confides in you. 
 
 Went. Why ? or, why now ? They have kind throats, the 
 
 knaves ! 
 Shout for me they ! 
 
 Lady Car. You come so strangely soon : 
 
 Yet we took measures to keep off the crowd 
 Did they shout for you ? 
 
 Went. Wherefore should they not ? 
 
 Does the King take such measures for himself ? 
 Beside, there 's such a dearth of malcontents, 
 You say ! 
 
 Lady Car. I said but few dared carp at you. 
 Went. At me ? at us, I hope ! The King and I !
 
 STRAFFORD 137 
 
 He 's surely not disposed to let me bear 
 The fame away from him of these late deeds 
 In Ireland ? I am yet his instrument 
 Be it for well or ill ? He trusts me, too ! 
 
 Lady Car. The King, dear Wentworth, purposes, I said, 
 To grant you, in the face of all the Court .... 
 
 Went. All the Court ! Evermore the Court about us ! 
 Savile and Holland, Hamilton and Vane 
 About us, then the King will grant me what ? 
 That he for once put these aside and say 
 " Tell me your whole mind, Wentworth ! " 
 
 Lady Car. You professed 
 
 You would be calm. 
 
 Went. Lucy, and I am calm ! 
 
 How else shall I do all I come to do, 
 Broken, as you may see, body and mind, 
 How shall I serve the King ? Time wastes meanwhile, 
 You have not told me half. His footstep ! No. 
 Quick, then, before I meet him, I am calm 
 Why does the King distrust me ? 
 
 Lady Car. He does not 
 
 Distrust you. 
 
 Went. Lucy, you can help me ; you 
 
 Have even seemed to care for me : one word ! 
 Is it the Queen ? 
 
 Lady Car. No, not the Queen : the party 
 That poisons the Queen's ear, Savile and Holland. 
 
 Went. I know, I know : old Vane, too, he 's one too ? 
 Go on and he 's made Secretary. Well ? 
 Or leave them out and go straight to the charge ; 
 The charge ! 
 
 Lady Car. Oh, there 's no charge, no precise charge ; 
 Only they sneer, make light of one may say, 
 Nibble at what you do. 
 
 Went. I know ! but, Lucy, 
 
 I reckoned on you from the first ! Go on ! 
 Was sure could I once see this gentle friend 
 When I arrived, she 'd throw an hour away 
 To help her . . . what am I ? 
 
 Lady Car. You thought of me, 
 
 Dear Wentworth ? 
 
 Went. But go on ! The party here ! 
 
 Lady Car. They do not think your Irish government 
 Of that surpassing value . . . 
 
 Went. The one thing 
 
 Of value ! The one service that the crown
 
 138 STRAFFORD 
 
 May count on ! All that keeps these very Vanes 
 In power, to vex me not that they do vex, 
 Only it might vex some to hear that service 
 Decried, the sole support that's left the King ! 
 
 Lady Car. So the Archbishop says. 
 
 Went. Ah ? well, perhaps 
 
 The only hand held up in my defence 
 May be old Laud's ! These Hollands then, these Saviles 
 Nibble ? They nibble ? that 's the very word ! * 
 
 Lady Car. Your profit in the Customs, Bristol says, 
 Exceeds the due proportion : while the tax . . . 
 
 Went. Enough ! 't is too unworthy, I am not 
 So patient as I thought ! What 's Pym about ? 
 
 Lady Car. Pym? 
 
 Went. Pyni and the People. 
 
 Lady Car. Oh, the Faction! 
 
 Extinct of no account : there '11 never be 
 Another Parliament. 
 
 Went. Tell Savile that ! 
 
 You may know (ay, you do the creatures here 
 Never forget !) that in my earliest life 
 I was not . . . much that I am now ! The King 
 May take my word on points concerning Pym 
 Before Lord Savile's, Lucy, or if not, 
 I bid them ruin their wise selves, not me, 
 These Vanes and Hollands ! 1 11 not be their tool 
 Who might be Pym's friend yet. 
 
 But there 's the King ! 
 Where is he ? 
 
 Lady Car. Just apprised that you arrive. 
 
 Went. And why not here to meet me ? I was told 
 He sent for me, nay, longed for me. 
 
 Lady Car. Because, 
 
 He is now ... I think a Council 's sitting now 
 About this Scots affair. 
 
 Went. A Council sits ? 
 
 They have not taken a decided course 
 Without me in the matter ? 
 
 Lady Car. I should say . . . 
 
 Went. The war ? They cannot have agreed to that ? 
 Not the Scots' war ? without consulting me 
 Me, that am here to show how rash it is, 
 How easy to dispense with ? Ah, you too 
 Against me ! well, the King may take his time. 
 Forget it, Lucy ! Cares make peevish : mine 
 Weigh me (but 't is a secret) to my grave.
 
 STR AFFORD 139 
 
 Lady Car. For life or death I am your own, dear friend ! 
 
 [Goes out. 
 
 Went. Heartless ! but all are heartless here. Go now, 
 Forsake the People ! I did not forsake 
 The People : they shall know it> when the King 
 Will trust me ! who trusts all beside at once, 
 While I have not spoke Vane and Savile fair, 
 And am not trusted : have but saved the throne : 
 Have not picked up the Queen's glove prettily, 
 And am not trusted. But he '11 see me now. 
 Weston is dead : the Queen 's half English now 
 More English : one decisive word will brush 
 These insects from . . . the step I know so well ! 
 The King ! But now, to tell him . . . no to ask 
 What 's in me he distrusts : or, best begin 
 By proving that this frightful Scots affair 
 Is just what I foretold. So much to say, 
 And the flesh fails, now, and the time is come, 
 And one false step no way to be repaired. 
 You were avenged, Pym, could you look on me. 
 
 (PvM enters.) 
 
 Went. I little thought of you just then. 
 
 Pym. No? I 
 
 Think always of you, Wentworth. 
 
 Went. The old voice ! 
 
 I wait the King, sir. 
 
 Pym. True you look so pale ! 
 
 A Council sits within ; when that breaks up 
 He '11 see you. 
 
 Went. Sir, I thank you. 
 
 Pym. Oh, thank Laud ! 
 
 You know when Laud once gets on Church affairs 
 The case is desperate : he '11 not be long 
 To-day : he only means to prove, to-day, 
 We English all are mad to have a hand 
 In butchering the Scots for serving God 
 After their fathers' fashion : only that ! 
 
 Went. Sir, keep your jests for those who relish them .' 
 (Does he enjoy their confidence ?) 'T is kind 
 To tell me what the Council does. 
 
 Pym. You grudge 
 
 That I should know it had resolved on war 
 Before you came ? no need : you shall have all 
 The credit, trust me ! 
 
 Went. Have the Council dared
 
 140 STRAFFORD 
 
 They have not dared . . . that is I know you not. 
 Farewell, sir : times are changed. 
 
 Pym. Since we two met 
 
 At Greenwich ? Yes : poor patriots though we be, 
 You cut a figure, makes some slight return 
 For your exploits in Ireland ! Changed indeed, 
 Could our friend Eliot look from out his grave ! 
 Ah, Wentworth, one thing for acquaintance' sake, 
 Just to decide a question ; have you, now, 
 Felt your old self since you forsook us ? 
 
 Went. Sir ! 
 
 Pym. Spare me the gesture ! you misapprehend. 
 Think not I mean the advantage is with me. 
 I was about to say that, for my part, 
 I never quite held up my head since then 
 Was quite myself since then : for first, you see, 
 I lost all credit after that event 
 With those who recollect how sure I was 
 Wentworth would outdo Eliot on our side. 
 Forgive me : Savile, old Vane, Holland here, 
 Eschew plain-speaking : 'tis a trick I keep. 
 
 Went. How, when, where, Savile, Vane, and Holland speak, 
 Plainly or otherwise, would have my scorn, 
 All of my scorn, sir ... 
 
 Pym. . . . Did not my poor thoughts 
 
 Claim somewhat ? 
 
 Went. Keep your thoughts ! believe the King 
 
 Mistrusts me for their prattle, all these Vanes 
 And Saviles ! make your mind up, o' God's love, 
 That I am discontented with the King ! 
 
 Pym. Why, you may be : I should be, that I know, 
 Were I like you. 
 
 Went. Like me ? 
 
 Pym. I care not much 
 
 For titles : our friend Eliot died no lord, 
 Hampden 's no lord, and Savile is a lord ; 
 But you cave, since you sold your soul for one. 
 I can't think, therefore, your soul's purchaser 
 Did well to laugh you to such utter scorn 
 When you twice prayed so humbly for its price, 
 The thirty silver pieces ... I should say, 
 The Earldom you expected, still expect, 
 And may. Your letters were the movingest ! 
 Console yourself : I 've borne him prayers just now 
 From Scotland not to be oppressed by Laud,
 
 STR AFFORD 141 
 
 Words moving in their way : he '11 pay, be sure, 
 As much attention as to those you sent. 
 
 Went. False, sir ! Who showed them you ? Suppose it so, 
 The King did very well . . . nay, I was glad 
 When it was shown me : I refused, the first ! 
 John Pym, you were my friend forbear me once ! 
 
 Pym. Oh, Wentworth, ancient brother of my soul, 
 That all should come to this ! 
 
 Went. Leave me ! 
 
 Pym. My friend, 
 
 Why should I leave you ? 
 
 Went. To tell Rudyard this, 
 
 And Hampden this ! 
 
 Pym. Whose faces once were bright 
 
 At my approach, now sad with doubt and fear, 
 Because I hope in you yes, Wentworth, you 
 Who never mean to ruin England you 
 Who shake off, with God's help, an obscene dream 
 In this Ezekiel chamber, where it crept 
 Upon you first, and wake, yourself, your true 
 And proper self, our Leader, England's Chief, 
 And Hampden's friend ! 
 
 This is the proudest day ! 
 
 Come, Wentworth ! Do not even see the King ! 
 The rough old room will seem itself again ! 
 We '11 both go in together : you 've not seen 
 Hampden so long : come : and there 's Fiennes : you '11 have 
 To know young Vane. This is the proudest day ! 
 
 [The KING enters. WENTWORTH lets fall PYM'S hand 
 
 Cha. Arrived, my lord ? This gentleman, we know 
 Was your old friend. 
 
 The Scots shall be informed 
 What we determine for their happiness. 
 
 [PYM goes out 
 You have made haste, my lord. 
 
 Went. Sir, I am come . . . 
 
 Cha. To see an old familiar nay, 't is well ; 
 Aid us with his experience : this Scots' League 
 And Covenant spreads too far, and we have proofs 
 That they intrigue with France : the Faction too, 
 Whereof your friend there is the head and front, 
 Abets them, as he boasted, very like. 
 
 Went. Sir, trust me ! but for this once, trust me, sir ! 
 
 Cha. What can you mean ? 
 
 Went. That you should trust me, sir ! 
 
 Oh not for my sake ! but 't is sad, so sad
 
 142 STRAP FORD 
 
 That for distrusting me, you suffer you 
 Whom I would die to serve : sir, do you think 
 That I would die to serve you ? 
 
 Cha. But rise, Wentworth ! 
 
 Went. What shall convince you ? What does Savile do 
 To prove him . . . Ah, one can't tear out one's heart 
 And show it, how sincere a thing it is ! 
 
 Cha. Have I not trusted you ? 
 
 Went. Say aught but that ! 
 
 There is my comfort, mark you : all will be 
 So different when you trust me as you shall ! 
 It has not been your fault, I was away, 
 Mistook, maligned, how was the King to know ? 
 I am here, now he means to trust me, now 
 All will go on so well ! 
 
 Cha. Be sure I do 
 
 I 've heard that I should trust you : as you came, 
 Your friend, the Countess, told me ... 
 
 Went. No, hear nothing 
 
 Be told nothing about me ! you 're not told 
 Your right-hand serves you, or your children love you ! 
 
 Cha. You love me, Wentworth : rise ! 
 
 Went. I can speak now. 
 
 I have no right to hide the truth. 'T is 1 
 Can save you : only I. Sir, what must be ? 
 
 Cha. Since Laud 's assured (the minutes are within) 
 Loath as I am to spill my subjects' blood . . . 
 
 Went. That is, he '11 have a war : what 's done is done ! 
 
 Cha. They have intrigued with France ; that 's clear to Laud. 
 
 Went. Has Laud suggested any way to meet 
 The war's expense ? 
 
 Cha. He 'd not decide so far * 
 
 Until you joined us. 
 
 Went. Most considerate ! 
 
 He 's certain they intrigue with France, these Scots ? 
 The People would be with us. 
 
 Cha. Pym should know. 
 
 Went. The People for us were the People for us ! 
 Sir, a great thought comes to reward your trust : 
 Summon a Parliament ! in Ireland first, 
 Then, here. 
 
 Cha. In truth ? 
 
 Went. That saves us ! that puts off 
 
 The war, gives time to right their grievances 
 To talk with Pym. I know the Faction, as 
 Laud styles it, tutors Scotland : all their plans
 
 STRAP FORD 143 
 
 Suppose no Parliament : in calling one 
 You take them by surprise. Produce the proofs 
 Of Scotland's treason ; then bid England help : 
 Even Pym will not refuse. 
 
 Cha. You would begin 
 
 With Ireland ? 
 
 Went. Take no care for that : that 's sure 
 
 To prosper. 
 
 Cha. You shall rule me. You were best 
 
 Return at once : but take this ere yon go ! 
 Now, do I trust you ? You 're an Earl : my Friend 
 Of Friends : yes, while . . . You hear me not ! 
 
 Went. Say it all o'er again but once again : 
 The first was for the music : once again ! 
 
 Cha. Strafford, my friend, there may have been reports, 
 Vain rumors. Henceforth touching Strafford is 
 To touch the apple of my sight : why gaze 
 So earnestly ? 
 
 Went. I am grown young again, 
 
 And foolish. What was it we spoke of ? 
 
 Cha. Ireland, 
 
 The Parliament, 
 
 Went. I may go when I will ? 
 
 Now? 
 
 Cha. Are you tired so soon of us ? 
 
 Went. My King ! 
 
 But you will not so utterly abhor 
 A Parliament ? I 'd serve you any way. 
 
 Cha. You said just now this was the only way. . 
 
 Went. Sir, I will serve you ! 
 
 Cha. Strafford, spare yourself : 
 
 You are so sick, they tell me. 
 
 Went. 'Tis my soul 
 
 That 's well and prospers now. 
 
 This Parliament 
 
 We '11 summon it, the English one I '11 care 
 For everything. You shall not need them much. 
 
 Cha. If they prove restive . . . 
 
 Went. I shall be with you. 
 
 Cha. Ere they assemble ? 
 
 Went. I will come, or else 
 
 Deposit this infirm humanity 
 I' the dust. My whole heart stays with you, my King ! 
 
 [As WEXT WORTH goes out, the QUEEN enters. 
 
 Cha. That man must love me. 
 
 Queen. Is it over then ?
 
 144 STRAP FORD 
 
 Why, he looks yellower than ever ! Well, 
 
 At least we shall not hear eternally 
 
 Of service services : he 's paid at least. 
 
 Cha. Not done with : he engages to surpass 
 All yet performed in Ireland. 
 
 Queen. I had thought 
 
 Nothing beyond was ever to be done. 
 The war, Charles will he raise supplies enough ? 
 
 Cha. We 've hit on an expedient ; he ... that is, 
 I have advised . . . we have decided on 
 The calling in Ireland of a Parliament. 
 
 Queen. O truly ! You agree to that ? Is that 
 The first-fruit of his counsel ? But I guessed 
 As much. 
 
 Cha. This is too idle, Henrietta ! 
 I should know best. He will strain every nerve, 
 And once a precedent established . . . 
 
 Queen. Notice 
 
 How sure he is of a long term of favor ! 
 He '11 see the next, and the next after that ; 
 No end to Parliaments ! 
 
 Cha. Well, it is done. 
 
 He talks it smoothly, doubtless. If, indeed, 
 The Commons here . . . 
 
 Queen. Here ! you will summon them 
 
 Here ? Would I were in France again to see 
 A King ! 
 
 Cha. But, Henriette . . . 
 
 Queen. Oh, the Scots see clear ! 
 
 Why should they bear your rule ? 
 
 Cha. But listen, sweet ! 
 
 Queen. Let Wentworth listen you confide in him ! 
 
 Cha. I do not, love, I do not so confide ! 
 The Parliament shall never trouble us ! 
 . . Nay, hear me ! I have schemes, such schemes : we '11 buy 
 The leaders off : without that, Wentworth's counsel 
 Had ne'er prevailed on me. Perhaps I call it 
 To have excuse for breaking it forever, 
 And whose will then the blame be ? See you not ? 
 Come, dearest ! look, the little fairy, now, 
 That cannot reach my shoulder ! Dearest, come !
 
 STRAP FORD 145 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. (As in Act I. Scene I.) 
 
 . The same Party enters. 
 
 Rud. Twelve subsidies ! 
 
 Vane. O Rudyard, do not laugh 
 
 At least ! 
 
 Rud. True : Strafford called the Parliament 
 'T is he should laugh ! 
 
 A Puritan. Out of the serpent's root 
 
 Comes forth a cockatrice. 
 
 Fien. A stinging one, 
 
 If that 's the Parliament : twelve subsidies ! 
 A stinging one ! but, brother, where 's your word 
 For Strafford's other nest-egg, the Scots' war ? 
 
 The Puritan. His fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. 
 
 Fien. Shall be ? It chips the shell, man ; peeps abroad. 
 Twelve subsidies ! Why, how now, Vane ? 
 
 Rud. Peace, Fiennes ! 
 
 Fien. Ah ? But he was not more a dupe than I, 
 Or you, or any here, the day that Pym 
 Returned with the good news. Look up, friend Vane ! 
 We all believed that Strafford meant us well 
 In summoning the Parliament. 
 
 (HAMPDEN enters.') 
 
 Vane. Now, Hampden, 
 
 Clear me ! I would have leave to sleep again : 
 I 'd look the People in the face again : 
 Clear me from having, from the first, hoped, dreamed 
 Better of Strafford ! 
 
 Hamp. You may grow one day 
 
 A steadfast light to England, Henry Vane ! 
 
 Rud. Meantime, by flashes I make shift to see 
 Strafford revived our Parliaments ; before, 
 War was but talked of ; there 's an army, now : 
 Still, we 've a Parliament ! Poor Ireland bears 
 Another wrench (she dies the hardest death !) 
 Why, speak of it in Parliament ! and lo, 
 'T is spoken, so console yourselves ! 
 
 Fien. The jest ! 
 
 We clamored, I suppose, thus long, to win 
 The privilege of laying on our backs 
 A sorer burden than the King dares lay !
 
 146 STR AFFORD 
 
 Rud. Mark now : we meet at length, complaints pour in 
 From every county, all the land cries out 
 On loans and levies, curses ship-money, 
 Calls vengeance on the Star Chamber ; we lend 
 An ear. '' Ay, lend them all the ears yoji have ! " 
 Puts in the King ; " my subjects, as you find, 
 Are fretful, and conceive great things of you. 
 Just listen to them, friends ; you '11 sanction me 
 The measures they most wince at, make them yours, 
 Instead of mine, I know : and, to begin, 
 They say my levies pinch them, raise me straight 
 Twelve subsidies ! " 
 
 Fien. All England cannot furnish 
 
 Twelve subsidies ! 
 
 Hoi. But Strafford, just returned 
 
 From Ireland what has he to do with that ? 
 How could he speak his mind ? He left before 
 The Parliament assembled. Pym, who knows 
 Strafford . . . 
 
 Rud. Would I were sure we know ourselves ! 
 
 What is for good, what, bad who friend, who foe ! 
 
 Hoi. Do you count Parliaments no gam ? 
 
 End. A gain ? 
 
 While the King's creatures overbalance us ? 
 There 's going on, beside, among ourselves 
 A quiet, slow, but most effectual course 
 Of buying over, sapping, leavening 
 The lump till all is leaven. Glanville 's gone. 
 I '11 put a case ; had not the Court declared 
 That no sum short of just twelve subsidies 
 Will be accepted by the King our House, 
 I say, would have consented to that offer 
 To let us buy off ship-money ! 
 
 Hoi. Most like, 
 
 If, say, six subsidies will buy it off, 
 The House . . . 
 
 Rud. Will grant them ! Hampden, do you hear? 
 
 Congratulate with me ! the King 's the king, 
 And gains his point at last our own assent 
 To that detested tax ! All 's over, then ! 
 There 's no more taking refuge in this room, 
 Protesting, " Let the King do what he will, 
 We, England, are no party to our shame : 
 Our day will come ! " Congratulate with me !
 
 STR AFFORD 147 
 
 (PYM enters.) 
 
 Vane. Pym, Strafford called this Parliament, you say, 
 But we '11 not have our Parliaments like those 
 In Ireland, Pym ! 
 
 Rud. Let him stand forth, your friend ! 
 
 One doubtful act hides far too many sins ; 
 It can be stretched no more, and, to my mind, 
 Begins to drop from those it covered. 
 
 Other Voices. Good ! 
 
 Let him avow himself ! No fitter time ! 
 We wait thus long for you. 
 
 Rud. Perhaps, too long ! 
 
 Since nothing but the madness of the Court? 
 In thus unmasking its designs at once, 
 Has saved us from betraying England. Stay 
 This Parliament is Strafford's : let us vote 
 Our list of grievances too black by far 
 To suffer talk of subsidies : or best, 
 That ship-money 's disposed of long ago 
 By England : any vote that 's broad enough : 
 And then let Strafford, for the love of it, 
 Support his Parliament ! 
 
 Vane. And vote as well 
 
 No war to be with Scotland ! Hear you, Pym ? 
 We '11 vote, no war ! No part nor lot in it 
 For England ! 
 
 Many Voices. Vote, no war ! Stop the new levies ! 
 No Bishops' war ! At once ! When next we meet ! 
 
 Pi/m. Much more when next we meet ! Friends, which of 
 
 you 
 
 Since first the course of Strafford was in doubt, 
 Has fallen the most away in soul from me ? 
 
 Vane. I sat apart, even now under God's eye, 
 Pondering the words that should denounce you, Pym, 
 In presence of us all, as one at league 
 With England's enemy. 
 
 Pym. You are a good 
 
 And gallant spirit, Henry. Take my hand 
 And say you pardon me for all the pain 
 Till now ! Strafford is wholly ours. 
 
 Many Voices. Sure ? sure ? 
 
 Pym. Most sure : for Charles dissolves the Parliament 
 While I speak here. 
 
 And I must speak, friends, now ! 
 Strafford is ours. The King detects the change,
 
 STRAFF ORD 
 
 Casts Strafford off forever, and resumes 
 His ancient path : no Parliament for us, 
 No Strafford for the King ! 
 
 Come, all of you, 
 
 To bid the King farewell, predict success 
 To his Scots' expedition, and receive 
 Strafford, our comrade now. The next will be 
 Indeed a Parliament ! 
 
 Vane. Forgive me, Pym ! 
 
 Voices. This looks like truth : Strafford can have, indeed, 
 No choice. 
 
 Pym. Friends, follow me ! He 's with the King. 
 Come, Hampden, and come, Rudyard, and come, Vane ! 
 This is no sullen day for England, sirs ! 
 Strafford shall tell you ! 
 
 Voices. To Whitehall then ! Come ! 
 
 SCENE II. Whitehall. 
 CHARLES and STRAFFORD. 
 
 Cha. Strafford! 
 
 Straf. Is it a dream ? my papers, here 
 
 Thus, as I left them, all the plans you found 
 So happy (look ! the track you pressed my hand 
 For pointing out) and in this very room, 
 Over these very plans, you tell me, sir, 
 With the same face, too tell me just one thing 
 That ruins them ! How 's this ? What may this mean ? 
 Sir, who has done this ? 
 
 Cha. Strafford, who but I ? 
 
 You bade me put the rest away : indeed 
 You are alone. 
 
 Straf. Alone, and like to be ! 
 
 No fear, when some unworthy scheme grows ripe, 
 ( )f those, who hatched it, leaving me to loose 
 The mischief on the world ! Laud hatches war, 
 Falls to his prayers, and leaves the rest to me, 
 And I 'm alone. 
 
 Cha. At least, you knew as much 
 
 When first you undertook the war. 
 
 Straf. My liege, 
 
 Was this the way ? I said, since Laud would lap 
 A little blood, 't were best to hurry over 
 The loathsome business, not to be whole months
 
 STR AFFORD 149 
 
 At slaughter one blow, only one, then, peace, 
 
 Save for the dreams. I said, to please you both 
 
 I 'd lead an Irish army to the West, 
 
 While in the South an English . . . but you look 
 
 As though you had not told me fifty times 
 
 'T was a brave plan ! My army is all raised, 
 
 I am prepared to join it ... 
 
 Cha. Hear me, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. . , . When, for some little thing, my whole design 
 Is set aside (where is the wretched paper ?) 
 I am to lead (ay, here it is) to lead 
 The English army : why ? Northumberland 
 That I appointed, chooses to be sick 
 Is frightened : and, meanwhile, who answers for 
 The Irish Parliament ? or army, either ? 
 Is this my plan ? 
 
 Cha. So disrespectful, sir ? 
 
 Straf. My liege, do not believe it ! I am yours, 
 Yours ever : 't is too late to think about : 
 To the death, yours. Elsewhere, this untoward step 
 Shall pass for mine ; the world shall think it mine. 
 But here ! But here ! I am so seldom here, 
 Seldom with you, my King ! I, soon to rush 
 Alone upon a giant in the dark ! 
 
 Cha. My Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. [examines papers awhile.] " Seize the passes of the 
 
 Tyne ! " 
 
 But, sir, you see see all I say is true ? 
 My plan was sure to prosper, so, no cause 
 To ask the Parliament for help ; whereas 
 We need them frightfully. 
 
 Cha. Need the Parliament ? 
 
 Straf. Now, for God's sake, sir, not one error more ! 
 We can afford no error ; we draw, now, 
 Upon our last resource : the Parliament 
 Must help us ! 
 
 Cha. I Ve undone you, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. Nay 
 
 Nay why despond, sir, 't is not come to that ! 
 I have not hurt you ? Sir, what have I said 
 To hurt you ? I unsay it ! Don't despond ! 
 Sir, do you turn from me ? 
 
 Cha. My friend of friends ! 
 
 Straf. We '11 make a shift. Leave me the Parliament ! 
 Help they us ne'er so little and I '11 make 
 Sufficient out of it. We '11 speak them fair.
 
 150 STRAFFORD 
 
 They 're sitting, that 's one great thing ; that half gives 
 Their san3tion to us ; that 's much : don't despond ! 
 Why, let them keep their money, at the worst ! 
 The reputation of the People's help 
 Is all we want : we '11 make shift yet ! 
 
 Cha. Good Straff ord ! 
 
 Straf. But meantime, let the sum be ne'er so small 
 They offer, we '11 accept it : any sum 
 For the look of it : the least grant tells the Scots . 
 The Parliament is ours their stanch ally 
 Turned ours : that told, there 's half the blow to strike ! 
 What will the grant be ? What does Glanville think ? 
 
 Cha. Alas ! 
 
 Straf. My liege ? 
 
 Cha. Straff ord I 
 
 Straf. But answer me ! 
 
 Have they . . . O surely not refused us half ? 
 Half the twelve subsidies ? We never looked 
 For all of them. How many do they give ? 
 Cha. You have not heard . . . 
 
 Straf. (What has he done ?) Heard what ? 
 
 But speak at once, sir, this grows terrible ! 
 
 [The King continuing silent. 
 
 You have dissolved them ! I '11 not leave this man. 
 
 Cha. 'T was old Vane's ill-judged vehemence. 
 
 Straf. Old Vane ? 
 
 Cha. He told them, just about to vote the half, 
 That nothing short of all twelve subsidies 
 Would serve our turn, or be accepted. 
 
 Straf. Vane ! 
 
 Vane ! Who, sir, promised me, that very Vane . . . 
 O God, to have it gone, quite gone from me, 
 The one last hope I that despair, my hope 
 That I should reach his heart one day, and cure 
 All bitterness one day, be proud again 
 And young again, care for the sunshine too, 
 And never think of Eliot any more, 
 God, and to toil for this, go far for this, 
 Get nearer, and still nearer, reach this heart 
 And find Vane there ! 
 [Suddenly taking up a paper, and continuing with a forced calmness 
 
 Northumberland is sick : 
 Well, then, I take the army : Wilmot leads 
 The horse, and he, with Conway, must secure 
 The passes of the Tyne : Ormond supplies 
 My place in Ireland. Here, we '11 try the City :
 
 STR AFFORD 151 
 
 If they refuse a loan debase the coin 
 And seize the bullion ! we 've no other choice. 
 Herbert . . . 
 
 And this while I am here ! with you 1 
 And there are hosts such, hosts like Vane ! I go, 
 And, I once gone, they '11 close around you, sir, 
 When the least pique, pettiest mistrust, is sure 
 To ruin me and you along with me ! 
 Do you see that ? And you along with me ! 
 Sir, you '11 not ever listen to these men, 
 And I away, fighting your battle ? Sir, 
 If they if She charge me, no matter how 
 Say you, " At any time when he returns 
 His head is mine ! " Don't stop me there ! You know 
 My head is yours, but never stop me there ! 
 
 Cha. Too shameful, Stratford ! You advised the war. 
 And . . . 
 
 Straf. III! that was never spoken with 
 Till it was entered on ! That loathe the war ! 
 That say it is the maddest, wickedest . . . 
 Do you know, sir, I think within my heart, 
 That you would say I did advise the war ; 
 And if, through your own weakness, or, what 's worse, 
 These Scots, with God to help them, drive me back, 
 Y0u will not step between the raging People 
 And me, to say . . . 
 
 I knew it! from the first 
 I knew it ! Never was so cold a heart ! 
 Remember that I said it that I never 
 Believed you for a moment ! 
 
 And, you loved me ? 
 You thought your perfidy profoundly hid 
 Because I could not share the whisperings 
 With Vane, with Savile ? What, the face was masked ? 
 I had the heart to see, sir ! Face of flesh, 
 But heart of stone of smooth cold frightful stone ! 
 Ay, call them ! Shall I call for you ? The Scots 
 Goaded to madness ? Or the English Pym 
 Shall I call Pym, your subject ? Oh, you think 
 I '11 leave them in the dark about it all ? 
 They shall not know you ? Hampden, Pym shall not ? 
 
 (PYM, HAMPDEN, VANE, etc., enter.) 
 
 [Dropping on his knee.~\ Thus favored with your gracious 
 
 countenance 
 What shall a rebel League avail against
 
 152 STRAFFORD 
 
 Your servant, utterly and ever yours ? 
 
 So, gentlemen, the King 's not even left 
 
 The privilege of bidding me farewell 
 
 Who haste to save the People that you style 
 
 Your People from the mercies of the Scots 
 
 And France their friend ? 
 
 [To CHARLES.] Pym's grave gray eyes are fixed 
 
 Upon you, sir ! 
 
 Your pleasure, gentlemen. 
 
 Hamp. The King dissolved us 't is the King we seek 
 And not Lord Strafford. 
 
 Straf. Strafford, guilty too 
 
 Of counselling the measure. [ToCnAKLES.] (Hush . . .you 
 
 know 
 
 You have forgotten sir, I counselled it) 
 A heinous matter, truly ! But the King 
 Will yet see cause to thank me for a course 
 Which now, perchance . . . (Sir, tell them so !) he blames. 
 Well, choose some fitter time to make your charge : 
 I shall be with the Scots, you understand ? 
 Then yelp at me ! 
 
 Meanwhile, your Majesty 
 Binds me, by this fresh token of your trust . . . 
 
 [Under the pretence of an earnest farewell, STRAFFORD conducts 
 CHARLES to the door, in such a manner as to hide his agitation 
 from the rest : as the King disappears, they turn as by one impulse 
 to PYM, who has not changed his original posture of surprise. 
 
 Hamp. Leave we this arrogant strong wicked man ! 
 
 Vane and others. Hence, Pym ! Come out of this unworthy 
 
 place 
 To our old room again ! He 's gone. 
 
 [STRAFFORD, just about to follow the King, looks back. 
 Pym. Not gone ! 
 
 [To STBAFFOBD.] Keep tryst! the old appointment's made 
 
 anew: 
 Forget not we shall meet again ! 
 
 Straf. So be it ! 
 
 And if an army follows me ? 
 
 Vane. His friends 
 
 Will entertain your army ! 
 
 Pym. I '11 not say 
 
 You have misreckoned, Strafford : time shows. 
 
 Perish 
 
 Body and spirit ! Fool to feign a doubt, 
 Pretend the scrupulous and nice reserve
 
 STRAP FORD 153 
 
 Of one whose prowess shall achieve the feat ! 
 
 What share have I in it ? Do I affect 
 
 To see no dismal sign above your head 
 
 When God suspends his ruinous thunder there ? 
 
 Strafford is doomed. Touch him no one of you ! 
 
 [PYM, HAMPDEN, etc., go out. 
 Straf. Pym, we shall meet again ! 
 
 (Lady CARLISLE enters.) 
 
 You here, child ? 
 
 Lady Car. Hush 
 
 I know it all : hush, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. All ! you know ? 
 
 Well. I shall make a sorry soldier, Lucy ! 
 All knights begin their enterprise, we read, 
 Under the best of auspices ; 't is morn, 
 The Lady girds his sword upon the Youth 
 (He 's always very young) the trumpets sound, 
 Cups pledge him, and, why, the King blesses him 
 You need not turn a page of the romance 
 To learn the Dreadful Giant's fate. Indeed, 
 We 've the fair Lady here ; but she apart, 
 A poor man, rarely having handled lance, 
 And rather old, weary, and far from sure 
 His Squires are not the Giant's friends. All 's one : 
 Let us go forth ! 
 
 Lady Car. Go forth ? 
 
 Straf. What matters it ? 
 
 We shall die gloriously as the book says. 
 
 Lady Car. To Scotland ? not to Scotland ? 
 
 Straf. Am I sick 
 
 Like your good brother, brave Northumberland ? 
 Beside, these walls seem falling on me. 
 
 Lady Car. Strafford, 
 
 The wind that saps these walls can undermine 
 Your camp in Scotland, too. Whence creeps the wind ? 
 Have you no eyes except for Pym ? Look here ! 
 A breed of silken creatures lurk and thrive 
 In your contempt. You '11 vanquish Pym ? Old Vane 
 Can vanquish you. And Vane you think to fly ? 
 Rush on the Scots ! Do nobly ! Vane's slight sneer 
 Shall test success, adjust the praise, suggest 
 The faint result : Vane's sneer shall reach you there. 
 You do not listen ! 
 
 Straf. Oh, I give that up ! 
 
 There 's fate in it : I give all here quite up.
 
 154 STR AFFORD 
 
 Care not what old Vane does or Holland does 
 Against me ! 'T is so idle to withstand ! 
 In no case tell me what they do ! 
 
 Lady Car. But, Stratford . . . 
 
 Straf. I want a little strife, beside ; real strife ; 
 This petty palace-warfare does me harm : 
 I shall feel better, fairly out of it. 
 
 Lady Car. Why do you smile ? 
 
 Straf. I got to fear them, child ! 
 
 I could have torn his throat at first, old Vane's, 
 As he leered at me on his stealthy way 
 To the Queen's closet. Lord, one loses heart ! 
 I often found it in my heart to say, 
 " Do not traduce me to her ! " 
 
 Lady Car. But the King . . . 
 
 Straf. The King stood there, 'tis not so long ago, 
 There ; and the whisper, Lucy, " Be my friend 
 Of friends ! " My King ! I would have . . . 
 
 Lady Car. . . . Died for him ? 
 
 Straf. Sworn him true, Lucy : I can die for him. 
 
 Lady Car. But go not, Stratford ! But you must renounce 
 This project on the Scots ! Die, wherefore die ? 
 Charles never loved you. 
 
 Straf. And he never will. 
 
 He 's not of those who care the more for men 
 That they 're unfortunate. 
 
 Lady Car. Then wherefore die 
 
 For such a master ? 
 
 Straf. You that told me first 
 
 How good he was when I must leave true friends 
 To find a truer friend ! that drew me here 
 From Ireland, "I had but to show myself, 
 And Charles would spurn Vane, Savile, and the rest " 
 You, child, to ask me this ? 
 
 Lady Car. (If he have set 
 
 His heart abidingly on Charles !) 
 
 Then, friend, 
 I shall not see you any more. 
 
 Straf. Yes, Lucy. 
 
 There 's one man here I have to meet. 
 
 Lady Car. (The King ! 
 
 What way to save him from the King ? 
 
 My soul 
 
 That lent from its own store the charmed disguise 
 Which clothes the King he shall behold my soul !) 
 Stra fiord, I shall speak best if you '11 not gaze
 
 STR AFFORD 155 
 
 Upon me : I had never thought, indeed, 
 
 To speak, but you would perish too, so sure ! 
 
 Could you but know what 'tis to bear, my friend, 
 
 One image stamped within you, turning blank 
 
 The else imperial brilliance of your mind, 
 
 A weakness, but most precious, like a flaw 
 
 I' the diamond, which should shape forth some sweet face 
 
 Yet to create, and meanwhile treasured there 
 
 Lest nature lose her gracious thought forever ! 
 
 Straf. When could it be ? no ! Yet . . . was it the day 
 We waited in the anteroom, till Holland 
 Should leave the presence-chamber ? 
 
 Lady Car. What ? 
 
 Straf. That I 
 
 Described to you my love for Charles ? 
 
 Lady Car. (Ah, no 
 
 One must not lure him from a love like that ! 
 Oh, let him love the King and die ! 'T is past. 
 I shall not serve him worse for that one brief 
 And passionate hope, silent forever now!) 
 And you are really bound for Scotland then ? 
 I wish you well : you must be very sure 
 Of the King's faith, for Pym and all his crew 
 Will not be idle setting Vane aside ! 
 
 Straf. If Pym is busy, you may write of Pym. 
 
 Lady Car. What need, since there 's your King to take your 
 
 part ? 
 
 He may endure Vane's counsel ; but for Pym 
 Think you he '11 suffer Pym to ... 
 
 Straf. Child, your hair 
 
 Is glossier than the Queen's ! 
 
 Lady Car. Is that to ask 
 
 A curl of me ? 
 
 Straf. Scotland the weaiy way ! 
 
 Lady Car. Stay, let me fasten it. 
 
 A rival's, Strafford ? 
 
 Straf. [showing the George.~\ He hung it there : twine yours 
 around it, child ! 
 
 Lady Car. No no another time I trifle so ! 
 And there 's a masque on foot. Farewell. The Court 
 Is dull ; do something to enliven us 
 In Scotland : we expect it at your hands. 
 
 Straf. I shall not fail in Scotland. 
 
 Lady Car. Prosper if 
 
 You '11 think of me sometimes ! 
 
 Straf. How think of him
 
 156 STR AFFORD 
 
 And not of you ? of you, the lingering streak 
 (A golden one) in my good fortune's eve. 
 
 Lady Car. Strafford . . . Well, when the eve has its last 
 
 streak 
 The night has its first star. [.She goes out. 
 
 Straf. That voice of hers 
 
 You 'd think she had a heart sometimes ! His voice 
 Is soft too. 
 
 Only God can save him now. 
 Be Thou about his bed, about his path ! 
 His path ! Where 's England's path ? Diverging wide, 
 And not to join again the track my foot 
 Must follow whither ? All that forlorn way 
 Among the tombs ! Far far till ... What, they do 
 Then join again, these paths ? For, huge in the dusk, 
 There 's Pym to face ! 
 
 Why then, I have a foe 
 To close with, and a fight to fight at last 
 Worthy my soul ! What, do they beard the King, 
 And shall the King want Strafford at his need ? 
 Am I not here ? 
 
 Not in the market-place, 
 Pressed on by the rough artisans, so proud 
 To catch a glance from Wentworth ! They lie down 
 Hungry yet smile, " Why, it must end some day : 
 Is he not watching for our sake ? " Not there ! 
 But in Whitehall, the whited sepulchre, 
 The . . . 
 
 Curse nothing to-night ! Only one name 
 They '11 curse in all those streets to-night. Whose fault ? 
 Did I make kings ? set up, the first, a man 
 To represent the multitude, receive 
 All love in right of them supplant them so, 
 Until you love the man and not the king 
 The man with the mild voice and mournful eyes 
 Which send me forth. 
 
 To breast the bloody sea 
 That sweeps before me : with one star for guide. 
 Night has its first, supreme, forsaken star.
 
 STRAFFORD 157 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. Opposite Westminster Hall. 
 
 Sir HENRY VANE, LORD SAVILE, LORD HOLLAND and others of tht 
 
 Court. 
 
 Sir IT. Vane. The Commons thrust you out ? 
 
 Savile. And what kept you 
 
 From sharing their civility ? 
 
 Sir H. Vane. Kept me ? 
 
 Fresh news from Scotland, sir ! worse than the last, 
 If that may he. All 's up with Strafford there : 
 Nothing to bar the mad Scots marching hither 
 Next Lord's-day morning. That detained me, sir ! 
 Well now, before they thrust you out, go on, 
 Their Speaker did the fellow Lenthal say 
 All we set down for him ? 
 
 Hoi. Not a word missed. 
 
 Ere he began, we entered, Savile, I 
 And Bristol and some more, with hope to breed 
 A wholesome awe in the new Parliament. 
 But such a gang of graceless ruffians, Vane, 
 As glared at us ! 
 
 Vane. So many ? 
 
 Savile. Not a bench 
 
 Without its complement of burly knaves ; 
 Your hopeful son among them : Hampden leant 
 Upon his shoulder think of that ! 
 
 Vane. I 'd think 
 
 On Lenthal's speech, if I could get at it. 
 Urged he, I ask, how grateful they should prove 
 For this unlooked-for summons from the King ? 
 
 Hoi. Just as we drilled him. 
 
 Vane. That the Scots will march 
 
 On London ? 
 
 Hoi. All, and made so much of it, 
 
 A dozen subsidies at least seemed sure 
 To follow, when . . . 
 
 Vane. Well? 
 
 Hoi. 'T is a strange thing now ! 
 
 I Ve a vague memory of a sort of sound, 
 A voice, a kind of vast unnatural voice 
 Pym, sir, was speaking ! Savile, help me out : 
 What was it all ? 
 
 Sav. Something about " a matter " 
 
 No, " work for England."
 
 158 STRAP FORD 
 
 Hoi. " England's great revenge " 
 
 He talked of. 
 
 Sav. How should I get used to Pym 
 
 More than yourselves ? 
 
 Hoi. However that be, 
 
 'T was something with which we had nought to do, 
 For we were " strangers," and 'twas " England's work " 
 (All this while looking us straight in the face) 
 In other words, our presence might be spared. 
 So, in the twinkling of an eye, before 
 I settled to my mind what ugly brute 
 Was likest Pym just then, they yelled us out, 
 Locked the doors after us ; and here are we. 
 
 Vane. Eliot's old method . . . 
 
 Sav. Prithee, Vane, a truce 
 
 To Eliot and his times, and the great Duke, 
 And how to manage Parliaments ! 'T was you 
 Advised the Queen to summon this : why, Strafford 
 (To do him justice) would not hear of it. 
 
 Vane. Say rather, you have done the best of turns 
 To Strafford : he 's at York, we all know why. 
 I would you had not set the Scots on Strafford 
 Till Strafford put down Pym for us, my lord ! 
 
 Sav. Was it I altered Stafford's plans ? did I ... 
 
 (yl Messenger enters.) 
 
 Mes. The Queen, my lords she sends me : follow me 
 At once; 'tis very urgent ! she requires 
 Your counsel : something perilous and strange 
 Occasions her command. 
 
 Sav. We follow, friend ! 
 
 Now, Vane ; your Parliament will plague us all ! 
 
 Vane. No Strafford here beside ! 
 
 Sav. If you dare hint 
 
 I had a hand in his betrayal, sir ... 
 
 Hoi. Nay, find a fitter time for quarrels Pym 
 Will overmatch the best of you ; and, think, 
 The Queen ! 
 
 Vane. Come on, then : understand, I loathe 
 
 Strafford as much as any but his use ! 
 To keep off Pym, to screen a friend or two, 
 I would we had reserved him yet awhile.
 
 STRAFFORD 159 
 
 SCENE II. Whitehall. 
 The QUEEN and Lady CARLISLE. 
 
 Queen. It cannot be. 
 
 Lady Car. It is so. 
 
 Queen. Why, the House 
 
 Have hardly met 
 
 Lady Car. They met for that. 
 
 Queen. No, no ! 
 
 Meet to impeach Lord Straff ord ? 'T is a jest. 
 
 Lady Car. A bitter one. 
 
 Queen. Consider ! 'T is the House 
 
 We summoned so reluctantly, which nothing 
 But the disastrous issue of the war 
 Persuaded us to summon. They '11 wreak all 
 Their spite on us, no doubt ; but the old way 
 Is to begin by talk of grievances : 
 They have their grievances to busy them. 
 
 Lady Car. Pym has begun his speech. 
 
 Queen. Where 's Vane ? That is, 
 
 Pym will impeach Lord Strafford if he leaves 
 His Presidency ; he 's at York, we know, 
 Since the Scots beat him : why should he leave York ? 
 
 Lady Car. Because the King sent for him. 
 
 Queen. Ah but if 
 
 The King did send for him, he let him know 
 We had been forced to call a Parliament 
 A step which Strafford, now I come to think, 
 Was vehement against. 
 
 Lady Car. The policy 
 
 Escaped him, of first striking Parliaments 
 To earth, then setting them upon their feet 
 And giving them a sword : but this is idle. 
 Did the King send for Strafford ? He will come. 
 
 Queen. And what am I to do ? 
 
 Lady Car. What do ? Fail, madam ! 
 
 Be ruined for his sake ! what matters how, 
 So it but stand on record that you made 
 An effort, only one ? 
 
 Queen. The King away 
 
 At Theobald's ! 
 
 Lady Car. Send for him at once : he must 
 Dissolve the House. 
 
 Queen. Wait till Vane finds the truth 
 
 Of the report : then . . .
 
 160 STR AFFORD 
 
 Lady Car. It wiD matter little 
 
 "What the King does. Strafford that lends his arm 
 And breaks his heart for you ! 
 
 (Sir H. VANE enters.} 
 
 Vane. The Commons, madam, 
 
 Are sitting with closed doors. A huge debate, 
 No lack of noise ; but nothing, I should guess, 
 Concerning Strafford : Pym has certainly 
 Not spoken yet. 
 
 Queen. [To Lady CARLISLE.] You hear ? 
 
 Lady Car. I do not hear 
 
 That the King 's sent for ! 
 
 Sir H. Vane. Savile will be able 
 
 To tell you more. 
 
 (HOLLAND enters.) 
 
 Queen. The last news, Holland ? 
 
 Hoi. Pym 
 
 Is raging like a fire. The whole House means 
 To follow him together to Whitehall 
 And force the King to give up Strafford. 
 
 Queen. Strafford ? 
 
 Hoi. If they content themselves with Strafford ! Laud 
 Is talked of, Cottington and Windebank too. 
 Pym has not left out one of them I would 
 You heard Pym raging ! 
 
 Queen. Vane, go find the King ! 
 
 Tell the King, Vane, the People follow Pym 
 To brave us at Whitehall ! 
 
 (SAVILE enters.) 
 
 Savile. Not to Whitehall 
 
 'T is to the Lords they go : they seek redress 
 On Strafford from his peers the legal way, 
 They call it. 
 
 Queen. (Wait, Vane !) 
 
 Sav. But the adage gives 
 
 Long life to threatened men. Strafford can save 
 Himself so readily : at York, remember, 
 In his own county : what has he to fear ? 
 The Commons only mean to frighten him 
 From leaving York. Surely, he will not come. 
 
 Queen. Lucy, he will not come ! 
 
 Lady Car. Once more, the King 
 
 Has sent for Strafford. He will come.
 
 STRAFF ORD 161 
 
 Vane. Oh doubtless ! 
 
 And bring destruction with him : that 's his way. 
 What but his coming spoilt all Conway's plan ? 
 The King must take his counsel, choose his friends, 
 Be wholly ruled by him ! What 's the result ? 
 The North that was to rise, Ireland to help, 
 What came of it ? In my poor mind, a fright 
 Is no prodigious punishment. 
 
 Lady Car. A fright ? 
 
 Pym will fail worse than Strafford if he thinks 
 To frighten him. \_To the QUEEN.] You will not save him 
 then? 
 
 Sav. When something like a charge is made, the King 
 Will best know how to save him : and 't is clear, 
 While Strafford suffers nothing by the matter, 
 The King may reap advantage : this in question, 
 No dinning you with ship-money complaints ! 
 
 Queen. [ To Lady CAKLISLE.] If we dissolve them, who will 
 
 pay the army ? 
 Protect us from the insolent Scots ? 
 
 Lady Car. In truth, 
 
 I know not, madam. Stratford's fate concerns 
 Me little : you desired to learn what course 
 Would save him : I obey you. 
 
 Vane. Notice, too, 
 
 There can't be fairer ground for taking full 
 Revenge (Strafford 's revengeful) than he'll have 
 Against his old friend Pym. 
 
 Queen. Why, he shall claim 
 
 Vengeance on Pym ! 
 
 Vane. And Strafford, who is he 
 
 To 'scape unscathed amid the accidents 
 That harass all beside ? I, for my part, 
 Should look for something of discomfiture 
 Had the King trusted me so thoroughly 
 And been so paid for it. 
 
 Hoi. He '11 keep at York : 
 
 All will blow over : he '11 return no worse, 
 Humbled a little, thankful for a place 
 Under as good a man. Oh, we '11 dispense 
 With seeing Strafford for a month or two ! 
 (STRAFFORD enters.) 
 
 Queen. You here ! 
 
 Straf. The King sends for me, madam. 
 
 Queen. Sir, 
 
 The King . . .
 
 162 STR AFFORD 
 
 Straf. An urgent matter that imports the King ! 
 
 {To Lady CARLISLE.] Why, Lucy, what's in agitation now, 
 That all this muttering and shrugging, see, 
 Begins at me ? They do not speak ! 
 
 Lady Car. 'T is welcome ! 
 
 For we are proud of you happy and proud 
 To have you with us, Stratford ! You were stanch 
 At Durham : you did well there ! Had you not 
 Been stayed, you might have .... we said, even now, 
 Our hope 's in you ! 
 
 Sir H. Vane. {To Lady CARLISLE.] The Queen would speak 
 with you. 
 
 Straf. Will one of you, his servants here, vouchsafe 
 To signify my presence to the King ? 
 
 Sav. An urgent matter ? 
 
 Straf. None that touches you, 
 
 Lord Savile ! Say, it were somo treacherous 
 Sly pitiful intriguing with the Scots 
 You would go free, at least ! (They half divine 
 My purpose !) Madam, shall I see the King ? 
 The service I would render, much concerns 
 His welfare. 
 
 Queen. But his Majesty, my lord, 
 May not be here, may . . . 
 
 Straf. Its importance, then, 
 
 Must plead excuse for this withdrawal, madam, 
 And for the grief it gives Lord Savile here. 
 
 Queen. { Who has been conversing with VANE and HOL- 
 LAND.] The King will see you, sir ! 
 
 {To Lady CARLISLE.] Mark me : Pym's worst 
 
 Is done by now : he has impeached the Earl, 
 Or found the Earl too strong for him, by now. 
 Let us not seem instructed ! We should work 
 No good to Stratford, but deform ourselves 
 With shame in the world's eye. {To STRATFORD.] His Ma- 
 jesty 
 Has much to say with you. 
 
 Straf. Time fleeting, too ! 
 
 {To Lady CARLISLE.] No means of getting them away? An 1 
 
 She 
 
 What does she whisper ? Does she know my purpose ? 
 What does she think of it ? Get them away ! 
 
 Queen. {To Lady CARLISLE.] He comes to baffle Pym 
 
 he thinks the danger 
 Far off : tell him no word of it ! a time 
 For help will come ; we '11 not be wanting then.
 
 STR AFFORD 163 
 
 Keep him in play, Lucy you, self-possessed 
 
 And calm! \_To STBAFFOBD.] To spare your lordship some 
 delay 
 
 I will myself acquaint the King. \_To Lady CARLISLE.] Be- 
 ware ! 
 
 {The QUEEN, VANE, HOLLAND, and SAVILE go out. 
 
 Straf. She knows it ? 
 
 Lady Car. Tell me, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. Afterward ! 
 
 This moment 's the great moment of all time. 
 She knows my purpose ? 
 
 Lady Car. Thoroughly : just now 
 
 She bade me hide it from you. 
 
 Straf. Quick, dear child, 
 
 The whole o' the scheme ? 
 
 Lady Car. (Ah, he would learn if they 
 
 Connive at Pym's procedure ! Could they but 
 Have once apprised the King ! But there 's no time 
 For falsehood, now.) Strafford, the whole is known. 
 
 Straf. Known and approved ? 
 
 Lady Car. Hardly discountenanced. 
 
 Straf. And the King say, the King consents as well ? 
 
 Lady Car. The King 's not yet informed, but will not dare 
 To interpose. 
 
 Straf. What need to wait him, then ? 
 
 He '11 sanction it ! I stayed, child, tell him, long ! 
 It vexed me to the soul this waiting here. 
 You know him, there 's no counting on the King. 
 Tell him I waited long ! 
 
 Lady Car. (What can he mean ? 
 
 Rejoice at the King's hollowness ?) 
 
 Straf. I knew 
 
 They would be glad of it, all over once, 
 I knew they would be glad : but he 'd contrive, 
 The Queen and he, to mar, by helping it, 
 An angel's making. 
 
 Lady Car. (Is he mad ?) Dear Strafford, 
 You were not wont to look so happy. 
 
 Straf. Sweet, 
 
 I tried obedience thoroughly. I took 
 The King's wild plan : of course, ere I could reach 
 My army, Conway ruined it. I drew 
 The wrecks together, raised all heaven and earth, 
 And would have fought the Scots : the King at once 
 Made truce with them. Then, Lucy, then, dear child, 
 God put it in my mind to love, serve, die
 
 164 STRAP FORD 
 
 For Charles, but never to obey him more ! 
 While he endured their insolence at Ripon 
 I fell on them at Durham. But you '11 tell 
 The King I waited ? All the anteroom 
 Is filled with my adherents. 
 
 Lady Car. Straff ord Straff ord, 
 
 What daring act is this you hint ? 
 
 Straf. No, no ! 
 
 'T is here, not daring if you knew ! all here ! 
 
 [Drawing papers from his breast. 
 
 Full proof ; see, ample proof does the Queen know 
 I have such damning proof ? Bedford and Essex, 
 Brooke, Warwick, Savile (did you notice Savile ? 
 The simper that I spoilt ?) Saye, Mandeville 
 Sold to the Scots, body and soul, by Pym ! 
 
 Lady Car. Great heaven ! 
 
 Straf. From Savile and his lords, to Pym 
 
 And his losels, crushed ! Py^i shall not ward the blow 
 Nor Savile creep aside from it ! The Crew 
 And the Cabal I crush them ! 
 
 Lady Car. And you go 
 
 Strafford, and now you go ? 
 
 Straf. About no work 
 
 In the background, I promise you ! I go 
 Straight to the House of Lords to claim these knaves. 
 Mainwaring ! 
 
 Lady Car. Stay stay, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. She '11 return, 
 
 The Queen some little project of her own ! 
 No time to lose : the King takes fright perhaps. 
 
 Lady Car. Pym 's strong, remember ! 
 
 Straf. Very strong, as fits 
 
 The Faction's head with no offence to Hampden, 
 Vane, Rudyard, and my loving Hollis : one 
 And all they lodge within the Tower to-night 
 In just equality. Bryan ! Mainwaring ! 
 
 [Many of his Adherents enter 
 The Peers debate just now (a lucky chance) 
 On the Scots' war ; my visit 's opportune. 
 When all is over, Bryan, you proceed 
 To Ireland : these despatches, mark me, Bryan, 
 Are for the Deputy, and these for Ormond : 
 We want the army here my army, raised 
 At such a cost, that should have done such good, 
 And was inactive all the time ! no matter, 
 We '11 find a use for it. Willis . . . or, no you !
 
 STR AFFORD 165 
 
 You, friend, make haste to York : bear this, at once . . . 
 
 Or, better stay for form's sake, see yourself 
 
 The news you carry. You remain with me 
 
 To execute the Parliament's command, 
 
 Mainwaring ! Help to seize these lesser knaves, 
 
 Take care there 's no escaping at backdoors : 
 
 I '11 not have one escape, mind me not one ! 
 
 I seem revengeful, Lucy ? Did you know 
 
 What these men dare ! 
 
 Lady Car. It is so much they dare ! 
 
 Straf. I proved that long ago ; my turn is now. 
 Keep sharp watch, Goring, on the citizens ! 
 Observe who harbors any of the brood 
 That scramble off : be sure they smart for it ! 
 Our coffers are but lean. 
 
 And you, child, too, 
 
 Shall have your task ; deliver this to Laud. 
 Laud will not be the slowest in my praise : 
 " Thorough," he '11 cry ! Foolish, to be so glad ! 
 This life is gay and glowing, after all : 
 'T is worth while, Lucy, having foes like mine 
 Just for the bliss of crushing them. To-day 
 Is worth the living for. 
 
 Lady Car. That reddening brow ! 
 
 You seem . . . 
 
 Straf. Well do I not ? I would be well 
 
 I could not but be well on such a day ! 
 And, this day ended, 't is of slight import 
 How long the ravaged frame subjects the soul 
 In Strafford. 
 
 Lady Car. Noble Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. No farewell ! 
 
 I '11 see you anon, to-morrow the first thing. 
 If She should come to stay me ! 
 
 Lady Car. Go 't is nothing 
 
 Only my heart that swells : it has been thus 
 Ere now : go, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. To-night, then, let it be. 
 
 I must see Him : you, the next after Him. 
 I '11 tell you how Pym looked. Follow me, friends ! 
 You, gentlemen, shall see a sight this hour 
 To talk of all your lives. Close after me ! 
 " My friend of friends ! " 
 
 [STRATFORD and the rest go out 
 
 Lady Car. The King ever the King ! 
 
 No thought of one beside, whose little word
 
 166 STR AFFORD 
 
 Unveils the King to him one word from me, 
 Which yet I do not breathe ! 
 
 Ah, have I spared 
 
 Strafford a pang, and shall I seek reward 
 Beyond that memory ? Surely too, some way 
 He is the better for my love. No, no 
 He would not look so joyous I '11 believe 
 His very eye would never sparkle thus, 
 Had I not prayed for him this long, long while. 
 
 SCENE III. The Antechamber of the House of Lords. 
 Many of the Presbyterian Party. The Adherents of STR AFFORD, etc. 
 
 A Group of Presbyterians. 1. I tell you he struck Max- 
 well : Maxwell sought 
 To stay the Earl : he struck him and passed on. 
 
 2. Fear as you may, keep a good countenance 
 Before these rufflers. 
 
 3. Strafford here the first, 
 With the great army at his back ! 
 
 4. No doubt. 
 
 I would Pym had made haste : that 's Bryan, hush 
 The gallant pointing. 
 
 Straff ord's Followers. 1. Mark these worthies, now! 
 
 2. A goodly gathering ! " Where the carcass is 
 There shall the eagles " What 's the rest ? 
 
 3. For eagles 
 Say crows. 
 
 A Presbyterian. Stand back, sirs ! 
 
 On e of Straff ord's Followers. Are we in Geneva? 
 
 A Presbyterian. No, nor in Ireland ; we have leave to 
 breathe. 
 
 One of Straff ord's Followers. Truly ? Behold how privi- 
 leged we be 
 
 That serve " King Pym " ! There 's Some-one at Whitehall 
 Who skulks obscure ; but Pym struts . . . 
 
 The Presbyterian. Nearer. 
 
 A Follower of Strafford. Higher, 
 
 We look to see him. [To his Companions.] I'm to have St 
 
 John 
 
 In charge ; was he among the knaves just now 
 That followed Pym within there ? 
 
 Another. The gaunt man 
 
 Talking with Rudyard. Did the Earl expect 
 Pym at his heels so fast ? I like it not.
 
 STR AFFORD 167 
 
 (MAXWELL enters.) 
 
 Another. Why, man, they rush into the net ! Here 's Max- 
 well 
 
 Ha, Maxwell ? How the brethren flock around 
 The fellow ! Do you feel the Earl's hand yet 
 Upon your shoulder, Maxwell ? 
 
 Max. Gentlemen, 
 
 Stand back ! a great thing passes here. 
 
 A Follower of Strafford. \_To another.'} The Earl 
 Is at his work ! [To M.] Say, Maxwell, what great thing! 
 Speak out ! \_To a, Presbyterian.] Friend, I 've a kindness for 
 
 you ! Friend, 
 
 I 've seen you with St. John : O stockishness ! 
 Wear such a ruff, and never call to mind 
 St. John's head in a charger ? How, the plague, 
 Not laugh ? 
 
 Another. Say, Maxwell, what great thing ! 
 
 Another. Nay, wait: 
 
 The jest will be to wait. 
 
 First. And who 's to bear 
 
 These demure hypocrites ? You 'd swear they came . . . 
 Came . . . just as we come ! 
 
 [A Puritan enters hastily and vrithout observing STRAFFORD'S 
 Followers. 
 
 The Puritan. How goes on the work ? 
 
 Has Pym . . . 
 
 A Follower of Strafford. The secret's out at last. Aha, 
 The carrion 's scented ! Welcome, crow the first ! 
 Gorge merrily, you with the blinking eye ! 
 " King Pym has fallen ! " 
 
 The Puritan. Pym ? 
 
 A Strafford. Pym ! 
 
 A Presbyterian. Only Pym ? 
 
 Many of Strafford's Followers. No, brother, not Pym only ; 
 
 Vane as well, 
 Rudyard as well, Hampden, St. John as well ! 
 
 A Presbyterian. My mind misgives : can it be true ? 
 
 Another. Lost ! lost ! 
 
 A Strafford. Say we true, Maxwell ? 
 
 The Puritan. Pride before destruction, 
 
 A haughty spirit goeth before a fall. 
 
 Many of Strafford's Followers. Ah now ! The very thing ! 
 
 A word in season ! 
 A golden apple in a silver picture 
 To greet Pym as he passes !
 
 168 STR AFFORD 
 
 [The doors at the back begin to open, noise and light issuing. 
 
 Max. Stand back, all ! 
 
 Many of the Presbyterians. I hold with Pym ! And I ! 
 
 Stafford's Followers. Now for the text ! 
 
 He comes ! Quick ! 
 
 The Puritan. How hath the oppressor ceased ! 
 
 The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked ! 
 The sceptre of the rulers, he who smote 
 The people in wrath with a continual stroke, 
 That ruled the nations in his anger he 
 Is persecuted and none hindereth ! 
 
 [The doors open, and STRAFFORD issues in the greatest disorder, and 
 amid cries from within of" Void the House ! " 
 
 Straf. Impeach me ! Pym ! I never struck, I think, 
 The felon on that calm insulting mouth 
 
 When it proclaimed Pym's mouth proclaimed me . . . God ! 
 Was it a word, only a word that held 
 The outrageous blood back on my heart which beats ! 
 Which beats ! Some one word " Traitor," did he say, 
 Bending that eye, brimful of bitter fire, 
 Upon me ? 
 
 Max. In the Commons' name, their servant 
 Demands Lord Strafford's sword. 
 
 Straf. What did you say ? 
 
 Max. The Commons bid me ask your lordship's sword. 
 
 Straf. Let us go forth : follow me, gentlemen ! 
 Draw your swords too : cut any down that bar us. 
 On the King's service ! Maxwell, clear the way ! 
 
 [ The Presbyterians prepare to dispute his passage. 
 
 Straf. I stay : the King himself shall see me here. 
 Your tablets, fellow T 
 
 [To MAIXWARIXG.] Give that to the King ! 
 Yes, Maxwell, for the next half-hour, let be ! 
 Nay, you shall take my sword ! 
 
 [MAXWELL advances to take it. 
 Or, no not that ! 
 
 Their blood, perhaps, may wipe out all thus far, 
 All up to that not that ! Why, friend, you see 
 When the King lays your head beneath my foot 
 it will not pay for that Go, all of you ! 
 
 Max. I dare, my lord, to disobey : none stir ! 
 
 Straf. This gentle Maxwell ! Do not touch him, Bryan ! 
 [To the Presbyterians.] Whichever cur of you will carry this 
 Escapes his fellow's fate. None saves his life ? 
 None? 
 
 [Cries from within of " STRAFFORD !
 
 STRAFFORD 169 
 
 Slingsby, I 've loved you at least : make haste ! 
 Stab me ! I have not time to tell you why. 
 You then, my Bryan ! Mainwaring, you then ! 
 Is it because I spoke so hastily 
 At Allerton ? The King had vexed me. 
 [To the Presbyterians.] You! 
 
 Not even you ? If I live over this, 
 The King is sure to have your heads, you know! 
 But what if I can't live this minute through ? 
 Pym, who is there with his pursuing smile ! 
 
 [Louder cries of" STRAFFORD ! " 
 The King ! I troubled him, stood in the way 
 Of his negotiations, was the one 
 Great obstacle to peace, the Enemy 
 Of Scotland : and he sent for me, from York, 
 My safety guaranteed having prepared 
 A Parliament I see ! And at Whitehall 
 The Queen was whispering with Vane I see 
 The trap ! [Tearing off" the George. 
 
 I tread a gewgaw underfoot, 
 And cast a memory from me. One stroke, now ! 
 
 [His own Adherents disarm him. Renewed cries of " STRAFFORD ! " 
 England ! I see thy arm in this, and yield. 
 Pray you now Pym awaits me pray you now ! 
 
 [STRAFFORD reaches the doors : they open wide. HAMPDEN and a 
 crowd discovered, and, at the bar, PYM standing apart. As STRAF- 
 FORD kneels, the scene shuts. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. Whitehall. 
 
 The KING, the QUEEN, HOLLIS, Lady CARLISLE. (VANE, HOLLAND, 
 SAVILE, in the background.) 
 
 Lady Car. Answer them, Hollis, for his sake ! One word ! 
 
 Cha. [To HOLLIS.] You stand, silent and cold, as though I 
 
 were 
 
 Deceiving you my friend, my playfellow 
 Of other times. What wonder after all ? 
 Just so, I dreamed my People loved me. 
 
 Hoi. Sir, 
 
 It is yourself that you deceive, not me. 
 You '11 quit me comforted, your mind made up
 
 170 STR AFFORD 
 
 That, since you 've talked thus much and grieved thus much, 
 All you can do for Strafford has been done. 
 
 Queen. If you kill Strafford (come, we grant yeu leave. 
 Suppose) 
 
 Hoi. I may withdraw, sir ? 
 
 Lady Car. Hear them out ! 
 
 'T is the last chance for Strafford ! Hear them out ! 
 
 Hoi. " If we kill Strafford " on the eighteenth day 
 Of Stratford's trial We ! " 
 
 Cha. Pym, my good Hollis 
 
 Pym, I should say ! 
 
 Hoi. Ah, true sir, pardon me ! 
 
 You witness our proceedings every day ; 
 But the screened gallery, I might have guessed, 
 Admits of such a partial glimpse at us, 
 Pym takes up all the room, shuts out the view. 
 Still, on my honor, sir, the rest of the place 
 Is not unoccupied. The Commons sit 
 That 's England ; Ireland sends, and Scotland too, 
 Their representatives ; the Peers that judge 
 Are easily distinguished ; one remarks 
 The People here and there : but the close curtain 
 Must hide so much ! 
 
 Queen. Acquaint your insolent crew, 
 
 This day the curtain shall be dashed aside ! 
 It served a purpose. 
 
 Hoi. Think ! This very day ? 
 
 Ere Strafford rises to defend himself ? 
 
 Cha. I will defend him, sir ! sanction the past 
 This day : it ever was my purpose. Rage 
 At me, not Strafford ! 
 
 Lady Car. Nobly ! will he not 
 
 Do nobly ? 
 
 Hoi. Sir, you will do honestly ; 
 
 And, for that deed, I too would be a king. 
 
 Cha. Only, to do this now ! " deaf " (in your style) 
 " To subjects' prayers," I must oppose them now. 
 It seems their will the trial should proceed, 
 So palpably their will ! 
 
 Hoi. You peril much, 
 
 But it were no bright moment save for that. 
 Strafford, your prime support, the sole roof-tree 
 Which props this quaking House of Privilege, 
 (Floods come, winds beat, and see the treacherous sand !) 
 Doubtless, if the mere putting forth an arm 
 Could save him, you 'd save Strafford.
 
 STRAFFORD 171 
 
 Cha. And they mean 
 
 Consummate calmly this great wrong ! No hope ? 
 This ineffaceable wrong ! No pity then ? 
 
 Hoi. No plague in store for perfidy ? Farewell ! 
 You called me, sir [ To Lady CARLISLE.] You, lady, bade 
 
 me come 
 
 To save the Earl : I came, thank God for it, 
 To learn how far such perfidy can go ! 
 You, sir, concert with me on saving him 
 Who have just ruined Straff ord ! 
 
 Cha. I ? and how ? 
 
 Hoi. Eighteen days long he throws, one after one, 
 Pym's charges back : a blind moth-eaten law ! 
 He '11 break from it at last : and whom to thank ? 
 The mouse that gnawed the lion's net for him 
 Got a good friend, but he, the other mouse, 
 That looked on while the lion freed himself 
 Fared he so well, does any fable say ? 
 
 Cha. What can you mean ? 
 
 Hoi. Py 111 never could have proved 
 
 Strafford's design of bringing up the troops 
 To force this kingdom to obedience : Vane 
 Your servant, not our friend, has proved it. 
 
 Cha. Vane ? 
 
 Hoi. This day. Did Vane deliver up or no 
 Those notes which, furnished by his son to Pym, 
 Seal Strafford's fate ? 
 
 Cha. Sir, as I live, I know 
 
 Nothing that Vane has done ! What treason next ? 
 I wash my hands of it. Vane, speak the truth ! 
 Ask Vane himself ! 
 
 Hoi. I will not speak to Vane, 
 
 Who speak to Pym and Hampden every day. 
 
 Queen. Speak to Vane's master then ! What gain to him 
 Were Strafford's death ? 
 
 Hoi. Ha ? Strafford cannot turn 
 
 As you, sir, sit there bid you forth, demand 
 If every hateful act were not set down 
 In his commission ? whether you contrived 
 Or no, that all the violence should seem 
 His work, the gentle ways your own, his part, 
 To counteract the King's kind impulses 
 While . . . but you know what he could say ! And then 
 He might produce, mark, sir ! a certain charge 
 To set the King's express command aside, 
 If need were, and be blameless. He might add . . .
 
 172 STRAFFORD 
 
 Cha. Enough! 
 
 Hoi. Who bade him break the Parliament, 
 
 Find some pretence for setting up sword-law ! 
 
 Queen. Retire! 
 
 Cha. Once more, whatever Vane dared do, 
 
 I know not : he is rash, a fool I know 
 Nothing of Vane ! 
 
 Hoi. Well I believe you. Sir, 
 
 Believe me, in return, that . . . 
 [Turning to Lady CARLISLE.] Gentle lady, 
 The few words I would say, the stones might hear 
 Sooner than these, I rather speak to you, 
 You, with the heart ! The question, trust me, takes 
 Another shape, to-day : not, if the King 
 Or England shall succumb, but, who shall pay 
 The forfeit, Stratford or his master. Sir, 
 You loved me once : think on my warning now! [Goes out 
 
 Cha. On you and on your warning both ! Carlisle ! 
 That paper ! 
 
 Queen. But consider ! 
 
 Cha. Give it me ! 
 
 There, signed will that content you ? Do not speak ! 
 You have betrayed me, Vane ! See ! any day, 
 According to the tenor of that paper, 
 He bids your brother bring the army up, 
 Stratford shall head it and take full revenge. 
 Seek Stratford ! Let him have the same, before 
 He rises to defend himself ! 
 
 Queen. In truth ? 
 
 That your shrewd Hollis should have worked a change 
 Like this ! You, late reluctant . . . 
 
 Cha. Say, Carlisle, 
 
 Your brother Percy brings the army up, 
 Falls on the Parliament (I '11 think of you, 
 My Hollis !) say, we plotted long 'tis mine, 
 The scheme is mine, remember ! Say, I cursed 
 Vane's folly in your hearing ! If the Earl 
 Does rise to do us shame, the fault shall lie 
 With you, Carlisle ! 
 
 Lady Car. Nay, fear not me ! but still 
 
 That 's a bright moment, sir, you throw away. 
 Tear down the veil and save him ! 
 
 Queen. Go, Carlisle ! 
 
 Lady Car. (I shall see Stratford speak to him : my heart 
 Must never beat so, then ! And if I tell 
 The truth ? What 's gained by falsehood ? There they stand
 
 STRAFFORD 173 
 
 Whose trade it is, whose life it is ! How vain 
 To gild such rottenness ! Strafford shall know, 
 Thoroughly know them !) 
 
 Queen. Trust to me ! [To CARLISLE.] Carlisle, 
 
 You seem inclined, alone of all the Court, 
 To serve poor Strafford : this bold plan of yours 
 Merits much praise, and yet . . . 
 
 Lady Car. Tune presses, madam. 
 
 Queen. Yet may it not be something premature ? 
 Strafford defends himself to-day reserves 
 Some wondrous effort, one may well suppose ! 
 
 Lady Car* Ay, Hollis hints as much. 
 
 Cha. Why linger then ? 
 
 Haste with the scheme my scheme : I shall be there 
 To watch his look. Tell him I watch his look ! 
 
 Queen. Stay, we '11 precede you ! 
 
 Lady Car. At your pleasure. 
 
 Cha. Say 
 
 Say, Vane is hardly ever at Whitehall ! 
 I shall be there, remember ! 
 
 Lady Car. Doubt me not. 
 
 Cha. On our return, Carlisle, we wait you here ! 
 
 Lady Car. I '11 bring his answer. Sir, I follow you. 
 (Prove the King faithless, and I take away 
 All Strafford cares to live for : let it be 
 'T is the King's scheme ! 
 
 My Strafford, I can save, 
 Nay, I have saved you, yet am scarce content, 
 Because my poor name will not cross your mind. 
 Strafford, how much I am unworthy you !) 
 
 SCENE II. A passage adjoining Westminster Hall. 
 Many groups of Spectators of the Trial. Officers of the Court, etc. 
 
 1st Spec. More crowd than ever ! Not know Hampden, man ? 
 That 's he, by Pym, Pym that is speaking now. 
 No, truly, if you look so high you 'LI see 
 Little enough of either ! 
 
 2d Spec. Stay : Pym's arm 
 
 Points like a prophet's rod. 
 
 3d Spec. Ay, ay, we 've heard 
 
 Some pretty speaking : yet the Earl escapes. 
 
 4:th Spec. I fear it : just a foolish word or two 
 About his children and we see, forsooth, 
 Not England's foe in Strafford, but the man 
 Who, sick, half-blind . . .
 
 174 STR AFFORD 
 
 2d Spec. What 's that Pym 's saying now 
 
 Which makes the cnrtains flutter ? look ! A hand 
 Clutches them. Ah ! The King's hand ! 
 
 5th Spec. I had thought 
 
 Pym was not near so talL What said he, friend ? 
 
 2d Spec. " Nor is this way a novel way of blood," 
 And the Earl turns as if to ... Look ! look ! 
 
 Many Spectators. There ! 
 
 What alls him ? No he rallies, see goes on, 
 And Strafford smiles. Strange ! 
 
 An Officer. Haselrig ! 
 
 Many Spectators. Friend ? Friend ? 
 
 The Officer. Lost, utterly lost : just when we looked for 
 
 Pym 
 
 To make a stand against the ill effects 
 Of the Earl's speech ! Is Haselrig without ? 
 P^ym's message is to him. 
 
 3d Spec. Now, said I true ? 
 
 Will the Earl leave them yet at fault or no ? 
 
 1st Spec. Never believe it, man ! These notes of Vane's 
 Ruin the EarL 
 
 5th Spec. A brave end : not a whit 
 Less firm, less Pym all over. Then, the trial 
 Is closed. No Strafford means to speak again ? 
 
 An Officer. Stand back, there ! 
 
 5th Spec. Why, the Earl is coming hither ! 
 
 Before the court breaks up ! His brother, look, 
 Yon 'd say he 'd deprecated some fierce act 
 In Stratford's mind just now. 
 
 An Officer. Stand back, I say ! 
 
 2d Spec. Who 's the veiled woman that he talks with ? 
 
 Many Spectators. Hush 
 The Earl ! the Earl ! 
 
 [Enter STRAFFORD, SUNGSBY, and other Secretaries, Houus, Lady 
 CARLISLE, MAXWELL, BALFOUR, etc. STRAFFORD converses with 
 Lady CARLISLE. 
 
 Hoi. So near the end ! Be patient 
 
 Return! 
 
 Straf. [To his Secretaries.] Here anywhere or, 't is 
 
 freshest here ! 
 
 To spend one's April here, the blossom-month : 
 Set it down here ! 
 
 [They arrange a table, papers, etc 
 So, Pym can quail, can cower 
 Because I glance at him, yet more 's to do. 
 What 's to be answered, Slingsby ? Let us end !
 
 STR AFFORD 175 
 
 [To Lady CABLISLE.] Child, I refuse his offer ; whatsoe'er 
 
 It be ! Too late ! Tell me no word of him ! 
 
 'T is something, Hollis, I assure you that 
 
 To stand, sick as you are, some eighteen days 
 
 Fighting for life and fame against a pack 
 
 Of very curs, that lie through thick and thin, 
 
 Eat flesh and bread by wholesale, and can't say 
 
 " Strafford " if it would take my life ! 
 
 Lady Car. Be moved ! 
 
 Glance at the paper ! 
 
 Straf. Already at my heels ! 
 
 Pym's faulting bloodhounds scent the track again. 
 Peace, child ! Now, Slingsby ! 
 
 [Messengers from LANE and other of STRAFFORD'S Counsel within 
 the Hall are coming and going during the Scene. 
 
 Straf. [setting himself to write and dictate.] I shall beat 
 
 you, Hollis ! 
 
 Do you know that ? In spite of St. John's tricks, 
 In spite of Pym your Pym who shrank from me ! 
 Eliot would have contrived it otherwise. 
 [To a Messenger.] In truth ? This slip, tell Lane, contains as 
 
 much 
 
 As I can call to mind about the matter. 
 Eliot would have disdained . . . 
 [Calling after the Messenger.] And Radcliffe, say, 
 The only person who could answer Pym, 
 Is safe in prison, just for that. 
 
 Well, well ! 
 
 It had not been recorded in that case, 
 I baffled you. 
 
 [To Lady CARLISLE.] Nay, child, why look so grieved? 
 All 's gained without the King ! You saw Pym quail ? 
 What shall I do when they acquit me, think you, 
 But tranquilly resume my task as though 
 Nothing had intervened since I proposed 
 To call that traitor to account ! Such tricks, 
 Trust me, shall not be played a second time, 
 Not even against Laud, with his gray hair 
 Your good work, Hollis ! Peace ! To make amends, 
 You, Lucy, shall be here when I impeach 
 Pym and his fellows. 
 
 Hoi. Wherefore not protest 
 
 Against our whole proceeding, long ago ? 
 Why feel indignant now ? Why stand this while 
 Enduring patiently ? 
 
 Straf. Child, I '11 tell you
 
 176 STRAP FORD 
 
 You, and not Pym you, the slight graceful girl 
 
 Tall for a flowering lily, and not Hollis 
 
 Why I stood patient ! I was fool enough 
 
 To see the will of England in Pym's will ; 
 
 To fear, myself had wronged her, and to wait 
 
 Her judgment : when, behold, in place of it . . . 
 
 \_To a Messenger who whispers.'} Tell Lane to answer no such 
 
 question ! Law, 
 
 I grapple with their law ! I 'm here to try 
 My actions by their standard, not my own ! 
 Their law allowed that levy : what 's the rest 
 To Pym, or Lane, any but God and me ? 
 
 Lady Car. The King's so weak! Secure this chancel 
 
 'T was Vane, 
 Never forget, who furnished Pym the notes . . . 
 
 Straf. Fit, very fit, those precious notes of Vane, 
 To close the Trial worthily ! I feared 
 Some spice of nobleness might linger yet 
 And spoil the character of all the past. 
 Vane eased me . . . and I will go back and say 
 As much to Pym, to England ! Follow me, 
 I have a word to say ! There, my defence 
 Is done ! 
 
 Stay ! why be proud ? Why care to own 
 My gladness, my surprise ? Nay, not surprise ! 
 Wherefore insist upon the little pride 
 Of doing all myself, and sparing him 
 The pain ? Child, say the triumph is my King's ! 
 When Pym grew pale, and trembled, and sank down, 
 One image was before me : could I fail ? 
 Child, care not for the past, so indistinct, 
 Obscure there 's nothing to forgive in it, 
 'T is so forgotten ! From this day begins 
 A new life, founded on a new belief 
 In Charles. 
 
 Hoi. In Charles ? Rather believe in Pym ! 
 
 And here he comes in proof ! Appeal to Pym ! 
 Say how unfair . . . 
 
 Straf. To Pym ? I would say nothing ! 
 
 I would not look upon Pym's face again. 
 
 Lady Car. Stay, let me have to think I pressed your hand ! 
 
 [STRAFFORD and his Friends go out 
 (Enter HAMPDEN and VANE.) 
 
 Vane. Hampden, save the great misguided man ! 
 Plead Strafford's cause with Pym ! I have remarked 
 He moved no muscle when we all declaimed
 
 STR AFFORD 177 
 
 Against him : you had but to breathe he turned 
 Those kind calm eyes upon you. 
 
 [Enter PYM, the Solicitor-General ST. JOHN, the Managers of 
 the Trial, FIENNES, RUDYARD, etc. 
 
 Hud. Horrible ! 
 
 Till now all hearts were with you : I withdraw 
 For one. Too horrible ! But we mistake 
 Your purpose, Pym : you cannot snatch away 
 The last spar from the drowning man. 
 
 Fieri. He talks 
 
 With St. John of it see, how quietly ! 
 
 [To other Presbyterians.] You '11 join us ? Straff ord may de- 
 serve the worst : 
 
 But this new course is monstrous. Vane, take heart ! 
 This Bill of his Attainder shall not have 
 One true man's hand to it. 
 
 Vane. Consider, Pym ! 
 
 Confront your Bill, your own Bill : what is it ? 
 You cannot catch the Earl on any charge, 
 No man will say the law has hold of him 
 On any charge ; and therefore you resolve 
 To take the general sense on his desert, 
 As though no law existed, and we met 
 To found one. You refer to Parliament 
 To speak its thought upon the abortive mass 
 Of half -borne-out assertions, dubious hints 
 Hereafter to be cleared, distortions ay, 
 And wild inventions. Every man is saved 
 The task of fixing any single charge 
 On Strafford : he has but to see in him 
 The enemy of England. 
 
 Pym. A right scruple ! 
 
 I have heard some called England's enemy 
 With less consideration. 
 
 Vane. Pity me ! 
 
 Indeed you made me think I was your friend ! 
 I who have murdered Strafford, how remove 
 That memory from me ? 
 
 Pym. I absolve you, Vane. 
 
 Take you no care for aught that you have done ! 
 
 Vane. John Hampden, not this Bill ! Reject this Bill ! 
 He staggers through the ordeal : lei him go, 
 Strew no fresh fire before him ! Plead for us ! 
 When Strafford spoke, your eyes were thick with tears ! 
 
 Hamp. England speaks louder : who are we, to play 
 The generous pardoner at her expense,
 
 178 STRAFFORD 
 
 Magnanimously waive advantages, 
 And, if he conquer us, applaud his skill ? 
 
 Vane. He was your friend. 
 
 Pym. I have heard that before. 
 
 Fien. And England trusts you. 
 
 Hamp. Shame be his, who turns 
 
 The opportunity of serving her 
 She trusts him with, to his own mean account 
 Who would look nobly frank at her expense ! 
 
 Fien. I never thought it could have come to this. 
 
 Pym. But I have made myself familiar, Fiennes, 
 With this one thought have walked, and sat, and slept, 
 This thought before me. I have done such things, 
 Being the chosen man that should destroy 
 The traitor. You have taken up this thought 
 To play with, for a gentle stimulant, 
 To give a dignity to idler life 
 By the dim prospect of emprise to come, 
 But ever with the softening, sure belief, 
 That all would end some strange way right at last. 
 
 Fien. Had we made out some weightier charge ! 
 
 Pym. You say 
 
 That these are petty charges : can we come 
 To the real charge at all ? There he is safe 
 In tyranny's stronghold. Apostasy 
 Is not a crime, treachery not a crime : 
 The cheek burns, the blood tingles, when you speak 
 The words, but where 's the power to take revenge 
 Upon them ? We must make occasion serve, 
 The oversight shall pay for the main sin 
 That mocks us. 
 
 Rud. But this unexampled course, 
 
 This Bill ! 
 
 Pym. By this, we roll the clouds away 
 Of precedent and custom, and at once 
 Bid the great beacon-light God sets in all, 
 The conscience of each bosom, shine upon 
 The guilt of Strafford : each man lay his hand 
 Upon his breast, and judge ! 
 
 Vane. I only see 
 
 Strafford, nor pass bis corpse for all beyond ! 
 
 Rud. and others. Forgive him ! He would join us, now he 
 
 finds 
 
 What the King counts reward ! The pardon, too, 
 Should be your own. Yourself should bear to Strafford 
 The pardon of the Commons.
 
 STRAFFORD 179 
 
 Pym. Meet him ? Strafford ? 
 
 Have we to meet once more, then ? Be it so ! 
 And yet the prophecy seemed half fulfilled . 
 When, at the Trial, as he gazed, my youth, 
 Our friendship, divers thoughts came back at once 
 And left me, for a time ... 'T is very sad ! 
 To-morrow we discuss the points of law 
 With Lane to-morrow ? 
 
 Vane. Not before to-morrow 
 
 So, time enough ! I knew you would relent ! 
 
 Pym. The next day, Haselrig, you introduce 
 The Bill of his Attainder. Pray for me ! 
 
 SCENE III. Whitehall. 
 The KING. 
 
 Cha. My loyal servant ! To defend himself 
 Thus irresistibly, withholding aught 
 That seemed to implicate us ! 
 
 We have done 
 
 Less gallantly by Strafford. Well, the future 
 Must recompense the past. 
 
 She tarries long. 
 I understand you, Strafford, now ! 
 
 The scheme 
 
 Carlisle's mad scheme he '11 sanction it, I fear, 
 For love of me. 'T was too precipitate : 
 Before the army 's fairly on its march, 
 He '11 be at large : no matter. 
 
 Well, Carlisle? 
 
 (Enter PYM.) 
 
 Pym. Fear me not, sir : my mission is to save, 
 This time. 
 
 Cha. To break thus on me ! unannounced ! 
 
 Pym. It is of Strafford I would speak. 
 
 Cha. No more 
 
 Of Strafford ! I have heard too much from you. 
 
 Pym. I spoke, sir, for the People ; will you hear 
 A word upon my own account ? 
 
 Cha. Of Strafford? 
 
 (So turns the tide already ? Have we tamed 
 The insolent brawler ? Strafford's eloquence 
 Is swift in its effect.) Lord Strafford, sir, 
 Has spoken for himself.
 
 180 STRAP FORD 
 
 Pym. Sufficiently. 
 
 I would apprise you of the novel course 
 The People take : the Trial fails. 
 
 Cha. Yes, yes : 
 
 We are aware, sir : for your part in it 
 Means shall be found to thank you. 
 
 Pym. Pray you, read 
 
 This schedule ! I would learn from your own mouth 
 (It is a matter much concerning me) 
 Whether, if two Estates of us concede 
 The death of Stratford, on the grounds set forth 
 Within that parchment, you, sir, can resolve 
 To grant your own consent to it. This Bill 
 Is framed by me. If you determine, sir, 
 That England's manifested will should guide 
 Your judgment, ere another week such will 
 Shall manifest itself. If not, I cast 
 Aside the measure. 
 
 Cha. You can hinder, then, 
 
 The introduction of this Bill ? 
 
 Pym. I can. 
 
 Cha. He is my friend, sir : I have wronged him : mark you, 
 Had I not wronged him, this might be. You think 
 Because you hate the Earl . . . (turn not away, 
 We know you hate him) no one else could love 
 Strafford : but he has saved me, some affirm. 
 Think of his pride ! And do you know one strange, 
 One frightful thing ? We all have used the man 
 As though a drudge of ours, with not a source 
 Of happy thoughts except in us ; and yet 
 Strafford has wife and children, household cares, 
 Just as if we had never been. Ah, sir, 
 You are moved, even you, a solitary man 
 Wed to your cause to England if you will ! 
 
 Pym. Yes think, my soul to England ! Draw not back! 
 
 Cha. Prevent that Bill, sir ! All your course seems fair 
 Till now. Why, in the end, 'tis I should sign 
 The warrant for his death ! You have said much 
 I ponder on ; I never meant, indeed, 
 Strafford should serve me any more. I take 
 The Commons' counsel ; but this Bill is yours 
 Nor worthy of its leader : care not, sir, 
 For that, however ! I will quite forget 
 You named it to me. You are satisfied ? 
 
 Pym. Listen to me, sir ! Eliot laid his hand, 
 Wasted and white, upon my forehead once ;
 
 STRAFFORD 181 
 
 Wentworth he 's gone now ! has talked on, whole nights, 
 And I beside him ; Hampden loves me : sir, 
 How can I breathe and not wish England well, 
 And her King well ? 
 
 Cha. I thank you, sir, who leave 
 
 That King his servant. Thanks, sir ! 
 
 Pym. Let me speak ! 
 
 Who may not speak again ; whose spirit yearns 
 For a cool night after this weary day : 
 
 Who would not have my soul turn sicker yet 
 In a new task, more fatal, more august, 
 
 More full of England's utter weal or woe. 
 
 I thought, sir, could I find myself with you, 
 
 After this trial, alone, as man to man 
 
 I might say something, warn you, pray you, save ' 
 
 Mark me, King Charles, save you ! 
 
 But God must do it. Yet I warn you, sir 
 
 (With Stratford's faded eyes yet full on me) 
 
 As you would have no deeper question moved 
 
 " How long the Many must endure the One," 
 Assure me, sir, if England give assent 
 
 To Stratford's death, you will not interfere ! 
 Or 
 
 Cha. God forsakes me. I am in a net 
 And cannot move. Let all be as you say ! 
 
 (Enter Lady CARLISLE.) 
 
 Lady Car. He loves you looking beautiful with joy 
 Because you sent me ! he would spare you all 
 The pain ! he never dreamed you would forsake 
 Your servant in the evil day nay, see 
 Your scheme returned ! That generous hfeart of his ! 
 He needs it not or, needing it, disdains 
 A course that might endanger you you, sir, 
 Whom Stratford from his inmost soul . . . 
 
 [Seeing PYM.] Well met ! 
 
 No fear for Stratford ! All that 's true and brave 
 On your own side shall help us : we are now 
 Stronger than ever. 
 
 Ha what, sir, is this ? 
 All is not well ! What parchment have you there ? 
 
 Pym. Sir, much is saved us both. 
 
 Lady Car. This Bill ! Your lip 
 
 Whitens you could not read one line to me 
 Your voice would falter so !
 
 182 STR AFFORD 
 
 Pytn. No recreant yet ! 
 
 The great word went from England to my soul, 
 And I arose. The end is very near. 
 
 Lady Car. I am to save him ! All have shrunk beside ; 
 'T is only I am left. Heaven will make strong 
 The hand now as the heart. Then let both die ! 
 
 ACTV. 
 
 SCENE I. Whitehall. 
 HOLLIS, Lady CARLISLE. 
 
 HoL Tell the King then ! Come in with me ! 
 
 Lady Car. Not so ! 
 
 He must not hear till it succeeds. 
 
 Hoi. Succeed ? 
 
 No dream was half so vain you 'd rescue Strafford 
 And outwit Pym ! I cannot tell you . . . lady, 
 The block pursues me, and the hideous show. 
 To-day ... is it to-day ? And all the while 
 He 's sure of the King's pardon. Think, I have 
 To tell this man he is to die. The King 
 May rend his hair, for me ! I '11 not see Strafford ! 
 
 Lady Car. Only, if I succeed, remember Charles 
 Has saved him. He would hardly value life 
 Unless his gift. My stanch friends wait. Go in 
 You must go in to Charles ! 
 
 Hoi. And all beside 
 
 Left Strafford long ago. The King has signed 
 The warrant for Ms death ! the Queen was sick 
 Of the eternal subject. For the Court, 
 The Trial was amusing in its way, 
 Only too much of it : the Earl withdrew 
 In time. But you, fragile, alone, so young, 
 Amid rude mercenaries you devise 
 A plan to save him ! Even though it fails, 
 What shall reward you ? 
 
 Lady Car. I may go, you think, 
 
 To France with him ? And you reward me, friend, 
 Who lived with Strafford even from his youth 
 Before he set his heart on state-affairs 
 And they bent down that noble brow of his, 
 I have learned somewhat of his latter life. 
 And all the future I shall know : but, Hollis,
 
 STR AFFORD 183 
 
 I ought to make his youth my own as well, 
 Tell me, when he is saved ! 
 
 Hoi. My gentle friend, 
 
 He should know all and love you, but 't is vain ! 
 
 Lady Car. Love ? no too late now ! Let him love the 
 
 King! 
 
 'T is the King's scheme ! I have your word, remember ! 
 We '11 keep the old delusion up. But, quick ! 
 Quick ! Each of us has work to do, beside ! 
 Go to the King ! I hope Hollis I hope ! 
 Say nothing of my scheme ! Hush, while we speak 
 Think where he is ! Now for my gallant friends ! 
 
 Hoi. Where he is ? Calling wildly upon Charles, 
 Guessing his fate, pacing the prison-floor. 
 Let the King tell him ! I '11 not look on Strafford. 
 
 SCENE II. The Tower. 
 STRAFFORD sitting with his Children. They sing. 
 
 O bell' aiidare 
 Per barca in mare, 
 Verso la sera 
 Di Primavera ! 
 
 WiUiam. The boat 's in the broad moonlight all this while 
 
 Verso la sera 
 Di Primayera ! 
 
 And the boat shoots from underneath the moon 
 Into the shadowy distance ; only still 
 You hear the dipping oar 
 
 Verso la sera, 
 
 And faint, and fainter, and then all 's quite gone, 
 Music and light and all, like a lost star. 
 
 Anne. But you should sleep, father : you were to sleep. 
 
 Straf. I do sleep, Anne ; or if not you must know 
 There 's such a thing as ... 
 
 Wil. You 're too tired to sleep. 
 
 Straf. It will come by-and-by and all day long, 
 In that old quiet house I told you of : 
 We sleep safe there. 
 
 Anne. Why not in Ireland ? 
 
 Straf. No ! 
 
 'foo many dreams ! That song 's for Venice, William : 
 You know how Venice looks upon the map 
 Isles that the mainland hardly can let go ?
 
 184 STR AFFORD 
 
 Wil. You 've been to Venice, father ? 
 
 Straf. I was young, thea 
 
 Wil. A city with no King ; that 's why I like 
 Even a song that comes from Venice. 
 
 Straf. William ! 
 
 Wil. Oh, I know why ! Anne, do you love the King ? 
 But 1 '11 see Venice for myself one day. 
 
 Straf. See many lands, boy England last of all, 
 That way you '11 love her best. 
 
 Wil. Why do men say 
 
 You sought to ruin her, then ? 
 
 Straf. Ah, they say that. 
 
 Wil. Why? 
 
 Straf. I suppose they must have words to say, 
 
 As you to sing. 
 
 Anne. But they make songs beside : 
 
 Last night I heard one, in the street beneath, 
 That called you . . . Oh, the names ! 
 
 Wil. Don't mind her, father ! 
 
 They soon left off when I cried out to them. 
 
 Straf. We shall so soon be out of it, my boy ! 
 'T is not worth while : who heeds a foolish song ? 
 
 Wil. Why, not the King. 
 
 Straf. Well : it has been the fate 
 
 Of better ; and yet, wherefore not feel sure 
 That time, who in the twilight comes to mend 
 All the fantastic day's caprice, consign 
 To the low ground once more the ignoble Term, 
 And raise the Genius on his orb again, 
 That time will do me right ? 
 
 Anne. (Shall we sing, William ? 
 
 He does not look thus when we sing.) 
 
 Straf. For Ireland, 
 
 Something is done : too little, but enough 
 To show what might have been. 
 
 It 'if- (I have no heart 
 
 To sing now ! Anne, how very sad he looks ! 
 Oh, I so hate the King for all he says !) 
 
 Straf. Forsook them ! What, the common songs will run 
 That I forsook the People ? Nothing more ? 
 Ay, fame, the busy scribe, will pause, no doubt, 
 Turning a deaf ear to her thousand slaves 
 Noisy to be enrolled, will register 
 The curious glosses, subtle notices, 
 Ingenious clearings-up one fain would see
 
 STRAFFORD 185 
 
 Beside that plain inscription of The Name 
 The Patriot Pym, or the Apostate Strafford ! 
 
 [ The Children resume their song timidly, but break off". 
 
 (Enter HOLLIS and an Attendant.) 
 
 Straf. No, Hollis ? in good time ! Who is he ? 
 
 Hoi. One 
 
 That must he present. 
 
 Straf. Ah I understand. 
 
 They will not let me see poor Laud alone. 
 How politic ! They 'd use me by degrees 
 To solitude : and, just as you came in, 
 I was solicitous what life to lead 
 When Strafford 's '' not so much as Constable 
 In the King's service." Is there any means 
 To keep one's self awake ? What would you do 
 After this bustle, Hollis, in my place ? 
 
 Hoi. Strafford! 
 
 Straf. Observe, not but that Pym and you 
 
 Will find me news enough news I shall hear 
 Under a quince-tree by a fish-pond side 
 At Wentworth. Garrard must be re-engaged 
 My newsman. Or, a better project now 
 What if when all 's consummated, and the Saints 
 Reign, and the Senate's work goes swimmingly, 
 What if I venture up, some day, unseen, 
 To saunter through the Town, notice how Pym, 
 Your Tribune, likes Whitehall, drop quietly 
 Into a tavern, hear a point discussed, 
 As, whether Strafford's name were John or James 
 And be myself appealed to I, who shall 
 Myself have near forgotten ! 
 
 Hoi. I would speak . . . 
 
 Straf. Then you shall speak, not now. I want just now, 
 To hear the sound of my own tongue. This place 
 Is full of ghosts. 
 
 Hoi. Nay, you must hear me, Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. Oh, readily ! Only, one rare thing more, 
 The minister ! Who will advise the King, 
 Turn his Sejanus, Richelieu and what not, 
 And yet have health children, for aught I know 
 My patient pair of traitors ! Ah, but, William 
 Does not his cheek grow thin ? 
 
 Wil. 'T is you look thin, 
 
 Father ! 
 
 Straf. A scamper o'er the breezy wolds 
 Sets all to-rights.
 
 186 STRAFFORD 
 
 Hoi. You cannot sure forget 
 
 A prison-roof is o'er you, Strafford ? 
 
 ,S7ra/. No, 
 
 Why, no. I would not touch on that, the first 
 I left you that. Well, Hollis ? Say at once, 
 The King can find no time to set me free ! 
 A mask at Theobald's ? 
 
 Hoi. Hold : no such affair 
 
 Detains him. 
 
 Straf. True : what needs so great a matter ? 
 
 The Queen's lip may be sore. Well : when he pleases, 
 Only, I want the air : it vexes flesh 
 To be pent up so long. 
 
 Hoi. The King I bear 
 
 His message, Strafford : pray you, let me speak ! 
 
 Straf. Go, William ! Anne, try o'er your song again ! 
 
 [The Children retire, 
 
 They shall be loyal, friend, at all events. 
 I know your message : you have nothing new 
 To tell me : from the first I guessed as much. 
 I know, instead of coming here himself, 
 Leading me forth in public by the hand, 
 The King prefers to leave the door ajar 
 As though I were escaping bids me trudge 
 While the mob gapes upon some show prepared 
 On the other side of the river ! Give at once 
 His order of release ! I 've heard, as well 
 Of certain poor manoeuvres to avoid 
 The granting pardon at his proper risk ; 
 First, he must prattle somewhat to the Lords, 
 Must talk a trifle with the Commons first, 
 Be grieved I should abuse his confidence, 
 And far from blaming them, and . . . Where 's the order ? 
 
 Hoi. Spare me ! 
 
 Straf. Why, he 'd not have me steal away ? 
 
 With an old doublet and a steeple hat 
 Like Prynne's ? Be smuggled into France, perhaps ? 
 Hollis, 't is for my children ! 'T was for them 
 I first consented to stand day by day 
 And give your Puritans the best of words, 
 Be patient, speak when called upon, observe 
 Their rules, and not return them prompt their lie ! 
 What 's in that boy of mine that he should prove 
 Son to a prison-breaker ? I shall stay 
 And he '11 stay with me. Charles should know as much, 
 He too has children !
 
 STRAP FORD 187 
 
 [Turning to HOLLIS'S companion.'] Sir, you feel for me ! 
 No need to hide that face ! Though it have looked 
 Upon me from the judgment-seat ... I know 
 Strangely, that somewhere it has looked on me . . . 
 Your coming has my pardon, nay, my thanks : 
 For there is one who comes not. 
 
 Hoi. Whom forgive, 
 
 As one to die ! 
 
 Straf. True, all die, and all need 
 
 Forgiveness : I forgive him from my soul. 
 
 Hoi. 'T is a world's wonder : Strafford, you must die ! 
 
 Straf. Sir, if your errand is to set me free 
 This heartless jest mars much. Ha ! Tears in truth ? 
 We '11 end this ! See this paper, warm feel warm 
 With lying next my heart ! Whose hand is there ? 
 Whose promise ? Read, and loud for God to hear ! 
 " Strafford shall take no hurt " read it, I say ! 
 " In person, honor, nor estate " 
 
 Hoi. The King . . . 
 
 Straf. I could unking him by a hreath ! You sit 
 Where Loudon sat, who came to prophesy 
 The certain end, and offer me Pym's grace 
 If I 'd renounce the King : and I stood firm 
 On the King's faith. The King who lives . . . 
 
 Hoi. To sign 
 
 The warrant for your death. 
 
 Straf. " Put not your trust 
 
 In princes, neither in the sons of men, 
 In whom is no salvation ! " 
 
 Hoi. Trust in God ! 
 
 The scaffold is prepared : they wait for you : 
 He has consented. Cast the earth behind ! 
 
 Cha. You would not see me, Strafford, at your foot ! 
 It was wrung from me ! Only, curse me not ! 
 
 Hoi. \_To STRAFFORD.] As you hope grace and pardon in 
 
 your need, 
 Be merciful to this most wretched man . 
 
 [Voices from w'dhln. 
 
 Verso la sera 
 Di Primavera. 
 
 Straf. You '11 be good to those children, sir ? I know 
 You '11 not believe her, even should the Queen 
 Think they take after one they rarely saw. 
 I had intended that my son should live 
 A stranger to these matters : but you are
 
 188 S TR AFFORD 
 
 So utterly deprived of friends ! He too 
 
 Must serve you will you not be good to him ? 
 
 Or. stay, sir, do not promise do not swear ! 
 
 You, Hollis do the best you can for me ! 
 
 I 've not a soul to trust to : Wandesford 's dead, 
 
 And you 've got Radcliffe safe, Laud's turn comes next : 
 
 I 've found small time of late for my affairs, 
 
 But I trust any of you, Pym himself 
 
 No one could hurt them : there 's an infant, too 
 
 These tedious cares ! Your Majesty could spare them. 
 
 Nay pardon me, my King ! I had forgotten 
 
 Your education, trials, much temptation. 
 
 Some weakness : there escaped a peevish word 
 
 'T is gone : I bless you at the last. You know 
 
 All 's between you and me : what has the world 
 
 To do with it ? Farewell ! 
 
 Cha. [at the door.~\ Balfour ! Balfour ! 
 
 (Enter BALFOUR.J 
 
 The Parliament ! go to them : I grant all 
 Demands. Their sittings shall be permanent : 
 Tell them to keep their money if they will : 
 I '11 come to them for every coat I wear 
 And every crust I eat : only I choose 
 To pardon Strafford. As the Queen shall choose ! 
 You never heard the People howl for blood, 
 Beside ! 
 
 Bal. Your Majesty may hear them now : 
 The walls can hardly keep their murmurs out : 
 Please you retire ! 
 
 Cha. Take all the troops, Balfour ! 
 
 Bal. There are some hundred thousand of the crowd. 
 
 Cha. Come with me, Strafford ! You '11 not fear, at least ! 
 
 Straf. Balfour, say nothing to the world of this ! 
 I charge you, as a dying man, forget 
 You gazed upon this agony of one . . . 
 Of one ... or if ... why you may say, Balfour, 
 The King was sorry : 't is no shame in him : 
 Yes, you may say he even wept, Balfour, 
 And that I walked the lighter to the block 
 Because of it. I shall walk lightly, sir ! 
 Earth fades, heaven breaks on me : I shall stand next 
 Before God's throne : the moment 's close at hand 
 When man the first, last time, has leave to lay 
 His whole heart bare before its Maker, leave 
 To clear up the long error of a life
 
 STRAP FORD 189 
 
 And choose one happiness for evermore. 
 
 With all mortality about me, Charles, 
 
 The sudden wreck, the dregs of violent death 
 
 What if, despite the opening angel-song, 
 
 There penetrate one prayer for you ? Be saved 
 
 Through rne ! Bear witness, no one could prevent 
 
 My death ! Lead on ! ere he awake best, now ! 
 
 All must be ready : did you say, Balfour, 
 
 The crowd began to murmur ? They '11 be kept 
 
 Too late for sermon at St. Antholin's ! 
 
 Now ! But tread softly children are at play 
 
 In the next room. Precede ! I follow 
 
 (Enter Lady CARLISLE, with many Attendants. ) 
 
 Lady Car. Me ! 
 
 Follow me, Strafford, and be saved ! The King ? 
 [To the KING.] Well as you ordered, they are ranged with- 
 out, 
 
 The convoy . . . [seeing the KING'S state. ,] 
 [To STRAFFORD.] You know all, then ! Why, I thought 
 It looked best that the King should save you, Charles 
 Alone ; 't is a shame that you should owe me aught. 
 Or no, not shame ! Strafford, you '11 not feel shame 
 At being saved by me ? 
 
 Hoi. All true ! Oh Strafford, 
 
 She saves you ! all her deed ! this lady's deed ! 
 And is the boat in readiness ? You, friend, 
 Are Billingsley, no doubt. Speak to her, Strafford ! 
 See how she trembles, waiting for your voice ! 
 The world 's to learn its bravest story yet. 
 
 Lady Car. Talk afterward ! Long nights in France enough, 
 To sit beneath the vines and talk of home. 
 
 Straf. You love me, child ? Ah, Strafford can be loved 
 As well as Vane ! I could escape, then ? 
 
 Lady Car. Haste! 
 
 Advance the torches, Bryan ! 
 
 Straf. I will die. 
 
 They call me proud : but -England had no right, 
 When she encountered me her strength to mine 
 To find the chosen foe a craven. Girl, 
 I fought her to the utterance, I fell, 
 I am hers now, and I will die. Beside, 
 The lookers-on ! Eliot is all about 
 This place, with his most uncomplaining brow. 
 
 Lady Car. Strafford! 
 
 Straf. I think if you could know how much 
 
 I love you, yon would be repaid, my friend !
 
 190 STR AFFORD 
 
 Lady Car. Then, for my sake! 
 
 Straf. Even for your sweet sake, 
 
 I stay. 
 
 Hoi. For their sake ! 
 
 Straf. To bequeath a stain ? 
 
 Leave me ! Girl, humor me and let me die ! 
 
 Lady Car. Bid him escape wake. King ! Bid him escape ! 
 
 Straf. True, I will go ! Die, and forsake the King ? 
 I '11 not draw hack from the last service. 
 
 Lady Car. Stratford ! 
 
 Straf. And, after all, what is disgrace to me ? 
 
 Let us come, child ! That it should end this way, 
 Lead then ! hut I feel strangely : it was not 
 To end this way. 
 
 Lady Car. Lean lean on me ! 
 
 Straf. My King ! 
 
 Oh, had he trusted me his friend of friends ! 
 
 Lady Car. I can support him, Ilollis ! 
 
 Straf. Not this way ! 
 
 This gate I dreamed of it, this very gate. 
 
 Lady Car. It opens on the river : our good boat 
 Is moored below, our friends are there. 
 
 Straf. The same : 
 
 Only with something ominous and dark, 
 Fatal, inevitable. 
 
 Lady Car. Strafford ! Strafford ! 
 
 Straf. Not by this gate ! I feel what will be there ! 
 I dreamed of it, I tell you : touch it not ! 
 
 Lady Car. To save the King, Strafford, to save the King ! 
 [As STRAFFORD opens the door, PYM is discovered with HAMPOKN, 
 
 VANE, etc. STRAFFORD falls back j PYM follows sloivly and con- 
 fronts him. 
 
 Pyrn. Have I done well ? Speak, England ! Whose sole 
 
 sake 
 
 I still have labored for, with disregard 
 To my own heart, for whom my youth was made 
 Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up 
 Her sacrifice this friend, this Wentworth here 
 Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may be, 
 And whom, for his forsaking England's cause, 
 I hunted by all means (trusting that she 
 Would sanctify all means) even to the block 
 Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel 
 No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour 
 I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I 
 Would never leave him : I do leave him now.
 
 STRAP FORD 191 
 
 I render up my charge (be witness, God !) 
 
 To England who imposed it. I have done 
 
 Her bidding poorly, wrongly, it may be, 
 
 With ill effects for I am weak, a man : 
 
 Still, I have done my best, my human best, 
 
 Not faltering for a moment. It is done. 
 
 And this said, if I say . . . yes, I will say 
 
 I never loved but one man David not 
 
 More Jonathan ! Even thus, I love him now : 
 
 And look for my chief portion in that world 
 
 Where great hearts led astray are turned again, 
 
 (Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon : 
 
 My mission over, I shall not live long,) 
 
 Ay, here I know I talk I dare and must, 
 
 Of England, and her great reward, as all 
 
 I look for there ; but in my inmost heart, 
 
 Believe, I think of stealing quite away 
 
 To walk once more with Wentworth my youth's friend 
 
 Purged from all error, gloriously renewed, 
 
 And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed . . . 
 
 This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase 
 
 Too hot. A thin mist is it blood ? enwraps 
 
 The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be ! 
 
 Straf. I have loved England too ; we '11 meet then, Pym ; 
 As well die now ! Youth is the only time 
 To think and to decide on a great course : 
 Manhood with action follows ; but 't is dreary 
 To have to alter our whole life in age 
 The time past, the strength gone ! As well die now. 
 When we meet, Pym, I 'd be set right not now ! 
 Best di. Then if there 's any fault, fault too 
 Dies, smothered up. Poor gray old little Laud 
 May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church, 
 In some blind corner. And there 's no one left. 
 I trust the King now wholly to you, Pym ! 
 And yet, I know not : I shall not be there : 
 Friends fail if he have any. And he 's weak, 
 And loves the Queen, and . . . Oh, my fate is nothing 
 Nothing ! But not that awful head not that ! 
 
 Pym. If England shall declare such will to me ... 
 
 Straf. Pym, you help England ! I, that am to die, 
 What I must see ! 't is here all here ! My God, 
 Let me but gasp out, in one word of fire, 
 How thou wilt plague him, satiating hell ! 
 What ? England that you help, become through you 
 A green and putrefying charnel, left
 
 192 STR AFFORD 
 
 Our children . . . some of us have children, Pym 
 
 Some who, without that, still must ever wear 
 
 A darkened brow, an over-serious look, 
 
 And never properly be young ! No word ? 
 
 What if I curse you ? Send a strong curse forth 
 
 Clothed from my heart, lapped round with horror till 
 
 She 's fit with her white face to walk the world 
 
 Scaring kind natures from your cause and you 
 
 Then to sit down with you at the board-head, 
 
 The gathering for prayer . . . O speak, but speak ! 
 
 . . . Creep up, and quietly follow each one home, 
 
 You, you, you, be a nestling care for each 
 
 To sleep with, hardly moaning in his dreams, 
 
 She gnaws so quietly, till, lo he starts, 
 
 Gets off with half a heart eaten away ! 
 
 Oh, shall you 'scape with less if she 's my child ? 
 
 You will not say a word to me to Him ? 
 
 Pym. If England shall declare such will to me ... 
 
 Straf. No, not for England now, not for Heaven now, 
 See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to you ! 
 There, I will thank you for the death, my friend ! 
 This is the meeting : let me love you well ! 
 
 Pym. England, I am thine own ! Dost thou exact 
 That service ? I obey thee to the end. 
 
 Straf. O God, I shall die first I shall die first !
 
 SORDELLO 
 
 1840 
 
 TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND : Let the next poem be introduced by your name, there- 
 fore remembered along with one of the deepest of my affections, and so re- 
 pay all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a 
 few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than 
 they really had. My own faults of expression were many ; but with care 
 for a man or book such would be surmounted, and without it what avails 
 the f aultlessness of either ? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did 
 my best then and since ; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work 
 into what the many might instead of what the few must like ; but 
 after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it. 
 The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a 
 background requires ; and my stress lay on the incidents in the develop- 
 ment of a soul : little else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so ; 
 you, with many known and unknown to me, think so ; others may one 
 day think so ; and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I trust, 
 though away and past it, to continue ever yours, 
 
 R. B. 
 
 LONDON, June 9, 1863. 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST. 
 
 WHO will, may hear Bordello's story told : 
 His story ? Who believes me shall behold 
 The man, pursue his fortunes to the end, 
 Like me : for as the friendless-people's friend 
 Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din 
 And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin 
 Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out 
 Sordello, compassed murkily about 
 With ravage of six long sad hundred years. 
 Only believe me. Ye believe ? 
 
 Appears 
 
 Verona . . . Never, I should warn you first, 
 Of my own choice had this, if not the worst 
 Yet not the best expedient, served to tell
 
 194 SORDELLO 
 
 A story I could body forth so well 
 
 By making speak, myself kept out of yiew, 
 
 The very man as he was wont to do, 
 
 And leaving you to say the rest for him. 
 
 Since, though I might be proud to see the dim 
 
 Abysmal past divide its hateful surge, 
 
 Letting of all men this one man emerge 
 
 Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past, 
 
 I should delight in watching first to last 
 
 His progress as you watch it, not a whit 
 
 More in the secret than yourselves who sit 
 
 Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems 
 
 Your setters-forth of unexampled themes, 
 
 Makers of quite new men, producing them, 
 
 Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem 
 
 The wearer's quality ; or take their stand, 
 
 Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand, 
 
 Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends, 
 
 Summoned together from the world's four ends, 
 
 Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell, 
 
 To hear the story I propose to tell. 
 
 Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick, 
 
 Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick, 
 
 And shaming her ; 't is not for fate to choose 
 
 Silence or song because she can refuse 
 
 Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache 
 
 Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake : 
 
 I have experienced something of her spite ; 
 
 But there 's a realm wherein she has no right 
 
 And I have many lovers. Say, but few 
 
 Friends fate accords me ? Here they are : now view 
 
 The host I muster ! Many a lighted face 
 
 Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace ; 
 
 What else should tempt them back to taste our air 
 
 Except to see how their successors fare ? 
 
 My audience ! and they sit. each ghostly man 
 
 Striving to look as living as he can, 
 
 Brother by breathing brother ; thou art set, 
 
 Clear-witted critic, by ... but I '11 not fret 
 
 A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen 
 
 Who loves not to unlock them. Friends ! I mean 
 
 The living in good earnest ye elect 
 
 Chiefly for love suppose not I reject 
 
 Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep, 
 
 Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep, 
 
 To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,
 
 SHELLEY DEPARTING, VERONA APPEARS 195 
 
 Verona ! stay thou, spirit, come not near 
 
 Now not this time desert thy cloudy place 
 
 To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face ! 
 
 I need not fear this audience, I make free 
 
 With them, but then this is no place for thee ! 
 
 The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown 
 
 Up out of memories of Marathon, 
 
 Would echo like his own sword's griding screech 
 
 Braying a Persian shield, the silver speech 
 
 Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin, 
 
 Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in 
 
 The knights to tilt, wert thou to hear ! What heart 
 
 Have I to play my puppets, bear my part 
 
 Before these worthies ? 
 
 Lo, the past is hurled 
 
 In twain : up-thrust, out-staggering on the world, 
 Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears 
 Its outline, kindles at the core, appears 
 Verona. 'T is six hundred years and more 
 Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore 
 The purple, and the Third Honorius filled 
 The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled : 
 A last remains of sunset dimly burned 
 O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned 
 By the wind back upon its bearer's hand 
 In one long flare of crimson ; as a brand, 
 The woods beneath lay black. A single eye 
 From all Verona cared for the soft sky. 
 But, gathering in its ancient market-place, 
 Talked group with restless group ; and not a face 
 But wrath made livid, for among them were 
 Death's stanch purveyors, such as have in care 
 To feast him. Fear had long since taken root 
 In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit, 
 The ripe hate, like a wine : to note the way 
 It worked while each grew drunk ! Men grave and gray 
 Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro, 
 Letting the silent luxury trickle slow 
 About the hollows where a heart should be ; 
 But the young gulped with a delirious glee 
 Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood 
 At the fierce news : for, be it understood, 
 Envoys apprised Verona that her prince 
 Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since 
 A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust 
 Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust
 
 196 BORDELLO 
 
 With Ecelin Romano, from his seat 
 Ferrara, over-zealous in the feat 
 And stumbling on a peril unaware, 
 Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare, 
 They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue. 
 Immediate succor from the Lombard League 
 Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope, 
 For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope 
 Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast ! 
 Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast. 
 " Prone is the purple pavis ; Este makes 
 Mirth for the devil when he undertakes 
 To play the Ecelin ; as if it cost 
 Merely your pushing-by to gain a post 
 Like his ! The patron tells ye, once for all, 
 There be sound reasons that preferment fall 
 On our beloved "... 
 
 " Duke o' the Rood, why not ? " 
 Shouted an Estian, " grudge ye such a lot ? 
 The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own, 
 Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown, 
 That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts, 
 And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts." 
 
 " Taurello," quoth an envoy, " as in wane 
 Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain 
 To fly but forced the earth his couch to make 
 Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake, 
 Waits he the Kaiser's coming ; and as yet 
 That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps : but let 
 Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs 
 The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs 
 The sea it means to cross because of him. 
 Sinketh the breeze ? His hope-sick eye grows dim ; 
 Creep closer on the creature ! Every day 
 Strengthens the Pontiff ; Ecelin, they say, 
 Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips 
 Telling upon his perished finger-tips 
 How many ancestors are to depose 
 Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze 
 Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt 
 Their houses ; not a drop of blood was spilt 
 When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet 
 Buccio Virtu God's wafer, and the street 
 Is narrow ! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm 
 With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm ! 
 This could not last. Off Salinguerra went
 
 WHY THEY ENTREAT THE LOMBARD LEAGUE 197 
 
 To Padua, Podesta, ' with pure intent,' 
 
 Said he, ' my presence, judged the single bar 
 
 To permanent tranquillity, may jar 
 
 No longer ' so ! his back is fairly turned ? 
 
 The pair of goodly palaces are burned, 
 
 The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk 
 
 A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk 
 
 In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way, 
 
 Old Salinguerra back again I say, 
 
 Old Salinguerra in the town once more 
 
 Uprooting, overturning, flame before, 
 
 Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled ; 
 
 Who 'scaped the carnage followed ; then the dead 
 
 Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's tin-one, 
 
 He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone. 
 
 Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce 
 
 Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce, 
 
 On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth 
 
 To see troop after troop encamp beneath 
 
 I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch 
 
 It took so many patient months to snatch 
 
 Out of the marsh ; while just within their walls 
 
 Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls 
 
 A parley : ' let the Count wind up the war ! ' 
 
 Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star, 
 
 Agrees to enter for the kindest ends 
 
 Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends, 
 
 No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort 
 
 Should fly Ferrara at the bare report. 
 
 Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog ; 
 
 ' Ten, twenty, thirty, curse the catalogue 
 
 Of burnt Guelf houses ! Strange, Taurello shows 
 
 Not the least sign of life ' whereat arose 
 
 A general growl : ' How ? With his victors by ? 
 
 I and my Veronese ? My troops and I ? 
 
 Receive us, was your word ? ' So jogged they on, 
 
 Nor laughed their host too openly : once gone 
 
 Into the trap ! " 
 
 Six hundred years ago ! 
 Such the time's aspect and peculiar woe 
 (Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles, 
 Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills 
 His sprawling path through letters anciently 
 Made fine and large to suit some abbot's eye) 
 When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask, 
 Flung John of Brienne's favor from his casque,
 
 198 SORDELLO 
 
 Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave 
 Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve 
 Losses to Otho and to Barbaross, 
 Or make the Alps less easy to recross ; 
 And, thus continuing Pope Honorius' fear, 
 Was excommunicate that very year. 
 
 : ' The triple-bearded Teuton come to life ! " 
 Groaned the Great League ; and, arming for the strife, 
 Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin, 
 Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin, 
 Its cry ; what cry ? 
 
 " The Emperor to come ! " 
 His crowd of feudatories, all and some, 
 That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields, 
 One fighter on his fellow, to our fields, 
 Scattered anon, took station here and there, 
 And carried it, till now, with little care 
 Cannot but cry for him ; how else rebut 
 Us longer ? Cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut 
 In the mid-sea, each domineering crest 
 Which naught save such another throe can wrest 
 From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown 
 Since o'er the waters, twine and tangle thrown 
 Too thick, too fast accumulating round, 
 Too sure to over-riot and confound 
 Ere long each brilliant islet with itself 
 Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf, 
 Whirling the sea-drift wide : alas, the bruised 
 And sullen wreck ! Sunlight to be diffused 
 For that ! Sunlight, 'neath which, a scum at first, 
 The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst 
 Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main, 
 And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again, 
 So kindly blazed it that same blaze to brood 
 O'er every cluster of the multitude 
 Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments, 
 An emulous exchange of pulses, vents 
 Of nature into nature ; till some growth 
 Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe 
 A surface solid now, continuous, one : 
 
 ; ' The Pope, for us the People, who begun 
 The People, carries on the People thus, 
 To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us ! " 
 See you ? 
 
 Or say, Two Principles that live 
 Each fitly by its Representative.
 
 ECELO'S HOUSE AND AZZO, LORD OF ESTE 199 
 
 " Hill-cat " who called him so ? the gracefullest 
 Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest 
 Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur, 
 Those talons to their sheath ! ) whose velvet purr 
 Soothes jealous neighbors when a Saxon scout 
 
 Arpo or Yoland, is it ? one without 
 
 A country or a name, presumes to couch , 
 
 Beside their noblest ; until men avouch 
 
 That, of all Houses in the Trevisan, 
 
 Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van, 
 
 Than Ecelo ! They laughed as they enrolled 
 
 That name at Milan on the page of gold, 
 
 Godego's lord, Ramon, Marostica, 
 
 Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria, 
 
 And every sheep-cote on the Suabian's fief ! 
 
 No laughter when his son, " the Lombard Chief " 
 
 Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent 
 
 To Italy along the Vale of Trent, 
 
 Welcomed him at Roncaglia ! Sadness now 
 
 The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow, 
 
 The Asolan and Euganean hills, 
 
 The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills 
 
 Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay 
 
 Among and care about them ; day by day 
 
 Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot, 
 
 A castle building to defend a cot, 
 
 A cot built for a castle to defend, 
 
 Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end 
 
 To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge 
 
 By sunken gallery and soaring bridge. 
 
 He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems 
 
 The gi-isliest nightmare of the Church's dreams, 
 
 A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged 
 From its old interests, and nowise changed 
 
 By its new neighborhood : perchance the vaunt 
 
 Of Otho, " my own Este shah 1 supplant 
 
 Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in 
 
 A son as cruel ; and this Ecelin 
 
 Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall 
 
 And curling and compliant ; but for all 
 
 Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck 
 
 Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek 
 
 Proved 'twas some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went 
 
 To feed : whereas Romano's instrument, 
 
 Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole 
 
 I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole
 
 200 SORDELLO 
 
 Successively, why should not he shed blood 
 To further a design ? Men understood 
 Living was pleasant to him as he wore 
 His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er, 
 Propped on his truncheon in the public way, 
 While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray, 
 Lost at Oliero's convent. 
 
 Hill-cats, face 
 
 Our Azzo, our Guelf-Lion ! Why disgrace 
 A worthiness conspicuous near and far 
 (Atii at Rome while free and consular, 
 Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun) 
 By trumpeting the Church's princely son ? 
 Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine, 
 Ancona's march, Ferrara's . . . ask, in fine, 
 Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk 
 Found it intolerable to be sunk 
 (Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell) 
 Quite out of summer while alive and well : 
 Ended when by his mat the Prior stood, 
 'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood, 
 Striving to coax from his decrepit brains 
 The reason Father Porphyry took pains 
 To blot those ten lines out which used to stand 
 First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand. 
 
 The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore 
 Was vested in a certain Twenty-four ; 
 And while within his palace these debate 
 Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate, 
 Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare 
 Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care 
 For aught that 's seen or heard until we shut 
 The smother in, the lights, all noises but 
 The carroch's booming : safe at last ! Why strange 
 Such a recess should lurk behind a range 
 Of banquet-rooms ? Your finger thus you push 
 A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush 
 Upon the banqueters, select your prey, 
 Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way 
 Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear 
 A preconcerted signal to appear ; 
 Or if you simply crouch with beating heart, 
 Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part 
 To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now ; 
 Nor any . . . does that one man sleep whose brow 
 The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er ?
 
 COUNT RICHARD'S PALACE AT VERONA 201 
 
 What woman stood beside him ? not the more 
 Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes 
 Because that arras fell between ! Her wise 
 And lulling words are yet about the room, 
 Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom 
 Down even to her vesture's creeping stir. 
 And so reclines he, saturate with her, 
 Until an outcry from the square beneath 
 Pierces the charm : he springs up, glad to breathe, 
 Above the cunning element, and shakes 
 The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks 
 On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it, 
 The lean frame like a half -burnt taper, lit 
 Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away 
 Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day, 
 In his wool wedding-robe. 
 
 For he for he, 
 
 Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy, 
 (If I should falter now) for he is thine ! 
 Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine ! 
 A herald-star I know thou didst absorb 
 Relentless into the consummate orb 
 That scared it from its right to roll along 
 A sempiternal path with dance and song 
 Fulfilling its allotted period, 
 Serenest of the progeny of God 
 Who yet resigns it not ! His darling stoops 
 With? no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops 
 Of disenfranchised brilliances, for. blent 
 Utterly with thee, its shy element 
 Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear, 
 Still, what if I approach the august sphere 
 Named now with only one name, disentwine 
 That under-current soft and argentine 
 From its fierce mate in the majestic mass 
 Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass 
 In John's transcendent vision, launch once more 
 That lustre ? Dante, pacer of the shore 
 Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, 
 Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume 
 Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope 
 Into a darkness quieted by hope ; 
 Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye 
 In gracious twilights where his chosen lie, 
 I would do this ! If I should falter now ! 
 In Mantua territory half is slough,
 
 202 SORDELLO 
 
 Half pine-tree forest ; maples, scarlet-oaks 
 
 Breed o'er the river-beds ; even Mincio chokes 
 
 With sand the summer through : but 't is morass 
 
 In winter up to Mantua walls. There was, 
 
 Some thirty years before this evening's coil, 
 
 One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil, 
 
 Goito ; just a castle built amid 
 
 A few low mountains ; firs and larches hid 
 
 Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound 
 
 The rest. Some captured creature in a pound, 
 
 Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress, 
 
 Secure beside in its own loveliness, 
 
 So peered with airy head, below, above, 
 
 The castle at its toils, the lapwings love 
 
 To glean among at grape-time. Pass within. 
 
 A maze of corridors contrived for sin, 
 
 Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past, 
 
 You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last 
 
 A maple-panelled room : that haze which seems 
 
 Floating about the panel, if there gleams 
 
 A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold 
 
 And in light-graven characters unfold 
 
 The Arab's wisdom everywhere ; what shade 
 
 Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made, 
 
 Cut like a company of palms to prop 
 
 The roof, each kissing top entwined with top, 
 
 Leaning together ; in the carver's mind 
 
 Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined 
 
 With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair 
 
 Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear 
 
 A vintage ; graceful sister-palms ! But quick 
 
 To the main wonder, now. A vault, see ; thick 
 
 Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits 
 
 Across the buttress suffer light by fits 
 
 Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop 
 
 A dullish gray-streaked cumbrous font, a group 
 
 Round it, each side of it, where'er one sees, 
 
 Upholds it ; shrinking Caryatides 
 
 Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh 
 
 Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh 
 
 First pulse of life shot brightening the snow. 
 
 The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so 
 
 They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed ; 
 
 Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed, 
 
 Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil 
 
 Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale,
 
 HIS BOYHOOD IN THE DOMAIN OF ECELIN 203 
 
 Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length 
 
 Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength 
 
 Goes when the grate above shuts heavily. 
 
 So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see, 
 
 Like priestesses because of sin impure 
 
 Penanced forever, who resigned endure, 
 
 Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs. 
 
 And every eve, Sordello's visit begs 
 
 Pardon for them : constant as eve he came 
 
 To sit beside each in her turn, the same 
 
 As one of them, a certain space : and awe 
 
 Made a great indistinctness till he saw 
 
 Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks, 
 
 Gold seven times globed ; surely our maiden shrinks 
 
 And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain 
 
 Her load were lightened, one shade less the stain 
 
 Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt 
 
 From off the rosary whereby the crypt 
 
 Keeps count of the contritions of its charge ? 
 
 Then with a step more light, a heart more large, 
 
 He may depart, leave her and every one 
 
 To linger out the penance in mute stone. 
 
 Ah, but Sordello ? 'T is the tale I mean 
 
 To tell you. 
 
 In this castle may be seen, 
 On the hill-tops, or underneath the vines, 
 Or eastward by the mound of firs and pines 
 That shuts out Mantua, still in loneliness, 
 A slender boy in a loose page's dress, 
 Sordello : do but look on him awhile 
 Watching ('tis autumn) with an earnest smile 
 The noisy flock of thievish birds at work 
 Among the yellowing vineyards ; see him lurk 
 ('T is winter with its sullenest of storms) 
 Beside that arras-length of broidered forms, 
 On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light 
 Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright 
 
 Ecelo, dismal father of the brood, 
 And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed, 
 Auria, and their Child, with all his wives 
 From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives, 
 Lady of the castle, Adelaide. His face 
 
 Look, now he turns away ! Yourselves shall trace 
 (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine, 
 
 A sharp and restless lip, so well combine 
 With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive
 
 204 SORDELLO 
 
 Delight at every sense ; you can believe 
 Sordello foremost in the regal class 
 Nature has broadly severed from her mass 
 Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames 
 Some happy lands, that have luxurious names, 
 For loose fertility ; a footfall there 
 Suffices to upturn to the warm air 
 Half-germinating spices ; mere decay 
 Produces richer lif e ; and day by day 
 New pollen on the lily-petal grows, 
 And still more labyrinthine buds the rose. 
 You recognize at once the finer dress 
 Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness 
 At eye and ear, while round the rest is furled 
 (As though she would not trust them with her world) 
 A veil that shows a sky not near so blue, 
 And lets but half the sun look fervid through. 
 How can such love ? like souls on each full-fraught 
 Discovery brooding, blind at first to aught 
 Beyond its beauty, till exceeding love 
 Becomes an aching weight ; and, to remove 
 A curse that haunts such natures to preclude 
 Their finding out themselves can work no good 
 To what they love nor make it very blest 
 By their endeavor, they are fain invest 
 The lifeless thing with life from their own soul, 
 Availing it to purpose, to control, 
 *lb dwell distinct and have peculiar joy 
 And separate interests that may employ 
 That beauty fitly, for its proper sake. 
 Nor rest they here ; fresh births of beauty wake 
 Fresh homage, every grade of love is past, 
 With every mode of loveliness : then cast 
 Inferior idols off their borrowed crown 
 Before a coming glory. Up and down 
 Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine 
 To throb the secret forth ; a touch divine 
 And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod ; 
 Visibly through his garden walketh God. 
 
 So fare they. Now revert. One character 
 Denotes them through the progress and the stir, 
 A need to blend with each external charm, 
 Bury themselves, the whole heart wide and warm, 
 In something not themselves ; they would belong 
 To what they worship stronger and more strong 
 Thus prodigally fed which gathers shape
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A POETS SOUL 205 
 
 And feature, soon imprisons past escape 
 
 The votary framed to love and to submit 
 
 Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it, 
 
 Whence grew the idol's empery. So runs 
 
 A legend ; light had birth ere moons and suns, 
 
 Flowing through space a river and alone, 
 
 Till chaos burst and blank the spheres were strown 
 
 Hither and thither, foundering and blind : 
 
 When into each of them* rushed light to find 
 
 Itself no place, foiled of its radiant chance. 
 
 Let such forego their just inheritance ! 
 
 For there 's a class that eagerly looks, too, 
 
 On beauty, but, unlike the gentler crew, 
 
 Proclaims each new revealment born a twin 
 
 With a distinctest consciousness within 
 
 Referring still the quality, now first 
 
 Revealed, to their own soul its instinct nursed 
 
 In silence, now remembered better, shown 
 
 More thoroughly, but not the less their own ; 
 
 A dream come true ; the special exercise 
 
 Of any special function that implies 
 
 The being fair, or good, or wise, or strong, 
 
 Dormant within their nature all along 
 
 Whose fault ? So homage, other souls direct 
 
 Without, turns inward. " How should this deject 
 
 Thee, soul ? " they murmur ; " wherefore strength be quelled 
 
 Because, its trivial accidents withheld, 
 
 Organs are missed that clog the world, inert, 
 
 Wanting a will, to quicken and exert, 
 
 Like thine existence cannot satiate, 
 
 Cannot surprise ? Laugh thou at envious fate, 
 
 Who, from earth's simplest combination stampt 
 
 With individuality uncrampt 
 
 By living its faint elemental life, 
 
 Dost soar to heaven's complexest essence, rife 
 
 With grandeurs, unaffronted to the last, 
 
 Equal to being all ! " 
 
 In truth ? Thou hast 
 
 Life, then wilt challenge life for us : our race 
 Is vindicated so, obtains its place 
 In thy ascent, the first of us ; whom we 
 May follow, to the meanest, finally, 
 With our more bounded wills ? 
 
 Ah, but to find 
 
 A certain mood enervate such a mind, 
 Counsel it slumber in the solitude
 
 206 SORDELLO 
 
 Thus reached, nor, stooping, task for mankind's good 
 Its nature just as life and time accord 
 " Too narrow an arena to reward 
 Emprise the world's occasion worthless since 
 Not absolutely fitted to evince 
 Its mastery ! " Or if yet worse befall, 
 And a desire possess it to put all 
 That nature forth, forcing our straitened sphere 
 Contain it, to display completely here 
 The mastery another life should learn, 
 Thrusting in time eternity's concern, 
 So that Sordello . . . 
 
 Fool, who spied the mark 
 Of leprosy upon him, violet-dark 
 Already as he loiters ? Born just now, 
 With the new century, beside the glow 
 And efflorescence out of barbarism ; 
 Witness a Greek or two from the abysm 
 That stray through Florence-town with studious air, 
 Calming the chisel of that Pisan pair : 
 If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet ! 
 While at Siena is Guidone set, 
 Forehead on hand ; a painful birth must be 
 Matured ere Saint Eufemia's sacris,ty 
 Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze 
 At the moon : look you ! The same orange haze, 
 The same blue stripe round that and, in the midst, 
 Thy spectral whiteness. Mother-maid, who didst 
 Pursue the dizzy painter ! 
 
 Woe, then, worth 
 Any officious babble letting forth 
 The leprosy confirmed and ruinous 
 To spirit lodged in a contracted house ! 
 Go back to the beginning, rather ; blend 
 It gently with Sordello's life ; the end 
 Is piteous, you may see, but much between 
 Pleasant enough. Meantime, some pyx to screen 
 The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon 
 The goblin ! So they found at Babylon, 
 (Colleagues, mad Lucius and sage Antonine) 
 Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine, 
 In rummaging among the rarities, 
 A certain coffer ; he who made the prize 
 Opened it greedily ; and out there curled 
 Just such another plague, for half the world 
 Was stung. Crawl in then, hag, and couch asquat,
 
 THE DELIGHTS OF HIS CHILDISH FANCY 207 
 
 Keeping that blotchy bosom thick in spot 
 Until your time is ripe ! The coffer-lid 
 Is fastened, and the coffer safely hid 
 Under the Loxian's choicest gifts of gold. 
 
 Who will may hear Sordello's story told, 
 And how he never could remember when 
 He dwelt not at Goito. Calmly, then, 
 About this secret lodge of Adelaide's 
 Glided his youth away ; beyond the glades 
 On the fir-forest border, and the rim 
 Of the low range of mountain, was for him 
 No other world: but this appeared his own 
 To wander through at pleasure and alone. 
 The castle too seemed empty ; far and wide 
 Might he disport ; only the northern side 
 Lay under a mysterious interdict 
 Slight, just enough remembered to restrict 
 His roaming to the corridors, the vault 
 Where those font-bearers expiate their fault, 
 The maple-chamber, and the little nooks 
 And nests, and breezy parapet that looks 
 Over the woods to Mantua : there he strolled. 
 Some foreign women-servants, very old, 
 Tended and crept about him all his clue 
 To the world's business and embroiled ado 
 Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most. 
 
 And first a simple sense of life engrossed 
 Sordello in his drowsy Paradise ; 
 The day's adventures for the day suffice 
 Its constant tribute of perceptions strange, 
 With sleep and stir in healthy interchange, 
 Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease 
 Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees, 
 Eats the life out of every luscious plant, 
 And, when September finds them sere or scant, 
 Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite, 
 And hies him after unforeseen delight. 
 So fed Sordello, not a shard disheathed ; . 
 
 As ever, round each new discovery, wreathed 
 Luxuriantly the fancies infantine 
 His admiration, bent on making fine 
 Its novel friend at any risk, would fling 
 In gay profusion forth : a ficklest king, 
 Confessed those minions ! eager to dispense 
 So much from his own stock of thought and sense 
 As might enable each to stand alone
 
 208 SORDELLO 
 
 And serve him for a fellow ; with his own, 
 
 Joining the qualities that just before 
 
 Had graced some older favorite. Thus they wore 
 
 A fluctuating halo, yesterday 
 
 Set flicker and to-morrow filched away, 
 
 Those upland objects each of separate name, 
 
 Each with an aspect never twice the same, 
 
 Waxing and waning as the new-born host 
 
 Of fancies, like a single night's hoar-frost, 
 
 Gave to familiar things a face grotesque ; 
 
 Only, preserving through the mad burlesque 
 
 A grave regard. Conceive ! the orpine patch 
 
 Blossoming earliest on the log-house-thatcli 
 
 The day those archers wound along the vines 
 
 Related to the Chief that left their lines 
 
 To climb with clinking step the northern stair 
 
 Up to the solitary chambers where 
 
 Bordello never came. Thus thrall reached thrall ; 
 
 He o'er-festooning every interval, 
 
 As the adventurous spider, making light 
 
 Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height, 
 
 From barbican to battlement : so flung 
 
 Fantasies forth and in their centre swung 
 
 Our architect, the breezy morning fresh 
 
 Above, and merry, all his waving mesh 
 
 Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged. 
 
 This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged 
 To laying such a spangled fabric low, 
 Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow. 
 But its abundant will was balked here : doubt 
 Rose tardily in one so fenced about 
 From most that nurtures judgment, care and pain : 
 Judgment, that dull expedient we are fain, 
 Less favored, to adopt betimes and force 
 Stead us, diverted from our natural course 
 Of joys contrive some yet amid the dearth, 
 Vary and render them, it may be, worth 
 Most we forego. Suppose Sordello hence 
 Selfish enough, without a moral sense 
 However feeble ; what informed the boy 
 Others desired a portion in his joy ? 
 Or say a ruthf ul chance broke woof and warp 
 A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp, 
 A fawn breathless beneath the precipice, 
 A bird with unsoiled breast and unfilmed eyes 
 Warm in the brake could these undo the trance
 
 NEW-BORN JUDGMENT RECKS SYMPATHY 209 
 
 Lapping Sordello ? Not a circumstance 
 
 That makes for you, friend Naddo ! Eat fern-seed 
 
 And peer beside us and report indeed 
 
 If (your word) " genius " dawned with throes and stings 
 
 And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs, 
 
 Summers and winters quietly came and went. 
 
 Time put at length that period to content, 
 By right the world should have imposed : bereft 
 Of its good offices, Sordello, left 
 To study his companions, managed rip 
 Their fringe off, learn the true relationship, 
 Core with its crust, their nature with his own : 
 Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone. 
 As if the poppy felt with him ! Though he 
 Partook the poppy's red effrontery 
 Till Autumn spoiled their fleering quite with rain, 
 And, turbanless, a coarse brow,n rattling crane 
 Lay bare. That 's gone : yet why renounce, for that, 
 His disenchanted tributaries flat 
 Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn, 
 Their simple presence might not well be borne 
 Whose parley was a transport once : recall 
 The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all, 
 A poppy : why distrust the evidence 
 Of each soon satisfied and healthy sense ? 
 The new-born judgment answered, " little boots 
 Beholding other creatures' attributes 
 And having none ! " or, say that it sufficed, 
 " Yet, could one but possess, oneself," (enticed 
 Judgment) " some special office ! " Nought beside 
 Serves you ? " Well then, be somehow justified 
 For this ignoble wish to circumscribe 
 And concentrate, rather than swell, the tribe 
 Of actual pleasures : what, now, from without 
 Effects it ? proves, despite a lurking doubt, 
 Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared ? 
 That, tasting joys by proxy thus, you fared 
 The better for them ? " Thus much craved his souL 
 Alas, from the beginning love is whole 
 And true ; if sure of naught beside, most sure 
 Of its own truth at least ; nor may endure 
 A crowd to see its face, that cannot know 
 How hot the pulses throb its heart below. 
 While its own helplessness and utter want 
 Of means to worthily be ministrant 
 To what it worships, do but fan the more
 
 210 SORDELLO 
 
 Its flame, exalt the idol far before 
 Itself as it would have it ever be. 
 Souls like Sordello, on the contrary, 
 Coerced and put to shame, retaining will, 
 Care little, take mysterious comfort still, 
 But look forth tremblingly to ascertain 
 If others judge their claims not urged in vain, 
 And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud. 
 So, they must ever live before a crowd : 
 
 " Vanity," Naddo tells you. 
 
 Whence contrive 
 
 A crowd, now ? From these women just alive, 
 That archer-troop ? Forth glided not alone 
 Each painted warrior, every girl of stone, 
 Nor Adelaide (bent double o'er a scroll, 
 One maiden at her knees, that eve, his soul 
 Shook as he stumbled through the arras'd glooms 
 On them, for, 'mid quaint robes and weird perfumes, 
 Started the meagre Tuscan up, her eyes, 
 The maiden's, also, bluer with surprise) 
 
 But the entire out-world : whatever, scraps 
 And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps, 
 Conceited the world's offices, and he 
 
 Had hitherto transferred to flower or tree, 
 
 Not counted a befitting heritage 
 
 Each, of its own right, singly to engage 
 
 Some man, no other, such now dared to stand 
 
 Alone. Strength, wisdom, grace on every hand 
 
 Soon disengaged themselves, and he discerned 
 
 A sort of human life : at least, was turned 
 
 A stream of lifelike figures through his brain. 
 
 Lord, liegeman, valvassor and suzerain, 
 
 Ere he could choose, surrounded him ; a stuff 
 
 To work his pleasure on ; there, sure enough : 
 
 But as for gazing, what shall fix that gaze ? 
 
 Are they to simply testify the ways 
 
 He who convoked them sends his soul along 
 
 With the cloud's thunder or a dove's brood-song ? 
 
 While they live each his life, boast each his own 
 Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone 
 
 In some one point where something dearest loved 
 Is easiest gained far worthier to be proved 
 Than aught he envies in the forest-wights ! 
 No simple and self-evident delights, 
 But mixed desires of unimagined range, 
 Contrasts or combinations, new and strange,
 
 HE CREATES HIS OWN SYMPATHIZERS 211 
 
 Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized 
 
 By this, the sudden company loves prized 
 
 By those who are to prize his own amount 
 
 Of loves. Once care because such make account, 
 
 Allow that foreign recognitions stamp 
 
 The current value, and his crowd shall vamp 
 
 Him counterfeits enough ; and so their print 
 
 Be on the piece, 't is gold, attests the mint, 
 
 And " good," pronounce they whom his new appeal 
 
 Is made to : if their casual print conceal 
 
 This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss 
 
 What he has lived without, nor felt the loss 
 
 Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome, 
 
 What matter ? So must speech expand the dumb 
 
 Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late 
 
 Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate, 
 
 Betakes himself to study hungrily 
 
 Just what the puppets his crude fantasy 
 
 Supposes notablest, popes, kings, priests, knights, 
 
 May please to promulgate for appetites ; 
 
 Accepting all their artificial joys 
 
 Not as he views them, but as he employs 
 
 Each shape to estimate the other's stock 
 
 Of attributes, whereon a marshalled flock 
 
 Of authorized enjoyments he may spend 
 
 Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend 
 
 With tree and flower nay more entirely, else 
 
 'T were mockery : for instance, " how excels 
 
 My life that chieftain's ? " (who apprised the youth 
 
 Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth, 
 
 Imperial Vicar ?) " Turns he in his tent 
 
 Remissly ? Be it so my head is bent 
 
 Deliciously amid my girls to sleep. 
 
 What if he stalks the Trentine-pass ? Yon steep 
 
 I climbed an hour ago with little toil : 
 
 We are alike there. But can I, too, foil 
 
 The Guelf's paid stabber, carelessly afford 
 
 Saint Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword 
 
 Baffling the treason in a moment ? " Here 
 
 No rescue ! Poppy he is none, but peer 
 
 To Ecelin, assuredly : his hand, 
 
 Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand 
 
 With Ecelin's success try, now ! He soon 
 
 Was satisfied, returned as to the moon 
 
 From earth ; left each abortive boy's-attempt 
 
 For feats, from failure happily exempt,
 
 212 ^ SORDELLO 
 
 In fancy at his beck. " One day I will 
 
 Accomplish it ! Are they not older still 
 
 Not grown up men and women ? 'T is beside 
 
 Only a dream ; and though I must abide 
 
 With dreams now, I may find a thorough vefit 
 
 For all myself, acquire an instrument 
 
 For acting what these people act ; my soul 
 
 Hunting a body out may gain its whole 
 
 Desire some day ! " How else express chagrin 
 
 And resignation, show the hope steal in 
 
 With which he let sink from an aching wrist 
 
 The rough-hewn ash-bow ? Straight, a gold shaft hissed 
 
 Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down 
 
 Superbly ! " Crosses to the breach ! God's Town 
 
 Is gained him back ! " Why bend rough ash-bows more ? 
 
 Thus lives he : if not careless as before, 
 Comforted : for one may anticipate, 
 Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate 
 Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names 
 Startle, real places of enormous fames, 
 Este abroad and Ecelin at home 
 To worship him, Mantua, Verona, Rome 
 To witness it. Who grudges time so spent ? 
 Rather test qualities to heart's content 
 Summon them, thrice selected, near and far 
 Compress the starriest into one star, 
 And grasp the whole at once ! 
 
 The pageant thinned 
 
 Accordingly ; from rank to rank, like wind 
 His spirit passed to winnow and divide ; 
 Back fell the simpler phantasms ; every side 
 The strong clave to the wise ; with either classed 
 The beauteous ; so, till two or three amassed 
 Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced 
 Themselves eventually, graces loosed, 
 Strengths lavished, all to heighten up One Shape 
 Whose potency no creature should escape. 
 Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen's talk ? 
 Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk, 
 Is some gray scorching Saracenic wine 
 The Kaiser quaffs with the Mipamoline 
 Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped, 
 Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped, 
 Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent, 
 To keep in mind his sluggish armament 
 Of Canaan : Friedrich's, all the pomp and fierce
 
 HE MEANS TO BE PERFECT SAY, APOLLO 213 
 
 Demeanor ! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce 
 
 So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells, 
 
 Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells 
 
 On the obdurate ! That right arm indeed 
 
 Has thunder for its slave ; but where 's the need 
 
 Of thunder if the stricken multitude 
 
 Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood, 
 
 While songs go up exulting, then dispread, 
 
 Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead 
 
 Like an escape of angels ? 'T is the tune, 
 
 Nor much unlike the words his women croon 
 
 Smilingly, colorless and faint-designed 
 
 Each, as a worn-out queen's face some remind 
 
 Of her extreme youth's love-tales. " Eglamor 
 
 Made that ! " Half minstrel and half emperor, 
 
 What but ill objects vexed him ? Such he slew. 
 
 The kinder sort were easy to subdue 
 
 By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones ; 
 
 And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones 
 
 Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this, 
 
 Striving to name afresh the antique bliss, 
 
 Instead of saying, neither less nor more, 
 
 He had discovered, as our world before, 
 
 Apollo ? That shall be the name ; nor bid 
 
 Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid 
 
 The youth what thefts of every clime and day 
 
 Contributed to purfle the array 
 
 He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine 
 
 'Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen, 
 
 Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped 
 
 Elate with rains : into whose streamlet dipped 
 
 He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock 
 
 Though really on the stubs of living rock 
 
 Ages ago it crenelled ; vines for roof, 
 
 Lindens for wall ; before him, aye aloof, 
 
 Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly, 
 
 Born of the simmering quiet, there to die. 
 
 Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied 
 
 Mighty descents of forest ; multiplied 
 
 Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees, 
 
 There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease, 
 
 And, proud of its observer, straight the wood 
 
 Tried old surprises on him ; black it stood 
 
 A sudden barrier ('t was a cloud passed o'er) 
 
 So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more 
 
 Must pass ; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)
 
 214 SORDELLO 
 
 Each clump, behold, was glistering detached 
 A shrub, oak -boles shrunk into ilex-stems ! 
 Yet could not he denounce the stratagems 
 He saw thro', till, hours thence, aloft would hang 
 White summer-lightnings ; as it sank and sprang 
 To measure, that whole palpitating breast 
 Of heaven, 't was Apollo, nature prest 
 At eve to worship. 
 
 Time stole : by degrees 
 The Pythons perish off ; his votaries 
 Sink to respectful distance ; songs redeem 
 Their pains, but briefer ; their dismissals seem 
 Emphatic ; only girls are very slow 
 To disappear his Delians ! Some that glow 
 O' the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench 
 Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench ; 
 Alike in one material circumstance 
 All soon or late adore Apollo ! Glance 
 The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice, 
 His Daphne ! " We secure Count Richard's voice 
 In Este's counsels, good for Este's ends 
 As our Taurello," say his faded friends, 
 ft By granting him our Palma ! " the sole child, 
 They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled 
 Ecelin, years before this Adelaide 
 Wedded and turned him wicked : " but the maid 
 Rejects his suit," those sleepy women boast. 
 She, scorning all beside, deserves the most 
 Sordello : so, conspicuous in his world 
 Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled 
 Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound 
 About her like a glory ! even the ground 
 Was bright as with spilt sunbeams ; breathe not, breathe 
 Not ! poised, see, one leg doubled underneath, 
 Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow, 
 Rests, but the other, listlessly below, 
 O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air, 
 The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where 
 The languid blood lies heavily ; yet calm 
 On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm, 
 As but suspended in the act to rise 
 By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes 
 Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets 
 Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms. 
 
 Time fleets : 
 That 's worst ! Because the pre-appointed age
 
 THE TIME IS RIPE AND HE IS READY 215 
 
 Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage 
 
 And crowd she promised. Lean he grows and pale, 
 
 Though restlessly at rest. Hardly avail 
 
 Fancies to soothe him. Time steals, yet alone 
 
 He tarries here ! The earnest smile is gone. 
 
 How long this might continue matters not ; 
 
 Forever, possibly ; since to the spot 
 
 None come : our lingering Taurello quits 
 
 Mantua at last, and light our lady flits 
 
 Back to her place disburdened of a care. 
 
 Strange to be constant here if he is there ! 
 
 Is it distrust ? Oh, never ! for they both 
 
 Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth 
 
 Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb 
 
 And Richard wavering : let but Friedrich come, 
 
 Find matter for the minstrelsy's report ! 
 
 . Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court 
 
 To sing us a Messina morning up, 
 
 And, double rillet of a drinking cup, 
 
 Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth, 
 
 Northward to Provence that, and thus far south 
 
 The other. What a method to apprise 
 
 Neighbors of births, espousals, obsequies ! 
 
 Which in their very tongue the Troubadour 
 
 Records ; and his performance makes a tour, 
 
 For Trouveres bear the miracle about. 
 
 Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout, 
 
 Until the Formidable House is famed 
 
 Over the country as Taurello aimed, 
 
 Who introduced, although the rest adopt, 
 
 The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped, 
 
 Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse 
 
 No longer, in the light of day pursues 
 
 Her plans at Mantua : whence an accident 
 
 Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content, 
 
 Opened, like any flash that cures the blind, 
 
 The veritable business of mankind.
 
 216 BORDELLO 
 
 BOOK THE SECOND. 
 
 THE woods were long austere with snow : at last 
 Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast 
 Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, 
 Brightened, " as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods 
 Our buried year, a witch, grew young again 
 To placid incantations, and that stain 
 About were from her caldron, green smoke blent 
 With those black pines " so Eglamor gave vent 
 To a chance fancy. Whence a just rebuke 
 From his companion ; brother Naddo shook 
 The solemnest of brows ; " Beware," he said, 
 Of setting up conceits in nature's stead ! " 
 Forth wandered our Sordello. Nought so sure 
 As that to-day's adventure will secure 
 Palma, the visioned lady only pass 
 O'er yon damp mound and its exhausted grass, 
 Under that brake where sundawn feeds the stalks 
 Of withered fern with gold, into those walks 
 Of pine and take her ! Buoyantly he went. 
 Again his stooping forehead was besprent 
 With dew-drops from the skirting ferns. Then wide 
 Opened the great morass, shot every side 
 With flashing water through and through ; a-shine, 
 Thick-steaming, all alive. Whose shape divine, 
 Quivered i' the farthest rainbow-vapor, glanced 
 Athwart the flying herons ? He advanced, 
 But warily ; though Mincio leaped no more, 
 Each footfall burst up in the marish-floor 
 A diamond jet : and if he stopped to pick 
 Rose-lichen, or molest the leeches quick, 
 And circling blood-worms, minnow, newt or loach, 
 A sudden pond would silently encroach 
 This way and that. On Palma passed. The verge 
 Of a new wood was gained. She will emerge 
 Flushed, now, and panting. crowds to see, will own 
 She loves him Boniface to hear, to groan, 
 To leave his suit ! One screen of pine-trees still 
 Opposes : but the startling spectacle 
 Mantua, this time ! Under the walls a crowd 
 Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud
 
 AT A COURT OF LOVE A MINSTREL SINGS "217 
 
 Round a pavilion. How he stood ! 
 
 In truth 
 
 No prophecy had come to pass : his youth 
 In its prime now and where was homage poured 
 Upon Sordello ? born to be adored, 
 And suddenly discovered weak, scarce made 
 To cope with any, cast into the shade 
 By this and this. Yet something seemed to prick 
 And tingle in his blood ; a sleight a trick 
 And much would be explained. It went for nought 
 The best of their endowments were ill bought 
 With his identity : nay, the conceit, 
 That this day's roving led to Palma's feet 
 Was not so vain list ! The word, " Palma ! " Steal 
 Aside, and die, Sordello ; this is real, 
 And this abjure ! 
 
 What next ? The curtains see 
 Dividing ! She is there ; and presently 
 He will be there the proper You, at length 
 In your own cherished dress of grace and strength : 
 Most like, the very Boniface ! 
 
 Not so. 
 
 It was a showy man advanced ; but though 
 A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound 
 Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around, 
 " This is not he," Sordello felt ; while, " Place 
 For the best Troubadour of Boniface ! " 
 Hollaed the Jongleurs, " Eglamor, whose lay 
 Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day ! " 
 Obsequious Naddo strung the master's lute 
 With the new lute-string, " Elys," named to suit 
 The song : he stealthily at watch, the while, 
 Biting his lip to keep down a great smile 
 Of pride : then up he struck. Sordello's brain 
 Swam ; for he knew a sometime deed again ; 
 So, could supply each foolish gap and chasm 
 The minstrel left in his enthusiasm, 
 Mistaking its true version was the tale 
 Not of Apollo ? Only, what avail 
 Luring her down, that Elys an he pleased, 
 If the man dared no further ? Has he ceased ? 
 And, lo, the people's frank applause half done, 
 Sordello was beside him, had begun 
 (Spite of indignant twitchings from his friend 
 The Trouvere) the true lay with the true end, 
 Taking the other's names and time and place
 
 218 SORDELLO 
 
 For his. On flew the song, a giddy race, 
 
 After the flying story ; word made leap 
 
 Out word, rhyme rhyme ; the lay could barely keep 
 
 Pace with the action visibly rushing past : 
 
 Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast 
 
 Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull 
 
 That wheeled abrupt and, bellowing, fronted full 
 
 His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue, 
 
 And found 't was Apis' flank his hasty prong 
 
 Insulted. But the people but the cries, 
 
 The crowding round, and proffering the prize ! 
 
 For he had gained some prize. He seemed to shrink 
 
 Into a sleepy cloud, just at whose brink 
 
 One sight withheld him. There sat Adelaide, 
 
 Silent ; but at her knees the very maid 
 
 Of the North Chamber, her red lips as rich, 
 
 The same pure fleecy hair ; one weft of which, 
 
 Golden and great, quite touched his cheek as o'er 
 
 She leant, speaking some six words and no more. 
 
 He answered something, anything ; and she 
 
 Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily 
 
 Upon him, her neck's warmth and all. Again 
 
 Moved the arrested magic ; in his brain 
 
 Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare, 
 
 And greater glare, until the intense flare 
 
 Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense. 
 
 And when he woke 'twas many a furlong thence, 
 
 At home ; the sun shining his ruddy wont ; 
 
 The customary birds'-chirp ; but his front 
 
 Was crowned was crowned ! Her scented scarf around 
 
 His neck ! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground ? 
 
 A prize ? He turned, and peeringly on him 
 
 Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim, 
 
 Ready to talk " The Jongleurs in a troop 
 
 Had brought him back, Naddo and Squarcialupe 
 
 And Tagliaf er ; how strange ! a childhood spent 
 
 In taking, well for him, so brave a bent ! 
 
 Since Eglamor," they heard, " was dead with spite, 
 
 And Palma chose him for her minstrel." 
 
 Light 
 
 Sordello rose to think, now ; hitherto 
 He had perceived. Sure, a discovery grew 
 Out of it all ! Best live from first to last 
 The transport o'er again. A week he passed, 
 Sucking the sweet out of each circumstance, 
 From the bard's outbreak to the luscious trance
 
 flOW HAD HE BEEN SUPERIOR TO EGLAMORf 219 
 
 Bounding his own achievement. Strange ! A man 
 Recounted an adventure, but began 
 Imperfectly ; his own task was to fill 
 The frame-work up, sing well what he sung ill, 
 Supply the necessary points, set loose 
 As many incidents of little use 
 More imbecile the other, not to see 
 Their relative importance clear as he ! 
 But, for a special pleasure in the act 
 Of singing had he ever turned, in fact, 
 From Elys, to sing Elys ? from each fit 
 Of rapture to contrive a song of it ? 
 True, this snatch or the other seemed to wind 
 Into a treasure, helped himself to find 
 A beauty in himself ; for, see, he soared 
 By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard 
 Of fancies ; as some falling cone bears soft 
 The eye along the fir-tree-spire, aloft 
 To a dove's nest. Then, how divine the cause 
 Why such performance should exact applause 
 From men, if they had fancies too ? Did fate 
 Decree they found a beauty separate 
 In the poor snatch itself ? " Take Elys, there, 
 ' Her head that 's sharp and perfect like a pear, 
 So close and smooth are laid the few fine locks 
 Colored like honey oozed from topmost rocks 
 Sun-blanched the livelong summer ' if they heard 
 Just those two rhymes, assented at my word, 
 "And loved them as I love them who have run 
 These fingers through those pale locks, let the snn 
 Into the white cool skin who first could clutch, 
 Then praise I needs must be a god to such. 
 Or what if some, above themselves, and yet 
 Beneath me, like their Eglamor, have set 
 An impress on our gift ? So, men believe 
 And worship what they know not, nor receive 
 Delight from. Have they fancies slow, perchance, 
 Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance 
 Until, by song, each floating part be linked 
 To each, and all grow palpable, distinct ? " 
 He pondered this. 
 
 Meanwhile, sounds low and drear 
 Stole on him, and a noise of footsteps, near 
 And nearer, while the underwood was pushed 
 Aside, the larches grazed, the dead leaves crushed 
 At the approach of men. The wind seemed laid ;
 
 220 SORDELLO 
 
 Only, the trees shrunk slightly and a shade 
 
 Came o'er the sky although 't was mid-day yet : 
 
 You saw each half-shut downcast floweret 
 
 Flutter "a Roman bride, when they 'd dispart 
 
 Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart, 
 
 Holding that famous rape in memory still, 
 
 Felt creep into her curls the iron chill, 
 
 And looked thus," Eglamor would say indeed 
 
 'T is Eglamor, no other, these precede 
 
 Home hither in the woods. " 'T were surely sweet 
 
 Far from the scene of one's forlorn defeat 
 
 To sleep ! " judged Naddo, who in person led 
 
 Jongleurs and Trouveres, chanting at their head, 
 
 A scanty company ; for, sooth to say, 
 
 Our beaten Troubadour had seen his day. 
 
 Old worshippers were something shamed, old friends 
 
 Nigh weary ; still the death proposed amends. 
 
 " Let us but get them safely through my song 
 
 And home again ! " quoth Naddo. 
 
 All along, 
 
 This man (they rest the bier upon the sand) 
 This calm corpse with the loose flowers in his hand, 
 Eglamor, lived Sordello's opposite. 
 For him indeed was Naddo's notion right, 
 And verse a temple-worship vague and vast, 
 A ceremony that withdrew the last 
 Opposing bolt, looped back the lingering veil 
 Which hid the holy place : should one so frail 
 Stand there without such effort ? or repine 
 If much was blank, uncertain at the shrine 
 He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite, 
 The power responded, and some sound or sight 
 Grew up, his own forever, to be fixed, 
 In rhyme, the beautiful, forever ! mixed 
 With his own life, unloosed when he should please, 
 Having it safe at hand, ready to ease 
 All pain, remove all trouble ; every time 
 He loosed that fancy from its bonds of rhyme, 
 (Like Perseus when he loosed his naked love) 
 Faltering ; so distinct and far above 
 Himself, these fancies ! He, no genius rare, 
 Transfiguring in fire or wave or air 
 At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up 
 In some rock-chamber with his agate cup, 
 His topaz rod, his seed-pearl, in these few 
 And their arrangement finds enough to do
 
 LOVING HIS ART AND REWARDED BY IT 221 
 
 For his best art. ' Then, how he loved that art ! 
 
 The calling marking him a man apart 
 
 From men one not to care, take counsel for 
 
 Cold hearts, comfortless faces (Eglamor 
 
 Was neediest of his tribe) since verse, the gift, 
 
 Was his, and men, the whole of them, must shift 
 
 Without it, e'en content themselves with wealth 
 
 And pomp and power, snatching a life by stealth, 
 
 So, Eglamor was not without his pride ! 
 
 The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide 
 
 While other birds are jocund, has one time 
 
 When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime 
 
 Of earth is his to claim, nor find a peer ; 
 
 And Eglamor was noblest poet here 
 
 He well knew, 'mid those April woods, he cast 
 
 Conceits upon in plenty as he passed, 
 
 That Naddo might suppose him not to think 
 
 Entirely on the coming triumph : wink 
 
 At the one weakness ! 'T was a fervid child, 
 
 That song of his ; no brother of the guild 
 
 Had e'er conceived its like. The rest you knovr, 
 
 The exaltation and the overthrow : 
 
 Our poet lost his purpose, lost his rank, 
 
 His life to that it came. Yet envy sank 
 
 Within him, as he heard Sordello out, 
 
 And, for the first time, shouted tried to shout 
 
 Like others, not from any zeal to show 
 
 Pleasure that way : the common sort did so. 
 
 What else was Eglamor ? who, bending down 
 
 As they, placed his beneath Sordello's crown, 
 
 Printed a kiss on his successor's hand. 
 
 Left one great tear on it, then joined his band 
 
 In time ; for some were watching at the door : 
 
 Who knows what envy may effect? "Give o'er. 
 
 Nor charm his lips, nor craze him ! " (here one spied 
 
 And disengaged the withered crown) " Beside 
 
 His crown ? How prompt and clear those verses rang 
 
 To answer yours ! nay, sing them ! " And he sang 
 
 Them calmly. Home he went ; friends used to wait 
 
 His coming, zealous to congratulate ; 
 
 But, to a man, so quickly runs report, 
 
 Could do no less than leave him, and escort 
 
 His rival. That eve, then, bred many a thought : 
 
 What must his future life be ? was he brought 
 
 So low, who stood so lofty this Spring morn ? 
 
 At length he said, " Best sleep now with my scorn,
 
 222 SORDELLO 
 
 And by to-morrow I devise some plain 
 
 Expedient ! " So, he slept, nor woke again. 
 
 They found as much, those friends, when they returned 
 
 O'erHowing with the marvels they had learned 
 
 About Sordello's paradise, bis roves 
 
 Among the hills and vales and plains and groves, 
 
 Wherein, no doubt, this lay was roughly cast, 
 
 Polished by slow degrees, completed last 
 
 To Eglamor's discomfiture and death. 
 
 Such form the chanters now, and, out of breath, 
 They lay the beaten man in his abode, 
 Kaddo reciting that same luckless ode, 
 Doleful to hear. Sordello could explore 
 By means of it, however, one step more 
 In joy ; and, mastering the round at length, 
 Learnt how to live in weakness as in strength, 
 When from his covert forth he stood, addressed 
 Eglamor, bade the tender ferns invest, 
 Primeval pines o'ercanopy his couch, 
 And, most of all, his fame (shall I avouch 
 Eglamor heard it, dead though he might look, 
 And laughed as from his brow Sordello took 
 The crown, and laid on the bard's breast, and said 
 It was a crown, now, fit for poet's head ?) 
 
 Continue. Nor the prayer quite fruitless fell. 
 A plant they have, yielding a three-leaved bell 
 Which whitens at the heart ere noon, and ails 
 Till evening ; evening gives it to her gales 
 
 To clear away with such forgotten things 
 As are an eyesore to the morn : this brings 
 Him to their mind, and bears his very name. 
 
 So much for Eglamor. My own month came ; 
 'T was a sunrise of blossoming and May. 
 Beneath a flowering laurel thicket lay 
 .SordeDo ; each new sprinkle of white stars 
 That smell fainter of wine than Massic jars 
 Dug up at Baise, when the south wind shed 
 The ripest, made him happier ; filleted 
 And robed the same, only a lute beside 
 Lay on the turf. Before him far and wide 
 The country stretched : Goito slept behind 
 
 The castle and its covert, which confined 
 Him with his hopes and fears ; so fain of old 
 To leave the story of his birth untold. 
 
 At intervals, 'spite the fantastic glow 
 Of his Apollo-life, a certain low
 
 WHO SORDELLO REALLY WAS 223 
 
 And wretched whisper, winding through the bliss, 
 
 Admonished, no such fortune could be his, 
 
 All was quite false and sure to fade one day : 
 
 The closelier drew he round him his array 
 
 Of brilliance to expel the truth. But when 
 
 A reason for his difference from men 
 
 Surprised him at the grave, he took no rest 
 
 While aught of that old life, superbly dressed 
 
 Down to its meanest incident, remained 
 
 A mystery : alas, they soon explained 
 
 Away Apollo ! and the tale amounts 
 
 To this : when at Vicenza both her counts 
 
 Banished the Vivaresi kith and kin, 
 
 Those Maltraversi hung on Ecelin, 
 
 Reviled him as he followed ; he for spite 
 
 Must fire their quarter, though that self-same night 
 
 Among the flames young Ecelin was born 
 
 Of Adelaide, there too, and barely torn 
 
 From the roused populace hard on the rear, 
 
 By a poor archer when his chieftain's fear 
 
 Grew high ; into the thick Elcorte leapt, 
 
 Saved her, and died ; no creature left except 
 
 His child to thank. And when the full escape 
 
 Was known how men impaled from chine to nape 
 
 Unlucky Prata, all to pieces spurned 
 
 Bishop Pistore's concubines, and burned 
 
 Taurello's entire household, flesh and fell, 
 
 Missing the sweeter prey such courage well 
 
 Might claim reward. The orphan, ever since, 
 
 Sordello, had been nurtured by his prince 
 
 Within a blind retreat where Adelaide 
 
 (For, once this notable discovery made, 
 
 The past at every point was understood) 
 
 Might harbor easily when times were rude, 
 When Azzo schemed for Palma, to retrieve 
 That pledge of Agnes Este loth to leave 
 Mantua unguarded with a vigilant eye, 
 While there Taurello bode ambiguously 
 He who could have no motive now to moil 
 For his own fortunes since their utter spoil 
 As it were worth while yet (went the report) 
 To disengage himself from her. In short, 
 Apollo vanished ; a mean youth, just named 
 His lady's minstrel, was to be proclaimed 
 
 How shall I phrase it ? Monarch of the World ! 
 For, on the day when that array was furled
 
 224 SORDELLO 
 
 Forever, and in place of one a slave 
 
 To longings, wild indeed, but longings save 
 
 In dreams as wild, suppressed one daring not 
 
 Assume the mastery such dreams allot, 
 
 Until a magical equipment, strength, 
 
 Grace, wisdom, decked him too, he chose at length, 
 
 Content with unproved wits and failing frame, 
 
 In virtue of his simple will, to claim 
 
 That mastery, no less to do his best 
 
 With means so limited, and let the rest 
 
 Go by, the seal was set : never again 
 
 Sordello could in his own sight remain 
 
 One of the many, one with hopes and cares 
 
 And interests nowise distinct from theirs, 
 
 Only peculiar in a thriveless store 
 
 Of fancies, which were fancies and no more ; 
 
 Never again for him and for the crowd 
 
 A common law was challenged and allowed 
 
 If calmly reasoned of, howe'er denied 
 
 By a mad impulse nothing justified 
 
 Short of Apollo's presence. The divorce 
 
 Is clear : why needs Sordello square his course 
 
 By any known example ? Men no more 
 
 Compete with him than tree and flower before. 
 
 Himself, inactive, yet is greater far 
 
 Than such as act, each stooping to his star, 
 
 Acquiring thence his function ; he has gained 
 
 The same result with meaner mortals trained 
 
 To strength or beauty, moulded to express 
 
 Each the idea that rules him ; since no less 
 
 He comprehends that function, but can still 
 
 Embrace the others, take of might his fill 
 
 With Richard as of grace with Palma, mix 
 
 Their qualities, or for a moment fix 
 
 On one ; abiding free meantime, uncramped 
 
 By any partial organ, never stamped 
 
 Strong, and to strength turning all energies 
 
 Wise, and restricted to becoming wise 
 
 That is, he loves not, nor possesses One 
 
 Idea that, star-like over, lures him on 
 
 To its exclusive purpose. " Fortunate ! 
 
 This flesh of mine ne'er strove to emulate 
 
 A soul so various took no casual mould 
 
 Of the first fancy and, contracted, cold, 
 
 Clogged her forever soul averse to change 
 
 As flesh : whereas flesh leaves soul free to range,
 
 CAN DO NOTHING, YET IMAGINE ALL 225 
 
 Remains itself a blank, cast into shade, 
 
 Encumbers little, if it cannot aid. 
 
 So, range, free soul ! who, by self-consciousness, 
 
 The last drop of all beauty dost express 
 
 The grace of seeing grace, a quintessence 
 
 For thee : while for the world, that can dispense 
 
 Woiider on men who, themselves, wonder make 
 
 A shift to love at second-hand, and take 
 
 For idols those who do but idolize, 
 
 Themselves, the world that counts men strong or wise, 
 
 Who, themselves, court strength, wisdom, it shall bow 
 
 Surely in unexampled worship now, 
 
 Discerning me ! " 
 
 (Dear monarch, I beseech, 
 Notice how lamentably wide a breach 
 Is here : discovering this, discover too 
 What our poor world has possibly to do 
 With it ! As pigmy natures as you please 
 So much the better for you ; take your ease, 
 Look on, and laugh ; style yourself God alone ; 
 Strangle some day with a cross olive-stone : 
 All that is right enough : but why want us 
 To know that you yourself know thus and thus ?) 
 " The world shall bow to me conceiving all 
 Man's life, who see its blisses, great and small, 
 Afar not tasting any ; no machine 
 To exercise my utmost will is mine : 
 Be mine mere consciousness ! Let men perceive 
 What I could do, a mastery believe, 
 Asserted and established to the throng 
 By their selected evidence of song 
 Which now shall prove, whate'er they are, or seek 
 To be, I am whose words, not actions speak, 
 Who change no standards of perfection, vex 
 With no strange forms created to perplex, 
 But just perform their bidding and no more, 
 At their own satiating-point give o'er, 
 While each shall love in me the love that leans 
 His soul to power's perfection." Song, not deeds, 
 (For we get tired) was chosen. Fate would brook 
 Mankind no other organ ; he would look 
 For not another channel to dispense 
 His own volition by, receive men's sense 
 Of its supremacy ; would live content, 
 Obstructed else, with merely verse for vent. 
 Nor should, for instance, strength an outlet seek
 
 226 SORDELLO 
 
 And, striving, be admired ; nor grace bespeak 
 
 Wonder, displayed in gracious attitudes ; 
 
 Nor wisdom, poured forth, change unseemly moods : 
 
 But he would give and take on song's one point. 
 
 Like some huge throbbing stone that, poised a-joint, 
 
 Sounds, to affect on its basaltic bed, 
 
 Must sue in just one accent ; tempests shed 
 
 Thunder, and raves the windstorm : only let 
 
 That key by any little noise be set 
 
 The far benighted hunter's halloo pitch 
 
 On that, the hungry curlew chance to scritch 
 
 Or serpent hiss it, rustling through the rift, 
 
 However loud, however low all lift 
 
 The groaning monster, stricken to the heart. 
 
 Lo ye, the world's concernment, for its part, 
 
 And this, for his, will hardly interfere ! 
 
 Its businesses in blood and blaze this year 
 
 But while the hour away a pastime slight 
 
 Till he shall step upon the platform : right ! 
 
 And, now thus much is settled, cast in rough, 
 
 Proved feasible, be counselled ! thought enough, 
 
 Slumber, Sordello ! any day will serve : 
 
 Were it a less digested plan ! how swerve 
 
 To-morrow ? Meanwhile eat these sun-dried grapes, 
 
 And watch the soaring hawk there ! Life escapes 
 
 Merrily thus. 
 
 He thoroughly read o'er 
 
 His truchman Naddo's missive six times more, 
 Praying him visit Mantua and supply 
 A famished world. 
 
 The evening star was high 
 
 When he reached Mantua, but his fame arrived 
 Before him : friends applauded, foes connived, 
 And Naddo looked an angel, and the rest 
 Angels, and all these angels would be blest 
 Supremely by a song the thrice-renowned 
 Goito manufacture. Then he found 
 (Casting about to satisfy the crowd) 
 That happy vehicle, so late allowed, 
 A sore annoyance ; 't was the song's effect 
 He cared for, scarce the song itself : reflect ! 
 In the past life, what might be singing's use ? 
 Just to delight his Delians, whose profuse 
 Praise, not the toilsome process which procured 
 That praise, enticed Apollo : dreams abjured, 
 No overleaping means for ends take both
 
 THE TOUCH THAT COMES NOT BY AN EFFORT 227 
 
 For granted or take neither ! I am loth 
 To say the rhymes at last were Eglamor's ; 
 But Naddo, chuckling, bade competitors 
 Go pine ; " the master certes meant to waste 
 No effort, cautiously had probed the taste 
 He 'd please anon : true bard, in short, disturb 
 His title if they could ; nor spur nor curb, 
 Fancy nor reason, wanting in him ; whence 
 The staple of his verses, common sense : 
 He built on man's broad nature gift of gifts, 
 That power to build ! The world contented shifts 
 With counterfeits enough, a dreary sort 
 Of warriors, statesmen, ere it can extort 
 Its poet-soul that 's, after all, a freak 
 (The having eyes to see and tongue to speak) 
 With our herd's stupid sterling happiness 
 So plainly incompatible that yes 
 Yes should a son of his improve the breed 
 And turn out poet, he were cursed indeed ! " 
 " Well, there 's Goito and its woods anon, 
 If the worst happen ; best go stoutly on 
 Now ! " thought Sordello. 
 
 Ay, and goes on yet ! 
 You pother with your glossaries to get 
 A notion of the Troubadour's intent 
 In rondel, tenzon, virlai or sirvent 
 Much as you study arras how to twirl 
 His angelot, plaything of page and girl 
 Once ; but you surely reach, at last, or, no ! 
 Never quite reach what struck the people so, 
 As from the welter of their time he drew 
 Its elements successively to view, 
 Followed all actions backward on their course, 
 And catching up, unmingled at the source, 
 Such a strength, such a weakness, added then 
 A touch or two, and turned them into men. 
 Virtue took form, nor vice refused a shape ; 
 Here heaven opened, there was hell agape, 
 As Saint this simpered past in sanctity, 
 Sinner the other flared portentous by 
 A greedy people. Then why stop, surprised 
 At his success ? The scheme was realized 
 Too suddenly in one respect : a crowd 
 Praising, eyes quick to see, and lips as loud 
 To speak, delicious homage to receive, 
 The woman's breath to feel upon his sleeve,
 
 228 BORDELLO 
 
 Who said, " But Anafest why asks he less 
 
 Than Lucio, in your verses ? how confess, 
 
 It seemed too much hut yestereve ! " the youth, 
 
 Who bade him earnestly, " Avow the truth ! 
 
 You love Bianca, surely, from your song; 
 
 I knew I was unworthy ! " soft or strong, 
 
 In poured such tributes ere he had arranged 
 
 Ethereal ways to take them, sorted, changed, 
 
 Digested. Courted thus at unawares, 
 
 In spite of his pretensions and his cares, 
 
 He caught himself shamefully hankering 
 
 After the obvious petty joys that spring 
 
 From true life, fain relinquish pedestal 
 
 And condescend with pleasures one and all 
 
 To be renounced, no doubt ; for, thus to chain 
 
 Himself to single joys and so refrain 
 
 From tasting their quintessence, frustrates, sure, 
 
 His prime design ; each joy must he abjure 
 
 Even for love of it. 
 
 He laughed : what sage 
 But perishes if from his magic page 
 He look because, at the first line, a proof 
 'T was heard salutes him from the cavern roof ? 
 " On ! Give yourself, excluding aught beside, 
 To the day's task ; compel your slave provide 
 Its utmost at the soonest ; turn the leaf 
 Thoroughly conned. These lays of yours, in brief 
 Cannot men bear, now, something better ? fly 
 A pitch beyond this unreal pageantry 
 Of essences ? the period sure has ceased 
 For such : present us with ourselves, at least, 
 Not portions of ourselves, mere loves and hates 
 Made flesh : wait not ! " 
 
 Awhile the poet waits 
 However. The first trial was enough : 
 He left imagining, to try the stuff 
 Tbat held the imaged thing, and, let it writhe 
 Never so fiercely, scarce allowed a tithe 
 To reach the light his Language. How he sought 
 The cause, conceived a cure, and slow re-wrought 
 That Language, welding words into the crude 
 Mass from the new speech round him, till a rude 
 Armor was hammered out, in time to be 
 Approved beyond the Roman panoply 
 Melted to make it, boots not. This obtained 
 With some ado, no obstacle remained
 
 DECLINES FROM THE IDEAL OF SONG 229 
 
 To using it ; accordingly he took 
 
 An action with its actors, quite forsook 
 
 Himself to live in each, returned anon 
 
 With the result a creature, and, by one 
 
 And one, proceeded leisurely to equip 
 
 Its limbs in harness of his workmanship. 
 
 Accomplished ! Listen, Mantuans ! " Fond essay ! 
 
 Piece after piece that armor broke away, 
 
 Because perceptions whole, like that he sought 
 
 To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought 
 
 As language : thought may take perception's place 
 
 But hardly co-exist in any case, 
 
 Being its mere presentiment of the whole 
 
 By parts, the simultaneous and the sole 
 
 By the successive and the many. Lacks 
 
 The crowd perception ? painfully it tacks 
 
 Thought to thought, which Sordello, needing such, 
 
 Has rent perception into : it 's to clutch 
 
 And reconstruct his office to diffuse, 
 
 Destroy : as hard, then, to obtain a Muse 
 
 As to become Apollo. " For the rest, 
 
 E'en if some wondrous vehicle expressed 
 
 The whole dream, what impertinence in me 
 
 So to express it, who myself can be 
 
 The dream ! nor, on the other hand, are those 
 
 I sing to, over-likely to suppose 
 
 A higher than the highest I present 
 
 Now, which they praise already : be content 
 
 Both parties, rather they with the old verse, 
 
 And I with the old praise far go, fare worse ! " 
 
 A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings 
 
 The angel, sparkles off his mail, which rings 
 
 Whirled from each delicatest limb it warps, 
 
 So might Apollo from the sudden corpse 
 
 Of Hyacinth have cast his luckless quoits. 
 
 He set to celebrating the exploits 
 
 Of Montfort o'er the Mountaineers. 
 
 Then came 
 
 The world's revenge : their pleasure, now his aim 
 Merely, what was it ? " Not to play the fool 
 So much as learn our lesson in your school ! " 
 Replied the world. He found that, every time 
 He gained applause by any ballad-rhyme, 
 His auditory recognized no jot 
 As he intended, and, mistaking not 
 Him for his meanest hero, ne'er was dunce
 
 230 BORDELLO 
 
 Sufficient to believe him all, at once. 
 
 His will . . . conceive it caring for his will ! 
 
 Mantuans, the main of them, admiring still 
 
 How a mere singer, ugly, stunted, weak, 
 
 Had Montfort at completely (so to speak) 
 
 His fingers' ends ; while past the praise-tide swept 
 
 To Montfort, cither's share distinctly kept : 
 
 The true meed for true merit ! his abates 
 
 Into a sort he most repudiates, 
 
 And on them angrily he turns. Who were 
 
 The Mantuans, after all, that he should care 
 
 About their recognition, ay or no ? 
 
 In spite of the convention months ago, 
 
 (Why blink the truth ?) was not he forced to help 
 
 This same ungrateful audience, every whelp 
 
 Of Naddo's litter, make them pass for peers 
 
 With the bright band of old Goito years, 
 
 As erst he toiled for flower or tree ? Why, there 
 
 Sat Palma ! Adelaide's funereal hair 
 
 Ennobled the next corner. Ay, he strewed 
 
 A fairy dust upon that multitude, 
 
 Although he feigned to take them by themselves ; 
 
 His giants dignified those puny elves, 
 
 Sublimed their faint applause. In short, he found 
 
 Himself still footing a delusive round, 
 
 Remote as ever from the self-display 
 
 He meant to compass, hampered every way 
 
 By what he hoped assistance. Wherefore then 
 
 Continue, make believe to find in men 
 
 A use he found not ? 
 
 Weeks, months, years went by, 
 And lo, Sordello vanished utterly, 
 Sundered in twain ; each spectral part at strife 
 With each ; one jarred against another life ; 
 The Poet thwarting hopelessly the Man 
 Who, fooled no longer, free in fancy ran 
 Here, there ; let slip no opportunities 
 As pitiful, forsooth, beside the prize 
 To drop on him some no-time and acquit 
 His constant faith (the Poet-half's to wit 
 That waiving any compromise between 
 No joy and all joy kept the hunger keen 
 Beyond most methods) of incurring scoff 
 From the Man-portion not to be put off 
 With self-reflectings by the Poet's scheme, 
 Though ne'er so bright ; who sauntered forth in dream,
 
 THE WHOLE VISIBLE SORDELLO GOES WRONG 231 
 
 Dressed anyhow, nor waited mystic frames, 
 
 Immeasurable gifts, astounding claims, 
 
 But just his sorry self who yet might be 
 
 Sorrier for aught he in reality 
 
 Achieved, so pinioned Man's the Poet-part, 
 
 Fondling, in turn of fancy, verse ; the Art 
 
 Developing his soul a thousand ways 
 
 Potent, by its assistance, to amaze 
 
 The multitude with majesties, convince 
 
 Each sort of nature, that the nature's prince 
 
 Accosted it. Language, the makeshift, grew 
 
 Into a bravest of expedients, too ; 
 
 Apollo, seemed it now, perverse had thrown 
 
 Quiver and bow away, the lyre alone 
 
 Sufficed. While, out of dream, his day's work went 
 
 To tune a crazy tenzon or sirvent 
 
 So hampered him the Man-part, thrust to judge 
 
 Between the bard and the bard's audience, grudge 
 
 A minute's toil that missed its due reward ! 
 
 But the complete Sordello. Man and Bard, 
 
 John's cloud-girt angel, this foot on the land, 
 
 That on the sea, with, open in his hand, 
 
 A bitter-sweetling of a book was gone, 
 
 Then, if internal struggles to be one 
 Which frittered him incessantly piecemeal, 
 Referred, ne'er so obliquely, to the real 
 Intruding Mantuans ! ever with some call 
 To action while he pondei*ed, once for all, 
 Which looked the easier effort to pursue 
 This course, still leap o'er paltry joys, yearn through 
 The present ill-appreciated stage 
 Of self-revealment, and compel the age 
 Know him ; or else, forswearing bard-craft, wake 
 From out his lethargy and nobly shake 
 Off timid habits of denial, mix 
 With men, enjoy like men. Ere he could fix 
 On aught, in rushed the Mantuans ; much they cared 
 For his perplexity ! Thus unprepared, 
 The obvious if not only shelter lay 
 In deeds, the dull conventions of his day 
 Prescribed the like of him : why not be glad 
 T is settled Palma's minstrel, good or bad, 
 Submits to this and that established rule ? 
 Let Vidal change, or any other fool, 
 His murrey-colored robe for filamot, 
 And crop his hair ; too skin-deep, is it not,
 
 232 SORDELLO 
 
 Such vigor ? Then, a sorrow to the heart, 
 
 His talk! Whatever topics they might start 
 
 Had to be groped for in his consciousness 
 
 Straight, and as straight delivered them by guess. 
 
 Only obliged to ask himself, " What was," 
 
 A speedy answer followed ; but, alas, 
 
 One of God's large ones, tardy to condense 
 
 Itself into a period ; answers whence 
 
 A tangle of conclusions must be stripped 
 
 At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipped, 
 
 They matched rare specimens the Mantuan flock 
 
 Regaled him with, each talker from his stock 
 
 Of sorted-o'er opinions, every stage, 
 
 Juicy in youth or desiccate with age, 
 
 Fruits like the fig-tree's, rathe-ripe, rotten-rich, 
 
 Sweet-sour, all tastes to take : a practice which 
 
 He too had not impossibly attained, 
 
 Once either of those fancy-flights restrained ; 
 
 (For, at conjecture how might words appear 
 
 To others, playing there what happened here, 
 
 And occupied abroad by what he spurned 
 
 At home, 'twas slipped, the occasion he returned 
 
 To seize :) he 'd strike that lyre adroitly speech, 
 
 Would but a twenty-cubit plectre reach ; 
 
 A clever hand, consummate instrument, 
 
 Were both brought close ; each excellency went 
 
 For nothing, else. The question Naddo asked, 
 
 Had just a lifetime moderately tasked 
 
 To answer, Naddo's fashion. More disgust 
 
 And more : why move his soul, since move it must 
 
 At minute's notice or as good it failed 
 
 To move at all ? The end was, he retailed 
 
 Some ready-made opinion, put to use 
 
 This quip, that maxim, ventured reproduce 
 
 Gestures and tones at any folly caught 
 
 Serving to finish with, nor too much sought 
 
 If false or true 't was spoken ; praise and blame 
 
 Of what he said grew pretty nigh the same 
 
 Meantime awards to meantime acts : his soul, 
 
 Unequal to the compassing a whole, 
 
 Saw, in a tenth part, less and less to strive 
 
 About. And as for men in turn . . . contrive 
 
 Who could to take eternal interest 
 
 In them, so hate the worst, so love the best ! 
 
 Though, in pursuance of his passive plan, 
 
 He hailed, decried, the proper way.
 
 HE PLEASES NEITHER HIMSELF NOR THEM 233 
 
 As Man 
 
 So figured he ; and how as Poet ? Verse 
 Came only not to a stand-still. The worse, 
 That his poor piece of daily work to do 
 Was, not sink under any rivals ; who 
 Loudly and long enough, without these qualms, 
 Tuned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, 
 To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, 
 " As knops that stud some almug to the pith 
 Pricked for gum, wry thence*, and crinkled worse 
 Than pursed eyelids of a river-horse 
 Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breeze " 
 Gad-fly, that is. He might compete with these ! 
 But but 
 
 " Observe a pompion-twine afloat ; 
 Pluck me one cup from off the castle-moat ! 
 Along with cup you raise leaf, stalk and root, 
 The entire surface of the pool to boot. 
 So could I pluck a cup, put in one song 
 A single sight, did not my hand, too strong, 
 Twitch in the least the root-strings of the whole. 
 How should externals satisfy my soul ? " 
 " Why that 's precise the error Squarcialupe " 
 (Hazarded Naddo) " finds ; ' the man can't stoop 
 To sing us out,' quoth he, ' a mere romance ; 
 He 'd fain do better than the best, enhance 
 The subjects' rarity, work problems out 
 Therewith : ' now, you 're a bard, a bard past doubt, 
 And no philosopher ; why introduce 
 Crotchets like these ? fine, surely, but no use 
 In poetry which still must be. to strike, 
 Based upon common sense ; there 's nothing like 
 Appealing to our nature ! what beside 
 Was your first poetry ? No tricks were tried 
 In that, no hollow thrills, affected throes ! 
 ' The man,' said we, ' tells his own joys and woes : 
 We '11 trust him.' Would you have your songs endure ? 
 Build on the human heart ! why, to be sure 
 Yours is one sort of heart but I mean theirs, 
 Ours, every one's, the healthy heart one cares 
 To build on ! Central peace, mother of strength, 
 That 's father of ... nay, go yourself that length, 
 Ask those calm-hearted doers what they do 
 When they have got their calm ! And is it true, 
 Fire rankles at the heart of every globe ? 
 Perhaps. But these are matters one may probe
 
 234 SORDELLO 
 
 Too deeply for poetic purposes : 
 
 Rather select a theory that . . . yes, 
 
 Laugh ! what does that prove ? stations you midway 
 
 And saves some little o'er-relining. Nay, 
 
 That 's rank injustice done me ! I restrict 
 
 The poet ? Don't I hold the poet picked 
 
 Out of a host of warriors, statesmen . . . did 
 
 I tell you ? Very like ! As well you hid 
 
 That sense of power, you have ! True bards believe 
 
 All able to achieve what they achieve 
 
 That is, just nothing in one point abide 
 
 Profounder simpletons than all beside. 
 
 Oh, ay ! The knowledge that you are a bard 
 
 Must constitute your prime, nay sole, reward ! " 
 
 So prattled Naddo, busiest of the tribe 
 
 Of genius-haunters how shall I describe 
 
 What grubs or nips or rubs or rips your louse 
 
 For love, your flea for hate, magnanimous, 
 
 Malignant, Pappacoda, Tagliafer, 
 
 Picking a sustenance from wear and tear 
 
 By implements it sedulous employs 
 
 To undertake, lay down, mete out, o'er-toise 
 
 Sordello ? Fifty creepers to elude 
 
 At once ! They settled stanchly ; shame ensued : 
 
 Behold the monarch of mankind succumb 
 
 To the last fool who turned him round his thumb, 
 
 As Naddo styled it ! 'T was not worth oppose 
 
 The matter of a moment, gainsay those 
 
 He aimed at getting rid of ; better think 
 
 Their thoughts and speak their speech, secure to slink 
 
 Back expeditiously to his safe place, 
 
 And chew the cud what he and what his race 
 
 Were really, each of them. Yet even this 
 
 Conformity was partial. He would miss 
 
 Some point, brought into contact with them ere 
 
 Assured in what small segment of the sphere 
 
 Of his existence they attended him ; 
 
 Whence blunders, falsehoods rectify a grim 
 
 List slur it over ! How ? If dreams were tried, 
 
 His will swayed sicklily from side to side, 
 
 Nor merely neutralized his waking act 
 
 But tended e'en in fancy to distract 
 
 The intermediate will, the choice of means. 
 
 He lost the art of dreaming : Mantuan scenes 
 
 Supplied a baron, say, he sang before, 
 
 Handsomely reckless, full to running o'er
 
 HIS DEGRADATION IS COMPLETE 235 
 
 Of gallantries ; " abjure the soul, content 
 
 With body, therefore ! " Scarcely had he bent 
 
 Himself in dream thus low, when matter fast 
 
 Cried out, he found, for spirit to contrast 
 
 And task it duly ; by advances slight, 
 
 The simple stuff becoming composite, 
 
 Count Lori grew Apollo best recall 
 
 His fancy ! Then would some rough peasant-Paul, 
 
 Like those old Ecelin confers with, glance 
 
 His gay apparel o'er ; that countenance 
 
 Gathered his shattered fancies into one, 
 
 And, body clean abolished, soul alone 
 
 Sufficed the gray Paulician : by and by, 
 
 To balance the ethereality, 
 
 Passions were needed ; foiled he sank again. 
 
 Meanwhile the world rejoiced ('t is time explain) 
 
 Because a sudden sickness set it free 
 
 From Adelaide. Missing the mother-bee, 
 
 Her mountain-hive Romano swarmed ; at once 
 
 A rustle-forth of daughters and of sons 
 
 Blackened the valley. " I am sick too, old, 
 
 Half crazed I think ; what good 's the Kaiser's gold 
 
 To such an one ? God help me ! for I catch 
 
 My children's greedy sparkling eyes at watch 
 ' He bears that double breastplate on,' they say, 
 ' So many minutes less than yesterday ! ' 
 
 Beside, Monk Hilary is on his knees 
 
 Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please 
 
 Exact a punishment for many things 
 
 You know, and some you never knew ; which brings 
 
 To memory, Azzo's sister Beatrix 
 
 And Richard's Giglia are my Alberic's 
 
 And Ecelin 's betrothed ; the Count himself 
 
 Must get my Palma : Ghibellin and Guelf 
 
 Mean to embrace each other." So began 
 
 Romano's missive to his fighting man 
 
 Taurello on the Tuscan's death, away 
 
 With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay 
 
 Next month for Syria. Never thunder-clap 
 
 Out of Vesuvius' throat, like this mishap 
 
 Startled him. " That accursed Vicenza ! I 
 
 Absent, and she selects this time to die ! 
 Ho, fellows, for Vicenza ! " Half a score 
 Of horses ridden dead, he stood before 
 Romano in his reeking spurs : too late 
 " Boniface urged me, Este could not wait,"
 
 236 BORDELLO 
 
 The chieftain stammered ; " let me die in peace 
 
 Forget me ! Was it I who craved increase 
 
 Of rule ? Do you and Friedrich plot your worst 
 
 Against the Father : as you found me first 
 
 So leave me now. Forgive me ! Palma, sure, 
 
 Is at Goito still. Retain that lure 
 
 Only be pacified ! " 
 
 The country rung 
 
 With such a piece of news : on every tongue, 
 How Ecelin's great servant, congeed off, 
 Had done a long day's service, so, might doff . 
 The green and yellow, and recover breath 
 At Mantua, whither, since Retrude's death, 
 (The girlish slip of a Sicilian bride 
 From Otho's house, he carried to reside 
 At Mantua till the Ferrarese should pile 
 A structure worthy her imperial style, 
 The gardens raise, the statues there enshrine, 
 She never lived to see) although his line 
 Was ancient in her archives and she took 
 A pride in him, that city, nor forsook 
 Her child when he forsook himself and spent 
 A prowess on Romano surely meant 
 For his own growth whither he ne'er resorts 
 If wholly satisfied (to trust reports) 
 With Ecelin. So, forward in a trice 
 Were shows to greet him. " Take a friend's advice," 
 Quoth Naddo to Sordello, " nor be rash 
 Because your rivals (nothing can abash 
 Some folks) demur that we pronounced you best 
 To sound the great man's welcome ; 't is a test, 
 Remember ! Strojavacca looks asquint, 
 The rough fat sloven ; and there's plenty hint 
 Your pinions have received of late a shock 
 Outsoar them, cobswan of the silver flock ! 
 Sing well ! " A signal wonder, song 's no whit 
 Facilitated. 
 
 Fast the minutes flit ; 
 Another day, Sordello finds, will bring 
 The soldier, and he cannot choose but sing ; 
 So, a last shift, quits Mantua slow, alone : 
 Gut of that aching brain, a very stone, 
 Song must be struck. What occupies that front ? 
 Just how he was more awkward than his wont 
 The night before, when Naddo, who had seen 
 Taurello on liis progress, praised the mien
 
 HE CHANCES UPON HIS OLD ENVIRONMENT 237 
 
 For dignity no crosses could affect 
 
 Such was a joy, and might not he detect 
 
 A satisfaction if established joys 
 
 Were proved imposture ? Poetry annoys 
 
 Its utmost : wherefore fret? Verses may come 
 
 Or keep away ! And thus he wandered, dumb 
 
 Till evening, when he paused, thoroughly spent, 
 
 On a blind hill-top : down the gorge he went, 
 
 Yielding himself up as to an embrace. 
 
 The moon came out ; like features of a face, 
 
 A querulous fraternity of pines, 
 
 Sad blackthorn clumps, leafless and grovelling vines 
 
 Also came out, made gradually up 
 
 The picture ; 't was Goito's mountain-cup 
 
 And castle. He had dropped through one defile 
 
 He never dared explore, the Chief erewhile 
 
 Had vanished by. Back rushed the dream, enwrapped 
 
 Him wholly. 'T was Apollo now they lapped, 
 
 Those mountains, not a pettish minstrel meant 
 
 To wear his soul away in discontent, 
 
 Brooding on fortune's malice. Heart and brain 
 
 Swelled ; he expanded to himself again, 
 
 As some thin seedling spice-tree starved and frail, 
 
 Pushing between cat's head and ibis' tail 
 
 Crusted into the porphyry pavement smooth, 
 
 Suffered remain just as it sprung, to soothe 
 
 The Soldan's pining daughter, never yet 
 
 Well in her chilly green-glazed minaret, 
 
 AVhen rooted up, the sunny day she died, 
 
 And flung into the common court beside 
 
 Its parent tree. Come home, Sordello ! Soon 
 
 Was he low muttering, beneath the moon, 
 
 Of sorrow saved, of quiet evermore, 
 
 Since from the purpose, he maintained before, 
 
 Only resulted wailing and hot tears'. 
 
 Ah, the slim castle ! dwindled of late years, 
 
 But more mysterious ; gone to ruin trails 
 
 Of vine through every loop-hole. Nought avails 
 
 The night as, torch in hand, he must explore 
 
 The maple chamber : did I say, its floor 
 
 Was made of intersecting cedar beams ? 
 
 Worn now with gaps so large, there blew cold streams 
 
 Of air quite from the dungeon ; lay your ear 
 
 Close and 't is like, one after one, you hear 
 
 In the blind darkness water drop. The nests 
 
 And nooks retain their long ranged vesture -chests
 
 238 SORDELLO 
 
 Empty and smelling of the iris root 
 The Tuscan grated o'er them to recruit 
 Her wasted wits. Palma was gone that day, 
 Said the remaining women. Last, he lay 
 Beside the Carian group reserved and still. 
 The Body, the Machine for Acting Will, 
 Had been at the commencement proved unfit ; 
 That for Demonstrating, Reflecting it. 
 Mankind no fitter : was the AY ill Itself 
 In fault? 
 
 His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf 
 Beside the youngest marble maid awhile ; 
 Then, raising it, he thought, with a long smile, 
 
 44 1 shall be king again ! " as he withdrew 
 The envied scarf ; into the font he threw 
 His crown. 
 
 Next day, no poet ! " Wherefore ': " asked 
 Taurello, when the dance of Jongleurs, masked 
 As devils, ended ; " don't a song come next ? " 
 The master of the pageant looked perplexed 
 Till Naddo's whisper came to his relief. 
 
 u His Highness knew what poets were : in brief, 
 Had not the tetchy race prescriptive right 
 To peevishness, caprice ? or, call it spite, 
 One most receive their nature in its length 
 And breadth, expect the weakness with the strength ! " 
 So phrasing, till, his stock of phrases spent, 
 The easy-natured soldier smiled assent, 
 Settled his portly person, smoothed his chin, 
 And nodded that the bull-bait might begin. 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD. 
 
 AND the font took them : let our laurels He ! 
 Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly 
 Because once more Goito gets, once more, 
 Sordello to itself ! A dream is o'er, 
 And the suspended life begins anew ; 
 Quiet those throbbing temples, then, subdue 
 That cheek's distortion ! Nature's strict embrace, 
 Putting aside the past, shall soon efface 
 Its print as well factitious humors grown
 
 LIFE AND DEATH IN NATURE 239 
 
 Over the true loves, hatreds not his own 
 And turn him pure as some forgotten vest 
 Woven of painted byssus, silkiest 
 Tufting the Tyrrhene whelk's pearl-sheeted lip, 
 
 * Left welter where a trireme let it slip 
 I' the sea, and vexed a satrap ; so the stain 
 O' the world forsakes Sordello, with its pain, 
 Its pleasure : how the tinct loosening escapes, 
 Cloud after cloud ! Mantua's familiar shapes 
 Die, fair and foul die, fading as they flit, 
 Men, women, and the pathos and the wit. 
 Wise speech and foolish, deeds to smile or sigh 
 For, good, bad, seemly or ignoble, die. 
 The last face glances through the eglantines, 
 The last voice murmurs 'twixt the blossomed vines 
 Of Men, of that machine supplied by thought 
 To compass self-perception with, he sought 
 By forcing half himself an insane pulse 
 Of a god's blood, on clay it could convulse, 
 Never transmute on human sights and sounds, 
 To watch the other half with ; irksome bounds 
 It ebbs from to its source, a fountain sealed 
 Forever. Better sure be uurevealed 
 Than part revealed : Sordello well or ill 
 Is finished : then what further use of Will, 
 Point in the prime idea not realized, 
 An oversight ? inordinately prized, 
 No less, and pampered with enough of each 
 Delight to prove the whole above its reach. 
 
 " To need become all natures, yet retain 
 The law of my own nature to remain 
 Myself, yet yearn ... as if that chestnut, think, 
 Should yearn for this first larch-bloom crisp and pink, 
 Or those pale fragrant tears where zephyrs stanch 
 March wounds along the fretted pine-tree branch ! 
 Will and the means to show will, great and small, 
 Material, spiritual, abjure them all 
 Save any so distinct, they may be left 
 To amuse, not tempt become ! and, thus bereft, 
 Just as I first was fashioned would I be ! 
 Nor, moon, is it Apollo now, but me 
 Thou visitest to comfort and befriend ! 
 Swim thou into my heart, and there an end, 
 Since I possess thee ! nay, thus shut mine eyes 
 And know, quite know, by this heart's fall and rise, 
 When thou dost bury thee in clouds, and when
 
 240 SORDELLO 
 
 Out-standest : wherefore practise upon men 
 To make that plainer to myself ? " 
 
 Slide here 
 
 Over a sweet and solitary year 
 Wasted ; or simply notice change in him 
 How eyes, once bright with exploring, grew dim 
 And satiate with receiving. Some distress 
 Was caused, too, by a sort of consciousness 
 Under the imbecility, nought kept 
 That down ; he slept, but was aware he slept, 
 So, frustrated : as who brainsick made pact 
 Erst with the overhanging cataract 
 To deafen him, yet still distinguished plain 
 His own blood's measured clicking at his brain. 
 
 To finish. One declining Autumn day 
 Few birds about the heaven chill and gray, 
 No wind that cared trouble the tacit woods 
 He sauntered home complacently, their moods 
 According, his and nature's. Every spark 
 Of Mantua life was trodden out ; so dark 
 The embers, that the Troubadour, who sung 
 Hundreds of songs, forgot, its trick his tongue, 
 Its craft his brain, how either brought to pass 
 Singing at all ; that faculty might class 
 With any of Apollo's now. The year 
 Began to find its early promise sere 
 As well. Thus beauty vanishes ; thus stone 
 Outlingers flesh : nature's and his youth gone, 
 They left the world to you, and wished you joy, 
 When, stopping his benevolent employ, 
 A presage shuddered through the welkin ; harsh 
 The earth's remonstrance followed. 'Twas the marsh 
 Gone of a sudden. Mincio, in its place, 
 Laughed, a broad water, in next morning's face, 
 And, where the mists broke up immense and white 
 I' the steady wind, burned like a spilth of light 
 Out of the crashing of a myriad stars. 
 And here was nature, bound by the same bars 
 Of fate with him ! 
 
 " No ! youth once gone is gone : 
 Deeds let escape are never to be done. 
 Leaf-fall and grass-spring for the year ; for us 
 Oh forfeit I unalterably thus 
 My chance ? nor two lives wait me, this to spend 
 Learning save that? Nature has time, may mend 
 Mistake, she knows occasion will recur ;
 
 MAN HAS MULTIFARIOUS SYMPATHIES 241 
 
 Landslip or seabreach, how affects it her 
 
 With her magnificent resources 'i 1 
 
 Must perish once and perish utterly. 
 
 Not any strollings now at even-close 
 
 Down the field-path, Bordello ! by thorn-rows 
 
 Alive with lamp-flies, swimming spots of fire 
 
 And dew, outlining the black cypress' spire 
 
 She waits you at, Elys, who heard you first 
 
 Woo her, the snow-month through, but ere she durst 
 
 Answer 'twas April. Linden-flower-time-long 
 
 Her eyes were on the ground ; 't is July, strong 
 
 Now ; and because white dust-clouds overwhelm 
 
 The woodside, here or by the village elm 
 
 That holds the moon, she meets you, somewhat pale, 
 
 But letting you lift up her coarse flax veil 
 
 And whisper (the damp little hand in yours) 
 
 Of love, heart's love, your heart's love that endures 
 
 Till death. Tush ! No mad mixing with the rout 
 
 Of haggard ribalds wandering about 
 
 The hot torchlit wine-scented island-house 
 
 Where Friedrich holds his wickedest carouse, 
 
 Parading, to the gay Palermitans, 
 
 Soft Messinese, dusk Saracenic clans 
 
 Nuocera holds, those tall grave dazzling Norse, 
 
 High-cheeked, lank-haired, toothed whiter than the morse, 
 
 Queens of the caves of jet stalactites, 
 
 He sent his barks to fetch through icy seas, 
 
 The blind night seas without a saving star, 
 
 And here in snowy birdskin robes they are, 
 
 Sordello ! here, mollitious alcoves gilt 
 
 Superb as Byzant domes that devils built ! 
 
 Ah, Byzant, there again ! no chance to go 
 
 Ever like august cheery Dandolo, 
 
 Worshipping hearts about him for a wall, 
 
 Conducted, blind eyes, hundred years and all, 
 
 Through vanquished Byzant where friends note for him 
 
 What pillar, marble massive, sardius slim, 
 
 'T were fittest he transport to Venice' Square 
 
 Flattered and promised life to touch them there 
 
 Soon, by those fervid sons of senators ! 
 
 No more lives, deaths, loves, hatreds, peaces, wars ! 
 
 Ah, fragments of a whole ordained to be, 
 
 Points in the life I waited ! what are ye 
 
 But roundels of a ladder which appeared 
 
 Awhile the very platform it was reared 
 
 To lift me on ? that happiness I find
 
 242 SORDELLO 
 
 Proofs of my faith in, even in the blind 
 
 Instinct which bade forego you all unless 
 
 Ye led me past yourselves. Ay, happiness 
 
 Awaited me ; the way life should be used 
 
 Was to acquire, and deeds like you conduced 
 
 To teach it by a self-revealment, deemed 
 
 Life's very use, so* long ! Whatever seemed 
 
 Progress to that, was pleasure ; aught that stayed 
 
 My reaching it no pleasure. I have laid 
 
 The ladder down ; I climb not ; still, aloft 
 
 The platform stretches ! Blisses strong and soft, 
 
 I dared not entertain, elude me ; yet 
 
 Never of what they promised could I get 
 
 A glimpse till now ! The common sort, the crowd, 
 
 Exist, perceive ; with Being are endowed, 
 
 However slight, distinct from what they See, 
 
 However bounded ; Happiness must be, 
 
 To feed the first by gleanings from the last, 
 
 Attain its qualities, and slow or fast 
 
 Become what they behold ; such peace-in-strife 
 
 By transmutation, is the Use of Life, 
 
 The Alien turning Native to the soul 
 
 Or body which instructs me ; I am whole 
 
 There and demand a Palma ; had the world 
 
 Been from my soul to a like distance hurled, 
 
 'T were Happiness to make it one with me : 
 
 Whereas I must, ere I begin to Be, 
 
 Include a world, in flesh, I comprehend 
 
 In spirit now ; and this done, what 's to blend 
 
 With ? Nought is Alien in the world my Will 
 
 Owns all already ; yet can turn it still 
 
 Less Native, since my Means to correspond 
 
 With Will are so unworthy, 'twas my bond 
 
 To tread the very joys that tantalize 
 
 Most now, into a grave, never to rise. 
 
 I die then ! Will the rest agree to die ? 
 
 Next Age or no ? Shall its Sordello try 
 
 Clue after clue, and catch at last the clue 
 
 I miss ? that 's underneath my finger too, 
 
 Twice, thrice a day, perhaps, some yearning traced 
 
 Deeper, some petty consequence embraced 
 
 Closer! Why fled I Mantua, then? complained 
 
 So much my Will was fettered, yet remained 
 
 Content within a tether half the range 
 
 I could assign it ? able to exchange 
 
 My ignorance (I felt) for knowledge, and
 
 RENUNCIATION INSURES DESPAIR 243 
 
 Idle because I could thus understand 
 
 Could e'en have penetrated to its core 
 
 Our mortal mystery, yet fool forbore, 
 
 Preferred elaborating in the dark 
 
 My casual stuff, by any wretched spark 
 
 Born of my predecessors, though one stroke 
 
 Of mine had brought the flame forth ! Mantua's yoke, 
 
 My minstrel's-trade, was to behold mankind, 
 
 My own concern was just to bring my mind 
 
 Behold, just extricate, for my acquist, 
 
 Each object suffered stifle in the mist 
 
 Which hazard, custom, blindness interpose 
 
 Betwixt things and myself." 
 
 Whereat he rose. 
 
 The level wind carried above the firs 
 Clouds, the irrevocable travellers, 
 Onward. 
 
 " Pushed thus into a drowsy copse, 
 Arms twine about my neck, each eyelid drops 
 Under a humid finger ; while there fleets, 
 Outside the screen, a pageant time repeats 
 Never again ! To be deposed, immured 
 Clandestinely still petted, still assured 
 To govern were fatiguing work the Sight 
 Fleeting meanwhile ! 'T is noontide : wreak ere night 
 Somehow my will upon it, rather ! Slake 
 This thirst somehow, the poorest impress take 
 That serves ! A blasted bud displays you, torn, 
 Faint rudiments of the full flower unborn ; 
 But who divines what glory coats o'erclasp 
 Of the biilb dormant in the mummy's grasp 
 Taurello sent ? " . . . 
 
 " Taurello ? Palrna sent 
 Your Trouvere," (Naddo interposing leant 
 Over the lost bard's shoulder) " and, believe, 
 You cannot more reluctantly receive 
 Than I pronounce her message : we depart 
 Together. What avail a poet's heart 
 Verona's pomps and gauds ? five blades of grass 
 Suffice him. News ? Why, where your marish was, 
 On its mud-banks smoke rises after smoke 
 I' the valley, like a spout of hell new-broke. 
 Oh, the world's tidings ! small your thanks, I guess, 
 For them. The father of our Patroness 
 Has played Taurello an astounding trick, 
 Parts between Ecelin and Alberic
 
 244 SORDELLO 
 
 His wealth and goes into a convent : both 
 
 Wed Guelfs : the Count and Palma plighted troth 
 
 A week since at Verona : and they want 
 
 You doubtless to contrive the marriage-chant 
 
 Ere Richard storms Ferrara." Then was told 
 
 The tale from the beginning how, made bold 
 
 By Salinguerra's absence, Guelfs had burned 
 
 And pillaged till he unawares returned 
 
 To take revenge : how Azzo and his friend 
 
 Were doing their endeavor, how the end 
 
 O' the siege was nigh, and how the Count, released 
 
 From further care, would with his marriage-feast 
 
 Inaugurate a new and better rule, 
 
 Absorbing thus Romano. 
 
 " Shall I school 
 
 My master," added Naddo, " and suggest 
 How you may clothe in a poetic vest 
 These doings, at Verona ? Your response 
 To Palma ! Wherefore jest ? ' Depart at once ? ' 
 A good resolve ! In truth, I hardly hoped 
 So prompt an acquiescence. Have you groped 
 Out wisdom in the wilds here ? Thoughts may be 
 Over-poetical for poetry. 
 Pearl-white, you poets liken Palma's neck ; 
 And yet what spoils an orient like some speck 
 Of genuine white, turning its own white gray ? 
 You take me ? Curse the cicala ! " 
 
 One more day, 
 
 One eve appears Verona ! Many a group, 
 (You mind) instructed of the osprey's swoop 
 On Inyx and ounce, was gathering Christendom 
 Sure to receive, whate'er the end was, from 
 The evening's purpose cheer or detriment, 
 Since Friedrich only waited some event 
 Like this, of Ghibellins establishing 
 Themselves within Ferrara, ere, as King 
 Of Lombardy, he ? d glad descend there, wage 
 ( )!d warfare with the Pontiff, disengage 
 His liarons from the burghers, and restore 
 The rule of Charlemagne, broken of yore 
 By Hildebrand. 
 
 I' the palace, each by each, 
 Sordello sat and Palma : little speech 
 At first in that dim closet, face with face 
 (Despite the tumult in the market-place) 
 Exchanging quick low laughters : now would rush
 
 PALM A BECOMES HIS ASSOCIATE 245 
 
 Word upon word to meet a sudden flush, 
 A look left off, a shifting lips' surmise 
 But for the most part their two histories 
 Ran best through the locked fingers and linked arms. 
 And so the night flew on with its alarms 
 Till in burst one of Palma's retinue ; 
 " Now, Lady ! " gasped he. Then arose the two 
 And leaned into Verona's air, dead-still. 
 A balcony lay black beneath until 
 Out, 'mid a gush of torchfire, gray-haired men 
 Came on it and harangued the people : then 
 Sea-like that people surging to and fro 
 Shouted, " Hale forth the carroch trumpets, ho, 
 A flourish ! Run it in the ancient grooves ! 
 Back from the bell ! Hammer that whom behooves 
 May hear the League is up ! Peal learn who list, 
 Verona means not first of towns break tryst 
 To-morrow with the League ! " 
 
 Enough. Now turn 
 Over the eastern cypresses : discern ! 
 Is any beacon set a-glimmer ? 
 
 Rang 
 
 The air with shouts that overpowered the clang 
 Of the incessant carroch, even : " Haste 
 The candle 's at the gateway ! ere it waste, 
 Each soldier stand beside it, armed to march 
 With Tiso Sampier through the eastern arch ! " 
 Ferrara 's succored, Palma ! 
 
 Once again 
 
 They sat together ; some strange thing in train 
 To say, so difficult was Palma's place 
 In taking, with a coy fastidious grace 
 Like the bird's flutter ere it fix and feed. 
 But when she felt she held her friend indeed 
 Safe, she threw back her curls, began implant 
 Her lessons ; telling of another want 
 Goito's quiet nourished than his own ; 
 Palma to serve him to be served, alone 
 Importing ; Agnes' milk so neutralized 
 The blood of Ecelin. Nor be surprised 
 If, while Sordello fain had captive led 
 Nature, in dream was Palma subjected 
 To some out-soul, which dawned not though she pined 
 Delaying till its advent, heart and mind, 
 Their life. " How dared I let expand the force 
 Within me, till some out-soul, whose resource
 
 246 BORDELLO 
 
 It grew for, should direct it ? Every law 
 
 Of life, its every fitness, every flaw, 
 
 Must One determine whose corporeal shape 
 
 Would be no other than the prime escape 
 
 And revelation to me of a Will 
 
 Orb-like o'ershrouded and inscrutable 
 
 Above, save at the point which, I should know, 
 
 Shone that myself, my powers, might overflow 
 
 So far, so much ; as now it signified 
 
 Which earthly shape it henceforth chose my guide, 
 
 Whose mortal lip selected to declare 
 
 Its oracles, what fleshly garb would wear 
 
 The first of intimations, whom to love ; 
 
 The next, how love him. Seemed that orb, above 
 
 The castle-covert and the mountain-close, 
 
 Slow in appearing, if beneath it rose 
 
 Cravings, aversions, did our green precinct 
 
 Take pride in me, at unawares distinct 
 
 With this or that endowment, how, repressed 
 
 At once, such jetting power shrank to the rest ! 
 
 Was I to have a chance touch spoil me, leave 
 
 My spirit thence unfitted to receive 
 
 The consummating spell ? that spell so near 
 
 Moreover ! ' Waits he not the waking year ? 
 
 His almond-blossoms must be honey-ripe 
 
 By this ; to welcome him, fresh runnels stripe 
 
 The thawed ravines ; because of him, the wind 
 
 Walks like a herald. I shall surely find 
 
 Him now ! ' 
 
 " And chief, that earnest April morn 
 Of Richard's Love-court, was it time, so worn 
 And white my cheek, so idly my blood beat, 
 Sitting that morn beside the Lady's feet 
 And saying as she prompted ; till outburst 
 One face from all the faces not then first 
 I knew it ; where in maple chamber glooms, 
 Crowned with what sanguine-heart pomegranate blooms 
 Advanced it ever ? Men's acknowledgment 
 Sanctioned my own : 't was taken, Palma's bent, 
 Sordello, recognized, accepted. 
 
 " Dumb 
 
 She still sat scheming. Ecelin would come 
 Gaunt, scared, ' Cesano baffles me,' he 'd say : 
 ' Better I fought it out, my father's way ! 
 Strangle Ferrara in its drowning flats, 
 And you and your Taurello yonder what 's
 
 FOR HIS SAKE SHE ASPIRED 247 
 
 Romano's business there ? ' An hour's concern 
 
 To cure the froward Chief ! induced return 
 
 As heartened from those overmeaning eyes, 
 
 Wound up to persevere, his enterprise 
 
 Marked out anew, its exigent of wit 
 
 Apportioned, she at liberty to sit 
 
 And scheme against the next emergence, I 
 
 To covet her Taurello-sprite, made fly 
 
 Or fold the wing to con your horoscope 
 
 For leave command those steely shafts shoot ope, 
 
 Or straight assuage their blinding eagerness 
 
 In blank smooth snow. What semblance of success 
 
 To any of my plans for making you 
 
 Mine and Romano's ? Break the first wall through, 
 
 Tread o'er the ruins of the Chief, supplant 
 
 His sons beside, still, vainest were the vaunt : 
 
 There, Salinguerra would obstruct me sheer, 
 
 And the insuperable Tuscan, here, 
 
 Stay me ! But one wild eve that Lady died 
 
 In her lone chamber : only I beside : 
 
 Taurello far at Naples, and my sire 
 
 At Padua, Ecelin away in ire 
 
 With Alberic. She held me thus a clutch 
 
 To make our spirits as our bodies touch 
 
 And so began flinging the past up, heaps 
 
 Of uncouth treasure from their sunless sleeps 
 
 Within her soul ; deeds rose along with dreams, 
 
 Fragments of many miserable schemes, 
 
 Secrets, more secrets, then no, not the last 
 
 'Mongst others, like a casual trick o' the past, 
 
 How . . . ay, she told me, gathering up her face, 
 
 All left of it, into one arch-grimace 
 
 To die with . . . 
 
 " Friend, 't is gone ! but not the fear 
 Of that fell laughing, heard as now I hear. 
 Nor faltered voice, nor seemed her heart grow weak 
 When i' the midst abrupt she ceased to speak 
 Dead, as to serve a purpose, mark ! for in 
 Rushed o' the very instant Ecelin 
 (How summoned, who divines ?) looking as if 
 He understood why Adelaide lay stiff 
 Already in my arms ; for, ' Girl, how must 
 I manage Este in the matter thrust 
 Upon me, how unravel your bad coil ? 
 Since ' (he declared) ' 't is on your brow a soil 
 Like hers, there ! ' then in the same breath, ' he lacked
 
 248 SORDELLO 
 
 No counsel after all, had signed no pact 
 With devils, nor was treason here or there, 
 Goito or Vicenza, his affair : 
 He buried it in Adelaide's deep grave, 
 Would begin life afresh, now, would not slave 
 For any Friedrich's nor Taurello's sake ! 
 What booted him to meddle or to make 
 In Lombardy ? ' And afterward I knew 
 The meaning of his promise to undo 
 All she had done why marriages were made, 
 New friendships entered on, old followers paid 
 With curses for their pains, new friends' amaze 
 At height, when, passing out by Gate St. Blaise, 
 He stopped short in Vicenza, bent his head 
 Over a friar's neck, ' had vowed,' he said, 
 ' Long since, nigh thirty years, because his wife 
 And child were saved there, to bestow his life 
 On God, his gettings on the Church.' 
 
 " Exiled 
 
 Within Goito, still one dream beguiled 
 My days and nights ; 't was found, the orb I sought 
 To serve, those glimpses came of Fomalhaut, 
 No other : but how serve it ? authorize 
 You and Romano mingle destinies ? 
 And straight Romano's angel stood beside 
 Me who had else been Boniface's bride, 
 For Salinguerra 't was, with neck low bent, 
 And voice lightened to music, (as he meant 
 To learn not teach me,) who withdrew the pall 
 From the dead past and straight revived it all, 
 Making me see how first Romano waxed, 
 Wherefore he waned now, why, if I relaxed 
 My grasp (even I ! ) would drop a thing effete, 
 Frayed by itself, unequal to complete 
 Its course, and counting every step astray 
 A gain so much. Romano, every way 
 Stable, a Lombard House now why start back 
 Into the very outset of its track ? 
 This patching principle which late allied 
 Our House with other Houses what beside 
 Concerned the apparition, the first Knight 
 Who followed Conrad hither in such plight 
 His utmost wealth was summed in his one steed ? 
 For Ecelo, that prowler, was decreed 
 A task, in the beginning hazardous 
 To him as ever task can be to us ;
 
 SALINGUERRA REMEDIES ECELIN>S ERRORS 249 
 
 But did the weather-beaten thief despair 
 
 When first our crystal cincture of warm air, 
 
 That binds the Trevisan, as its spice-belt 
 
 (Crusaders say) the tract where Jesus dwelt, 
 
 Furtive he pierced, and Este was to face 
 
 Despaired Saponian strength of Lombard grace ? 
 
 Tried he at making surer aught made sure, 
 
 Maturing what already was mature ? 
 
 No ; his heart prompted Ecelo, ' Confront 
 
 Este, inspect yourself. What 's nature ? Wont. 
 
 Discard three-parts your nature, and adopt 
 
 The rest as an advantage ! ' Old strength propped 
 
 The man who first grew Podesta among 
 
 The Vicentines, no less than, while there sprung 
 
 His palace up in Padua like a threat, 
 
 Their noblest spied a grace, unnoticed yet 
 
 In Conrad's crew. Thus far the object gained, 
 
 Romano was established has remained 
 
 For are you not Italian, truly peers 
 
 With Este ? ' Azzo ' better soothes our ears 
 
 Than ' Alberic ' ? or is this lion's-crine 
 
 From over-mounts (this yellow hair of mine) 
 ' So weak a graft on Agnes Este's stock ? ' 
 
 (Thus went he on with something of a mock) 
 ' Wherefore recoil, then, from the very fate 
 
 Conceded you, refuse to imitate 
 
 Your model farther ? Este long since left 
 
 Being mere Este : as a blade its heft, 
 
 Este required the Pope to further him : 
 
 And you, the Kaiser whom your father's whim 
 
 Foregoes or, better, never shall forego 
 
 If Palma dare pursue what Ecelo 
 
 Commenced, but Ecelin desists from : just 
 
 As Adelaide of Susa could intrust 
 
 Her donative, her Piedmont given the Pope, 
 
 Her Alpine-pass for him to shut or ope 
 
 'Twixt France and Italy, to the superb 
 
 Matilda's perfecting, so, lest aught curb 
 
 Our Adelaide's great counter-project for 
 
 Giving her Trentine to the Emperor 
 
 With passage here from Germany, shall you 
 
 Take it, my slender plodding talent, too ! ' 
 
 Urged me Taurello with his half-smile. 
 
 "He 
 
 As Patron of the scattered family 
 
 Conveyed me to his Mantua, kept in bruit
 
 250 SORDELLO 
 
 Azzo's alliances and Richard's suit 
 Until, the Kaiser excommunicate, 
 4 Nothing remains,' Taurello said, ' but wait 
 Some rash procedure : Palma was the link, 
 As Agnes' child, between us, and they shrink 
 From losing Palma : judge if we advance, 
 Your father's method, your inheritance ! ' 
 The day I was betrothed to Boniface 
 At Padua by Taurello's self, took place 
 The outrage of the Ferrarese : again, 
 The day I sought Verona with the train 
 Agreed for, by Taurello's policy 
 Convicting Richard of the fault, since we 
 Were present to annul or to confirm, 
 Richard, whose patience had outstayed its term. 
 Quitted Verona for the siege. 
 
 " And now 
 
 What glory may engird Sordello's brow 
 Through this ? A month since at Oliero slunk 
 All that was Ecelin into a monk ; 
 But how could Salinguerra so forget 
 His liege of thirty years as grudge even yet 
 One effort to recover him ? He sent 
 Forthwith the tidings of this last event 
 To Ecelin declared that he, despite 
 The recent folly, recognized his right 
 To order Salinguerra : ' Should he wring 
 Its uttermost advantage out, or fling 
 This chance away ? Or were his sons now Head 
 O' the House ? ' Through me Taurello's missive sped ; 
 My father's answer will by me return. 
 Behold ! ' For him,' he writes, ' no more concern 
 With strife than, for his children, with fresh plots 
 Of Friedrich. Old engagements out he blots 
 For aye : Tanrello shall no more subserve, 
 Nor Ecelin impose.' Lest this unnerve 
 Taurello at this juncture, slack his grip 
 Of Richard, suffer the occasion slip, 
 I, in his sons' default (who, mating with 
 Este, forsake Romano as the frith 
 Its mainseafor that firmland, sea makes head 
 Against) I stand, Romano, in their stead 
 Assume the station they desert, and give 
 Still, as the Kaiser's representative, 
 Taurello license he demands. Midnight 
 Morning by noon to-morrow, making light
 
 BORDELLO'S CIRCLE COMPLETE 251 
 
 Of the League's issue, we, in some gay weed 
 Like yours, disguised together, may precede 
 The arbitrators to Ferrara : reach 
 Him, let Taurello's noble accents teach 
 The rest ! Then say if I have misconceived 
 Your destiny, too readily believed 
 The Kaiser's cause your own ! " 
 
 And Palma 's fled. 
 
 Though no affirmative disturbs the head, 
 A dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er, 
 Like the alighted planet Pollux wore, 
 Until, morn breaking, he resolves to be 
 Gate-vein of this heart's blood of Lombardy, 
 Soul of this body to wield this aggregate 
 Of souls and bodies, and so conquer fate 
 Though he should live a centre of disgust 
 Even apart, core of the outward crust 
 He vivifies, assimilates. For thus 
 I bring Sordello to the rapturous 
 Exclaim at the crowd's cry, because one round 
 Of life was quite accomplished ; and he found 
 Not only that a soul, whate'er its might, 
 Is insufficient to its own delight, 
 Both in corporeal organs and in skill 
 By means of such to body forth its Will 
 And, after, insufficient to apprise 
 Men of that Will, oblige them recognize 
 The Hid by the Revealed but that, the last 
 Nor lightest of the struggles overpast, 
 Will he bade abdicate, which would not void 
 The throne, might sit there, suffer he enjoyed 
 Mankind, a varied and divine array 
 Incapable of homage, the first way, 
 Nor fit to render incidentally 
 Tribute connived at, taken by the by, 
 In joys. If thus with warrant to rescind 
 The ignominious exile of mankind 
 Whose proper service, ascertained intact 
 As yet, (to be by him themselves made act, 
 Not watch Sordello acting each of them) 
 Was to secure if the true diadem 
 Seemed imminent while our Sordello drank 
 The wisdom of that golden Palma, thank 
 Verona's Lady in her citadel 
 Founded by Gaulish Brennus, legends tell : 
 And truly when she left him, the sun reared
 
 252 SOHDELLO 
 
 A head like the first clamberer's who peered 
 
 A-top the Capitol, his face on flame 
 
 With triumph, triumphing till Manlius came. 
 
 Nor slight too much my rhymes that spring, dispread, 
 
 Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead 
 
 Like an escape of angels ! Rather say, 
 
 My transcendental platan ! mounting gay 
 
 (An archimage so courts a novice-queen) 
 
 With tremulous silvered trunk, whence hranches sheen 
 
 Laugh out, thick-foliaged next, a-shiver soon 
 
 With colored buds, then glowing like the moon 
 
 One mild flame, last a pause, a burst, and all 
 
 Her ivory limbs are smothered by a fall, 
 
 Bloom-flinders and fruit-sparkles and leaf-dust, 
 
 Ending the weird work prosecuted just 
 
 For her amusement ; he decrepit, stark, 
 
 Dozes ; her uncontrolled delight may mark 
 
 Apart 
 
 Yet not so, surely never so ! 
 Only, as good my soul were suffered go 
 O'er the lagune : forth fare thee, put aside 
 Entrance thy synod, as a god may glide 
 Out of the world he fills, and leave it mute 
 For myriad ages as we men compute, 
 Returning into it without a break 
 O' the consciousness ! They sleep, and I awake 
 O'er the lagune, being at Venice. 
 
 Note, 
 
 In just such songs as Eglamor (say) wrote 
 With heart and soul and strength, for he believed 
 Himself achieving all to be achieved 
 By singer in such songs you find alone 
 Completeness, judge the song and singer one, 
 And either purpose answered, his in it 
 Or its in him : while from true works (to wit 
 Bordello's dream-performances that will 
 Be never more than dreamed) escapes there still 
 Some proof, the singer's proper life was 'neath 
 The life his song exhibits, this a sheath 
 To that ; a passion and a knowledge far 
 Transcending these, majestic as they are, 
 Smouldered ; his lay was but an episode 
 In the bard's life : which evidence you owed 
 To some slight weariness, some looking-off 
 Or start-away. The childish skit or scoff 
 In " Charlemagne," (his poem, dreamed divine
 
 THE POET WATCHES HIS OWN LIFE 253 
 
 In every point except one silly line 
 
 About the restiff daughters) what may lurk 
 
 In that ? " My life commenced before this work," 
 
 (So I interpret the significance 
 
 Of the bard's start aside and look askance) 
 " My life continues after : on I fare 
 
 With no more stopping, possibly, no care 
 
 To note the undercurrent, the why and how, 
 
 Where, when, o' the deeper life, as thus just now. 
 
 But, silent, shall I cease to live ? Alas 
 
 For you ! who sigh, ' When shall it come to pass 
 
 We read that story ? How will he compress 
 
 The future gains, his life's true business, 
 
 Into the better lay which that one flout, 
 
 Howe'er inopportune it be, lets out 
 
 Engrosses him already, though professed 
 
 To meditate with us eternal rest, 
 
 And partnership in all his life has found ? ' ' 
 
 'T is but a sailor's promise, weather-bound : 
 " Strike sail, slip cable, here the bark be moored 
 
 For once, the awning stretched, the poles assured ! 
 
 Noontide above ; except the wave's crisp dash, 
 
 Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash, 
 
 The margin 's silent : out with every spoil 
 
 Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil, 
 
 This serpent of a river to his head 
 
 I' the midst ! Admire each treasure, as we spread 
 
 The bank, to help us tell our history 
 
 Aright : give ear, endeavor to descry 
 
 The groves of giant rushes, how they grew 
 
 Like demons' endlong tresses we sailed through, 
 
 What mountains yawned, forests to give us vent 
 * Opened, each doleful side, yet on we went 
 
 Till . . . may that beetle (shake your cap) attest 
 
 The springing of a land-wind from the West ! " 
 Wherefore ? Ah yes, you frolic it to-day ! 
 
 To-morrow, and, the pageant moved away 
 
 Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you 
 
 Part company : no other may pursue 
 
 Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate 
 
 Intends, if triumph or decline await 
 
 The tempter of the everlasting steppe. 
 I muse this on a ruined palace-step 
 
 At Venice : why should I break off, nor sit 
 
 Longer upon my step, exhaust the fit 
 
 England gave birth to ? Who 's adorable
 
 2o4 BORDELLO 
 
 reclaim a - no Bordello's Will 
 Alack ! be queen to me ? That Bassanese 
 Busied among her smoking fruit-boats ? These 
 Perhaps from our delicious Asolo 
 Who twinkle, pigeons o'er the portico 
 Not prettier, bind June lilies into sheaves 
 To deck the bridge-side chapel, dropping leaves. 
 Soiled by their own loose gold-meal ? Ah, beneath 
 The cool arch stoops she, brownest cheek ! Her wreath 
 Endures a month a half month if I make 
 A queen of her, continue for her sake 
 Sordello's story ? Nay, that Paduan girl 
 Splashes with barer legs where a live whirl 
 In the dead black Giudecca proves sea-weed 
 Drifting has sucked down three, four, all indeed 
 Save one pale-red stripe, pale-blue turbaned post 
 For gondolas. 
 
 You sad dishevelled ghost 
 That pluck at me and point, are you advised 
 I breathe ? Let stay those girls (e'en her disguised 
 Jewels i' the locks that love no crownet like 
 Their native field-buds and the green wheat spike, 
 So fair ! who left this end of June's turmoil, 
 Shook off, as might a lily its gold soil, 
 Pomp, save a foolish gem or two, and free 
 In dream, came join the peasants o'er the sea.) 
 Look they too happy, too tricked out ? Confess 
 There is such niggard stock of happiness 
 To share, that, do one's uttermost, dear wretch, 
 One labors ineffectually to stretch 
 It o'er you so that mother and children, both 
 May equitably flaunt the sumpter-cloth ! 
 Divide the robe yet farther : be content 
 With seeing just a score pre-eminent 
 Through shreds of it, acknowledged happy wights, 
 Engrossing what should furnish all, by rights ! 
 For, these in evidence, you clearlier claim 
 A like garb for the rest, grace all, the same 
 As these my peasants. I ask youth and strength 
 And health for each of you, not more at length 
 Grown wise, who asked at home that the whole race 
 Might add the spirit's to the body's grace, 
 And all be dizened out as chiefs and bards. 
 But in this magic weather one discards 
 Much old requirement. Venice seems a type 
 Of Life 'twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe,
 
 YOUTH INSTIGATES TO TASKS LIKE THIS 255 
 
 As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought : 
 
 'T is Venice, and 't is Life as good you sought 
 
 To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone 
 
 Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone, 
 
 As hinder Life the evil with the good 
 
 Which make up Living, rightly understood. 
 
 Only, do finish something ! Peasants, queens, 
 
 Take them, made happy by whatever means, 
 
 Parade them for the common credit, vouch 
 
 That a luckless residue, we send to crouch 
 
 In corners out of sight, was just as framed 
 
 For happiness, its portion might have claimed 
 
 As well, and so, obtaining joy, had stalked 
 
 Fastuous as any ! such my project, balked 
 
 Already ; I hardly venture to adjust 
 
 The first rags, when you find me. To mistrust 
 
 Me ! nor unreasonably. You, no doubt, 
 
 Have the true knack of tiring suitors out 
 
 With those thin lips on tremble, lashless eyes 
 
 Inveterately tear-shot there, be wise, 
 
 Mistress of mine, there, there, as if I meant 
 
 You insult ! shall your friend (not slave) be shent 
 
 For speaking home ? Beside, care-bit erased 
 
 Broken-up beauties ever took my taste 
 
 Supremely ; and I love you more, far more 
 
 Than her I looked should foot Life's temple-floor. 
 
 Years ago, leagues at distance, when and where 
 
 A whisper came, " Let others seek ! thy care 
 
 Is found, thy life's provision ; if thy race 
 
 Should be thy mistress, and into one face 
 
 The many faces crowd ? " Ah, had I, judge, 
 
 Or no, your secret ? Rough apparel grudge 
 
 All ornaments save tag or tassel worn 
 
 To hint we are not thoroughly forlorn 
 
 Slouch bonnet, unloop mantle, careless go 
 
 Alone (that 's saddest, but it must be so) 
 
 Through Venice, sing now and now glance aside, 
 
 Aught desultory or undignified, 
 
 Then, ravishingest lady, will you pass 
 
 Or not each formidable group, the mass 
 
 Before the Basilic (that feast gone by, 
 
 God's great day of the Corpus Domini) 
 
 And, wistfully foregoing proper men, 
 
 Come timid up to me for alms? And then 
 
 The luxury to hesitate, feign do 
 
 Some unexampled grace ! when, whom but you
 
 250 SORDELLO 
 
 Dare I bestow your own upon ? And hear 
 
 Further before you say, it is to sneer 
 
 I call you ravishing ; for I regret 
 
 Little that she, whose early foot was set 
 
 Forth as she 'd plant it on a pedestal, 
 
 Now, i' the silent city, seems to fall 
 
 Toward me no wreath, only a lip's unrest 
 
 To quiet, surcharged eyelids to be pressed 
 
 Dry of their tears upon my bosom. Strange 
 
 Such sad chance should produce in thee such change, 
 
 My love ! Warped souls and bodies ! yet God spoke 
 
 Of right-hand, foot and eye selects our yoke, 
 
 Sordello, as your poetship may find ! 
 
 So, sleep upon my shoulder, child, nor mind 
 
 Their foolish talk ; we '11 manage reinstate 
 
 Your old worth ; ask moreover, when they prate 
 
 Of evil men past hope, " Don't each contrive, 
 
 Despite the evil you abuse, to live ? 
 
 Keeping, each losel, through a maze of lies, 
 
 His own conceit of truth ? to which he hies 
 
 By obscure windings, tortuous, if you will, 
 
 But to himself not inaccessible ; 
 
 He sees truth, and his lies are for the crowd 
 
 Who cannot see ; some fancied right allowed 
 
 His vilest wrong, empowered the losel clutch 
 
 One pleasure from a multitude of such 
 
 Denied him." Then assert, " All men appear 
 
 To think all better than themselves, by here 
 
 Trusting a crowd they wrong ; but really," say, 
 
 " All men think all men stupider than they. 
 Since, save themselves, no other comprehends 
 The complicated scheme to make amends 
 Evil, the scheme by which, through Ignorance, 
 Good labors to exist." A slight advance, 
 Merely to find the sickness you die through, 
 And nought beside ! but if one can't eschew 
 One's portion in the common lot, at least 
 One can avoid an ignorance increased 
 Tenfold by dealing out hint after hint 
 How nought were like dispensing without stint 
 The water of life so easy to dispense 
 Beside, when one has probed the centre whence 
 Commotion 's born could tell you of it all ! 
 
 " Meantime, just meditate my madrigal 
 O' the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe ! " 
 What, dullard ? we and you in smothery chafe,
 
 LET THE POET TAKE HIS OWN PART 257 
 
 Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin 
 The Horrid, getting neither out nor in, 
 A hungry sun above us, sands that bung 
 Our throats, each dromedary lolls a tongue, 
 Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap, 
 And you, 'twixt tales of Potiphar's mishap, 
 And sonnets on the earliest ass that spoke, 
 Remark, you wonder any one needs choke 
 With founts about ! Potsherd him, Gibeonites ! 
 While awkwardly enough your Moses smites 
 The rock, though he forego his Promised Land 
 Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and 
 Figure as Metaphysic Poet . . . ah, 
 Mark ye the dim first oozings ? Meribah ! 
 Then, quaffing at the fount my courage gained, 
 Recall not that I prompt ye who explained . . . 
 " Presumptuous ! " interrupts one. You, not I 
 'T is, brother, marvel at and magnify 
 Such office : " office," quotha ? can we get 
 To the beginning of the office yet ? 
 What do we here ? simply experiment 
 Each on the other's power and its intent 
 When elsewhere tasked, if this of mine were trucked 
 For yours to cither's good, we watch construct, 
 In short, an engine : with a finished one, 
 What it can do, is all, nought, how 't is done. 
 But this of ours yet in probation, dusk 
 A kernel of strange wheelwork through its husk 
 Grows into shape by quarters and by halves ; 
 Remark this tooth's spring, wonder what that valve's 
 Fall bodes, presume each faculty's device, 
 Make out each other more or less precise 
 The scope of the whole engine 's to be proved ; 
 We die : which means to say, the whole 's removed, 
 Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex gin, 
 To be set up anew elsewhere, begin 
 A task indeed, but with a clearer clime 
 Than the murk lodgment of our building-time. 
 And then, I grant you, it behoves forget 
 How 't is done all that must amuse us yet 
 So long : and, while you turn upon your heel, 
 Pray that I be not busy slitting steel 
 Or shredding brass, camped on some virgin shore 
 Under a cluster of fresh stars, before 
 I name a tithe o' the wheels I trust to do ! 
 So occupied, then, are we : hitherto,
 
 8 SORDELLO 
 
 At present, and a weary while to come, 
 The office of ourselves, nor blind nor dumb, 
 And seeing somewhat of man's state, has been, 
 For the worst of us, to say they so have seen ; 
 For the better, what it was they saw ; the best 
 Impart the gift of seeing to the rest : 
 " So that I glance," says such an one, " around, 
 And there 's no face but I can read profound 
 Disclosures in ; this stands for hope, that fear, 
 And for a speech, a deed in proof, look here ! 
 ' Stoop, else the strings of blossom, where the nuts 
 O'erarch, will blind thee ! Said I not ? She shuts 
 Both eyes this time, so close the hazels meet ! 
 Thus, prisoned in the Piombi, 1 repeat 
 Events one rove occasioned, o'er and o'er, 
 Putting 'twixt me and madness evermore 
 Thy sweet shape, Zanze ! Therefore stoop ! ' 
 
 'That's truth!' 
 
 (Adjudge you) 'the incarcerated youth 
 Would say that ! ' 
 
 Youth ? Plara the bard ? Set down 
 That Plara spent his youth in a grim town 
 Whose cramped ill-featured streets huddled about 
 The minster for protection, never out 
 Of its black belfry's shade and its bells' roar. 
 The brighter shone the suburb, all the more 
 Ugly and absolute that shade's reproof 
 Of any chance escape of joy, some roof, 
 Taller than they, allowed the rest detect, 
 Before the sole permitted laugh (suspect 
 Who could, 'twas meant for laughter, that ploughed cheek's 
 Repulsive gleam!) when the sun stopped both peaks 
 Of the cleft belfry like a fiery wedge, 
 Then sank, a huge flame on its socket edge, 
 With leavings on the gray glass oriel-pane 
 Ghastly some minutes more. No fear of rain 
 The minster minded that ! in heaps the dust 
 Lay everywhere. This town, the minster's trust, 
 Held Plara ; who, its denizen, bade hail 
 In twice twelve sonnets, Tempe's dewy vale." 
 " ' Exact the town, the minster and the street ! ' ' 
 " As all mirth triumphs, sadness means defeat : 
 Lust triumphs and is gay, Love 's triumphed o'er 
 And sad : but Lucio 's sad. I said before. 
 Love 's sad, not Lucio ; one who loves may be 
 As gay his love has leave to hope ; as he
 
 ONE OUGHT NOT BLAME BUT PRAISE THIS 259 
 
 Downcast that lusts' desire escapes the springe : 
 'T is of the mood itself 1 speak, what tinge 
 Determines it, else colorless, or mirth, 
 Or melancholy, as from heaven or earth." 
 " ' Ay, that 's the variation's gist ! ' Indeed ? 
 Thus far advanced in safety then, proceed ! 
 And having seen too what I saw, be bold 
 And next encounter what I do behold 
 (That 's sure) but bid you take on trust ! " 
 
 Attack 
 
 The use and purpose of such sights ? Alack, 
 Not so unwisely does the crowd dispense 
 On Salinguerras praise in preference 
 To the Sordellos : men of action, these ! 
 Who, seeing just as little as you please, 
 Yet turn that little to account, engage 
 With, do not gaze at, carry on, a stage, 
 The work o' the world, not merely make report 
 The work existed ere their day ! In short, 
 When at some future no- time a brave band 
 Sees, using what it sees, then shake my hand 
 In heaven, my brother ! Meanwhile where 's the hurt 
 Of keeping the Makers-see on the alert, 
 At whose defection mortals stare aghast 
 As though heaven's bounteous windows were slammed fast 
 Incontinent ? Whereas all you, beneath, 
 Should scowl at, bruise their lips and break their teeth 
 Who ply the pullies. for neglecting you : 
 And therefore have I moulded, made anew 
 A Man, and give him to be turned and tried, 
 Be angry with or pleased at. On your side, 
 Have ye times, places, actors of your own ? 
 Try them upon Sordello when full-grown, 
 And then ah then ! If Hercules first parched 
 His foot in Egypt only to be marched 
 A sacrifice for Jove with pomp to suit, 
 What chance have I ? The demigod was mute 
 Till, at the altar, where time out of mind 
 Such guests became oblations, chaplets twined 
 His forehead long enough, and he began 
 Slaying the slayers, nor escaped a man. 
 Take not affront, my gentle audience ! whom 
 No Hercules shall make his hecatomb, 
 Believe, nor from his brows your chaplet rend 
 That 's your kind suffrage, yours, my patron-friend, 
 Whose great verse blares unintermittent on
 
 260 SORDELLO 
 
 Like your own trumpeter at Marathon, 
 You who, Plataea and Salamis being scant, 
 Put up with JEtnsi for a stimulant 
 And did well, I acknowledged, as he loomed 
 Over the midland sea last month, presumed 
 Long, lay demolished in the blazing West 
 At eve, while towards liim tilting cloudlets pressed 
 Like Persian ships at Salamis. Friend, wear 
 A crest proud as desert while I declare 
 Had I a flawless ruby fit to wring 
 Tears of its color from that painted king 
 Who lost it, I would, for that smile which went 
 To my heart, fling it in the sea, content, 
 Wearing your verse in place, an amulet 
 Sovereign against all passion, wear and fret ! 
 My English Eyebright, if you are not glad 
 That, as I stopped my task awhile, the sad 
 Dishevelled form, wherein I put mankind 
 To come at times and keep my pact in mind, 
 Renewed me, hear no crickets in the hedge, 
 Nor let a glowworm spot the river's edge 
 At home, and may the summer showers gush 
 Without a warning from the missel thrush ! 
 So, to our business, now the fate of such 
 As find our common nature overmuch 
 Despised because restricted and unfit 
 To bear the burden they impose on it 
 Cling when they would discard it ; craving strength 
 To leap from the allotted world, at length 
 They do leap, flounder on without a term, 
 Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ 
 In unexpanded infancy, unless . . . 
 But that 's the story dull enough, confess ! 
 There might be fitter subjects to allure ; 
 Still, neither misconceive my portraiture 
 Nor undervalue its adornments quaint : 
 What seems a fiend perchance may prove a saint. 
 Ponder a story ancient pens transmit, 
 Then say if you condemn me or acquit. 
 John the Beloved, banished Antioch 
 For Patmos, bade collectively his flock 
 Farewell, but set apart the closing eve 
 To comfort those his exile most would grieve, 
 He knew : a touching spectacle, that house 
 In motion to receive him ! Xanthus' spouse
 
 MEN SUFFERED WHILE PARTIES STROVE 261 
 
 You missed, made panther's meat a month since ; but 
 Xanthus himself (his nephew 't was, they shut 
 'Twixt boards and sawed asunder), Poly carp, 
 Soft Charicle, next year no wheel could warp 
 To swear by Caesar's fortune, with the rest 
 Were ranged ; through whom the gray disciple pressed, 
 Busily blessing right and left, just stopped 
 To pat one infant's curls, the hangman cropped 
 Soon after, reached the portal. On its hinge 
 The door turns and he enters : what quick twinge 
 Ruins the smiling mouth, those wide eyes fix 
 Whereon, why like some spectral candlestick's 
 Branch the disciple's arms ? Dead swooned he, woke 
 Anon, heaved sigh, made shift to gasp, heart-broke, 
 " Get thee behind me, Satan ! Have I toiled 
 To no more purpose ? Is the gospel foiled 
 Here too, and o'er my son's, my Xanthus' hearth, 
 Portrayed with sooty garb and features swarth 
 Ah Xanthus, am I to thy roof beguiled 
 To see the the the Devil domiciled ? " 
 Whereto sobbed Xanthus, " Father, 't is yourself 
 Installed, a limning which our utmost pelf 
 Went to procure against to-morrow's loss ; 
 And that 's no twy-prong, but a pastoral cross, 
 You 're painted with ! " 
 
 His puckered brows unfold 
 And you shall hear Sordello's story told. 
 
 BOOK THE FOURTH. 
 
 MEANTIME Ferrara lay in rueful case ; 
 The lady-city, for whose sole embrace 
 Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms 
 A brawny mischief to the fragile charms 
 They tugged for one discovering that to twist 
 Her tresses twice or thrice about his wrist 
 Secured a point of vantage one, how best 
 He 'd parry that by planting in her breast 
 His elbow spike each party too intent 
 For noticing, howe'er the battle went, 
 The conqueror would but have a corpse to kiss. 
 " May Boniface be duly damned for this ! " 
 Howled some old Ghibellin, as up he turned,
 
 262 SORDELLO 
 
 From the wet heap of rubbish where they burned 
 His house, a little skull with dazzling teeth : 
 
 " A boon, sweet Christ let Salinguerra seethe 
 In hell forever, Christ, and let myself 
 Be there to laugh at him ! " moaned some young Guelf 
 Stumbling upon a shrivelled hand nailed fast 
 To the charred lintel of the doorway, last 
 His father stood within to bid him speed. 
 The thoroughfares were overrun with weed 
 Docks, quitchgrass, loathy mallows no man plants. 
 
 The stranger, none of its inhabitants 
 Crept out of doors to taste fresh air again, 
 And ask the purpose of a splendid train 
 Admitted on a morning ; every town 
 Of the East League was come by envoy down 
 To treat for Richard's ransom : here you saw 
 The Vicentine, here snowy oxen draw 
 The Paduan carroch, its veimilion cross 
 On its white field. A-tiptoe o'er the fosse 
 Looked Legate Montelungo wistfully 
 After the flock of steeples he might spy 
 In Este's time, gone (doubts he) long ago 
 To mend the ramparts : sure the laggards know 
 The Pope 's as good as here ! They paced the streets 
 More soberly. At last, " Taurello greets 
 The League," announced a pursuivant, " will match 
 Its courtesy, and labors to dispatch 
 At earliest Tito, Friedrich's Pretor, sent 
 On pressing matters from his post at Trent, 
 With Mainard Count of Tyrol, simply waits 
 Their going to receive the delegates." 
 
 " Tito ! " Our delegates exchanged a glance, 
 And, keeping the main way, admired askance 
 The lazy engines of outlandish birth, 
 Couched like a king each on its bank of earth 
 Arbalist, manganel and catapult ; 
 While stationed by, as waiting a result, 
 Lean silent gangs of mercenaries ceased 
 Working to watch the strangers. " This, at least, 
 Were better spared ; he scarce presumes gainsay 
 The League's decision ! Get our friend away 
 And profit for the future : how else teach 
 Fools 't is not safe to stray within claw's reach 
 Ere Salinguerra's final gasp be blown ? 
 Those mere convulsive scratches find the bone. 
 Who bade him bloody the spent osprey's nare ? "
 
 HOW GUELFS CRITICISE GH1BELLIN WORK 263 
 
 The carrochs halted in the public square. 
 
 Pennons of every blazon once a-flaunt, 
 
 Men prattled, freelier that the crested gaunt 
 
 White ostrich with a horse-shoe in her beak 
 
 Was missing, and whoever chose might speak 
 " Ecelin " boldly out : so, " Ecelin 
 
 Needed his wife to swallow half the sin 
 
 And sickens by himself : the devil's whelp, 
 
 He styles his son, dwindles away, no help 
 
 From conserves, your fine triple-curded froth 
 
 Of virgin's blood, your Venice viper-broth 
 
 Eh ? Jubilate ! " " Peace ! no little word 
 
 You utter here that 's not distinctly heard 
 
 Up at Oliero : he was absent sick 
 
 When we besieged Bassano who, i' the thick 
 
 O' the work, perceived the progress Azzo made, 
 
 Like Ecelin, through his witch Adelaide ? 
 
 She managed it so well that, night by night, 
 
 At their bed-foot stood up a soldier-sprite, 
 
 First fresh, pale by-and-by without a wound, 
 
 And, when it came with eyes filmed as in swound, 
 
 They knew the place was taken." " Ominous 
 
 That Ghibellins should get what cautelous 
 
 Old Redbeard sought from Azzo's sire to wrench 
 
 Vainly ; Saint George contrived his town a trench 
 
 O' the marshes, an impermeable bar." 
 " Young Ecelin is meant the tutelar 
 
 Of Padua, rather ; veins embrace upon 
 
 His hand like Brenta and Bacchiglion." 
 
 What now ? " The founts ! God's bread, touch not a plank ! 
 
 A crawling hell of carrion every tank 
 
 Choke full ! found out just now to Cino's cost 
 
 The same who gave Taurello up for lost, 
 
 And, making no account of fortune's freaks, 
 
 Refused to budge from Padua then, but sneaks 
 
 Back now with Concorezzi 'faith ! they drag 
 
 Their carroch to San Vitale, plant the flag 
 
 On his own palace, so adroitly razed 
 
 He knew it not ; a sort of Guelf folk gazed 
 
 And laughed apart ; Cino disliked their air 
 
 Must pluck up spirit, show he does not care 
 
 Seats himself on the tank's edge will begin 
 
 To hum, za, za, Cavaler Ecelin 
 
 A silence ; he gets warmer, clinks to chime, 
 
 Now both feet plough the ground, deeper each time, 
 
 At last, za, za, and up with a fierce kick
 
 264 SORDELLO 
 
 Comes his own mother's face caught by the thick 
 Gray hair about his spur ! " 
 
 Which means, they lift 
 The covering, Salinguerra made a shift 
 To stretch upon the truth ; as well avoid 
 Further disclosures ; leave them thus employed. 
 Our dropping Autumn morning clears apace, 
 And poor Ferrara puts a softened face 
 On her misfortunes. Let us scale this tall 
 Huge foursquare line of red brick garden-wall 
 Bastioned within by trees of every sort 
 On three sides, slender, spreading, long and short ; 
 Each grew as it contrived, the poplar ramped, 
 The fig-tree reared itself, but stark and cramped, 
 Made fools of, like tamed lions : whence, on the edge, 
 Running 'twixt trunk and trunk to smooth one ledge 
 Of shade, were shrubs inserted, warp and woof, 
 Which smothered up that variance. Scale the roof 
 Of solid tops, and o'er the slope you slide 
 Down to a grassy space level and wide, 
 Here and there dotted with a tree, but trees 
 Of rarer leaf, each foreigner at ease, 
 Set by itself : and in the centre spreads, 
 Borne upon three uneasy leopards' heads, 
 A laver, broad and shallow, one bright spirt 
 Of water bubbles in. The walls begirt 
 With trees leave off on either hand ; pursue 
 Your path along a wondrous avenue 
 Those walls abut on, heaped of gleamy stone, 
 With aloes leering everywhere, gray-grown 
 From many a Moorish summer : how they wind 
 Out of the fissures ! likelier to bind 
 The building than those rusted cramps which drop 
 Already in the eating sunshine. Stop, 
 You fleeting shapes above there ! Ah, the pride 
 Or else despair of the whole country-side ! 
 A range of statues, swarming o'er with wasps, 
 God, goddess, woman, man, the Greek rough-rasps 
 In crumbling Naples marble meant to look 
 Like those Messina marbles Constance took 
 Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed 
 To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, 
 A certain font with caryatides 
 Since cloistered at Goito ; only, these 
 Are up and doing, not abashed, a troop 
 Able to right themselves who see you, stoop
 
 SORDELLO PONDERS ALL SEEN AND HEARD 265 
 
 Their arms o' the instant after you ! Unplucked 
 By this or that, you pass ; for they conduct 
 To terrace raised on terrace, and, between, 
 Creatures of brighter mould and braver mien 
 Than any yet, the choicest of the Isle 
 No doubt. Here, left a sullen breathing-while, 
 Up-gathered on himself the Fighter stood 
 For his last fight, and, wiping treacherous hlood 
 Out of the eyelids just held ope beneath 
 Those shading fingers in their iron sheath, 
 Steadied his strengths amid the buzz and stir 
 Of the dusk hideous amphitheatre 
 At the announcement of his over-match 
 To wind the day's diversion up, dispatch 
 The pertinacious Gaul : while, limbs one heap, 
 The Slave, no breath in her round mouth, watched leap 
 Dart after dart forth, as her hero's car 
 Clove dizzily the solid of the war 
 Let coil about his knees for pride in him. 
 We reach the farthest terrace, and the grim 
 San Pietro Palace stops us. 
 
 Such the state 
 
 Of Salinguerra's plan to emulate 
 Sicilian marvels, that his girlish wife 
 Retrude still might lead her ancient life 
 In her new home : whereat enlarged so much 
 Neighbors upon the novel princely touch 
 He took, who here imprisons Boniface. 
 Here must the Envoys come to sue for grace ; 
 And here, emerging from the labyrinth 
 Below, Sordello paused beside the plinth 
 Of the door-pillar. 
 
 He had really left 
 
 Verona for the cornfields (a poor theft 
 From the morass) where Este's camp was made. 
 The Envoys' march, the Legate's cavalcade 
 All had been seen by him, but scarce as when, 
 Eager for cause to stand aloof from men 
 At every point save the fantastic tie 
 Acknowledged in his boyish sophistry, 
 He made account of such. A crowd, he meant 
 To task the whole of it ; each part's intent 
 Concerned him therefore : and, the more he pried, 
 The less became Sordello satisfied 
 With his own figure at the moment. Sought 
 He respite from his task ? Descried he aught
 
 266 BORDELLO 
 
 Novel in the anticipated sight 
 
 Of all these livers upon all delight ? 
 
 This phalanx, as of myriad points combined, 
 
 Whereby he still had imaged the mankind 
 
 His youth was passed in dreams of rivalling, 
 
 His age in plans to prove at least such thing 
 
 Had been so dreamed, which now he must impress 
 
 With his own will, effect a happiness 
 
 By theirs, supply a body to his soul 
 
 Thence, and become eventually whole 
 
 With them as he had hoped to be without 
 
 Made these the mankind he once raved about ? 
 
 Hecause a few of them were notable, 
 
 Should all be figured worthy note ? As well 
 
 Expect to find Taurello's triple line 
 
 Of trees a single and prodigious pine. 
 
 Real pines rose here and there ; but, close among, 
 
 Thrust into and mixed up with pines, a throng 
 
 Of shrubs, he saw, a nameless common sort 
 
 O'erpast in dreams, left out of the report 
 
 And hurried into corners, or at best 
 
 Admitted to be fancied like the rest. 
 
 Reckon that morning's proper chiefs how few ! 
 
 And yet the people grew, the people grew, 
 
 Grew ever, as if the many there indeed, 
 
 More left behind and most who should succeed, 
 
 Simply in virtue of their mouths and eyes, 
 
 Petty enjoyments and huge miseries, 
 
 Mingled with, and made veritably great 
 
 Those chiefs : he overlooked not Mainard's state 
 
 Nor Concorezzi's station, but instead 
 
 Of stopping there, each dwindled to be head 
 
 Of infinite and absent Tyrolese 
 
 Or Paduans ; startling all the more, that these 
 
 Seemed passive and disposed of, uncared for, 
 
 Yet doubtless on the whole (like Eglamor) 
 
 Smiling ; for if a wealthy man decays 
 
 And out of store of robes must wear, all days, 
 
 One tattered suit, alike in sun and shade, 
 
 'T is commonly some tarnished gay brocade 
 
 Fit for a feast-night's flourish and no more : 
 
 Nor otherwise poor Misery from her store 
 
 Of looks is fain upgather, keep unfurled 
 
 For common wear as she goes through the world, 
 
 The faint remainder of some worn-out smile 
 
 Meant for a feast-night's service merely. While
 
 MEN NOT MACHINES BUT LIVING THINGS 267 
 
 Crowd upon crowd rose on Sordello thus, 
 
 (Crowds no way interfering to discuss, 
 
 Much less dispute, life's joys with one employed 
 
 In envying them, or, if they aught enjoyed, 
 
 Where lingered something indefinable 
 
 In every look and tone, the mirth as well 
 
 As woe, that fixed at once his estimate 
 
 Of the result, their good or bad estate) 
 
 Old memories returned with new effect : 
 
 And the new body, ere he could suspect, 
 
 Cohered, mankind and he were really fused, 
 
 The new self seemed impatient to be used 
 
 By him, but utterly another way 
 
 Than that anticipated : strange to say, 
 
 They were too much below him, more in thrall 
 
 Than he, the adjunct than the principal. 
 
 What booted scattered units ? here a mind 
 
 And there, which might repay his own to find, 
 
 And stamp, and use ? a few, howe'er august, 
 
 If all the rest were grovelling in the dust ? 
 
 No : first a mighty equilibrium, sure, 
 
 Should he establish, privilege procure 
 
 For all, the few had long possessed ! He felt 
 
 An error, an exceeding error melt 
 
 While he was occupied with Mantuan chants, 
 
 Behoved him think of men, and take their wants, 
 
 Such as he now distinguished every side, 
 
 As his own want which might be satisfied, 
 
 And, after that, think of rare qualities 
 
 Of his own soul demanding exercise. 
 
 It followed naturally, through no claim 
 
 On their part, which made virtue of the aim 
 
 At serving them, on his, that, past retrieve, 
 
 He felt now in their toils, theirs, nor could leave 
 
 Wonder how, in the eagerness to rule, 
 
 Impress his will on mankind, he (the fool !) 
 
 Had never even entertained the thought 
 
 That this his last arrangement might be fraught 
 
 With incidental good to them as well, 
 
 And that mankind's delight would help to swell 
 
 His own. So, if he sighed, as formerly 
 
 Because the merry time of life must fleet, 
 
 'T was deeplier now, for could the crowds repeat 
 
 Their poor experiences ? His hand that shook 
 
 Was twice to be deplored. " The Legate, look ! 
 
 With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread,
 
 268 BORDELLO 
 
 Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head, 
 
 Large tongue, moist open mouth ; and this long while 
 
 That owner of the idiotic smile 
 
 Serves them ! " 
 
 He fortunately saw in time 
 His fault however, and since the office prime 
 Includes the secondary best accept 
 Both offices ; Taurello, its adept, 
 Could teach him the preparatory one, 
 And how to do what he had fancied done 
 Long previously, ere take the greater task. 
 How render first these people happy ? Ask 
 The people's friends : for there must be one good, 
 One way to it the Cause ! he understood 
 The meaning now of Palma ; why the jar 
 Else, the ado, the trouble wide and far 
 Of Guelfs and Ghibellins, the Lombard hope 
 And Rome's despair ? 'twlxt Emperor and Pope 
 The confused shifting sort of Eden tale 
 Hardihood still recurring, still to fail 
 That foreign interloping fiend, this free 
 And native overbrooding deity 
 
 Yet a dire fascination o'er the palms 
 The Kaiser ruined, troubling even the calms 
 Of paradise or, on the other hand, 
 The Pontiff, as the Kaisers understand, 
 One snake-like cursed of God to love the ground, 
 Whose heavy length breaks in the noon profound 
 Some saving tree which needs the Kaiser, dressed 
 As the dislodging angel of that pest, 
 Then yet that pest bedropped, flat head, full fold, 
 With coruscating dower of dyes. " Behold 
 The secret, so to speak, and master-spring 
 O' the contest ! which of the two Powers shall bi ing 
 Men good perchance the most good ay, it may 
 Be that ! the question, which best knows the way." 
 
 And hereupon Count Mainard strutted past 
 Out of San Pietro ; never seemed the last 
 Of archers, slingers : and our friend began 
 To recollect strange modes of serving man, 
 Arbalist, catapult, brake, manganel, 
 And more. " This way of theirs may, who can tell ? 
 Need perfecting," said he : " let all be solved 
 At once ! Taurello 't is, the task devolved 
 On late confront Taurello ! ' 
 
 And at last
 
 HE WOULD FAIN HAVE HELPED MEN 269 
 
 He did confront him. Scarce an hour had past 
 
 When forth Sordello came, older by years 
 
 Than at his entry. Unexampled fears 
 
 Oppressed him, and he staggered off, blind, mute 
 
 And deaf, like some fresh-mutilated brute, 
 
 Into Ferrara not the empty town 
 
 That morning witnessed : he went up and down 
 
 Streets whence the veil had been stripped shred by shred, 
 
 So that, in place of huddling with their dead 
 
 Indoors, to answer Salinguerra's ends, 
 
 Townsfolk make shift to crawl forth, sit like friends 
 
 With any one. A woman gave him choice 
 
 Of her two daughters, the infantile voice 
 
 Or the dimpled knee, for half a chain, his throat 
 
 Was clasped with ; but an archer knew the coat 
 
 Its blue cross and eight lilies, bade beware 
 
 One dogging him in concert with the pair 
 
 Though thrumming on the sleeve that hid his knife. 
 
 Night set in early, autumn dews were rife, 
 
 They kindled great fires while the Leaguers' mass 
 
 Began at every carroch he must pass 
 
 Between the kneeling people. Presently 
 
 The carroch of Verona caught his eye 
 
 With purple trappings ; silently he bent 
 
 Over its fire, when voices violent 
 
 Began, " Affirm not whom the youth was like 
 
 That struck me from the porch, I did not strike 
 
 Again : I too have chestnut hair ; my kin 
 
 Hate Azzo and stand up for Ecelin. 
 
 Here, minstrel, drive bad thoughts away ! Sing ! Take 
 
 My glove for guerdon ! " And for that man's sake 
 
 He turned : " A song of Eglamor's ! " scarce named, 
 
 When, " Our Sordello's rather ! " all exclaimed ; 
 
 " Is not Sordello famousest for rhyme ? " 
 He had been happy to deny, this time, 
 Profess as heretofore the aching head 
 And failing heart, suspect that in his stead 
 Some true Apollo had the charge of the'm, 
 Was champion to reward or to condemn, 
 So his intolerable risk might shift 
 Or share itself ; but Naddo's precious gift 
 Of gifts, he owned, be certain ! At the close 
 
 " I made that," said he to a youth who rose 
 As if to hear : 't was Palma through the band 
 Conducted him in silence by her hand. 
 
 Back now for Salinguerra. Tito of Trent
 
 70 SOIIDELLO 
 
 Gave place to Palma and her friend ; who went 
 
 In turn at Montelungo's visit one 
 
 After the other were they come and gone, 
 
 These spokesmen for the Kaiser and the Pope, 
 
 This incarnation of the People's h~pe, 
 
 Bordello, all the say of each was said 
 
 And Salinguerra sat, himself instead 
 
 Of these to talk with, lingered musing yet. 
 
 'T was a drear vast presence-chamber roughly set 
 
 In order for the morning's use ; full face, 
 
 The Kaiser's ominous sign-mark had first place, 
 
 The crowned grim twy-necked eagle, coarsely-blacked 
 
 With ochre on the naked wall ; nor lacked 
 
 Romano's green and yellow either side ; 
 
 But the new token Tito brought had tried 
 
 The Legate's patience nay, if Palma knew 
 
 What Salinguerra almost meant to do 
 
 Until the sight of her restored his lip 
 
 A certain half-smile, three months' chieftainship 
 
 Had banished ! Afterward, the Legate found 
 
 No change in him, nor asked what badge he wound 
 
 And unwound carelessly. Now sat the Chief 
 
 Silent as when our couple left, whose brief 
 
 Encounter wrought so opportune effect 
 
 In thoughts he summoned not, nor would reject. 
 
 Though time 't was now if ever, to pause fix 
 
 On any sort of ending: wiles and tricks 
 
 Exhausted, judge ! his charge, the crazy town, 
 
 Just managed to be hindered crashing down 
 
 His last sound troops ranged care observed to post 
 
 His best of the maimed soldiers innermost 
 
 So much was plain enough, but somehow struck 
 
 Him not before. And now with this strange luck 
 
 Of Tito's news, rewarding his address 
 
 So well, what thought he of ? how the success 
 
 With Friedrich's rescript there, would either hush 
 
 Old Ecelin's scruples, bring the manly flush 
 
 To his young son's white cheek, or, last, exempt 
 
 Himself from telling what there was to tempt ? 
 
 No : that this minstrel was Romano's last 
 
 Servant himself the first ! Could he contrast 
 
 The whole ! that minstrel's thirty years just spent 
 
 In doing nought, their notablest event 
 
 This morning's journey hither, as 1 told 
 
 Who yet was lean, outworn and really old, 
 
 A stammering awkward man that scarce dared raise
 
 SALINGUERRA'S PORTRAIT, BODY AND SPIRIT 271 
 
 His eye before the magisterial gaze 
 
 And Salinguerra with his fears and hopes 
 
 Of sixty years, his Emperors and Popes, 
 
 Cares and contrivances, yet, you would say, 
 
 'T was a youth nonchalantly looked away 
 
 Through the embrasure northward o'er the sick 
 
 Expostulating trees so agile, quick 
 
 And graceful turned the head on the broad chest 
 
 Encased in pliant steel, his constant vest, 
 
 Whence split the sun off in a spray of fire 
 
 Across the room ; and, loosened of its tire 
 
 Of steel, that head let breathe the comely brown 
 
 Large massive locks discolored as if a crown 
 
 Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where 
 
 A sharp white line divided clean the hair ; 
 
 Glossy above, glossy below, it swept 
 
 Curling and fine about a brow thus kept 
 
 Calm, laid coat upon coat, marble and sound : 
 
 This was the mystic mark the Tuscan found, 
 
 Mused of, turned over books about. Square-faced, 
 
 No lion more ; two vivid eyes, enchased 
 
 In hollows filled with many a shade and streak 
 
 Settling from the bold nose and bearded cheek. 
 
 Nor might the half-smile reach them that deformed 
 
 A lip supremely perfect else unwarmed, 
 
 Unwidened, less or more ; indifferent 
 
 Whether on trees or men his thoughts were bent, 
 
 Thoughts rarely, after all, in trim and train 
 
 As now a period was fulfilled again : 
 
 Of such, a series made his life, compressed 
 
 In each, one story serving for the rest 
 
 How his life-streams rolling arrived at last 
 
 At the barrier, whence, were it once overpast, 
 
 They would emerge, a river to the end, 
 
 Gathered themselves up, paused, bade fate befriend, 
 
 Took the leap, hung a minute at the height, 
 
 Then fell back to oblivion infinite : 
 
 Therefore he smiled. Beyond stretched garden-grounds 
 
 Where late the adversary, breaking bounds, 
 
 Had gained him an occasion, That above, 
 
 That eagle, testified he could improve 
 
 Effectually. The Kaiser's symbol lay 
 
 Beside his rescript, a new badge by way 
 
 Of baldric ; while, another thing that marred 
 
 Alike emprise, achievement and reward, 
 
 Ecelin's missive was conspicuous too.
 
 272 SORDELLO 
 
 What past life did those flying thoughts pursue ? 
 As his, few names in Mantua half so old ; 
 But at Ferrara, where his sires enrolled 
 It latterly, the Adelardi spared 
 No pains to rival them : both factions shared 
 Ferrara, so that, counted out, 't would yield 
 A product very like the city's shield, 
 Half black and white, or Ghibellin and Guelf 
 As after Salinguerra styled himself, 
 And Este who, till Marchesalla died, 
 (Last of the Adelardi) never tried 
 His fortune there : with Marchesalla's child 
 Would pass, could Blacks and Whites be reconciled, 
 And young Taurello wed Linguetta, wealth 
 And sway to a sole grasp. Each treats by stealth 
 Already : when the Guelfs, the Ravennese 
 Arrive, assault the Pietro quarter, seize 
 Linguetta, and are gone ! Men's first dismay 
 Abated somewhat, hurries down, to lay 
 The aftej indignation, Boniface, 
 This Richard's father. " Learn the full disgrace 
 Averted, ere you blame us Guelfs, who rate 
 Your Salinguerra, your sole potentate 
 That might have been, 'mongst Este's valvassors 
 Ay, Azzo's who, not privy to, abhors 
 Our step ; but we were zealous." Azzo's then 
 To do with ! Straight a meeting of old men : 
 " Old Salinguerra dead, his heir a boy, 
 What if we change our ruler and decoy 
 The Lombard Eagle of the azure sphere 
 With Italy to build in, fix him here, 
 Settle the city's troubles in a trice ? 
 For private wrong, let public good suffice ! " 
 In fine, young Sah'nguerra's stanchest friends 
 Talked of the townsmen making him amends, 
 Gave him a goshawk, and affirmed there was 
 Rare sport, one morning, over the green grass 
 A mile or so. He sauntered through the plain, 
 Was restless, fell to thinking, turned again 
 In time for Azzo's entry with the bride ; 
 Count Boniface rode smirking at their side ; 
 " She brings him half Ferrara," whispers flew, 
 " And all Ancona ! If the stripling knew ! 
 
 Anon the stripling was in Sicily 
 Where Heinrich ruled in right of Constance ; he 
 Was gracious nor his guest incapable ;
 
 A FRESH CALAMITY CHECKS FORTUNE 273 
 
 Each understood the other. So it fell, 
 
 One Spring, when Azzo, thoroughly at ease, 
 
 Had near forgotten by what precise degrees 
 
 He crept at first to such a downy seat, 
 
 That Count trudged over in a special heat 
 
 To bid him of God's love dislodge from each 
 
 Of Salinguerra's palaces, a breach 
 
 Might yawn else, not so readily to shut, 
 
 For who was just arrived at Mantua but 
 
 The youngster, sword on thigh and tuft on chin, 
 
 With tokens for Celano, Ecelin, 
 
 Pistore, and the like ! Next news, no whit 
 
 Do any of Ferrara's domes befit 
 
 His wife of Heinrich's very blood : a band 
 
 Of foreigners assemble, understand 
 
 Garden-constructing, level and surround, 
 
 Build up and bury in. A last news crowned 
 
 The consternation : since his infant's birth, 
 
 He only waits they end his wondrous girth 
 
 Of trees that link San Pietro with Toma, 
 
 To visit Mantua. When the Podesta 
 
 Ecelin, at Vicenza, called his friend 
 
 Taurello thither, what could be their end 
 
 But to restore the Ghibellins' late Head, 
 
 The Kaiser helping ? He with most to dread 
 
 From vengeance and reprisal, Azzo, there 
 
 With Boniface beforehand, as aware 
 
 Of plots in progress, gave alarm, expelled 
 
 Both plotters : but the Guelfs in triumph yelled 
 
 Too hastily. The burning and the flight, 
 
 And how Taurello, occupied that night 
 
 With Ecelin, lost wife and son, I told : 
 
 Not how he bore the blow, retained his hold, 
 
 Got friends safe through, left enemies the worst 
 
 O' the fray, and hardly seemed to care at first 
 
 But afterward men heard not constantly 
 
 Of Salinguerra's House so sure to be ! 
 
 Though Azzo simply gained by the event 
 
 A shifting of his plagues the first, content 
 
 To fall behind the second and estrange 
 
 So far his nature, suffer such a change 
 
 That in Romano sought he wife and child 
 
 And for Romano's sake seemed reconciled 
 
 To losing individual life, which shrunk 
 
 As the other prospered mortised in his trunk ; 
 
 Like a dwarf palm which wanton Arabs foil
 
 274 SORDELLO 
 
 Of bearing its own proper wine and oil, 
 By grafting into it the stranger-vine, 
 Which sucks its heart out, sly and serpentine, 
 Till forth one vine-palm feathers to the root, 
 And red drops moisten the insipid fruit. 
 Once Adelaide set on, the subtle mate 
 Of the weak soldier, urged to emulate 
 The Church's valiant women deed for deed, 
 And paragon her namesake, win the meed 
 O' the great Matilda, soon they overbore 
 The rest of Lombardy, not as before 
 By an instinctive truculence, but patched 
 The Kaiser's strategy until it matched 
 The Pontiff's, sought old ends by novel means. 
 " Only, why is it Salinguerra screens 
 Himself behind Romano ? him we bade 
 Enjoy our shine i' the front, not seek the shade ! " . 
 
 Asked Heinrich, somewhat of the tardiest 
 To comprehend. Nor Philip acquiesced 
 
 At once in the arrangement ; reasoned, plied 
 His friend with offers of another bride, 
 A statelier function fruitlessly : 't was plain 
 Taurello through some weakness must remain 
 Obscure. And Otho, free to judge of both, 
 
 Ecelin the unready, harsh and loth, 
 And this more plausible and facile wight 
 With every point a-sparkle chose the right, 
 Admiring how his predecessors harped 
 
 On the wrong man : " thus," quoth he, " wits are warped 
 
 By outsides ! " Carelessly, meanwhile, his life 
 
 Suffered its many turns of peace and strife 
 
 In many lands you hardly could surprise 
 
 The man ; who shamed Sordello (recognize !) 
 
 In this as much beside, that, unconcerned 
 
 What qualities were natural or earned, 
 
 With no ideal of graces, as they came 
 
 He took them, singularly well the same 
 
 Speaking the Greek's own language, just because 
 
 Your Greek eludes you, leave the least of flaws 
 
 In contracts with him ; while, since Arab lore 
 
 Holds the stars' secret take one trouble more 
 
 And master it ! 'T is done, and now deter 
 
 Who may the Tuscan, once Jove trined for her, 
 
 From Friedrich's path ! Friedrich, whose pilgrimage 
 
 The same man puts aside, whom he '11 engage 
 
 To leave next year John Brienne in the lurch,
 
 SO HE FIGURES IN THE SECOND RANK 275 
 
 Come to Bassano, see Saint Francis' church 
 
 And judge of Guido the Bolognian's piece 
 
 Which, lend Taurello credit, rivals Greece 
 
 Angels, with aureoles like golden quoits 
 
 Pitched home, applauding Ecelin's exploits. 
 
 For elegance, he strung the angelot, 
 
 Made rhymes thereto ; for prowess, clove he not 
 
 Tiso, last siege, from crest to crupper ? Why 
 
 Detail you thus a varied mastery 
 
 But to show how Taurello, on the watch 
 
 For men, to read their hearts and thereby catch 
 
 Their capabilities and purposes, 
 
 Displayed himself so far as displayed these : 
 
 While our Sordello only cared to know 
 
 About men as a means whereby he 'd show 
 
 Himself, and men had much or little worth 
 
 According as they kept in or drew forth 
 
 That self ; the other's choicest instruments 
 
 Surmised him shallow. 
 
 Meantime, malcontents 
 
 Dropped off, town after town grew wiser. " How 
 Change the world's face ? " asked people ; " as 't is now 
 It has been, will be ever : very fine 
 Subjecting things profane to things divine, 
 In talk ! This contumacy will fatigue 
 The vigilance of Este and the League ! 
 The Ghibellins gain on us ! " as it happed. 
 Old Azzo and old Boniface, entrapped 
 By Ponte Alto, both in one month's space 
 Slept at Verona : either left a brace 
 Of sons but, three years after, either's pair 
 Lost Guglielm and Aldobrand its heir : 
 Azzo remained and Richard all the stay 
 Of Este and Saint Boniface, at bay 
 As 't were. Then, either Ecelin grew old 
 Or his brain altered not o' the proper mould 
 For new appliances his old palm-stock 
 Endured no influx of strange strengths. He 'd rock 
 As in a drunkenness, or chuckle low 
 As proud of the completeness of his woe, 
 Then weep real tears ; now make some mad onslaught 
 On Este, heedless of the lesson taught 
 So painfully, now cringe for peace, sue peace 
 At price of past gain, bar of fresh increase 
 To the fortunes of Romano. Up at last 
 Rose Este, down Romano sank as fast.
 
 276 SORDELLO 
 
 And men remarked these freaks of peace and war 
 Happened while Saiinguerra was afar : 
 Whence every friend besought him, all in vain, 
 To use his old adherent's wits again. 
 Not he ! " who had advisers in his sons, 
 Could plot himself, nor needed any one's 
 Advice." 'T was Adelaide's remaining stanch 
 Prevented his destruction root and branch 
 Forthwith ; but when she died, doom fell, for gay 
 He made alliances, gave lands away 
 To whom it pleased accept them, and withdrew 
 Forever from the world. Taurello, who 
 Was summoned to the convent, then refused 
 A word at the wicket, patience thus abused, 
 Promptly threw off alike his imbecile 
 Ally's yoke, and his own frank, foolish smile. 
 Soon a few movements of the happier sort 
 Changed matters, put himself in men's report 
 As heretofore ; he had to fight, beside, 
 And that became him ever. So, in pride 
 And flushing of this kind of second youth, 
 He dealt a good-will blow. Este in truth 
 Lay prone and men remembered, somewhat late, 
 A laughing old outrageous stifled hate 
 He bore to Este how it would outbreak 
 At times spite of disguise, like an earthquake 
 In sunny weather as that noted day 
 When with his hundred friends he tried to slay 
 Azzo before the Kaiser's face : and how, 
 On Azzo's calm refusal to allow 
 A liegeman's challenge, straight he too was calmed : 
 As if his hate could bear to lie embalmed, 
 Bricked up, the moody Pharaoh, and survive 
 All intermediate crumblings, to arrive 
 At earth's catastrophe 't was Este's crash 
 Not Azzo's he demanded, so, no rash 
 Procedure ! Este's true antagonist 
 Rose out of Ecelin : all voices whist, 
 All eyes were sharpened, wits predicted. He 
 'T was, leaned in the embrasure absently, 
 Amused with his own efforts, now, to trace 
 With his steel-sheathed forefinger Friedrich's face 
 I' the dust : but as the trees waved sere, his smile 
 Deepened, and words expressed its thought erewhile. 
 " Ay, fairly housed at last, my old compeer ? 
 That we should stick together, all the year
 
 SALINGUERRA SOLILOQUIZES 277 
 
 I kept Vicenza ! How old Boniface, 
 Old Azzo caught us in its market-place, 
 He by that pillar, I at this, caught each 
 In mid swing, more than fury of his speech, 
 Egging the rabble on to disavow 
 Allegiance to their Marquis Bacchus, how 
 They boasted ! Ecelin must turn their drudge, 
 Nor, if released, will Salinguerra grudge 
 Paying arrears of tribute due long since 
 Bacchus ! My man could promise then, nor wince, 
 The bones-and-muscles ! Sound of wind and limb, 
 Spoke he the set excuse I framed for him : 
 And now he sits me, slavering and mute, 
 Intent on chafing each starved purple foot 
 Benumbed past aching with the altar slab 
 Will no vein throb there when some monk shall blab 
 Spitefully to the circle of bald scalps, 
 ' Friedrich 's affirmed to be our side the Alps ' 
 Eh, brother Lactance, brother Anaclet ? 
 Sworn to abjure the world, its fume and fret, 
 God's own now ? Drop the dormitory bar, 
 Enfold the scanty gray serge scapular 
 Twice o'er the cowl to muffle memories out ! 
 So ! But the midnight whisper turns a shout, 
 Eyes wink, mouths open, pulses circulate 
 In the stone walls : the past, the world you hate 
 Is with you, ambush, open field or see 
 The surging flame we fire Vicenza glee ! 
 Follow, let Pilio and Bernardo chafe ! 
 Bring up the Mantuans through San Biagio safe ! 
 Ah, the mad people waken ? Ah, they writhe 
 And reach us ? If they block the gate ? No tithe 
 Can pass keep back, you Bassanese ! The edge, 
 Use the edge shear, thrust, hew, melt down the wedge, 
 Let out the black of those black upturned eyes ! 
 Hell are they sprinkling fire too ? The blood fries 
 And hisses on your brass gloves as they tear 
 Those upturned faces choking with despair. 
 Brave ! Slidder through the reeking gate ! ' How now ? 
 You six had charge of her ? ' And then the vow 
 Comes, and the foam spirts, hair 's plucked, till one shriek 
 (I hear it) and you fling you cannot speak 
 Your gold-flowered basnet to a man who haled 
 The Adelaide he dared scarce view unveiled 
 This morn, naked across the fire : how crown 
 The archer that exhausted lays you down
 
 278 BORDELLO 
 
 Your infant, smiling at the flame, and dies ? 
 While one, while mine . . . 
 
 Bacchus ! I think there lies 
 
 More than one corpse there " (and he paced the room) 
 j< Another cinder somewhere : ' twas my doom 
 Beside, my doom ! If Adelaide is dead, 
 I live the same, this Azzo lives instead 
 Of that to me, and we pull, any how, 
 Este into a heap : the matter 's now 
 At the true juncture slipping us so oft. 
 Ay, Heinrich died and Otho, please you, doffed 
 His crown at such a juncture ! Still, if hold 
 Our Friedrich's purpose, if this chain enfold 
 The neck of ... who but this same Ecelin 
 That must recoil when the best days begin ! 
 Recoil ? that 's nought ; if the recoiler leaves 
 His name for me to fight with, no one grieves : 
 But he must interfere, forsooth, unlock 
 His cloister to become my stumbling-block 
 Just as of old ! Ay, ay, there 't is again 
 The land's inevitable Head explain 
 The reverences that subject us ! Count 
 These Ecelins now ! Not to say as fount, 
 Originating power of thought, from twelve 
 That drop i' the trenches they joined hands to delve, 
 Six shall surpass him, but . . . why, men must twine 
 Somehow with something ! Ecelin 's a fine 
 Clear name ! 'T were simpler, doubtless, twine with me 
 At once : our cloistered friend's capacity 
 Was of a sort ! I had to share myself 
 In fifty portions, like an o'ertasked elf 
 That 's forced illume in fifty points the vast 
 Rare vapor he 's environed by. At last 
 My strengths, though sorely frittered, e'en converge 
 And crown . . . no, Bacchus, they have yet to urge 
 The man be crowned ! 
 
 That aloe, an he durst, 
 
 Would climb ! Just such a bloated sprawler first 
 I noted in Messina's castle-court 
 The day I came, when Heinrich asked in sport 
 If I would pledge my faith to win him back 
 His right in Lombardy : ' for, once bid pack 
 Marauders,' he continued, ' in my stead 
 You rule, Taurello ! ' and upon this head 
 Laid the silk glove of Constance I see her
 
 WHOM DOES THE PRIZE AWAIT f 279 
 
 Too, mantled head to foot in miniver, 
 Retrude following ! 
 
 I am absolved 
 
 From further toil : the empery devolved 
 On me, 't was Tito's word : I have to lay 
 For once my plan, pursue my plan my way, 
 Prompt nobody, and render an account 
 Taurello to Taurello! Nay, I mount 
 To Friedrich : he conceives Hie post I kept, 
 
 Who did true service, able or inept, 
 Who 's worthy guerdon, Ecelin or I. 
 
 Me guerdoned, counsel follows : would he vie 
 With the Pope really ? Azzo, Boniface 
 Compose a right-arm Hohenstauffen's race 
 Must break ere govern Lombardy. I point 
 How easy 't were to twist, once out of joint, 
 The socket from the bone : my Azzo's stare 
 Meanwhile ! for I, this idle strap to wear, 
 Shall fret myself abundantly, what end 
 To serve ? There 's left me twenty years to spend 
 How better than my old way ? Had I one 
 Who labored overthrow my work a son 
 Hatching with Azzo superb treachery, 
 To root my pines up and then poison me, 
 Suppose 't were worth while frustrate that ! Beside, 
 Another life 's ordained me : the world's tide 
 Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press 
 Of waves, a single wave through weariness 
 Gently lifted aside, laid upon shore ? 
 My life must be lived out in foam and roar, 
 No question. Fifty years the province held 
 Taurello ; troubles raised, and troubles quelled, 
 He in the midst who leaves this quaint stone place, 
 These trees a year or two, then not a trace 
 Of him ! How obtain hold, fetter men's tongues 
 Like this poor minstrel with the foolish songs 
 To which, despite our bustle, he is linked ? 
 
 Flowers one may tease, that never grow extinct. 
 Ay, that -patch, surely, green as ever, where 
 
 I set Her Moorish lentisk, by the stair, 
 
 To overawe the aloes ; and we trod 
 
 Those flowers, how call you such ? into the sod ; 
 
 A stately foreigner a world of pain 
 
 To make it thrive, arrest rough winds all vain ! 
 
 It would decline ; these would not be destroyed :
 
 280 BORDELLO 
 
 And now, where is it ? where can you avoid 
 The flowers ? I frighten children twenty years 
 Longer ! which way, too, Ecelin appears 
 To thwart me, for his son's hesotted youth 
 Gives promise of the proper tiger-tooth : 
 They feel it at Vicenza ! Fate, fate, fate, 
 My fine Taurello ! Go you, promulgate 
 Friedrich's decree, and here 's shall aggrandize 
 Young Ecelin your Prefect's badge ! a prize 
 Too precious, certainly. 
 
 How now ? Compete 
 
 With my old comrade? shuffle from their seat 
 His children ? Paltry dealing ! Don't I know 
 Ecelin ? now, I think, and years ago ! 
 What 's changed the weakness ? did not I compound 
 For that, and undertake to keep him sound 
 Despite it ? Here 's Taurello hankering 
 After a boy's preferment this plaything 
 To carry, Bacchus ! " And he laughed. 
 
 Remark 
 
 Why schemes wherein cold-blooded men embark 
 Prosper, when your enthusiastic sort 
 Fail : while these last are ever stopping short 
 (So much they should so little they can do !) 
 The careless tribe see nothing to pursue 
 If they desist ; meantime their scheme succeeds. 
 Thoughts were caprices in the course of deeds 
 Methodic with Taurello ; so, he turned, 
 Enough amused by fancies fairly earned 
 Of Este's horror-struck submitted neck, 
 And Richard, the cowed braggart, at his beck, 
 To his own petty but immediate doubt 
 If he could pacify the League without 
 Conceding Richard ; just to this was brought 
 That interval of vain discursive thought ! 
 As, shall I say, some Ethiop, past pursuit 
 Of all enslavers, dips a shackled foot 
 Burnt to the blood, into the drowsy black 
 Enormous watercourse which guides him back 
 To his own tribe again, where he is king ; 
 And laughs because he guesses, numbering 
 The yellower poison-wattles on the pouch 
 Of the first lizard wrested from its couch 
 Under the slime (whose skin, the while he strips 
 To cure his nostril with, and festered lips, 
 And eyeballs bloodshot through the desert-blast)
 
 WHAT MAKES A GHlBELLINf 281 
 
 That he has reached its boundary, at last 
 
 May breathe ; thinks o'er enchantments of the South 
 
 Sovereign to plague his enemies, their mouth, 
 
 Eyes, nails, and hair ; but, these enchantments tried 
 
 In fancy, puts them soberly aside 
 
 For truth, projects a cool return with friends, 
 
 The likelihood of winning mere amends 
 
 Ere long ; thinks that, takes comfort silently, 
 
 Then, from the river's brink, his wrongs and he, 
 
 Hugging revenge close to their hearts, are soon 
 
 Off-striding for the Mountains of the Moon. 
 
 Midnight : the watcher nodded on his spear, 
 Since clouds dispersing left a passage clear 
 For any meagre and discolored moon 
 To venture forth ; and such was peering soon 
 Above the harassed city her close lanes 
 Closer, not half so tapering her fanes, 
 As though she shrunk into herself to keep 
 What little life was saved, more safely. Heap 
 By heap the watch-fires mouldered, and beside 
 The blackest spoke Sordello and replied 
 Palma with none to listen. " T is your cause : 
 What makes a Ghibellin ? There should be laws 
 (Remember how my youth escaped ! I trust 
 To you for manhood, Palma ? tell me just 
 As any child) there must be laws at work 
 Explaining this. Assure me, good may lurk 
 Under the bad, my multitude has part 
 In your designs, their welfare is at heart 
 With Salinguerra, to their interest 
 Refer the deeds he dwelt on, so divest 
 Our conference of much that scared me. Why 
 Affect that heartless tone to Tito ? I 
 Esteemed myself, yes, in my inmost mind 
 This morn, a recreant to my race mankind 
 O'erlooked till now : why boasts my spirit's force, 
 Such force denied its object ? why divorce 
 These, then admire my spirit's flight the same 
 As though it bore up, helped some half-orbed flame 
 Else quenched in the dead void, to living space ? 
 That orb cast off to chaos and disgrace, 
 Why vaunt so much my unencumbered dance, 
 Making a feat's facilities enhance 
 Its marvel ? But I front Taurello, one 
 Of happier fate, and all I should have done, 
 He does ; the people's good being paramount
 
 282 BORDELLO 
 
 With him, their progress may perhaps account 
 For his abiding still ; whereas you heard 
 The talk with Tito the excuse preferred 
 For burning those five hostages, and broached 
 By way of blind, as you and I approached, 
 I do believe." 
 
 She spoke : then he, " My thought 
 Plainlier expressed ! All to your profit nought 
 Meantime of these, of conquests to achieve 
 For them, of wretchedness he might relieve 
 While profiting your party. Azzo, too, 
 Supports a cause : what cause ? Do Guelfs pursue 
 Their ends by means like yours, or better ? " 
 
 When 
 
 The Guelfs were proved alike, men weighed with men, 
 And deed with deed, blaze, blood, with blood and blaze, 
 Morn broke : " Once more, Sordello, meet its gaze 
 Proudly the people's charge against thee fails 
 In every point, while either party quails ! 
 These are the busy ones : be silent thou ! 
 Two parties take the world up, and allow 
 No third, yet have one principle, subsist 
 By the same injustice ; whoso shall enlist 
 With either, ranks with man's inveterate foes. 
 So there is one less quarrel to compose : 
 The Guelf, the Ghibellin may be to curse 
 I have done nothing, but both sides do worse 
 Than nothing. Nay, to me, forgotten, reft 
 Of insight, lapped by trees and flowers, was left 
 The notion of a service ha ? What lured 
 Me here, what mighty aim was I assured 
 Must move Taurello ? What if there remained 
 A cause, intact, distinct from these, ordained 
 For me, its true discoverer ? " 
 
 Some one pressed 
 
 Before them here, a watcher, to suggest 
 The subject for a ballad : " They must know 
 The tale of the dead worthy, long ago 
 Consul of Rome that 's long ago for us, 
 Minstrels and bowmen, idly squabbling thus 
 In the world's corner but too late no doubt, 
 For the brave time he sought to bring about. 
 Not know Crescentius Nomentanus ? " Then 
 He cast about for terms to tell him, when 
 Sordello disavowed it, how they used 
 Whenever their Superior introduced
 
 WHO WAS THE ROMAN CRESCENTIUS? 283 
 
 A novice to the Brotherhood (" for I 
 
 Was just a brown-sleeve brother, merrily 
 
 Appointed too," quoth he, " till Innocent 
 
 Bade me relinquish, to my small content, 
 
 My wife or my brown sleeves ") some brother spoke 
 
 Ere nocturns of Crescentius, to revoke 
 
 The edict issued, after his demise, 
 
 Which blotted fame alike and effigies, 
 
 All out except a floating power, a name 
 
 Including, tending to produce the same 
 
 Great act. Rome, dead, forgotten, lived at least 
 
 Within that brain, though to a vulgar priest 
 
 And a vile stranger. two not worth a slave 
 
 Of Rome's, Pope John, King Otho, fortune gave 
 
 The rule there : so, Crescentius, haply dressed 
 
 In white, called Roman Consul for a jest, 
 
 Taking the people at their word, forth stepped 
 
 As upon Brutus' heel, nor ever kept 
 
 Rome waiting, stood erect, and from his brain 
 
 Gave Rome out on its ancient place again, 
 
 Ay, bade proceed with Brutus' Rome, Kings styled 
 
 Themselves mere citizens of, and, beguiled 
 
 Into great thoughts thereby, would choose the gem 
 
 Out of a lapfull, spoil their diadem 
 
 The Senate's cypher was so hard to scratch ! 
 
 He flashes like a phanal, all men catch 
 
 The flame, Rome 's just accomplished ! when returned 
 
 Otho, with John, the Consul's step had spurned, 
 
 And Hugo Lord of Este, to redress 
 
 The wrongs of each. Crescentius in the stress 
 
 Of adverse fortune bent. " They crucified 
 
 Their Consul in the Forum ; and abide 
 
 E'er since such slaves at Rome, that I (for I 
 
 Was once a brown-sleeve brother, merrily 
 
 Appointed) I had option to keep wife 
 
 Or keep brown sleeves, and managed in the strife 
 
 Lose both. A song of Rome ! " 
 
 And Rome, indeed, 
 Robed at Goito in fantastic weed, 
 The Mother-City of his Mantuan days, 
 Looked an established point of light whence rays 
 Traversed the world ; for, all the clustered homes 
 Beside of men, seemed bent on being Romes 
 In their degree ; the question was, how each 
 Should most resemble Rome, clean out of reach. 
 Nor, of the Two, did either principle,
 
 284 SORDELLO 
 
 Struggle to change but to possess Rome, still, 
 Guelf Rome or Ghibellin Rome. 
 
 Let Rome advance ! 
 
 Rome, as she struck Sordello's ignorance 
 How could he doubt one moment ? Rome 's the Cause ! 
 Rome of the Pandects, all the world's new laws 
 Of the Capitol, of Castle Angelo ; 
 New structures, that inordinately glow, 
 Subdued, brought back to harmony, made ripe 
 By many a relic of the archetype 
 Extant for wonder ; every upstart church 
 That hoped to leave old temples in the lurch, 
 Corrected by the Theatre forlorn 
 That, as a mundane shell, its world late born, 
 Lay and o'ershadowed it. These hints combined, 
 Rome typifies the scheme to put mankind 
 Once more in full possession of their rights. 
 " Let us have Rome again ! On me it lights 
 To build up Rome on me, the first and last : 
 For such a future was endured the past ! " 
 And thus, in the gray twilight, forth he sprung 
 To give his thought consistency among 
 The very People let their facts avail 
 Finish the dream grown from the archer's tale. 
 
 BOOK THE FIFTH. 
 
 Is it the same Sordello in the dusk 
 
 As at the dawn ? merely a perished husk 
 
 Now, that arose a power fit to build 
 
 Up Rome again ? The proud conception chilled 
 
 So soon ? Ay, watch that latest dream of thine 
 
 A Rome indebted to no Palatine 
 
 Drop arch by arch, Sordello ! Art possessed 
 
 Of thy wish now, rewarded for thy quest 
 
 To-day among Ferrara's squalid sons ? 
 
 Are this and this and this the shining ones 
 
 Meet for the Shining City ? Sooth to say, 
 
 Your favored tenantry pursue their way 
 
 After a fashion ! This companion slips 
 
 On the smooth causey, t' other blinkard trips 
 
 At his mooned sandal. " Leave to lead the brawls 
 
 Here i' the atria? " No, friend ! He that sprawls 
 
 On aught but a stibadium . . . what his dues
 
 MANKIND'S TRIUMPH THE WORK OF AGES 285 
 
 Who puts the lustral vase to such an use ? 
 
 Oh, huddle up the day's disasters ! March, 
 
 Ye runagates, and drop thou, arch by arch, 
 
 liome 1 
 
 Yet before they quite disband a whim 
 
 Study mere shelter, now, for him, and him, 
 
 Nay, even the worst, just house them ! Any cave 
 
 Suffices : throw out earth ! A loophole ? Brave ! 
 
 They ask to feel the sun shine, see the grass 
 
 Grow, hear the larks sing ? Dead art thou, alas, 
 
 And I am dead ! But here 's our son excels 
 
 At hurdle-weaving any Scythian, fells 
 
 Oak and devises rafters, dreams and shapes 
 
 His dream into a door-post, just escapes 
 
 The mystery of hinges. Lie we both 
 
 Perdue another age. The goodly growth 
 
 Of brick and stone ! Our building-pelt was rough, 
 
 But that descendant's garb suits well enough 
 
 A portico-contriver. Speed the years 
 
 What 's time to us ? At last, a city rears 
 
 Itself ! nay, enter what 's the grave to us ? 
 
 Lo, our forlorn acquaintance carry thus 
 
 The head ! Successively sewer, forum, cirque 
 
 Last age, an aqueduct was counted work, 
 
 But now they tire the artificer upon 
 
 Blank alabaster, black obsidion, 
 
 Careful, Jove's face be duly fulgurant, 
 
 And mother Venus' kiss-creased nipples pant 
 
 Back into pristine pulpiness, ere fixed 
 
 Above the baths. What difference betwixt 
 
 This Rome and ours resemblance what, between 
 
 That scurvy dumb-show and this pageant sheen 
 
 These Romans and our rabble ? Use thy wit ! 
 
 The work marched : step by step, a workman fit 
 
 Took each, nor too fit, to one task, one time, 
 
 No leaping o'er the petty to the prime, 
 
 When just the substituting osier lithe 
 
 For brittle bulrush, sound wood for soft withe, 
 
 To further loam-and-roughcast-work a stage, 
 
 Exacts an architect, exacts an age : 
 
 No tables of the Mauritanian tree 
 
 For men whose maple log 's their luxury ! 
 
 That way was Rome built. " Better " (say you) " merge 
 
 At once all workmen in the demiurge, 
 
 All epochs in a lifetime, every task 
 
 In one ! " So should the sudden city bask
 
 286 SORDELLO 
 
 I' tiie day while those we 'd feast there, want the knack 
 Of keeping fresh-chalked gowns from speck and brack, 
 Distinguish not rare peacock from vile swan, 
 Nor Mareotic juice from Ccecuban. 
 
 *' Enough of Rome ! 'T was happy to conceive 
 
 Rome on a sudden, nor shall fate bereave 
 Me of that credit : for the rest, her spite 
 Is an old story serves my folly right 
 By adding yet another to the dull 
 List of abortions things proved beautiful 
 Could they be done, Sordello cannot do." 
 
 He sat upon the terrace, plucked and threw 
 The powdery aloe-cusps away, saw shift 
 Rome's walls, and drop arch after arch, and drift 
 Mist-like afar those pillars of all stripe, 
 Mounds of all majesty. " Thou archetype, 
 Last of my dreams and loveliest, depart ! ' 
 
 And then a low voice wound into his heart : 
 ** Sordello ! " (low as some old Pythoness 
 Conceding to a Lydian King's distress 
 The cause of his long error one mistake 
 Of her past oracle) a Sordello, wake ! 
 God has conceded two sights to a man 
 One, of men's whole -work, time's completed plan, 
 The other, of the minute's work, man's first 
 Step to the plan's completeness: what's dispersed 
 Save hope of that supreme step which, descried 
 Earliest, was meant still to remain untried 
 Only to give you heart to take your own 
 Step, and there stay leaving the rest alone ? 
 Where is the vanity ? Why count as one 
 The first step, with the last step ? What is gone 
 Except Rome's aery magnificence, 
 That last step you 'd take first ? an evidence 
 You were God : be man now ! Let those glances fall I 
 The basis, the beginning step of all, 
 Which proves you just a man is that gone too ? 
 Pity to disconcert one versed as you 
 In fate's ill-nature ! but its full extent 
 Eludes Sordello, even : the veil rent, 
 Read the black writing that collective man 
 Outstrips the individual ! Who began 
 The acknowledged greatnesses ? Ay, your own art 
 Shall serve us : put the poet's mimes apart 
 Close with the poet's self, and lo, a dim 
 Tet too plain form divides itself from him !
 
 EACH SERIES OF WORKMEN SEEMS THE LAST 287 
 
 Alcamo's song enmeshes the lulled Isle, 
 
 Woven into the echoes left erewhile 
 
 By Nina, one soft web of song : no more 
 
 Turning his name, then, flower-like o'er and o'er ! 
 
 An elder poet in the younger's place ; 
 
 Nina's the strength, but Alcamo's the grace : 
 
 Each neutralizes each then ! Search your fill ; 
 
 You get no whole and perfect Poet still 
 
 New Ninas, Alcamos, till time's mid-night 
 
 Shrouds all or better say, the shutting light 
 
 Of a forgotten yesterday. Dissect 
 
 Every ideal workman (to reject 
 
 In favor of your fearful ignorance 
 
 The thousand phantasms eager to advance, 
 
 And point you but to those within your reach) 
 
 Were you the first who brought (in modern speech) 
 
 The Multitude to be materialized ? 
 
 That loose eternal unrest who devised 
 
 An apparition i' the midst ? The rout 
 
 Was checked, a breathless ring was formed about 
 
 That sudden flower : get round at any risk 
 
 The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk 
 
 O' the lily ! Swords across it ! Reign thy reign 
 
 And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne ! 
 
 The very child of over-joyousness, 
 
 Unfeeling thence, strong therefore : Strength by stress 
 
 Of Strength comes of that forehead confident, 
 
 Those widened eyes expecting heart's content, 
 
 A calm as out of just-quelled noise ; nor swerves 
 
 For doubt, the ample cheek in gracious curves 
 
 Abutting on the upthrust nether lip : 
 
 He wills, how should he doubt then ? Ages slip : 
 
 Was it Sordello pried into the work 
 
 So far accomplished, and discovered lurk 
 
 A company amid the other clans, 
 
 Only distinct in priests for castellans 
 
 And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed 
 
 Its rule, their interest its interest, 
 
 Living for sake of living there an end, 
 
 Wrapt in itself, no energy to spend 
 
 In making adversaries or allies), 
 
 Dived you into its capabilities 
 
 And dared create, out of that sect, a soul 
 
 Should turn a multitude, already whole, 
 
 Into its body ? Speak plainer ! Is 't so sure 
 
 God's church lives by a King's investiture ?
 
 288 SORDELLO 
 
 Look to last step ! A staggering a shock 
 
 What 's mere sand is demolished, while the rock 
 
 Endures : a column of black fiery dust 
 
 Blots heaven that help was prematurely thrust 
 
 Aside, perchance! but air clears, nought 's erased 
 
 Of the true outline ! Thus much being firm based, 
 
 The other was a scaffold. See him stand 
 
 Buttressed upon his mattock, Hildebrand 
 
 Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o'er ply 
 
 As in a forge ; it buries either eye 
 
 White and extinct, that stupid brow ; teeth clenched, 
 
 The neck tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched, 
 
 As if a cloud enveloped him while fought 
 
 Under its shade, grim prizers, thought with thought 
 
 At dead-lock, agonizing he, until 
 
 The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will, 
 
 The slave with folded arms and drooping lids 
 
 They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids. 
 
 Call him no flower a mandrake of the earth, 
 
 Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth, 
 
 Rather, a fruit of suffering's excess, 
 
 Thence feeling, therefore stronger : still by stress 
 
 Of Strength, work Knowledge ! Full three hundred years 
 
 Have men to wear away in smiles and tears 
 
 Between the two that nearly seemed to touch, 
 
 Observe you ! quit one workman and you clutch 
 
 Another, letting both their trains go by 
 
 The actors-out of either's policy, 
 
 Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross, 
 
 Carry the three Imperial crowns across, 
 
 Aix' Iron, Milan's Silver, and Rome's Gold 
 
 While Alexander, Innocent uphold 
 
 On that, each Papal key but, link on link, 
 
 Why is it neither chain betrays a chink ? 
 
 How coalesce the small and great ? Alack, 
 
 For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back ! 
 
 Do the popes coupled there help Gregory 
 
 Alone ? Hark from the hermit Peter's cry 
 
 At Claremont, down to the first serf that says 
 
 Friedrich 's no liege of his while he delays 
 
 Getting the Pope's curse off him ! The Crusade 
 
 Or trick of breeding Strength by other aid 
 
 Than Strength, is safe. Hark from the wild harangue 
 
 Of Vimmercato, to the carroch's clang 
 
 Yonder ! The League or trick of turning Strength 
 
 Against Pernicious Strength, is safe at length.
 
 IF ASSOCIATES TROUBLE YOU, STAND OFF 289 
 
 Yet hark from Mantuan Albert making cease 
 
 The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace 
 
 Yonder ! God's Truce or trick to supersede 
 
 The very Use of Strength, is safe. Indeed 
 
 We trench upon the future. Who is found 
 
 To take next step, next age trail o'er the ground 
 
 Shall I say, gourd-like ? not the flower's display 
 
 Nor the root's prowess, but the plenteous way 
 
 O' the plant produced by joy and sorrow, whence 
 
 Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence ? 
 
 Knowledge by stress of merely Knowledge ? No 
 
 E'en were Sordello ready to forego 
 
 His life for this, 't were overleaping work 
 
 Some one has first to do, howe'er it irk, 
 
 Nor stray a foot's breadth from the beaten road. 
 
 Who means to help must still support the load 
 
 Hildebrand lifted ' why hast Thou,' he groaned, 
 
 ' Imposed on me a burden, Paul had moaned, 
 
 And Moses dropped beneath ? ' Much done and yet 
 
 Doubtless that grandest task God ever set 
 
 On man, left much to do : at his arm's wrench, 
 
 Charlemagne's scaffold fell ; but pillars blench 
 
 Merely, start back again perchance have been 
 
 Taken for buttresses : crash every screen, 
 
 Hammer the tenons better, and engage 
 
 A gang about your work, for the next age 
 
 Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part 
 
 By Knowledge ! Then, indeed, perchance may start 
 
 Sordello on his race would time divulge 
 
 Such secrets ! If one step's awry, one bulge 
 
 Calls for correction by a step we thought 
 
 Got over long since, why, till that is wrought, 
 
 No progress ! And the scaffold in its turn 
 
 Becomes, its service o'er, a thing to spurn. 
 
 Meanwhile, if your half-dozen years of life 
 
 In store, dispose you to forego the strife, 
 
 Who takes exception ? Only bear in mind, 
 
 Ferrara 's reached, Goito 's left behind : 
 
 As you then were, as half yourself, desist ! 
 
 The warrior-part of you may, an it list, 
 
 Finding real faulchions difficult to poise, 
 
 Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys 
 
 By wielding such in fancy, what is bard 
 
 Of you may spurn the vehicle that marred 
 
 Elys so much, and in free fancy glut 
 
 His sense, yet write no verses you have but
 
 290 SORDELLO 
 
 To please yourself for law, and once could please 
 What once appeared yourself, by dreaming these 
 Rather than doing these, in days gone by. 
 But all is changed the moment you descry 
 Mankind as half yourself, then, fancy's trade 
 Ends once and always : how may half evade 
 The other half ? men are found half of you. 
 Out of a thousand helps, just one or two 
 Can be accomplished presently : but flinch 
 From these (as from the faulchion, raised an inch, 
 Elys, described a couplet) and make proof 
 Of fancy, then, while one half lolls aloof 
 I' the vines, completing Rome to the tip-top 
 See if, for that, your other half will stop 
 A tear, begin a smile ! The rabble's woes, 
 Ludicrous in their patience as they chose 
 To sit about their town and quietly 
 Be slaughtered, the poor reckless soldiery, 
 With their ignoble rhymes on Richard, how 
 ' Polt-foot,' sang they, ' was in a pitfall now,' 
 Cheering each other from the engine-mounts, 
 That crippled sprawling idiot who recounts 
 How, lopped of limbs, he lay, stupid as stone, 
 Till the pains crept from out him one by one, 
 And wriggles round the archers on his head 
 To earn a morsel of their chestnut bread, 
 And Cino, always in the self-same place 
 Weeping ; beside that other wretch's case, 
 Eyepits to ear, one gangrene since he plied 
 The engine in his coat of raw sheep's hide 
 A double watch in the noon sun ; and see 
 Lucchino, beauty, with the favors free, 
 Trim hacqueton, spruce beard and scented hair, 
 Campaigning it for the first time cut there 
 In two already, boy enough to crawl 
 For latter orpine round the southern wall, 
 Toma, where Richard 's kept, because that whore 
 Marfisa, the fool never saw before, 
 Sickened for flowers this wearisomest siege : 
 And Tiso's wife men liked their pretty liege, 
 Cared for her least of whims once, Berta, wed 
 A twelvemonth gone, and, now poor Tiso 's dead, 
 Delivering herself of his first child 
 On that chance heap of wet filth, reconciled 
 To fifty gazers ! " (Here a wind below 
 Made moody music augural of woe
 
 HE TAKES HIS FIRST STEP AS A GUELF 291 
 
 From the pine barrier) " What if, now the scene 
 Draws to a close, yourself have really been 
 
 You, plucking purples in Goito's moss 
 Like edges of a trabea (not to cross 
 Your consul-humor) or dry aloe-shafts 
 For fasces, at Ferrara he, fate wafts, 
 This very age, her whole inheritance 
 
 Of opportunities ? Yet you advance 
 Upon the last ! Since talking is your trade, 
 There 's Salinguerra left you to persuade : 
 Fail! then" 
 
 " No no which latest chance secure ! " 
 Leaped up and cried Sordello : " this made sure, 
 The past were yet redeemable ; its work 
 Was help the Guelfs, whom I, howe'er it irk, 
 Thus help ! " He shook the foolish aloe-haulm 
 Out of his doublet, paused, proceeded calm 
 To the appointed presence. The large head 
 Turned on its socket ; " And your spokesman," said 
 The large voice, " is Elcorte's happy sprout ? 
 Few such " (so finishing a speech no doubt 
 Addressed to Palma, silent at his side) 
 " My sober councils have diversified. 
 Elcorte's son ! good : forward as you may, 
 Our lady's minstrel with so much to say ! " 
 The hesitating sunset floated back, 
 Rosily traversed in the wonted track 
 The chamber, from the lattice o'er the girth 
 Of pines, to the huge eagle blacked in earth 
 Opposite, outlined sudden, spur to crest, 
 That solid Salinguerra, and caressed 
 Palma's contour ; 't was day looped back night's pall ; 
 Sordello had a chance left spite of all. 
 
 And much he made of the convincing speech 
 Meant to compensate for the past and reach 
 Through his youth's daybreak of unprofit, quite 
 To his noon's labor, so proceed till night 
 Leisurely ! The great argument to bind 
 Taurello with the Guelf Cause, body and mind, 
 
 Came the consummate rhetoric to that ? 
 Yet most Sordello's argument dropped flat 
 Through his accustomed fault of breaking yoke, 
 Disjoining him who felt from him who spoke. 
 Was 't not a touching incident so prompt 
 
 A rendering the world its just accompt, 
 
 Once proved its debtor ? Who 'd suppose, before
 
 292 SORDELLO 
 
 This proof, that he, Goito's god of yore, 
 
 At duty's instance could demean himself 
 
 So memorably, dwindle to a Guelf ? 
 
 Be sure, in such delicious flattery steeped, 
 
 His inmost self at the out-portion peeped, 
 
 Thus occupied ; then stole a glance at those 
 
 Appealed to, curious if her color rose 
 
 Or his lip moved, while he discreetly urged 
 
 The need of Lombardy becoming purged 
 
 At soonest of her barons ; the poor part 
 
 Abandoned thus, missing the blood at heart 
 
 And spirit in brain, unseasonably off 
 
 Elsewhere ! But, though his speech was worthy scoff, 
 
 Good humored Salinguerra, famed for tact 
 
 And tongue, who, careless of his phrase, ne'er lacked 
 
 The right phrase, and harangued Honorius dumb 
 
 At his accession, looked as all fell plumb 
 
 To purpose and himself found interest 
 
 In every point his new instructor pressed 
 
 Left playing with the rescript's white wax seal 
 
 To scrutinize Sordello head and heel. 
 
 He means to yield assent sure ? No, alas ! 
 
 All he replied was, " What, it comes to pass 
 
 That poesy, sooner than politics, 
 
 Makes fade young hair ? " To think such speech could fix 
 
 Taurello ! 
 
 Then a flash of bitter truth : 
 So fantasies could break and fritter youth 
 That he had long ago lost earnestness, 
 Lost will to work, lost power to even express 
 The need of working ! Earth was turned a grave : 
 No more occasions now. though he should crave 
 Just one, in right of superhuman toil, 
 To do what was undone, repair such spoil. 
 Alter the past nothing would give the chance ! 
 Not that he was to die ; he saw askance 
 Protract the ignominious years beyond 
 To dream in time to hope and time despond, 
 Remember and forget, be sad, rejoice 
 As saved a trouble ; he might, at his choice, 
 One way or other, idle life out, drop 
 No few smooth verses by the way for prop, 
 A thyrsus, these sad people, all the same, 
 Should pick up, and set store by, far from blame, 
 Plant o'er his hearse, convinced his better part 
 Survived him. " Rather tear men out the heart
 
 SCORN FLINGS COLD WATER IN HIS FACE 293 
 
 O' the truth ! " Sordello muttered, and renewed 
 His propositions for the Multitude. 
 
 But Salinguerra, who at this attack 
 Had thrown great breast and ruffling corslet back 
 To hear the better, smilingly resumed 
 His task ; beneath, the carroch's warning boomed ; 
 He must decide with Tito ; courteously 
 He turned then, even seeming to agree 
 With his admonisher " Assist the Pope, 
 Extend Guelf domination, fill the scope 
 O' the Church, thus based on All, by All, for All 
 Change Secular to Evangelical " 
 Echoing his very sentence : all seemed lost, 
 When suddenly he looked up, laughingly almost, 
 To Palma : " This opinion of your friend's 
 For instance, would it answer Palma's ends ? 
 Best, were it not, turn Guelf, submit our Strength " 
 (Here he drew out his baldric to its length) 
 " To the Pope's Knowledge let our captive slip, 
 Wide to the walls throw ope our gates, equip 
 Azzo with . . . what I hold here ! Who '11 subscribe 
 To a trite censure of the minstrel tribe 
 Henceforward ? or pronounce, as Heinrich used, 
 ' Spear-heads for battle, burr-heads for the joust ! ' 
 
 When Constance, for his couplets, would promote 
 Alcamo, from a parti-colored coat, 
 
 To holding her lord's stirrup in the wars. 
 Not that I see where couplet-making jars 
 With common sense : at Mantua I had borne 
 This chanted, better than their most forlorn 
 Of bull-baits, that 's indisputable ! " 
 
 Brave ! 
 
 Whom vanity nigh slew, contempt shall save ! 
 All 's at an end : a Troubadour suppose 
 Mankind will class him with their friends. or foes? 
 A puny uncouth ailing vassal think 
 The world and him bound in some special link ? 
 Abrupt the visionary tether burst. 
 What were rewarded here, or what amerced 
 If a poor drudge, solicitous to dream 
 Deservingly, got tangled by his theme 
 So far as to conceit the knack or gift 
 Or whatsoe'er it be, of verse, might lift 
 The globe, a lever like the hand and head 
 Of "Men of Action," as the Jongleurs said, 
 
 " The Great Men," in the people's dialect ?
 
 294 SORDELLO 
 
 And not a moment did this scorn affect 
 Sordello : scorn the poet ? They, for once, 
 Asking " what was," obtained a full response. 
 Bid Naddo think at Mantua, he had but 
 To look into his promptuary, put 
 Finger on a set thought in a set speech : 
 But was Sordello fitted thus for each 
 Conjecture ? Nowise ; since within his soul, 
 Perception brooded unexpressed and whole. 
 A healthy spirit like .a healthy frame 
 Craves aliment in plenty all the same, 
 Changes, assimilates its aliment. 
 Perceived Sordello, on a truth intent ? 
 Next day no formularies more you saw 
 Than figs or olives in a sated maw. 
 'T is Knowledge, whither such perceptions tend ; 
 They lose themselves in that, means to an end, 
 The many old producing some one new, 
 A last unlike the first. If lies are true, 
 The Caliph's wheel-work man of brass receives 
 A meal, munched millet grains and lettuce leaves 
 Together in his stomach rattle loose ; 
 You find them perfect next day to produce 
 But ne'er expect the man, on strength of that, 
 Can roll an iron camel-collar flat 
 Like Haroun's self ! I tell you, what was stored 
 Bit by bit through Sordello's life, outpoured 
 That eve, was, for that age, a novel thing : 
 And round those three the People formed a ring, 
 Of visionary judges whose award 
 He recognized in full faces that barred 
 Henceforth return to the old careless life, 
 In whose great presence, therefore, his first strife 
 For their sake must not be ignobly fought ; 
 All these, for once, approved of him, he thought, 
 Suspended their own vengeance, chose await 
 The issue of this strife to reinstate 
 Them in the right of taking it in fact 
 He must be proved king ere they could exact 
 Vengeance for such king's defalcation. Last, 
 A reason why the phrases flowed so fast 
 Was in his quite forgetting for a time 
 Himself in his amazement that the rhyme 
 Disguised the royalty so much : he there 
 And Salinguerra yet all unaware 
 Who was the lord, who liegeman !
 
 HE ASSERTS THE POETS RANK AND RIGHT 295 
 
 " Thus I lay 
 
 On thine my spirit and compel obey 
 His lord, my liegeman, impotent to build 
 Another Rome, but hardly so unskilled 
 In what such builder should have been, as brook 
 One shame beyond the charge that I forsook 
 His function ! Free me from that shame, I bend 
 A brow before, suppose new years to spend, 
 Allow each chance, nor fruitlessly, recur 
 Measure thee with the Minstrel, then, demur 
 At any crowd he claims ! That I must cede 
 Shamed now, my right to my especial meed 
 Confess thee fitter help the world than I 
 Ordained its champion from eternity, 
 Is much : but to behold thee scorn the post 
 I quit in thy behalf to hear thee boast 
 What makes my own despair ! " And while he rung 
 The changes on this theme, the roof up-sprung, 
 The sad walls of the presence-chamber died 
 Into the distance, or embowering vied 
 With far-away Goito's vine-frontier ; 
 And crowds of faces (only keeping clear 
 The rose-light in the midst, his vantage-ground 
 To fight their battle from) deep clustered round 
 Sordello, with good wishes no mere breath, 
 Kind prayers for him no vapor, since, come death, 
 Come life, he was fresh sinewed every joint, 
 Each bone new-marrowed as whom gods anoint 
 Though mortal to their rescue. Now let sprawl 
 The snaky volumes hither ! Is Typhon all 
 For Hercules to trample good report 
 From Salinguerra only to extort ? 
 
 " So was I " (closed he his inculcating, 
 A poet must be earth's essential king) 
 " So was I, royal so, and if I fail, 
 'T is not the royalty, ye witness quail, 
 But one deposed who, caring not exert 
 Its proper essence, trifled malapert 
 With accidents instead good things assigned 
 As heralds of a better thing behind 
 And, worthy through display of these, put forth 
 Never the inmost all-surpassing worth 
 That constitutes him king precisely since 
 As yet no other spirit may evince 
 Its like : the power he took most pride to test, 
 Whereby all forms of life had been professed
 
 296 BORDELLO 
 
 At pleasure, forms already on the earth, 
 
 Was but a means to power beyond, whose birth 
 
 Should, in its novelty, be kingship's proof. 
 
 Now, whether he came near or kept aloof 
 
 The several forms he longed to imitate, 
 
 Not there the kingship lay, he sees too late. 
 
 Those forms, unalterable first as last, 
 
 Proved him her copier, not the protoplast 
 
 Of nature : what would come of being free, 
 
 By action to exhibit tree for tree, 
 
 Bird, beast, for beast and bird, or prove earth bore 
 
 One veritable man or woman more ? 
 
 Means to an end, such proofs are : what the end ? 
 
 Let essence, whatsoe'er it be, extend 
 
 Never contract. Already you include 
 
 The multitude ; then let the multitude 
 
 Include yourself ; and the result were new : 
 
 Themselves before, the multitude turn you. 
 
 This were to live and move and have, in them, 
 
 Your being, and secure a diadem 
 
 You should transmit (because no cycle yearns 
 
 Beyond itself, but on itself returns) 
 
 When, the full sphere in wane, the world o'erlaid 
 
 Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed 
 
 Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still 
 
 More potent than the last, of human will, 
 
 And some new king depose the old. Of such 
 
 Am I whom pride of this elates too much ? 
 
 Safe, rather say, 'mid troops of peers again ; 
 
 I, with my words, hailed brother of the train 
 
 Deeds once sufficed : for, let the world roll back, 
 
 Who fails, through deeds howe'er diverse, re-track 
 
 My purpose still, my task ? A teeming crust 
 
 Air, flame, earth, wave at conflict ! Then, needs must 
 
 Emerge some Calm embodied, these refer 
 
 The brawl to ; yellow-bearded Jupiter ? 
 
 No ! Saturn ; some existence like a pact 
 
 And protest against Chaos, some first fact 
 
 I' the faint of time. My deep of life, I know, 
 
 Is unavailing e'en to poorly show "... 
 
 (For here the Chief immeasurably yawned) 
 
 ..." Deeds in their due gradation till Song dawned - 
 
 The fullest effluence of the finest mind, 
 
 All in degree, no way diverse in kind 
 
 From minds about it, minds which, more or less, 
 
 Lofty or low, move seeking to impress
 
 THE FftErS DIGNITY IN SUCCESSIVE FOItMS 297 
 
 Themselves on somewhat ; but one mind has climbed 
 
 Step after step, by just ascent sublimed. 
 
 Thought is the soul of act, and, stage by stage, 
 
 Soul is from body still to disengage 
 
 As tending to a freedom which rejects 
 
 Such help and incorporeally affects 
 
 The world, producing deeds but not by deeds, 
 
 Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds, 
 
 Assigning them the simpler tasks it used 
 
 To patiently perform till Song produced 
 
 Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind : divest 
 
 Mind of e'en Thought, and, lo, God's unexpressed 
 
 Will draws above us ! All then is to win 
 
 Save that. How much for me, then ? where begin 
 
 My work ? About me, faces ! and they flock, 
 
 The earnest faces. What shall I unlock 
 
 By song ? behold me prompt, whate'er it be, 
 
 To minister : how much can mortals see 
 
 Of Life ? No more than so ? I take the task 
 
 And marshal you Life's elemental masque, 
 
 Show Men, on evil or on good lay stress, 
 
 This light, this shade make prominent, suppress 
 
 All ordinary hues that softening blend 
 
 Such natures with the level. Apprehend 
 
 Which sinner is, which saint, if I allot 
 
 Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, a blaze or blot, 
 
 To those you doubt concerning ! I enwomb 
 
 Some wretched Friedrich with his red-hot tomb; 
 
 Some dubious spirit, Lombard Agilulph 
 
 With the black chastening river I engulf ! 
 
 Some unapproached Matilda I enshrine 
 
 With languors of the planet of decline 
 
 These, fail to recognize, to arbitrate 
 
 Between henceforth, to rightly estimate 
 
 Thus marshalled in the masque ! Myself, the while, 
 
 As one of you, am witness, shrink or smile 
 
 At my own showing ! Next age what 's to do ? 
 
 The men and women stationed hitherto 
 
 Will I unstation, good and bad, conduct 
 
 Each nature to its farthest, or obstruct 
 
 At soonest, in the world : light, thwarted, breaks 
 
 A limpid purity to rainbow flakes, 
 
 Or shadow, massed, freezes to gloom : behold 
 
 How such, with fit assistance to unfold, 
 
 Or obstacles to crush them, disengage 
 
 Their forms, love, hate, hope, fear, peace make, war wage,
 
 298 BORDELLO 
 
 In presence of you all ! Myself, implied 
 
 Superior now, as, by the platform's side, 
 
 I bade them do and suffer, would last content 
 
 The world . . . no that 's too far ! I circumvent 
 
 A few, my masque contented, and to these 
 
 Offer unveil the last of mysteries 
 
 Man's inmost life shall have yet freer play : 
 
 Once more I cast external things away, 
 
 And natures composite, so decompose 
 
 That" . . . Why, he writes Sordello! 
 
 " How I rose, 
 
 And how have you advanced ! since evermore 
 Yourselves effect what I was fain before 
 Effect, what I supplied yourselves suggest, 
 What I leave bare yourselves can now invest. 
 How we attain to talk as brothers talk, 
 In half-words, call things by half-names, no balk 
 From discontinuing old aids. To-day 
 Takes in account the work of Yesterday 
 Has not the world a Past now, its adept 
 Consults ere he dispense with or accept 
 New aids ? a single touch more may enhance, 
 A touch less turn to insignificance 
 Those structures' symmetry the past has strewed 
 The world with, once so bare. Leave the mere rude 
 Explicit details ! 't is but brother's speech 
 We need, speech where an accent's change gives each 
 The other's soul no speech to understand 
 By former audience : need was then to expand, 
 Expatiate hardly were we brothers ! true 
 Nor I lament my small remove from you, 
 Nor reconstruct what stands already. Ends 
 Accomplished turn to means : my art intends 
 Xew structure from the ancient : as they changed 
 The spoils of every clime at Venice, ranged 
 The horned and snouted Libyan god, upright 
 As in his desert, by some simple bright 
 Clay cinerary pitcher Thebes as Rome, 
 Athens as Byzant rifled, till their Dome 
 From earth's reputed consummations razed 
 A seal, the all-transmuting Triad blazed 
 Above. Ah, whose that fortune ? Ne'ertheless 
 E'en he must stoop contented to express 
 No tithe of what 's to say the vehicle 
 Never sufficient : but his work is still 
 For faces like the faces that select
 
 SALINGUERRA ENLIGHTENS SORDELLO 299 
 
 The single service I am bound effect, 
 
 That bid me cast aside such fancies, bow 
 
 Taurello to the Guelf cause, disallow 
 
 The Kaiser's coming which with heart, soul, strength, 
 
 I labor for, this eve, who feel at length 
 
 My past career's outrageous vanity, 
 
 And would, as its amends, die, even die 
 
 Now I first estimate the boon of life, 
 
 If death might win compliance sure, this strife 
 
 Is right for once the People my support." 
 
 My poor Bordello ! what may we extort 
 By this, I wonder ? Palma's lighted eyes 
 Turned to Taurello who, long past surprise, 
 Began, " You love him what you 'd say at large 
 Let me say briefly. First, your father's charge 
 To me, his friend, peruse : I guessed indeed 
 You were no stranger to the course decreed. 
 He bids me leave his children to the saints : 
 As for a certain project, he acquaints 
 The Pope with that, and offers him the best 
 Of your possessions to permit the rest 
 Go peaceably to Ecelin, a stripe 
 Of soil the cursed Vicentines will gripe, 
 To Alberic, a patch the Trevisan 
 Clutches already ; extricate, who can, 
 Treville, Villarazzi, Puissolo, 
 Loria and Cartiglione ! all must go, 
 And with them go my hopes. 'Tis lost, then ! Lost 
 This eve, our crisis, and some pains it cost 
 Procuring ; thirty years as good I 'd spent 
 Like our admonisher ! But each his bent 
 Pursues : no question, one might live absurd 
 Oneself this while, by deed as he by word 
 Persisting to obtrude an influence where 
 'T is made account of, much as ... nay, you fare 
 With twice the fortune, youngster ! I submit, 
 Happy to parallel my waste of wit 
 With the renowned Bordello's : you decide 
 A course for me. Romano may abide 
 Romano, Bacchus ! After all, what dearth 
 Of Ecelins and Alberics on earth ? 
 Say there 's a prize in prospect, must disgrace 
 Betide competitors, unless they style 
 Themselves Romano ? Were it worth my while 
 To try my own luck ! But an obscure place 
 Suits me there wants a youth to bustle, stalk
 
 300 SORDELLO 
 
 And attitudinize some fight, more talk, 
 
 Most flaunting badges how, I might make clear 
 
 Since Friedrich's very purposes lie here 
 
 Here, pity they are like to lie ! For me, 
 With station fixed unceremoniously 
 
 Long since, small use contesting ; I am but 
 
 The liegeman you are born the lieges shut 
 
 That gentle mouth now ! or resume your kin 
 
 In your sweet self ; were Palma,Ecelin 
 
 For me to work with ! Could that neck endure 
 
 This bauble for a cumbrous garniture, 
 
 She should ... or might one bear it for her ? Stay 
 
 I have not been so flattered many a day 
 
 As by your pale friend Bacchus ! The least help 
 
 Would lick the hind's fawn to a lion's whelp 
 
 His neck is broad enough a ready tongue 
 
 Beside too writhled but, the main thing, young 
 
 I could . . . why, look ye ! " 
 
 And the badge was thrown 
 Across Sordello's neck : " This badge alone 
 Makes you Romano's Head becomes superb 
 On your bare neck, which would, on mine, disturb 
 The pauldron," said Taurello. A mad act, 
 Nor even dreamed about before in fact, 
 Not when his sportive arm rose for the nonce 
 But he had dallied overmuch, this once, 
 With power : the thing was done, and he, aware 
 The thing was done, proceeded to declare 
 (So like a nature made to serve, excel 
 In serving, only feel by service well !) 
 
 That he would make Sordello that and more. 
 " As good a scheme as any. What 's to pore 
 
 At in my face ? " he asked " ponder instead 
 This piece of news ; you are Romano's Head ! 
 One cannot slacken pace so near the goal, 
 Suffer my Azzo to escape heart-whole 
 This time ! For you there 's Palma to espouse 
 For me, one crowning trouble ere I house 
 Like my compeer." 
 
 On which ensued a strange 
 And solemn visitation ; there came change 
 O'er every one of them ; each looked on* each : 
 Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech. 
 And when the giddiness sank and the haze 
 Subsided, they were sitting, no amaze, 
 Sordello with the baldric on, his sire
 
 SORDELLO DECLARED SALINGUERRA'S SON 301 
 
 Silent, though his proportions seemed aspire 
 
 Momently ; and, interpreting the thrill 
 
 Right at its ebb, Palma was found there still 
 
 Relating somewhat Adelaide confessed 
 
 A year ago, while dying on her breast, 
 
 Of a contrivance that Vicenza night, 
 
 When Ecelin had birth. " Their convoy's flight, 
 
 Cut off a moment, coiled inside the flame 
 
 That wallowed like a dragon at his game 
 
 The toppling city through San Biagio rocks ! 
 
 And wounded lies in her delicious locks 
 
 Retrude, the frail mother, on her face, 
 
 None of her wasted, just in one embrace 
 
 Covering her child : when, as they lifted her, 
 
 Cleaving the tumult, mighty, mightier 
 
 And mightiest Taurello's cry outbroke, 
 
 Leapt like a tongue of fire that cleaves the smoke, 
 
 Midmost to cheer his Mantuans onward drown 
 
 His colleague Ecelin's clamor, up and down 
 
 The disarray : failed Adelaide see then 
 
 Who was the natural chief, the man of men ? 
 
 Outstripping time, her infant there burst swathe, 
 
 Stood up with eyes haggard beyond the scathe 
 
 From wandering after his heritage 
 
 Lost once and lost for aye and why that rage, 
 
 That deprecating glance ? A new shape leant 
 
 On a familiar shape gloatingly bent 
 
 O'er his discomfiture ; 'mid wreaths it wore, 
 
 Still one outflamed the rest her child's before 
 
 'T was Salinguerra's for his child : scorn, hate, 
 
 Rage now might startle her when all too late ! 
 
 Then was the moment ! rival's foot had spurned 
 
 Never that House to earth else ! Sense returned 
 
 The act conceived, adventured and complete, 
 
 They bore away to an obscure retreat 
 
 Mother and child Retrude's self not slain " 
 
 (Nor even here Taurello moved) "though pain 
 
 Was fled ; and what assured them most 't was fled, 
 
 All pain, was, if they raised the pale hushed head 
 
 'T would turn this way and that, waver awhile, 
 
 And only settle into its old smile 
 
 (Graceful as the disquieted water-flag 
 
 Steadying itself, remarked they, in the quag 
 
 On either side their path) when suffered look 
 
 Down on her child. They marched : no sign once shook 
 
 The company's close litter of crossed spears
 
 302 SORDELLO 
 
 Till, as they reached Goito, a few tears 
 
 Slipped in the sunset from her long black lash, 
 
 And she was gone. So far the action rash ; 
 
 No crime. They laid Retrude in the font, 
 
 Taurello's very gift, her child was wont 
 
 To sit beneath constant as eve he came 
 
 To sit by its attendant girls the same 
 
 As one of them. For Palma, she would blend 
 
 With this magnific spirit to the end, 
 
 That ruled her first ; but scarcely had she dared 
 
 To disobey the Adelaide who scared 
 
 Her into vowing never to disclose 
 
 A secret to her husband, which so froze 
 
 His blood at half-recital, she contrived 
 
 To hide from him Taurello's infant lived, 
 
 Lest, by reveal ing that, himself should mar 
 
 Romano's fortunes. And, a crime so far, 
 
 Palma received that action : she was told 
 
 Of Saliiiguerra's nature, of his cold 
 
 Calm acquiescence in his lot ! But free 
 
 To impart the secret to Romano, she 
 
 Engaged to repossess Sordello of 
 
 His heritage, and hers, and that way doff 
 
 The mask, but after years, long years : while now, 
 
 Was not Romano's sign-mark on that brow ? " 
 
 Across Taurello's heart his arms were locked : 
 And when he did speak 't was as if he mocked 
 The minstrel, " who had not to move," he said, 
 " Nor stir should fate defraud him of a shred 
 Of his son's infancy ? much less his youth ! '" 
 (Laughingly all this) " which to aid, in truth, 
 Himself, reserved on purpose, had not grown 
 Old, not too old 't was best they kept alone 
 Till now, and never idly met till now ; " 
 
 Then, in the same breath, told Sordello how 
 All intimations of this eve's event 
 
 Were lies, for Friedrich must advance to Trent, 
 Thence to Verona, then to Rome, there stop, 
 Tumble the Church down, institute a-top 
 The Alps a Prefecture of Lombardy : 
 
 " That 's now ! no prophesying what may be 
 Anon, with a new monarch of the clime, 
 Native of Gesi, passing his youth's prime 
 
 At Naples. Tito bids my choice decide 
 On whom "... 
 
 " Embrace him, madman ! " Palma cried,
 
 HOW BORDELLO IS STIRRED BY THE SECRET 303 
 
 Who through the laugh saw sweat-drops burst apace, 
 And his lips blanching : he did not embrace 
 Sordello, but he laid Sordello's hand 
 On his own eyes, mouth, forehead. 
 
 Understand, 
 
 This while Sordello was becoming flushed 
 Out of his whiteness ; thoughts rushed, fancies rushed ; 
 He pressed his hand upon his head and signed 
 Both should forbear him. " Nay, the best 's behind ! " 
 Taurello laughed not quite with the same laugh : 
 " The truth is, thus we scatter, ay, like chaff 
 These Guelfs, a despicable monk recoils 
 From : nor expect a fickle Kaiser spoils 
 Our triumph ! Friedrich ? Think you, I intend 
 Friedrich shall reap the fruits of blood I spend 
 And brain I waste ? Think you, the people clap 
 Their hands at my out-hewing this wild gap 
 For any Friedrich to fill up ? 'T is mine 
 That 's yours : I tell you, towards some such design 
 Have I worked blindly, yes, and idly, yes, 
 And for another, yes but worked no less 
 With instinct at my heart ; I else had swerved, 
 While now look round ! My cunning has preserved 
 Samminiato that 's a central place 
 Secures us Florence, boy, in Pisa's case, 
 By land as she by sea ; with Pisa ours, 
 And Florence, and Pistoia, one devours 
 The land at leisure ! Gloriously dispersed 
 Brescia, observe, Milan, Piacenza first 
 That flanked us (ah, you know not!) in the March; 
 On these we pile, as keystone of our arch, 
 Romagna and Bologna, whose first span 
 Covered the Trentine and the Valsugan ; 
 Sofia's Egna by Bolgiano 's sure ! " . . 
 So he proceeded : half of all this, pure 
 Delusion, doubtless, nor the rest too true, 
 But what was undone he felt sure to do, 
 As ring by ring he wrung off, flung away 
 The pauldron-rings to give his sword-arm play 
 Need of the sword now ! That would soon adjust 
 Aught wrong at present ; to the sword intrust 
 Sordello's whiteness, undersize : 't was plain 
 He hardly rendered right to his own brain 
 Like a brave hound, men educate to pride 
 Himself on speed or scent nor aught beside, 
 As though he could not, gift by gift, match men !
 
 304 BORDELLO 
 
 Palma had listened patiently : but when 
 
 'T was time expostulate, attempt withdraw 
 
 Taurello from his child, she, without awe 
 
 Took off his iron arms from, one by one, 
 
 Sordello's shrinking shoulders, and, that done, 
 
 Made him avert his visage and relieve 
 
 Sordello (you might see his corslet heave 
 
 The while) who, loose, rose tried to speak, then sank 
 
 They left him in the chamber. All was blank. 
 
 And even reeling down the narrow stair 
 Taurello kept up, as though unaware 
 Palma was by to guide him, the old device 
 Something of Milan " how we muster thrice 
 The Torriani's strength there ; all along 
 Our own Visconti cowed them " thus the song 
 Continued even while she bade him stoop, 
 Thrid somehow, by some glimpse of arrow-loop, 
 The turnings to the gallery below, 
 Where he stopped short as Palma let him go. 
 When he had sat in silence long enough 
 Splintering the stone bench, braving a rebuff 
 She stopped the truncheon ; only to commence 
 One of Sordello's poems, a pretence 
 For speaking, some poor rhyme of " Elys' hair 
 A nd head that 's sharp and perfect like a pear, 
 So smooth and close are laid the few fine locks 
 Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks 
 Sun-blanched the livelong summer " from his worst 
 Performance, the Goito, as his first : 
 And that at end, conceiving from the brow 
 And open mouth no silence would serve now, 
 Went on to say the whole world loved that man 
 And, for that matter, thought his face, though wan, 
 Eclipsed the Count's he sucking in each phrase 
 As if an angel spoke. The foolish praise 
 Ended, he drew her on his mailed knees, made 
 Her face a framework with his hands, a shade, 
 A crown, an aureole : there must she remain 
 (Her little mouth compressed with smiling pain 
 As in his gloves she felt her tresses twitch) 
 To get the best look at, in fittest niche 
 Dispose his saint. That done, he kissed her brow, 
 " Lauded her father for his treason now," 
 He told her, " only, how could one suspect 
 The wit in him ? whose clansman, recollect, 
 Was ever Salinguerra she, the same,
 
 HE MAY YET SPRING INTO SUCCESS 305 
 
 Romano and his lady so, might claim 
 
 To know all, as she should " and thus begun 
 
 Schemes with a vengeance, schemes on schemes, " not one 
 
 Fit to be told that foolish boy," he said, 
 
 ' But only let Sordello Palma wed, 
 
 Then!" 
 
 'T was a -dim long narrow place at best : 
 Midway a sole grate showed the fiery West, 
 As shows its corpse the world's end some split tomb 
 A gloom, a rift of fire, another gloom, 
 Faced Palma but at length Taurello set 
 Her free ; the grating held one ragged jet 
 Of fierce gold fire : he lifted her within 
 The hollow underneath how else begin 
 Fate's second marvellous cycle, else renew 
 The ages than with Palma plain in view ? 
 Then paced the passage, hands clenched, head erect, 
 Pursuing his discourse ; a grand unchecked 
 Monotony made out from his quick talk 
 And the recurring noises of his walk ; 
 
 Somewhat too much like the o'ercharged assent 
 Of two resolved friends in one danger blent, 
 Who hearten each the other against heart ; 
 Boasting there 's nought to care for, when, apart 
 The boaster, all 's to care for. He, beside 
 Some shape not visible, in power and pride 
 Approached, out of the dark, ginglingly near, 
 Nearer, passed close in the broad light, his ear 
 Crimson, eyeballs suffused, temples full-fraught, 
 Just a snatch of the rapid speech you caught, 
 And on he strode into the opposite dark, 
 
 Till presently the harsh heel's turn, a spark 
 
 I' the stone, and whirl of some loose embossed throng 
 
 That crashed against the angle aye so long 
 
 After the last, punctual to an amount 
 
 Of mailed great paces you could not but count, 
 
 Prepared you for the pacing back again. 
 
 And by the snatches you might ascertain 
 
 That, Friedrich's Prefecture surmounted, left 
 
 By this alone in Italy, they cleft 
 
 Asunder, crushed together, at command 
 
 Of none, were free to break up Hildebrand, 
 
 Rebuild, he and Sordello, Charlemagne 
 
 But garnished, Strength with Knowledge, " if we deign 
 
 Accept that compromise and stoop to give 
 
 Rome law, the Caesar's Representative."
 
 306 SORDELLO 
 
 Enough, that the illimitable flood 
 Of triumphs after triumphs, understood 
 In its faint reflux (you shall hear) sufficed 
 Young Ecelin for appanage, enticed 
 Him on till, these long quiet in their graves, 
 He found 't was looked for that a whole life's braves 
 Should somehow be made good ; so, weak and worn, 
 Must stagger up at Milan, one gray morn 
 Of the to-come, and fight his latest fight. 
 But, Salinguerra's prophecy at height 
 He voluble with a raised arm and stiff, 
 A blaring voice, a blazing eye, as if 
 He had our very Italy to keep 
 Or cast away, or gather in a heap 
 To garrison the better ay, his word 
 Was, " run the cucumber into a gourd, 
 Drive Trent upon Apulia " at their pitch 
 Who spied the continents and islands which 
 Grew mulberry-leaves and sickles, in the map 
 (Strange that three such confessions so should hap 
 To Palma, Dante spoke with in the clear 
 Amorous silence of the Swooning-sphere, 
 Cunizza, as he called her ! Never ask 
 Of Palma more ! She sat, knowing her task 
 Was done, the labor of it, for, success, 
 Concerned not Palma, passion's votaress) 
 Triumph at height, and thus Sordello crowned 
 Above the passage suddenly a sound 
 Stops speech, stops walk : back shrinks Taurello, bids 
 With large involuntary asking lids, 
 Palma interpret. " 'T is his own foot- stamp 
 Your hand ! His summons ! Nay, this idle damp 
 Befits not ! " Out they two reeled dizzily. 
 " Visconti 's strong at Milan," resumed he, 
 In the old, somewhat insignificant way 
 (Was Palma wont, years afterward, to say) 
 As though the spirit's flight, sustained thus far, 
 Dropped at that very instant. Gone they are 
 Palma, Taurello ; Eglamor anon, 
 Ecelin, only Naddo 's never gone '. 
 Labors, this moonrise, what the Master meant 
 " Is Squarcialupo speckled ? purulent, 
 I 'd say, but when was Providence put out ? 
 He carries somehow handily about 
 His spite nor fouls himself ! " Goito's vines 
 Stand like a cheat detected stark rough lines,
 
 A T THE CLOSE OF A DAY OR A LIFE 307 
 
 The moon breaks through, a gray mean scale against 
 The vault where, this eve's Maiden, thou remain' st 
 Like some fresh martyr, eyes fixed who can tell ? 
 As Heaven, now all 's at end, did not so well, 
 Spite of the faith and victory, to leave 
 Its virgin quite to death in the lone eve. 
 While the persisting hermit-bee ... ha ! \vait 
 No longer : these in compass, forward fate ! 
 
 BOOK THE SIXTH. 
 
 THE thought of Eglamor 's least like a thought, 
 
 And yet a false one, was, " Man shrinks to nought 
 
 If matched with symbols of immensity ; 
 
 Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky 
 
 Or sea, too little for their quietude : " 
 
 And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood 
 
 Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sank 
 
 Down the near terrace to the farther bank, 
 
 And only one spot left from out the night 
 
 Glimmered upon the river opposite 
 
 A breadth of watery heaven like a bay, 
 
 A sky-like space of water, ray for ray, 
 
 And star for star, one richness where they mixed 
 
 As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, 
 
 Tumultuary splendors folded in 
 
 To die. Nor turned he till Ferrara's din 
 
 (Say, the monotonous speech from a man's lip 
 
 Who lets some first and eager purpose slip 
 
 In a new fancy's birth ; the speech keeps on 
 
 Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone) 
 
 Aroused him, surely offered succor. Fate 
 
 Paused with this eve ; ere she precipitate 
 
 Herself, best put off new strange thoughts awhile, 
 
 That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile, 
 
 What help to pierce the future as the past, 
 
 Lay in the plaining city ? 
 
 And at last 
 
 The main discovery and prime concern, 
 All that just now imported him to learn, 
 Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to complete 
 Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet, 
 Lighted his old life's every shift and change,
 
 308 SORDELLO 
 
 Effort with counter-effort ; nor the range 
 
 Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked 
 
 Some other which of these could he suspect, 
 
 Prying into them by the sudden blaze ? 
 
 The real way seemed made up of all the ways 
 
 Mood after mood of the one mind in him ; 
 
 Tokens of the existence, bright or dim, 
 
 Of a transcendent all-embracing sense 
 
 Demanding only outward influence, 
 
 A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul, 
 
 Power to uplift his power, such moon's control 
 
 Over such sea-depths, and their mass had swept 
 
 Onward from the beginning and still kept 
 
 Its course : but years and years the sky above 
 
 Held none, and so, untasked of any love, 
 
 His sensitiveness idled, now amort, 
 
 Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport 
 
 Given wholly up, disposed itself anew 
 
 At every passing instigation, grew 
 
 And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt, 
 
 Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt 
 
 Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race 
 
 Of whitest ripples o'er the reef found place 
 
 For much display ; not gathered up and, hurled 
 
 Right from its heart, encompassing the world. 
 
 So had Sordello been, by consequence, 
 
 Without a function : others made pretence 
 
 To strength not half his own, yet <had some core 
 
 Within, submitted to some moon, before 
 
 Them still, superior still whate'er their force, 
 
 Were able therefore to fulfil a course, 
 
 Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute. 
 
 To each who lives must be a certain fruit 
 
 Of having lived in his degree, a stage, 
 
 Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage, 
 
 To stop at ; and to this the spirits tend 
 
 Who, still discovering beauty without end, 
 
 Amass the scintillations, make one star 
 
 Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar, 
 
 And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest 
 
 By winning it to notice and invest 
 
 Their souls with alien glory, some one day 
 
 Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway, 
 
 Round to the perfect circle soon or late, 
 
 According as themselves are formed to wait ;
 
 STltOXG, HE NEEDED EXTERNAL STRENGTH 309 
 
 Whether mere human beauty will suffice 
 
 The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes, 
 Or human intellect seem best, or each 
 Combine in some ideal form past reach 
 
 On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim, 
 
 Some love, hate even, take their place, the same, 
 
 So to be served all this they do not lose, 
 
 Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose 
 
 What must be Hell a progress thus pursued 
 
 Through all existence, still above the food 
 
 That 's offered them, still fain to reach beyond 
 
 The widened range, in virtue of their bond 
 
 Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love, 
 
 A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal prove 
 
 To swaying all Sordello : but why doubt 
 
 Some love meet for such strength, some moon without 
 
 Would match his sea ? or fear, Good manifest, 
 
 Only the Best breaks faith ? Ah but the Best 
 
 Somehow eludes us ever, still might be 
 
 And is not ! Crave we gems ? No penury 
 
 Of their material round us ! Pliant earth 
 
 And plastic flame what balks the mage his birth 
 
 Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block ? 
 Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock ; 
 
 Nought more ! Seek creatures ? Life 's i' the tempest thought, 
 
 Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught 
 
 With fervors : human forms are well enough ! 
 
 But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff 
 
 Profuse at nature's pleasure, men beyond 
 
 These actual men ! and thus are over-fond 
 
 In arguing, from Good the Best, from force 
 
 Divided force combined, an ocean's course 
 
 From this our sea whose mere intestine pants 
 
 Might seem at times sufficient to our wants. 
 
 External power ? If none be adequate 
 And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate) 
 Himself a law to his own sphere ? remove 
 All incompleteness, for that law, that love ? 
 Nay, if all other laws be feints, truth veiled 
 Helpfully to weak vision that had failed 
 Aught but its special want, for lure, 
 Embodied ? Stronger vision could endure 
 
 The unbodied want : no part the whole of truth J 
 The People were himself ; nor, by the ruth 
 At their condition, was he less impelled
 
 310 SORDELLO 
 
 To alter the discrepancy beheld, 
 Than if, from the sound Whole, a sickly Part 
 Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art, 
 Then palmed on him as alien woe the Guelf 
 To succor, proud that he forsook himself ? 
 All is himself ; all service, therefore, rates 
 Alike, nor serving one part, immolates 
 The rest : but all in time ! '' That lance of yours 
 Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors, 
 That buckler 's lined with many a giant's beard, 
 Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared, 
 The buckler wielded handsomely as now ! 
 But view your escort, bear in mind your vow, 
 Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that, 
 And, if you hope we struggle through the flat, 
 Put lance and buckler by ! Next half-month lacks 
 Mere sturdy exercise of mace and axe 
 To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear 
 Which bristling holds Cydippe by the hair, 
 Lames barefoot Agathon : this felled, we '11 tiy 
 The picturesque achievements by and by 
 Next life ! " 
 
 Ay, rally, mock, O People, urge 
 Your claims ! for thus he ventured, to the verge, 
 Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust 
 Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust 
 Likewise : accordingly the Crowd (as yet 
 He had unconsciously contrived forget, 
 I' the whole, to dwell o' the points . . . one might assuage 
 The signal horrors easier than engage 
 With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief 
 Not to be fancied off, nor gained relief 
 In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk, 
 But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work 
 To correspond . . .) this Crowd then, forth they stood. 
 "And now content thy stronger vision, brood 
 On thy bare want ; uncovered, turf by turf, 
 Study the corpse-face through the taint-worms' scurf ! " 
 
 Down sank the People's Then ; uprose their Now 
 These sad ones render service to ! And how 
 Piteously little must that service prove 
 Had surely proved in any case ! for, move 
 Each other obstacle away, let youth 
 Become aware it had surprised a truth 
 'T were service to impart can truth be seized, 
 Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased,
 
 WITHIN, HIS SYMPATHY WITH THE PEOPLE 311 
 
 Its captor find fresh prey, since this alit 
 
 So happily, no gesture luring it, 
 
 The earnest of a flock to follow ? Vain, 
 
 Most vain ! a life to spend ere this he chain 
 
 To the poor crowd's complacence : ere the crowd 
 
 Pronounce it captured, he descries a cloud 
 
 Its kin of twice the plume ; which he, in turn, 
 
 If he shall live as many lives, may learn 
 
 How to secure : not else. Then Mantua called 
 
 Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled 
 
 Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfume 
 Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom ; 
 Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets, 
 A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets ; 
 Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine, 
 Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine. 
 Yet to surmount this obstacle, commence 
 
 With the commencement, merits crowning ! Hence 
 
 Must truth be casual truth, elicited 
 
 In sparks so mean, at intervals dispread 
 
 So rarely, that 't is like at no one time 
 
 Of the world's story has not truth, the prime 
 
 Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurled 
 
 The world's course right, been really in the world 
 
 Content the while with some mean spark by dint 
 Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint 
 
 Of buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would stream 
 Sky-ward ! 
 
 Sordello's miserable gleam 
 
 Was looked for at the moment : he would dash 
 This badge, and all it brought, to earth. abash 
 Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest 
 The Kaiser from his purpose, would attest 
 His own belief, in any case. Before 
 He dashes it however, think once more ! 
 For, were that little, truly service ? " Ay, 
 I' the end, no doubt ; but meantime ? Plain you spy 
 Its ultimate effect, but many flaws 
 Of vision blur each intervening cause. 
 Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sum 
 Of service, Now as filled as teems To-come 
 With evidence of good nor too minute 
 A share to vie with evil ! No dispute, 
 'T were fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule : 
 That makes your life's work : but you have to school 
 Your day's work on these natures circumstanced
 
 312 SORDELLO 
 
 Thus variously, which yet, as each advanced 
 Or might impede the Guelf rule, must be moved 
 Now, for the Theu's sake, hating what you loved, 
 Loving old hatreds ! Nor if one man bore 
 Brand upon temples while his fellow wore 
 The aureole, would it task you to decide : 
 But, portioned duly out, the future vied 
 Never with the unparcelled present ! Smite 
 Or spare so much on warrant all so slight ? 
 The present's complete sympathies to break, 
 Aversions bear with, for a future's sake 
 So feeble ? Tito ruined through one speck, 
 The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck ? 
 This were work, true, but work performed at cost 
 Of other work ; aught gained here, elsewhere lost. 
 For a new segment spoil an orb half-done ? 
 Rise with the People one step, and sink one ? 
 Were it but one step, less than the whole face 
 Of things, your novel duty bids erase ! 
 Harms to abolish ! What, the prophet saith, 
 The minstrel singeth vainly then ? Old faith, 
 Old courage, only borne because of harms, 
 Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms ? 
 Flame may persist ; but is not glare as stanch ? 
 Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch ; 
 Blood dries to crimson ; Evil 's beautified 
 In every shape. Thrust Beauty then aside 
 And banish Evil ! Wherefore ? After all, 
 Is Evil a result less natural 
 Than Good ? For overlook the seasons' strife 
 With tree and flower, the hideous animal life, 
 (Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt 
 For his solution, and endure the vaunt 
 Of nature's angel, as a child that knows 
 Himself befooled, unable to propose 
 Aught better than the fooling) and but care 
 For men, for the mere People then and there, 
 In these, could you but see that Good and 111 
 Claimed you alike ! Whence rose their claim but still 
 From 111, as fruit of 111 ? What else could knit 
 You theirs but Sorrow ? Any free from it 
 Were also free from you ! Whose happiness 
 Could be distinguished in this morning's press 
 Of miseries ? the fool's who passed a gibe 
 * On thee,' jeered he, ' so wedded to thy tribe, 
 Thou carriest green and yellow tokens in
 
 HOW MUCH OF ILL OUGHT TO BE REMOVED? 313 
 
 Thy very face that thou art Ghibellin ! ' 
 
 Much hold on you that fool obtained ! Nay mount 
 
 Yet higher - and upon men's own account 
 
 Must Evil stay : for, what is joy ? to heave 
 
 Up one obstruction more, and common leave 
 
 What was peculiar, by such act destroy 
 
 Itself ; a partial death is every joy ; 
 
 The sensible escape, enfranchisement 
 
 Of a sphere's essence : once the vexed content, 
 
 The cramped at large, the growing circle round, 
 
 All 's to begin again some novel bound 
 
 To break, some new enlargement to entreat ; 
 
 The sphere though larger is not more complete. 
 
 Now for Mankind's experience : who alone 
 
 Might style the unobstructed world his own ? 
 
 Whom palled Goito with its perfect things ? 
 
 Bordello's self : whereas for Mankind springs 
 
 Salvation by each hindrance interposed. 
 
 They climb ; life's view is not at once disclosed 
 
 To creatures caught up, on the summit left, 
 
 Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft : 
 
 But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot. 
 
 So, range on range, the girdling forests shoot 
 
 'Twixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scale 
 
 Height after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil, 
 
 Heartened with each discovery ; in their soul, 
 
 The Whole they seek by Parts but, found that Whole, 
 
 Could they revert, enjoy past gains ? The space 
 
 Of time you judge so meagre to embrace 
 
 The Parts were more than plenty, once attained 
 
 The Whole, to quite exhaust it : nought were gained 
 
 But leave to look not leave to do : Beneath 
 
 Soon sates the looker look Above, and Death 
 
 Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live 
 
 First, and die soon enough, Sordello ! Give 
 
 Body and spirit the first right they claim, 
 
 And pasture soul on a voluptuous shame 
 
 That you, a pageant-city's denizen, 
 
 Are neither vilely lodged 'midst Lombard men 
 
 Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck 
 
 Bright attributes away for sordid muck, 
 
 Yet manage from that very muck educe 
 
 Gold ; then subject nor scruple, to your cruce 
 
 The world's discardings ! Though real ingots pay 
 
 Your pains, the clods that yielded them are clay 
 
 To all beside, would clay remain, though quenched
 
 314 SORDELLO 
 
 Your purging-fire ; who 's robbed then ? Had you wrenched 
 
 An ampler treasure forth ! As 't is, they crave 
 
 A share that ruins you and will not save 
 
 Them. Why should sympathy command you quit 
 
 The course that makes your joy, nor will remit 
 
 Their woe ? Would all arrive at joy ? Reverse 
 
 The order (time instructs you) nor coerce 
 
 Each unit till, some predetermined mode, 
 
 The total be emancipated ; men's road 
 
 Is one, men's times of travel many ; thwart 
 
 No enterprising soul's precocious start 
 
 Before the general march ! If slow or fast 
 
 All straggle up to the same point at last, 
 
 Why grudge your having gained, a month ago, 
 
 The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow, 
 
 While they were landlocked ? Speed their Then, but how 
 
 This badge would suffer you improve your Now ! " 
 
 His time of action for, against, or with 
 Our world (I labor to extract the pith 
 Of this his problem) grew, that even-tide, 
 Gigantic with its power of joy, beside 
 The world's eternity of impotence 
 To profit though at his whole joy's expense. 
 " Make nothing of my day because so brief ? 
 Rather make more : instead of joy, use grief 
 Before its novelty have time subside ! 
 Wait not for the late savor, leave untried 
 Virtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeeze 
 Vice like a biting spirit from the lees 
 Of life ! Together let wrath, hatred, lust, 
 All tyrannies in every shape, be thrust 
 Upon this Now, which time may reason out 
 As mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt ; 
 But long ere then Bordello will have slipped 
 Away ; you teach him at Goito's crypt, 
 There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill. 
 Stirring, the few cope with the many, still : 
 So much of sand as, quiet, makes a mass 
 Unable to produce three tufts of grass. 
 Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void 
 The whole calm glebe's endeavor : be employed ! 
 And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this, 
 Contribute each his pang to make your bliss. 
 'T is but one pang one blood-drop to the bowl 
 Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl 
 At last, stains ruddily the dull red cape,
 
 FREE, HE CAN INFINITELY ENJOY HIMSELF 315 
 
 And, kindling orbs gray as the unripe grape 
 
 Before, avails forthwith to disentrance 
 
 The portent, soon to lead a mystic dance 
 
 Among you ! For, who sits alone in Rome ? 
 
 Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home, 
 
 And set me there to live ? Oh life, life-breath. 
 
 Life-blood, ere sleep, come travail, life ere death ! 
 
 This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique, 
 
 But always streaming ! Hindrances ? They pique : 
 
 Helps ? such . . . but why repeat, my soul o'ertops 
 
 Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops ? 
 
 Enough that I can live, and would live ! Wait 
 
 For some transcendent life reserved by Fate 
 
 To follow this ? Oh, never ! Fate, I trust 
 
 The same, my soul to ; for, as who flings dust, 
 
 Perchance (so facile was the deed) she checked 
 
 The void with these materials to affect 
 
 My soul diversely : these consigned anew 
 
 To nought by death, what marvel if she threw 
 
 A second and superber spectacle 
 
 Before me ? What may serve for sun, what still 
 
 Wander a moon above me ? What else wind 
 
 About me like the pleasures left behind, 
 
 And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh 
 
 Cling to me ? What 's new laughter ? Soothes the fresh 
 
 Sleep like sleep ? Fate 's exhaustless for my sake 
 
 In brave resource : but whether bids she slake 
 
 My thirst at this first rivulet, or count 
 
 No draught worth lip save from some rocky fount 
 
 Above i' the clouds, while here she 's provident 
 
 Of pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tent 
 
 Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail 
 
 The -silver globules and gold-sparkling grail 
 
 At bottom ? Oh, 't were too absurd to slight 
 
 For the hereafter the to-day's delight ! 
 
 Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring : wear 
 
 Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair ! 
 
 Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart 
 
 Offer to serve, contented for my part 
 
 To give life up in service, only grant 
 
 That I do serve ; if otherwise, why want 
 
 Aught further of me ? If men cannot choose 
 
 But set aside life, why should I refuse 
 
 The gift ? I take it I, for one, engage 
 
 Never to falter through my pilgrimage 
 
 Nor end it howling that the stock or stone
 
 316 SORDELLO 
 
 Were enviable, truly : I, for one, 
 
 Will praise the world, you style mere anteroom 
 
 To palace be it so ! shall I assume 
 
 My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope, 
 
 My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly ope 
 
 One moment ? What ? with guarders row on row 
 
 Gay swarms of varletry that come and go, 
 
 Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlace 
 
 The plackets of, pert claimants help displace, 
 
 Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for, laugh 
 
 At yon sleek parasite, break his own staff 
 
 'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder, why, 
 
 Admitted to the presence by and by, 
 
 Should thought of having lost these make me grieve 
 
 Among new joys I reach, for joys I leave ? 
 
 Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone, 
 
 Are floor-work there ! But do I let alone 
 
 That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule 
 
 Once and forever ? Floor-work ? No such fool ! 
 
 Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I 'd say 
 
 I, is it, must be blessed ? Then, my own way 
 
 Bless me ! Giver firmer arm and fleeter foot, 
 
 I '11 thank you : but to no mad wings transmute 
 
 These limbs of mine our greensward was so soft ! 
 
 Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft : 
 
 We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thus 
 
 Engines subservient, not mixed up with us. 
 
 Better move palpably through heaven : nor, freed 
 
 Of flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed 
 
 'Mid flying synods of worlds ! No : in heaven's marge 
 
 Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe 
 
 Solid with stars the Centaur at his game, 
 
 Made tremulously out in hoary flame ! 
 
 Life ! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull 
 Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full, 
 Aside so oft ; the death I fly, revealed 
 So oft a better life this life concealed. 
 And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path 
 Have hunted fearlessly the horrid bath, 
 The crippling-irons and the fiery chair. 
 'T was well for them ; let me become aware 
 As they, and I relinquish life, too ! Let 
 What masters life disclose itself ! Forget 
 Vain ordinances. I have one appeal 
 I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel ; 
 So much is truth to me. What Is, then ? Since
 
 THERE IS A LIFE BEYOND LIFE 317 
 
 One object, viewed diversely, may evince 
 
 Beauty and ugliness this way attract, 
 
 That way repel, why gloze upon the fact ? 
 
 Why must a single of the sides be right ? 
 
 What bids choose this and leave the opposite ? 
 
 Where 's abstract Right for me ? in youth endued 
 
 With Right still present, still to be pursued, 
 
 Through all the interchange of circles, rife 
 
 Each with its proper law and mode of life, 
 
 Each to be dwelt at ease in : where, to sway 
 
 Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey 
 
 Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart, 
 
 Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start 
 
 Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout 
 
 That some should pick the unstrung jewels out 
 
 Each, well ! " 
 
 And, as in moments when the past 
 Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast 
 Himself quite through mere secondary states 
 Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates. 
 Into the mid deep yearnings overlaid 
 By these ; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade, 
 And on into the very nucleus probe 
 That first determined there exist a globe. 
 As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved', 
 So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved 
 By his flesh-half's break up ; the sudden swell 
 Of his expanding soul showed 111 and Well, 
 Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness, 
 Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less, 
 All qualities, in fine, recorded here, 
 Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere, 
 Urgent on these, but not of force to bind 
 Eternity, as Time as Matter Mind, 
 If Mind, Eternity, should choose assert 
 Their attributes within a Life : thus girt 
 With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct 
 Quite otherwise with Good and 111 distinct, 
 Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result 
 Contrived to render easy, difficult, 
 This or the other course of ... what new bond 
 In place of flesh may stop their flight beyond 
 Its new sphere, as that course does harm or good 
 To its arrangements. Once this understood, 
 As suddenly he felt himself alone, 
 Quite out of Time and this world : all was known.
 
 318 SORDELLO 
 
 What made the secret of his past despair ? 
 
 Most imminent when he seemed most aware 
 
 Of his own self-sufficiency ; made mud 
 
 By craving to expand the power he had, 
 
 And not new power to be expanded ? just 
 
 This made it ; Soul on Matter being thrust, 
 
 Joy comes when so* much Soul is wreaked in Time 
 
 On Matter, let the Soul's attempt sublime 
 
 Matter beyond the scheme and so prevent 
 
 By more or less that deed's accomplishment, 
 
 And Sorrow follows : Sorrow how avoid ? 
 
 Let the employer match the thing employed, 
 
 Fit to the finite his infinity, 
 
 And thus proceed forever, in degree 
 
 Changed but in kind the same, still limited 
 
 To the appointed circumstance and dead 
 
 To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere ; 
 
 Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here ; 
 
 Since to the spii'it's absoluteness all 
 
 Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call 
 
 Life, are conditions ; take but this among 
 
 Many ; the body was to l>e so long 
 
 Youthful, no longer : but, since no control 
 
 Tied to that body's purposes his soul, 
 
 She chose to understand the body's trade 
 
 More than the body's self had fain conveyed 
 
 Her boundless, to the body's bounded lot. 
 
 Hence, the soul permanent, the body not, 
 
 Scarcely its minute for enjoying here, 
 
 The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer, 
 
 Run o'er its capabilities and wring 
 
 A joy thence, she held worth experiencing : 
 
 Which, far from half discovered even, lo, 
 
 The minute gone, the body's power let go 
 
 Apportioned to that joy's acquirement ! Broke 
 
 Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke 
 
 From the volcano's vapor-flag, winds hoist 
 
 Black o'er the spread of sea, down to the moist 
 
 Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain, 
 
 Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again 
 
 The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great 
 
 To the soul's absoluteness. Meditate 
 
 Too long on such a morning's cluster-chord 
 
 And the whole music it was framed afford, 
 
 The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck 
 
 One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck.
 
 EVEN HERE, IS FAILURE INEVITABLE? 319 
 
 And then no marvel if the spirit, shown 
 
 A saddest sight the body lost alone 
 
 Through her officious proffered help, deprived 
 
 Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived, 
 
 Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence, 
 
 Vaingloriously were fain, for recompense, 
 
 To stem the ruin even yet, protract 
 
 The body's term, supply the power it lacked 
 
 From her infinity, compel it learn 
 
 These qualities were only Time's concern, 
 
 And body may, with spirit helping, barred 
 
 Advance the same, vanquished obtain reward, 
 
 Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow, 
 
 Of Wrong make Right, and turn 111 Good below. 
 
 And the result is, the poor body soon 
 
 Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon, 
 
 Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast. 
 
 So much was plain then, proper in the past ; 
 To be complete for, satisfy the whole 
 Series of spheres Eternity, his soul 
 Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each 
 Single sphere Time. But does our knowledge reach 
 No farther ? Is the cloud of hindrance broke 
 But by*the failing of the fleshly yoke, 
 Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar 
 Sordello, self-sufficient as before 
 Though during the mere space that shall elapse 
 'Twixt his enthrallment in new bonds, perhaps ? 
 Must life be ever just escaped, which should 
 Have been enjoyed ? nay, might have been and would, 
 Each purpose ordered right the soul's no whit 
 Beyond the body's purpose under it 
 Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay, 
 And that sky -space of water, ray for ray 
 And star for star, one richness where they mixed 
 As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, 
 Tumultuary splendors folded in 
 To die would soul, proportioned thus, begin 
 Exciting discontent, or surelier quell 
 The body if, aspiring, it rebel ? 
 But how so order life ? Still brutalize 
 The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes 
 To all that was before, all that shall be 
 After this sphere all and each quality 
 Save some sole and immutable Great Good 
 And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood
 
 320 SORDELLO 
 
 To follow ? Never may some soul see All 
 The Great Before and After, and the Small 
 Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore, 
 And take the single course prescribed before, 
 As the king-bird with ages on his plumes 
 Travels to die in his ancestral glooms ? 
 But where descry the Love that shall select 
 That course ? Here is a soul whom, to affect, 
 Nature has plied with all her means, from trees 
 And flowers e'en to the Multitude ! and these, 
 Decides he save or no ? One word to end ! 
 
 Ah my Sordello, I this once befriend 
 And speak for you. Of a Power above you still 
 Which, utterly incomprehensible, 
 Is out of rivalry, which thus you can 
 Love, though unloving all conceived by man 
 What need ! And of none the minutest duct 
 To that out-nature, nought that would instruct 
 And so let rivalry begin to live 
 But of a power its representative 
 Who, being for authority the same, 
 Communication different, should claim 
 A course, the first chose but this last revealed 
 This Human clear, as that Divine concealed - 
 What utter need ! 
 
 What has Sordello found ? 
 Or can his spirit go the mighty round, 
 End where poor Eglamor begun ? So, says 
 Old fable, the two eagles went two ways 
 About the world : where, in the midst, they met, 
 Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set 
 Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found ? 
 For they approach approach that foot's rebound 
 Palma ? No, Salinguerra though in mail ; 
 They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil 
 Aside and you divine who sat there dead, 
 Under his foot the badge : still, Palma said, 
 A triumph lingering in the wide eyes, 
 Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies 
 Help from above in his extreme despair, 
 And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there 
 With short quick passionate cry : as Palma pressed 
 In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast, 
 It beat. 
 
 By this, the hermit-bee has stopped 
 His day's toil at Goito : the new-cropped
 
 KNOWLEDGE TOO LATE 321 
 
 Dead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit, 
 Twirled so, and filed all day : the mansion 's fit, 
 God counselled for. As easy guess the word 
 That passed betwixt them, and become the third 
 To the soft small unf righted bee, as tax 
 Him with one. fault so, no remembrance racks 
 Of the stone maidens and the font of stone 
 He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone. 
 Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom 
 Anon they laid within that old font-tomb, 
 And, yet again, alas ! 
 
 And now is 't worth 
 
 Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth 
 How Salinguerra extricates himself 
 Without SordeUo ? Ghibellin and Guelf 
 May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked 
 In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct, 
 Who cares, Sordello gone ? The upshot, sure, 
 Was peace ; our chief made some frank overture 
 That prospered ; compliment fell thick and fast 
 On its disposer, and Taurello passed 
 With foe and friend for an outstripping soul, 
 Nine days at least. Then, fairly reached the goal, 
 He, by one effort, blotted the great hope 
 Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope 
 With Este, that mad evening's style, but sent 
 Away the Legate, and the League, content 
 No blame at least the brothers had incurred, 
 Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard 
 Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at, 
 Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat 
 And ne'er spoke more, informed the Ferrarese 
 He but retained their rule so long as these 
 Lingered in pupilage, and last, no mode 
 Apparent else of keeping safe the road 
 From Germany direct to Lombardy 
 For Friedrich, none, -that is, to guarantee 
 The faith and promptitude of who should next 
 Obtain Sofia's dowry, sore perplexed 
 (Sofia being youngest of the tribe 
 Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe 
 The envious magnates with nor, since he sent 
 Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent 
 Once failed the Kaiser's purposes " we lost 
 Egna last year, and who takes Egna's post 
 Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock ? ")
 
 S22 SORDELLO 
 
 Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock 
 
 In pure necessity, and, so destroyed 
 
 His slender last of chances, quite made void 
 
 Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes 
 
 Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams, 
 
 Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed 
 
 He up this evening's work, that, when 't was brushed 
 
 Somehow against by a blind chronicle 
 
 Which, chronicling whatever woe befell 
 
 Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe 
 
 Of " Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo 
 
 Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire," 
 
 The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire 
 
 Which of Sofia's five was meant. 
 
 The chaps 
 
 Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse, 
 Obliterated not the beautiful 
 Distinctive features at a crash : but dull 
 And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew 
 Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too 
 Ecelin at Campese slept ; close by, 
 Who likes may see him in Solagna lie, 
 With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote 
 The cavalier he was) then his heart smote 
 Young Ecelin at last ; long since adult. 
 And, save Vicenza's business, what result 
 In blood and blaze ? (So hard to intercept 
 Sordello till his plain withdrawal !) Stepped 
 Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nick 
 Of time when Ecelin and Alberic 
 Closed with Taurello, come precisely news 
 That in Verona half the souls refuse 
 Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count 
 Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount, 
 Their Podesta, through his ancestral worth. 
 Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth 
 Was wholly his Taurello sinking back 
 From temporary station to a track 
 That suited. News received of this acquist, 
 Friedrich did come to Lombardy : who missed 
 Taurello then ? Another year : they took 
 Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook 
 For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three 
 Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves " The Free," 
 Opposing Alberic, vile Bassanese, 
 (Without Sordello !) Ecelin at ease
 
 SALINGUERRA'S PART LAPSES TO ECELIN 323 
 
 Slaughtered them so observably, that oft 
 
 A little Salinguerra looked with soft 
 
 Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age 
 
 To get appointed his proud uncle's page. 
 
 More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down 
 
 To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown 
 
 Better through age, his parts still in repute, 
 
 Subtle how else ? but hardly so astute 
 
 As his contemporaneous friends professed ; 
 
 Undoubtedly a brawler : for the rest, 
 
 Known by each neighbor, and allowed for, let 
 
 Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret 
 
 Men who had missed their boyhood's bugbear : " trap 
 
 The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap 
 
 A battered pinion ! " was the word. In fine, 
 
 One flap too much and Venice's marine 
 
 Was meddled with ; no overlooking that ! 
 
 She captured him in his Ferrara, fat 
 
 And florid at a banquet, more by fraud 
 
 Than force, to speak the truth ; there 's slender laud 
 
 Ascribed you for assisting eighty years 
 
 To pull his death on such a man ; fate shears 
 
 The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads 
 
 You fritter : so, presiding his board-head. 
 
 The old smile, your assurance all went well 
 
 With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell !) 
 
 In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends, 
 
 Made some pretence at fighting, some amends 
 
 For the shame done his eighty years (apart 
 
 The principle, none found it in his heart 
 
 To be much angry with Taurello) gained 
 
 Their galleys with the prize, and what remained 
 
 But carry him to Venice for a show ? 
 
 Set him, as 't were, down gently free to go 
 
 His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe 
 
 The swallows soaring their eternal curve 
 
 'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens 
 
 Gathered importunately, fives and tens, 
 
 To point their children the Magnifico, 
 
 All but a monarch once in firm-land, go 
 
 His gait among them now " it took, indeed, 
 
 Fully this Ecelin to supersede 
 
 That man," remarked the seniors. Singular ! 
 
 Sordello's inability to bar 
 
 Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought 
 
 About by his strange disbelief that aught
 
 324 SORDELLO 
 
 Was ever to be done, this thrust the Twain 
 Under Taurello's tutelage, whom, brain 
 And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod 
 Indissolubly bound to baffle God 
 Who loves the world and thus allowed the thin 
 Gray wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin, 
 And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic 
 (Mere man, alas !) to put his problem quick 
 To demonstration prove wherever 's will 
 To do, there 's plenty to be done, or ill 
 Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip 
 Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip, 
 They plagued the world : a touch of Hildebrand 
 (So far from obsolete !) made Lombards band 
 Together, cross their coats as for Christ's cause, 
 And saving Milan win the world's applause. 
 Ecelin perished : and I think grass grew 
 Never so pleasant as in Valley Ru 
 By San Zenon where Alberic in turn 
 Saw his exasperated captors burn 
 Seven children and their mother ; then, regaled 
 So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed 
 To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take 
 God's part and testify that 'mid the brake 
 Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll, 
 You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll 
 The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat 
 The modern church beneath, no harm in that 3 
 Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper, 
 Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre 
 Above the ravage : there, at deep of day 
 A week since, heard I the old Canon say 
 He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst 
 And Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsed 
 Only five years ago. He added, " June 's 
 The month for carding off our first cocoons 
 The silkworms fabricate " a double news, 
 Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose ! 
 And Naddo gone, all 's gone ; not Eglamor ! 
 Believe, I knew the face I waited for, 
 A guest my spirit of the golden courts ! 
 Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports, 
 Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained 
 Its joyous look of love ! Suns waxed and wane**, 
 And still my spirit held an upward flight, 
 Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light
 
 GOOD WILL ILL LUCK, GET SECOND PRIZE 325 
 
 More and more gorgeous ever that face there 
 The last admitted ! crossed, too, with some care 
 As perfect triumph were not sure for all, 
 But, on a few, enduring damp must fall, 
 
 A transient struggle, haply a painful sense 
 Of the inferior nature's clinging whence 
 Slight starting tears easily wiped away, 
 Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play 
 
 Of irrepressible admiration not 
 Aspiring, all considered, to their lot 
 Who ever, just as they prepare ascend 
 Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend 
 Thy frank delight at their exclusive track, 
 That upturned fervid face and hair put back ! 
 
 Is there no more to say ? He of the rhymes 
 Many a tale, of this retreat betimes, 
 Was born : Sordello die at once for men ? 
 The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen 
 Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved 
 Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved 
 Who thus, by fortune ordering events, 
 Passed with posterity, to all intents, 
 For just the god he never could become. 
 As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb 
 In praise of him : while what he should have been, 
 Could be, and was not the one step too mean 
 For him to take, we suffer at this day 
 Because of : Ecelin had pushed away 
 Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take 
 That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake : 
 He did much but Sordello's chance was gone. 
 Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone, 
 Apollo had been compassed 't was a fit 
 He wished should go to him, not he to it 
 
 As one content to merely be supposed 
 Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed 
 Really at home one who was chiefly glad 
 To have achieved the few real deeds he had, 
 Because that way assured they were not worth 
 Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth 
 A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes 
 Never itself, itself. Had he embraced 
 
 Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit 
 And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot 
 All he was anxious to appear, but scarce 
 Solicitous to be. A sorry farce
 
 326 SORDELLO 
 
 Such life is, after all 1 Cannot I say 
 
 He lived for some one better thing ? this way. 
 
 Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill 
 
 By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill, 
 
 Morning just up, higher and higher runs 
 
 A child barefoot and rosy. See ! the sun 'a 
 
 On the square castle's inner-court's low wall 
 
 Like the chine of some extinct animal 
 
 Half turned to earth and flowers ; and through the haze 
 
 (Save where some slender patches of gray maize 
 
 Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed 
 
 The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost 
 
 Matting the balm and mountain camomile. 
 
 Up and up goes he, singing all the while 
 
 Some unintelligible words to beat 
 
 The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet, 
 
 So worsted is he at " the few fine locks 
 
 Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks 
 
 Sunblanched the livelong summer," all tbat 's left 
 
 Of the Goito lay ! And thus bereft, 
 
 Sleep and forget, Sordello ! In effect 
 
 He sleeps, the feverish poet I suspect 
 
 Not utterly companionless ; but, friends, 
 
 Wake up ! The ghost 's gone, and the story ends 
 
 I 'd fain hope, sweetly ; seeing, peri or ghoul, 
 
 That spirits are conjectured fair or foul, 
 
 Evil or good, judicious authors think, 
 
 According as they vanish in a stink 
 
 Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank ! ye snuff 
 
 Civet, I warrant. Really ? Like enough ! 
 
 Merely the savor's rareness ; any nose 
 
 May ravage with impunity a rose : 
 
 Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours ! 
 
 I 'd tell you that same pungency ensures 
 
 An after-gust, but that were overbold. 
 
 Who would has heard Sordello's story told.
 
 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 A DRAMA 
 
 I DEDICATE MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM, 
 
 ADMIRINGLY TO THE AUTHOR OF " ION," 
 AFFECTIONATELY TO MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD. 
 
 R. B. 
 
 LONDON, 1841. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S DAY AT ASOLO IN THE TREVISAN. A large mean 
 airy chamber. A girl, PIPPA, from the silk-mills, springing out 
 of bed. 
 
 DAY! 
 
 Faster and more fast, 
 
 O'er night's brim, day boils at last ; 
 
 Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
 
 Where spurting and suppressed it lay ; 
 
 For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
 
 Of yonder gap in the solid gray 
 
 Of the eastern cloud, an hour away ; 
 
 But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, 
 
 Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 
 
 Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
 
 Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world. 
 
 Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 
 
 A mite of my twelve-hours' treasure, 
 
 The least of thy gazes or glances, 
 
 (Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure) 
 
 One of thy choices or one of thy chances, 
 
 (Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure) 
 
 My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure, 
 
 Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 
 
 Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing, 
 Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good 
 Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going, 
 As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood 
 All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me not 
 As prosperous ones are treated, those who live
 
 328 
 
 At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot, 
 In readiness to take what thou wilt give, 
 And free to let alone what thou refusest j 
 For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 
 Me, who am only Pippa, old-year's sorrow, 
 Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow : 
 Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow 
 Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow. 
 All other men and women that this earth 
 Belongs to, who all days alike possess, 
 Make general plenty cure particular dearth, 
 Get more joy one way, if another, less : 
 Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven 
 What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven, 
 Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's ! 
 Try now ! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones 
 And let thy morning rain on that superb 
 Great haughty Ottima ; can rain disturb 
 Her Sebald's homage ? All the while thy rain 
 Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane, 
 He will but press the closer, breathe more warm 
 Against her cheek ; how should she mind the storm ? 
 And. morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom 
 O'er Jules and Phene, what care bride and groom 
 Save for their dear selves ? 'T is their marriage-day ; 
 And while they leave church and go home their way, 
 Hand clasping hand, within each breast would be 
 Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee. 
 Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 
 With mist, will Luigi and his mother grieve 
 The lady and her child, Unmatched, forsooth, 
 She in her age, as Luigi in his youth, 
 For true content ? The cheerful town, warm, close 
 And safe, the sooner that thou art morose, 
 Receives them. And yet once again, outbreak 
 In storm at night on Monsignor, they make 
 Such stir about, whom they expect from Rome 
 To visit Asolo, his brothers' home, 
 And say here masses proper to release 
 A soul from pain, what storm dares hurt his peace ? 
 Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to ward 
 Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard. 
 But Pippa just one such mischance would spoil 
 Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil 
 At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 
 And here I let time slip for nought !
 
 PIPPA PASSES 329 
 
 Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught 
 
 With a single splash from my ewer ! 
 
 You that would mock the best pursuer, 
 
 Was my basin over-deep ? 
 
 One splash of water ruins you asleep, 
 
 And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 
 
 Wheeling and counterwheeling, 
 
 Reeling, broken beyond healing : 
 
 Now grow together on the ceiling ! 
 
 That will task your wits. 
 
 Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped to see 
 
 Morsel after morsel flee 
 
 As merrily, as giddily . . . 
 
 Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on, 
 
 Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple ? 
 
 Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon ? 
 
 New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple, 
 
 Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird's poll ! 
 
 Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 
 
 Of ocean, bud there, fairies watch unroll 
 
 Such turban-flowers ; I say, such lamps disperse 
 
 Thick red flame through that dusk green universe ! 
 
 1 am queen of thee, floweret ! 
 
 And each fleshy blossom 
 
 Preserve I not (safer 
 
 Than leaves that embower it, 
 
 Or shells that embosom) 
 
 From weevil and chafer ? 
 
 Laugh through my pane then ; solicit the bee ; 
 Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee, 
 Love thy queen, worship me ! 
 
 Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, 
 Whate'er I please ? What shall I please to-day ? 
 
 My morn, noon, eve and night how spend my day ? 
 
 To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk, 
 
 The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk : 
 
 But, this one day, I have leave to go, 
 
 And play out my fancy's fullest games ; 
 
 I may fancy all day and it shall be so 
 
 That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names 
 
 Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 
 
 See ! Up the hillside yonder, through the morning, 
 Some one shall love me, as the world calls love : 
 I am no less than Ottima, take warning !
 
 330 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 The gardens, and the great stone house above, 
 And other house for shrubs, all glass in front, 
 Are mine ; where Sebald steals, as he is wont, 
 To court me, while old Luca yet reposes : 
 And therefore, till the shrub-house door uncloses, 
 I ... what now ? give abundant cause for prate 
 About me Ottima, I mean of late, 
 Too bold, too confident she '11 still face down 
 The spitefullest of talkers in our town. 
 How we talk in the little town below ! 
 
 But love, love, love there 's better love, I know ! 
 This foolish love was only day's first offer ; 
 I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
 For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 
 Out of Possagno church at noon ? 
 Their house looks over Orcana valley : 
 Why should not I be the bride as soon 
 As Ottima ? For I saw, beside. 
 Arrive last night that little bride 
 Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash 
 Of the pale snow-pure cheek and black bright tresses, 
 Blacker than all except the black eyelash ; 
 I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses ! 
 
 So strict was she, the veil 
 Should cover close her pale 
 
 Pure cheeks a bride to look at and scarce touch, 
 
 Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! For are not such 
 
 Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, 
 
 As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature ? 
 
 A soft and easy life these ladies lead : 
 
 Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. 
 
 Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, 
 
 Keep that foot its lady primness, 
 
 Let those ankles never swerve 
 
 From their exquisite reserve, 
 
 Yet have to trip along the streets like me, 
 
 All but naked to the knee ! 
 
 How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss 
 
 So startling as her real first infant kiss ? 
 
 Oh, no not envy, this ! 
 
 Not envy, sure ! for if you gave me 
 Leave to take or to refuse, 
 
 In earnest, do you think I 'd choose 
 
 That sort of new love to enslave me ? 
 
 Mine should have lapped me round from the beginning ,
 
 P1PPA PASSES 331 
 
 As little fear of losing it as winning : 
 
 Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives, 
 
 And only parents' love can last our lives. 
 
 At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair, 
 
 Commune inside our turret : what prevents 
 
 My being Luigi ? While that mossy lair 
 
 Of lizards through the winter-time is stirred 
 
 With each to each imparting sweet intents 
 
 For this new-year, as brooding bird to bird 
 
 (For I observe of late, the evening walk 
 
 Of Luigi and his mother, always ends 
 
 Inside our ruined turret, where they talk, 
 
 Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) 
 
 Let me be cared about, kept out of harm, 
 
 And schemed for, safe in love as with a charm ; 
 
 Let me be Luigi ! If I only knew 
 
 What was my mother's face my father, too ! 
 
 Nay, if you come to that, best love of all 
 Is God's ; then why not have God's love befall 
 Myself as, in the palace by the Dome, 
 Monsignor ? who to-night will bless the home 
 Of his dead brother ; and God bless in turn 
 That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly burn 
 With love for all men ! I, to-night at least, 
 Would be that holy and beloved priest. 
 
 Now wait ! even I already seem to share 
 
 In God's love : what does New-year's hymn declare ? 
 
 What other meaning do these verses bear ? 
 
 All service ranks the same with God : 
 
 If now, &s formerly he trod 
 
 Paradise, his presence fills 
 
 Our earth, each only as God wills 
 
 Can work God's puppets, best and ivorst, 
 
 Are we ; there is no last nor first. 
 
 Say not " a small event ! " Why " small " ? 
 Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
 A " great event," should come to pass, 
 Than that ? Untwine me from the mass 
 Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
 Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 
 
 And more of it, and more of it ! oh yes 
 I will pass each, and see their happiness,
 
 332 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 And envy none being just as great, no doubt, 
 
 Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 
 
 A pretty thing to care about 
 
 So mightily, this single holiday ! 
 
 But let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine ? 
 
 With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 
 
 Down the grass path gray with dew, 
 
 Under the pine-wood, blind with boughs, 
 
 Where the swallow never flew 
 
 Nor yet cicala dared carouse 
 
 No, dared carouse ! [She enters the street 
 
 I. MORNING. Up the Hillside, inside the Shrub-house. LUCA'S 
 Wife, OTTIMA, and her Paramour, the German SF.BALD. 
 
 Seb. [sings.'] Let the watching lids wink ! 
 
 Day 's ablaze with eyes, think ! 
 Deep into the night, drink ! 
 
 Otti. Night ? Such may be your Rhine-land nights, perhaps ; 
 But this blood-red beam tkrough the shutter's chink 
 We call such light, the morning : let us see ! 
 Mind how you grope your way, though ! How these tall 
 Naked geraniums straggle ! Push the lattice 
 Behind that frame ! Nay, do I bid you ? Sebald, 
 It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, of course 
 The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content, 
 Or must I find you something else to spoil ? 
 Kiss and be friends, my Sebald ! Is 't full morning ? 
 Oh, don't speak then ! 
 
 Seb. Ay, thus it used to be ! 
 
 Ever your house was, I remember, shut 
 Till mid-day ; I observed that, as I strolled 
 On mornings through the vale here ; country girls 
 Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, 
 Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills : 
 But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye ! 
 And wisely : you were plotting one thing there, 
 Nature, another outside. I looked up 
 Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars, 
 Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. 
 Oh, I remember ! and the peasants laughed 
 And said, " The old man sleeps with the young wife." 
 This house was his, this chair, this window his. 
 
 Otti. Ah, the clear morning ! I can see St. Mark's ; 
 That black streak is the belfry. Stop : Vicenza
 
 P1PPA PASSES 333 
 
 Should lie ... there 's Padua, plain enough, that blue ! 
 Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger ! 
 
 Seb. Morning ? 
 
 It seems to me a night with a sun added. 
 
 Where 's dew, where 's freshness ? That bruised plant, I bruised 
 In getting through the lattice yestereve, 
 Droops as it did. See, here 's my elbow's mark 
 I' the dust o' the silL 
 
 Otti. Oh, shut the lattice, pray ! 
 
 Seb. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here, 
 Foul as the morn may be. 
 
 There, shut the world out ! 
 How do you feel now, Ottima ? There, curse 
 The world and all outside ! Let us throw off 
 This mask : how do you bear yourself ? Let 's out 
 With all of it ! 
 
 Otti. Best never speak of it. 
 
 Seb. Best speak again and yet again of it, 
 Till words cease to be more than words. " His blood," 
 For instance let those two words mean, " His blood " 
 And nothing more. Notice, I '11 say them now, 
 " His blood." 
 
 Otti. Assuredly if I repented 
 
 The deed 
 
 Seb. Repent ? Who should repent, or why ? 
 
 What puts that in your head ? Did I once say 
 That I repented ? 
 
 Otti. No ; I said the deed . . . 
 
 Seb. " The deed " and " the event " just now it was 
 " Our passion's fruit " the devil take such cant ! 
 Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
 I am his cut-throat, you are . . . 
 
 Otti. Here 's the wine ; 
 
 I brought it when we left the house above, 
 And glasses too wine of both sorts. Black ? White then ? 
 
 Seb. But am not I his cut-throat ? What are you ? 
 
 Otti. There trudges on his business from the Duomo 
 Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
 And bare feet ; always in one place at church, 
 Close under the stone wall by the south entry. 
 I used to take him for a brown cold piece 
 Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 
 To let me pass at first, I say, I used : 
 Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me, 
 I rathec should account the plastered wall 
 A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
 This, Sebald ?
 
 334 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 Seb. No, the white wine the white wine ! 
 
 Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
 Should rise on us the ancient shameful way ; 
 Nor does it rise. Pour on ! To your black eyes ! 
 Do you remember last damned New Year's day ? 
 
 Otti. You brought those foreign prints. We looked at them 
 Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 
 To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying 
 His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up 
 To hunt them out. 
 
 Seb. 'Faith, he is not alive 
 
 To fondle you before my face. 
 
 Otti. Do you 
 
 Fondle me then ! Who means to take your life 
 For that, my Sebald ? 
 
 Seb. Hark yon, Ottima ! 
 
 One thing to guard against. We '11 not make much 
 One of the other that is, not make more 
 Parade of warmth, childish officious coil, 
 Than yesterday : as if, sweet, I supposed 
 Proof upon proof were needed now, now first, 
 To show I love you yes, still love you love yon 
 In spite of Luca and what's come to him 
 Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts, 
 White sneering old reproachful face and all ! 
 We '11 even quarrel, love, at times, as if 
 We still could lose each other, were not tied 
 By this : conceive you ? 
 
 Otti. Love ! 
 
 Seb. Not tied so sure ! 
 
 Because though I was wrought upon, have struck 
 His insolence back into him am I 
 So surely yours ? therefore forever yours ? 
 
 Otti. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays another,) 
 Should we have months ago, when first we loved, 
 For instance that May morning we two stole 
 Under the green ascent of sycamores 
 If we had come upon a thing like that 
 Suddenly . . . 
 
 Seb. " A thing " there again "a thing ! " 
 
 Otti. Then, Venus' body, had we come upon 
 My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse 
 Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close 
 Would you have pored upon it ? Why persist 
 In poring now upon it? For 't is here 
 As much as there in the deserted house : 
 You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me,
 
 PIPPA PASSES . 335 
 
 Now he is dead I hate him worse : I hate . . . 
 Dare you stay here ? I would go back and hold 
 His two dead hands, and say, " I hate you worse, 
 Luca, than "... 
 
 Seb. Off, off take your hands off mine, 
 
 'T is the hot evening off ! oh, morning is it ? 
 
 Otti. There 's one thing must be done ; you know what thing. 
 Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 
 Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. 
 
 Seb. What would come, think you, if we let him lie 
 Just as he is ? Let him lie there until 
 The angels take him ! He is turned by this 
 Off from his face beside, as you will see. 
 
 Otti. This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass. 
 Three, four four gray hairs ! Is it so you said 
 A plait of hair should wave across my neck ? 
 No this way. 
 
 Seb. Ottima, I would give your neck, 
 
 Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours, 
 That this were undone ! Killing ! Kill the world, 
 So Luca lives again ! ay, lives to sputter 
 His fulsome dotage on you yes, and feign 
 Surprise that I return at eve to sup, 
 When all the morning I was loitering here 
 Bid me dispatch my business and begone. 
 I would ... 
 
 Otti. See ! 
 
 Seb. No, I '11 finish. Do you think 
 
 I fear to speak the bare truth once for all ? 
 All we have talked of, is, at bottom, fine 
 To suffer ; there 's a recompense in guilt ; 
 One must be venturous and fortunate : 
 What is one young for, else ? In age we '11 sigh 
 O'er the wild reckless wicked days flown over ; 
 Still, we have lived : the vice was in its place. 
 But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 
 His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse 
 Do lovers in romances sin that way ? 
 Why, I was starving when I used to call 
 And teach you music, starving while you plucked me 
 These flowers to smell ! 
 
 Otti. My poor lost friend ! 
 
 Seb. He gave me 
 
 Life, nothing less : what if he did reproach 
 My perfidy, and threaten, and do more 
 Had he no right ? What was to wonder at ?
 
 336 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 He sat by us at table quietly : 
 
 Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched ? 
 Could he do less than make pretence to strike ? 
 T is not the crime's sake I 'd commit ten crimes 
 Greater, to have tliis crime wiped out, undone ! 
 And you O how feel you ? Feel you for me ? 
 
 Otti. Well then, I love you better now than ever, 
 And best (look at me while I speak to you) 
 Best for the crime ; nor do I grieve, in truth, 
 This mask, this simulated ignorance, 
 This affectation of simplicity, 
 Falls off our crime ; this naked crime of ours 
 May not now be looked over : look it down ! 
 Great ? let it be great ; but the joys it brought, 
 Pay they or no its price ? Come : they or it ! 
 Speak not ! The past, would you give up the past 
 Such as it is, pleasure and crime together ? 
 Give up that noon I owned my love for you ? 
 The garden's silence : even the single bee 
 Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped, 
 And where he hid you only could surmise 
 By some campanula chalice set a-swing. 
 Who stammered " Yes, I love you ? " 
 
 Seb. And I drew 
 
 Back ; put far back your face with both my hands 
 Lest you should grow too full of me your face 
 So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body ! 
 
 Otti. And when I ventured to receive you here, 
 Made you steal hither in the mornings 
 
 Seb. When 
 
 I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, 
 Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread 
 To a yellow haze ? 
 
 Otti. Ah my sign was, the sun 
 
 Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree 
 Nipped by the first frost. 
 
 Seb. You would always laugh 
 
 At my wet boots : I had to stride through grass 
 Over my ankles. 
 
 Otti. Then our crowning night ! 
 
 Seb. The July night ? 
 
 Otti. The day of it too, Sebald ! 
 
 When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat, 
 Its black-blue canopy suffered descend 
 Close on us both, to weigh down each to each, 
 And smother up all life except our life. 
 So lay we till the storm came.
 
 PIPPA PASSES 337 
 
 Seb. How it came ! 
 
 Otti. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect ; 
 Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ; 
 And ever and anon some bright white shaft 
 Burned through the pine-tree roof, here hurned and there, 
 As if God's messenger through the close wood screen 
 Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 
 Feeling for guilty thee and me : then broke 
 The thunder like a whole sea overhead 
 
 Seb. Yes! 
 
 Otti. While I stretched myself upon you, hands 
 To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook 
 All my locks loose, and covered you with them 
 You, Sebald, the same you ! 
 
 Seb. Slower, Ottima ! 
 
 Otti. And as we lay 
 
 Seb. Less vehemently ! Love me ! 
 
 Forgive me ! Take not words, mere words, to heart ! 
 Your breath is worse than wine. Breathe slow, speak slow ! 
 Do not lean on me ! 
 
 Otti. Sebald, as we lay, 
 
 Rising and falling only with our pants, 
 Who said, " Let death come now ! 'T is right to die ! 
 Right to be punished ! Nought completes such bliss 
 But woe ! " Who said that ? 
 
 Seb. How did we ever rise ? 
 
 Was 't that we slept ? Why did it end ? 
 
 Otti. I felt you 
 
 Taper into a point the ruffled ends 
 Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. 
 My hair is fallen now : knot it again ! 
 
 Seb. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now ! 
 This way ? Will you forgive me be once more 
 My great queen? 
 
 Otti. Bind it thrice about my -brow ; 
 
 Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, 
 Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 
 
 Seb. I crown you 
 
 My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, 
 Magnificent . . . 
 
 [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA singing 
 
 The year 's at the spring 
 And day 's at the morn ; 
 Morning 's at seven ; 
 The hillside 's dew-pearled ;
 
 838 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 The lark 's on the wing ; 
 The snail's on the thorn : 
 God 's in his heaven 
 All's right with the world ! 
 
 [ PIPPA passes. 
 
 Seb. God 's in his heaven ! Do you hear that ? Who spoke ? 
 You, you spoke ! 
 
 Otti. Oh that little ragged girl ! 
 
 She must have rested on the step : we give them 
 But this one holiday the whole year round. 
 Did you ever see our silk-mills their inside ? 
 There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. 
 She stoops to pick my double heartsease . . . Sh ! 
 She does not hear : call you out louder ! 
 
 Seb. Leave me ! 
 
 Go, <jet your clothes on dress those shoulders ! 
 
 Otti. Sebald ? 
 
 Seb. Wipe off that paint ! I hate you. 
 
 Otti. Miserable ! 
 
 Seb. My God, and she is emptied of it now ! 
 Outright now ! how miraculously gone 
 All of the grace had she not strange grace once ? 
 Why, the blank cheek hangs h'stless as it likes, 
 No purpose holds the features up together, 
 Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 
 Stay in their places : and the very hair, 
 That seemed to have a sort of life in it, 
 Drops, a dead web ! 
 
 Otti. Speak to me not of me ! 
 
 Seb. That round great full-orbed face, Avhere not an angle 
 Broke the delicious indolence all broken ! 
 
 Otti. To me not of me ! Ungrateful, perjured cheat ! 
 A coward too : but ingrate 's worse than all ! 
 Beggar my slave a fawning, cringing lie ! 
 Leave me ! Betray me ! I can see your drift ! 
 A lie that walks and eats and drinks ! 
 
 Seb. My God ! 
 
 Those morbid olive faultless shoulder-blades 
 I should have known there was no blood beneath ! 
 
 Otti. You hate me then ? You hate me then ? 
 
 Seb. To think 
 
 She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 
 And fascinate by sinning, show herself 
 Superior guilt from its excess superior 
 To innocence ! That little peasant's voice
 
 PIPPA PASSES 339 
 
 Has righted all again. Though I be lost, 
 
 I know which is the better, never fear, 
 
 Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, 
 
 Nature or trick ! I see what I have done, 
 
 Entirely now ! Oh I am proud to feel 
 
 Such torments let the world take credit thence 
 
 I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
 
 I hate, hate curse you ! God 's in his heaven ! 
 
 Otti. Me ! 
 
 Me ! no, no, Sebald, not yourself kill me ! 
 Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill me then 
 Yourself then presently first hear me speak ! 
 I always meant to kill myself wait, you ! 
 Lean on my breast not as a breast ; don't love me 
 The more because you lean on me, my own 
 Heart's Sebald ! There, there, both deaths presently ! 
 
 Seb. My brain is drowned now quite drowned : all I feel 
 Is ... is, at swift-recurring intervals, 
 A hurry-down within me, as of waters 
 Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit : 
 There they go whirls from a black fiery sea ! 
 
 Otti. Not me to him, O God, be merciful J 
 
 Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the hillside to Orcana. 
 Foreign Students of Painting and Sculpture, from Venice, assem- 
 bled opposite the house of JULES, a young French Statuary, at 
 
 \st Student. Attention ! My own post is beneath this win- 
 dow, but the pomegranate clump yonder will hide three or four 
 of you with a little squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must 
 lie flat in the balcony. Four, five who 's a defaulter ? We 
 want everybody, for Jules must not be suffered to hurt his bride 
 when the jest 's found out. 
 
 2d Stud. All here ! Only our poet 's away never having 
 much meant to be present, moonstrike him ! The airs of that 
 fellow, that Giovacchino ! He was in violent love with himself, 
 and had a fair prospect of thriving in his suit, so unmolested 
 was it, when suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too ; 
 and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immor- 
 tal poem and all : whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended 
 already, as Bluphocks assures me, " Here a mammoth-poem 
 lies, Fouled to death by butterflies." His own fault, the sim- 
 pleton ! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your 
 entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and 
 intelligibly. JSsculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs :
 
 340 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 Hebes plaister One strip Cools your lip. Phoebus' emul- 
 sion One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolus One 
 box Cures . . . 
 
 3d Stud. Subside, my fine fellow ! If the marriage was 
 over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly be here in a minute with 
 his bride. 
 
 2d Stud. Good ! only, so should the poet's muse have been 
 universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, et canibits nostris . . . 
 and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy 
 Giovacchino ! 
 
 \st Stud. To the point, now. Where 's Gottlieb, the new- 
 comer? Oh, listen, Gottlieb, to what has called down this 
 piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble 
 to witness the winding-tip. We are all agreed, all in a tale, ob- 
 serve, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by and by : I 
 am spokesman the verses that are to undeceive Jules bear my 
 name of Lutwyche but each professes himself alike insulted 
 by this strutting stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris to 
 Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno 
 here, but proceeds hi a day or two alone again oh, alone in- 
 dubitably ! to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take up 
 his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers ! 
 so he was heard to call us all. Now, is Schramm brutalized, I 
 should like to know ? Am I heartless ? 
 
 Gott. Why, somewhat heartless ; for, suppose Jules a cox- 
 comb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you 
 will have brushed off what do folks style it ? the bloom of 
 his life. Is it too late to alter ? These love-letters now, you 
 call his I can't laugh at them. 
 
 kth Stud. Because you never read the sham letters of our in- 
 diting which drew forth these. 
 
 Gott. His discovery of the truth will be frightful. 
 
 ith Stud. That 's the joke. But you should have joined us 
 at the beginning : there 's no doubt he loves the girl loves a 
 model he might hire by the hour ! 
 
 Gott. See here ! " He has been accustomed," he writes, " to 
 have Canova's women about him, in stone, and the world's 
 women beside him, in flesh ; these being as much below, as 
 those above, his soul's aspiration : but now he is to have the 
 reality." There you laugh again ! I say, you wipe off the very 
 dew of his youth. 
 
 1st Stud. Schramm ! (Take the pipe out of his mouth, 
 somebody !) Will Jules lose the bloom of his youth ? 
 
 Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this world : 
 look at a blossom it drops presently, having done its service 
 and lasted its time ; but fruits succeed, and where would be the
 
 PIP PA PASSES 341 
 
 blossom's place could it continue ? As well affirm that your eye 
 is no longer in your body, because its earliest favorite, whatever 
 it may have first loved to look on, is dead and done with as 
 that any affection is lost to the soul when its first object, what- 
 ever happened first to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. 
 Keep but ever looking, whether with the body's eye or the 
 mind's, and you will soon find something to look on ! Has a 
 man done wondering at women ? there follow men, dead and 
 alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men ? there 's 
 God to wonder at : and the faculty of wonder may be, at the 
 same time, old and tired enough with respect to its first object, 
 and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel 
 one. Thus . . . 
 
 1st Stud. Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth again ! There, 
 you see ! Well, this Jules ... a wretched fribble oh, I 
 watched his disportings at Possagno, the other day ! Canova's 
 gallery you know : there he marches first resolvedly past 
 great works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye : all at 
 once he stops full at the Psiche-faminlla cannot pass that old 
 acquaintance without a nod of encouragement " In your new 
 place, beauty ? Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich 
 I see you ! " Next be posts himself deliberately before the 
 unfinished Pieta for half an hour without moving, till up he starts 
 of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose into I say, into the 
 group ; by which gesture you are informed that precisely the 
 sole point he had not fully mastered in Canova's practice was a 
 certain method of using the drill in the articulation of the knee- 
 joint and that, likewise, has he mastered at length ! Good-bye 
 therefore, to poor Canova whose gallery no longer needs de- 
 tain his successor Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in 
 marble ! 
 
 5th Stud. Tell him about the women : go on to the women ! 
 
 1st Stud. Why, on that matter he could never be supercilious 
 enough. How should we be other (he said) than the poor devils 
 you see, with those debasing habits we cherish ? He was not to 
 wallow in that mire, at least : he would wait, and love only at 
 the proper time, and meanwhile put up witli the Psiche-fanciulla. 
 Now, I happened to hear of a young Greek real Greek girl 
 at Malamocco ; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron's 
 " hair like sea-moss " Schramm knows ! white and quiet as 
 an apparition, and fourteen years old at farthest, a daughter 
 of Natalia, so she swears that hag Natalia, who helps us to 
 models at three lire an hour. We selected this girl for the 
 heroine of our jest. So first, Jules received a scented letter 
 somebody had seen his Tydeus at the Academy, and my picture 
 was nothing to it : a profound admirer bade him persevere
 
 342 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 would make herself known to him ere long. (Paolina, my lit- 
 tle friend of the Fenice, transcribes divinely.) And in due time, 
 the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar 
 charms the pale cheeks, the black hair whatever, in short, 
 had struck us in our Malamocco model : we retained her name, 
 too Phene, which is, by interpretation, sea-eagle. Now, think 
 of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd of us by 
 such a creature ! In his very first answer he proposed marrying 
 his monitress : and fancy us over these letters, two, three times 
 a day, to receive and dispatch ! I concocted the main of it : 
 relations were in the way secrecy must be observed in fine, 
 would he wed her on trust, and only speak to her when they 
 were indissolubly united ? St st Here they come ! 
 
 6th Stud. Both of them ! Heaven's love, speak softly, speak 
 within yourselves ! 
 
 5th Stud. Look at the bridegroom ! Half his hair in storm 
 and half in calm, patted down over the left temple, like a 
 frothy cup one blows on to cool it : and the same old blouse that 
 he murders the marble in. 
 
 2d Stud. Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal Scratchy ! 
 rich, that your face may the better set it off. 
 
 6th Stud. And the bride ! Yes, sure enough, our Phene ! 
 Should you have known her in her clothes ? How magnificently 
 pale ! 
 
 Gott. She does not also take it for earnest, I hope ? 
 
 1st Stud. Oh, Natalia's concern, that is ! We settle with 
 Natalia. 
 
 6th Stud. She does not speak has evidently let out no 
 word. The only thing is, will she equally remember the rest of 
 her lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses which are to 
 break the secret to Jules ? 
 
 Gott. How he gazes on her ! Pity pity ! 
 
 1st Stud. They go in : now, silence ! You three, not 
 nearer the window, mind, than that pomegranate : just where 
 the little girl, who a few minutes ago passed us singing, is 
 seated! 
 
 Tl. NOON. Over Orcana. The house of JULES, who crosses its 
 threshold with PHENE : she is silent, on which JULES begins 
 
 Do not die, Phene ! I am yours now, you 
 Are mine now ; let fate reach me how she likes, 
 If you '11 not die : so, never die ! Sit here 
 My work-room's single seat. I over-lean 
 This length of hair and lustrous front ; they turn
 
 PIPPA PA SSES ?43 
 
 Like an entire flower upward : eyes, lips, last 
 Your chin no, last your throat turns : 't is their scent 
 Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever 
 This one way till I change, grow you I could 
 Change into you, beloved ! 
 
 You by me, 
 
 And I by you ; this is your hand in mine, 
 And side by side we sit : all 's true. Thank God ! 
 I have spoken : speak you ! 
 
 O my life to come ! 
 
 My Tydeus must be carved that 's there in clay ; 
 Yet how be carved, with you about the room ? 
 Where must I place you ? When I think that once 
 This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven 
 Without you ! Shall I ever work again, 
 Get fairly into my old ways again, 
 Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, 
 My hand transfers its lineaments to stone ? 
 Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth 
 The live truth, passing and repassing me, 
 Sitting beside me ? 
 
 Now speak ! 
 
 Only first, 
 
 See, all your letters ! Was 't not well contrived ? 
 Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe ; she keeps 
 Your letters next her skin : which drops out foremost ? 
 Ah, this that swam down like a first moonbeam 
 Into my world ! 
 
 Again those eyes complete 
 Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 
 Of all my room holds ; to return and rest 
 On me, with pity, yet some wonder too : 
 As if God bade some spirit plague a world, 
 And this were the one moment of surprise 
 And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 
 O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy ! 
 What gaze you at ? Those ? Books, I told you of ; 
 Let your first word to me rejoice them, too : 
 This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red, 
 Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe 
 Read this line . . . no, shame Homer's be the Greek 
 First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl ! 
 This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
 With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, 
 To mark great places with due gratitude ; 
 He said, and on Antinous directed
 
 344 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 A bitter shaft "... a flower blots out the rest ! 
 Again upon your search ? My statues, then ! 
 Ah, do not mind that better that will look 
 When cast in bronze an Almaign Kaiser, that, 
 Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. 
 This, rather, turn to ! What, unrecognized ? 
 I thought you would have seen that here you sit 
 As I imagined you, Hippolyta, 
 Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 
 Recall you this then ? " Carve in bold relief " 
 So you commanded " carve, against I come, 
 A Greek, in Athens, as our fasliion was, 
 Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, 
 Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 
 4 Praise those who slew Hipparchus ! ' cry the guests, 
 ' While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves 
 As erst above our champion : stand up, all ! ' ' 
 See, I have labored to express your thought. 
 Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms 
 (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, 
 Only consenting at the branch's end 
 They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face, 
 The Praiser's, in the centre : who with eyes 
 Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 
 His brain where visionary forms throng up, 
 Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 
 Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine 
 From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, 
 Violet and parsley crowns to trample on 
 Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, 
 Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. 
 But you must say a " well " to that say "well " ! 
 Because you gaze am I fantastic, sweet ? 
 Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble marbly 
 Even to the silence ! Why, before I found 
 The real flesh Phene, I inured myself 
 To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff 
 For better nature's birth by means of art : 
 With me, each substance tended to one form 
 Of beauty to the human archetype. 
 On every side occurred suggestive germs 
 Of that the tree, the flower or take the fruit, 
 Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, 
 Curved beewise o'er its bough ; as rosy limbs, 
 Depending, nestled in the leaves ; and just 
 From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang.
 
 PIPPA PASSES 345 
 
 But of the stuffs one can be master of, 
 
 How I divined their capabilities ! 
 
 From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 
 
 That yields your outline to the air's embrace, 
 
 Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom ; 
 
 Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 
 
 To cut its one confided thought clean out 
 
 Of all the world. But marble ! 'neath my tools 
 
 More pliable than jelly as it were 
 
 Some clear primordial creature dug from depths 
 
 In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, 
 
 And whence all baser substance may be worked ; 
 
 Refine it off to air, you may, condense it 
 
 Down to the diamond ; is not metal there, 
 
 When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips ? 
 
 Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, 
 
 Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep ? 
 
 Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised 
 
 By the swift implement sent home at once, 
 
 Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
 
 About its track ? 
 
 Phene ? what why is this ? 
 That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes ! 
 Ah, you will die I knew that you would die ! 
 
 PHENE begins, on his having long remained silent. 
 
 Now the end 's coming ; to be sure, it must 
 Have ended sometime ! Tush, why need I speak 
 Their foolish speech ? I cannot bring to mind 
 One half of it, beside ; and do not care 
 For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 
 Oh, you what are you ? if I do not try 
 To say the words Natalia made me learn, 
 To please your friends, it is to keep myself 
 Where your voice lifted me, by letting that 
 Proceed : but can it ? Even you, perhaps, 
 Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, 
 The music's life, and me along with that 
 No, or you would ! We '11 stay, then, as we are : 
 Above the world. 
 
 You creature with the eyes ! 
 If I could look forever up to them, 
 As now you let me, I believe, all sin, 
 All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, 
 Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 
 Whence all that 's low comes, and there touch and stay
 
 346 P1PPA PASSES 
 
 Never to overtake the rest of me, 
 All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, 
 Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself, 
 Not me the shame and suffering ; but they sink, 
 Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, 
 Above the world ! 
 
 But you sink, for your eyes 
 
 Are altering altered ! Stay "I love you, love " 
 I could prevent it if I understood : 
 More of your words to me : was 't in the tone 
 Or the words, your power ? 
 
 Or stay I will repeat 
 
 Their speech, if that contents you ! Only change 
 No more, and I shall find it presently 
 Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. 
 Natalia tlireatened me that harm should follow 
 Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 
 But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 
 Your friends, Natalia said they were your friends 
 And meant you well, because, I doubted it, 
 Observing (what was very strange to see) 
 On every face, so different in all else, 
 The same smile girls like me are used to bear, 
 But never men, men cannot stoop so low ; 
 Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, 
 That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit 
 Which seems to take possession of the world 
 And make of God a tame confederate, 
 Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know ! 
 But still Natalia said they were your friends, 
 And they assented though they smiled the more, 
 And all came round me, that thin Englishman 
 With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest ; 
 He held a paper " What we want," said he, 
 Ending some explanation to his friends 
 " Is something slow, involved and mystical, 
 To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste 
 And lure him on until, at innermost 
 Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find this I 
 
 As in the apple's core, the noisome fly : 
 For insects on the rind are seen at once, 
 And brushed aside as soon, but this is found 
 Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 
 And so he read what I have got by heart : 
 
 I '11 speak it, " Do not die, love ! I am yours " . 
 No is not that, or like that, part of words
 
 P1PPA PASSES 347 
 
 Yourself began by speaking ? Strange to lose 
 What cost such pains to learn ! Is this more right ? 
 
 / am a painter who cannot paint ; 
 
 In my life, a devil rather than saint; 
 
 In my brain, as poor a creature too : 
 
 No end to all 1 cannot do ! 
 
 Yet do one thing at least I can 
 
 Love a man or hate a man 
 
 Supremely : thus my lore began. 
 
 Through the Valley of Love I went, 
 
 In the lovingest spot to abide, 
 
 And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, 
 
 I found Hate dwelling beside. 
 
 (Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant, 
 
 Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride /) 
 
 And further, I traversed Hate's grove, 
 
 In the hatefullest nook to dwell ; 
 
 But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love 
 
 Where the shadow threefold fell. 
 
 (The meaning those black bride's eyes above, 
 
 Not a painter's lip should tell!) 
 
 u And here," said he, " Jules probably will ask, 
 ' You have black eyes, Love, you are, sure enough, 
 My peerless bride, then do you tell indeed 
 What needs some explanation ! What means this ? ' ' 
 And I am to go on, without a word 
 
 So, I grew wise in Love and Hate, 
 
 From simple that I was of late. 
 
 Once, when I loved, I would enlace 
 
 Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face 
 
 Of her I loved, in one embrace 
 
 As if by mere love I could love immensely ! 
 
 Once, when I hated, 1 ivould plunge 
 
 My sword, and wipe with the first lunge 
 
 My foe's whole life out like a sponge 
 
 As if by mere hate I could hate intensely ! 
 
 But now I am wiser, know better the fashion 
 
 How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion : 
 
 And if I see cause to love more, hate more 
 
 Than ever man loved, ever hated before 
 
 And seek in the Valley of Love 
 
 The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, 
 
 Where my soul may surely reach
 
 348 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 The essence, nought less, of each, 
 
 The Hate of all Hates, the Love 
 
 Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove, 
 
 I find them the very warders 
 
 Each of the other's borders. 
 
 When I love most, Love is disguised 
 
 In Hate ; and when Hate is surprised 
 
 In Love, then I hate most : ask 
 
 How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, 
 
 Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask, 
 
 And how, having hated thee, 
 
 I sought long and painfully 
 
 To reach thy heart, nor prick 
 
 The skin but pierce to the quick 
 
 Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight 
 
 By thy bride how the painter Lutwyche can hate ! 
 
 JULES inteiposes. 
 
 Lutwyche ! Who else ? But all of them, no doubt, 
 Hated me : they at Venice presently 
 Their turn, however ! You I shall not meet : 
 If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. 
 
 Keep 
 
 What 's here, the gold we cannot meet again, 
 Consider ! and the money was but meant 
 For two years' travel, which is over now, 
 All chance or hope or care or need of it. 
 This and what comes from selling these, my casts 
 And books and medals, except ... let them go 
 Together, so the produce keeps you safe 
 Out of Natalia's clutches ! If by chance 
 (For all 's chance here) I should survive the gang 
 At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, 
 We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide. 
 
 [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing 
 
 Give her but a least excuse to love me / 
 
 When where 
 
 How can this arm establish her above me, 
 
 If fortune fixed her as my lady there, 
 
 There already, to eternally reprove me ? 
 (" Hist / " said Kate the Queen ; 
 But "Oh / " cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
 "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, 
 Crumbling your hounds their messes / ")
 
 P1PPA PASSES 
 
 Is she wronged ? To the rescue of her honor, 
 
 My heart ! 
 
 Is she poor ? What costs it to be styled a donor ? 
 
 Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 
 
 But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her ! 
 
 (" Nay, list ! " bade Kate the Queen ; 
 
 And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
 
 " 'Tis only a page that carols unseen, 
 
 Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") [PIPPA passes. 
 
 JULES resumes. 
 
 What name was that the little girl sang forth ? 
 Kate ? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced 
 The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
 At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
 And peasants sing how once a certain page 
 Pined for the grace of her so far above 
 His power of doing good to, " Kate the Queen 
 She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed, 
 Need him to help her ! " 
 
 Yes, a bitter thing 
 
 To see our lady above all need of us ; 
 Yet so we look ere we will love ; not I, ^ 
 
 But the world looks so. If whoever loves 
 Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
 The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, 
 Why should we always choose the page's part ? 
 Here is a woman with utter need of me, 
 I find myself queen here, it seems ! 
 
 How strange ! 
 
 Look at the woman here with the new soul, 
 Like my own Psyche, fresh upon her lips 
 Alit, the visionary butterfly, 
 Waiting my word to enter and make bright, 
 Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
 This body had no soul before, but slept 
 Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
 From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
 Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
 Now, it will wake, feel, live or die again ! 
 Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
 Be Art and further, to evoke a soul 
 From form be nothing ? This new soul is mine ! 
 
 Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do ? save 
 A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death
 
 350 PIPPA PASSES * 
 
 Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear 
 God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
 They broke in with their laughter ! I heard them 
 Henceforth, not God. 
 
 To Ancona Greece some isle 
 I wanted silence only ; there is clay 
 Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes 
 In Art : the only thing is, to make sure 
 That one does like it which takes pains to know. 
 
 Scatter all this, my Phene this mad dream ! 
 Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, 
 What the whole world except our love my own, 
 Own Phene ? But I told you, did I not, 
 Ere night we travel for your land some isle 
 With the sea's silence on it ? Stand aside 
 I do but break these paltry models up 
 To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I 
 And save him from my statue meeting him ? 
 Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 
 Like a god going through his world, there stands 
 One mountain for a moment in the dusk, 
 Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow : 
 And you are ever by me while I gaze 
 Are in my arms as now as now as now ! 
 Some unsuspected isle in the far seas I 
 Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas ! 
 
 Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from Orcana to the Turret. 
 Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering with BLUPHOCKS, an 
 English vagabond, just in view of the Turret. 
 
 Bluphocks.* So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who passed 
 us singing ? Well, your Bishop's Intendant's money shall be 
 honestly earned : now, don't make me that sour face because 
 I bring the Bishop's name into the business ; we know he can 
 have nothing to do with such horrors : we know that he is a 
 saint and all that a bishop should be, who is a great man beside. 
 Oh were but every worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every 
 bough a Christmas fagot, Every tune a jig ! In fact, I have 
 abjured all religions ; but the last I inclined to was the Ar- 
 minian : for I have travelled, do you see, and at Koenigsberg, 
 Prussia Improper (so styled because there 's a sort of bleak 
 hungry sun there), you might remark over a venerable house- 
 porch, a certain Chaldee inscription ; and brief as it is, a mere 
 glance at it used absolutely to change the mood of every bearded 
 
 * "He niaketh his stin to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
 rain on the just and on the un just. ' '
 
 PIPPA PASSES 351 
 
 passenger. In they turned, one and all ; the young and light- 
 some, with no irreverent pause, the aged and decrepit, with a 
 sensible alacrity : 't was the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. 
 Struck with curiosity, I lost no time in learning Syriac (these 
 are vowels, you dogs, follow my stick's end in the mud 
 Celarent, Darii, Ferio /) and one morning presented myself, 
 spelling-book in hand, a, b, c, I picked it out letter by letter, 
 and what was the purport of this miraculous posy ? Some 
 cherished legend of the past, you'll say " How Moses hocus- 
 pocussed Egypt's land with fly and locust," or, "How to 
 Jonah sounded harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish," 
 or, " How the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned 
 a salaam." In no wise ! " Shackabrack Boach somebody 
 or other Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger of 
 Stolen Goods ! " So, talk to me of the religion of a bishop ! 
 I have renounced all bishops save Bishop Beveridge ! mean 
 to live so and die As some Greek dog-sage, dead and 
 merry, Hellward bound in Charon's wherry, With food for 
 both ivorlds, under and upper, Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, 
 And never an obolus . . . (Though thanks to you, or this In- 
 tendant through you, or this Bishop through his Intendant I 
 possess a burning pocket-full of zwanzigers) . . . To pay the 
 Stygian Ferry ! 
 
 \st Pol. There is the girl, then : go and deserve them the 
 moment you have pointed out to us Signer Luigi and his mother. 
 [To the rest.^ I have been noticing a house yonder, this long 
 while : not a shutter unclosed since morning ! 
 
 2d Pol. Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silk-mills here : he 
 dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs deeply, says he should like to 
 be Prince Metternich, and then dozes again, after having bidden 
 young Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. 
 Never molest such a household, they mean well. 
 
 JBlup. Only, cannot you tell me something of this little Pippa, 
 I must have to do with ? One could make something of that 
 name. Pippa that is, short for Felippa rhyming to Panurge 
 consults Hertrippa Bdievest thou, King Agrippa? Some- 
 tiling might be done with that name. 
 
 2d Pol. Put into rhyme that your head and a ripe musk- 
 melon would not be dear at half a zwanziger ! Leave this fool- 
 ing, and look out ; the afternoon 's over or nearly so. 
 
 3d Pol. Where in this passport of Signor Luigi does our 
 Principal instruct you to watch him so narrowly ? There ? 
 What 's there beside a simple signature ? (That English fool 's 
 busy watching.) 
 
 2d Pol. Flourish all round " Put all possible obstacles in 
 iiis way ; " oblong dot at the end " Detain him till further
 
 352 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 advices reach you ; " scratch at bottom " Send him back on 
 pretence of some informality in the above ; " ink-spirt on right- 
 hand side (which is the case here) '* Arrest him at once." 
 Why and wherefore, I don't concern myself, but my instructions 
 amount to this : if Signer Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna 
 well and good, the passport deposed with us for our visa is 
 really for his own use, they have misinformed the Office, and he 
 means well ; but let him stay over to-night there has been the 
 pretence we suspect, the accounts of his corresponding and hold- 
 ing intelligence with the Carbonari are correct, we arrest him at 
 once, to-morrow comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. Blu- 
 phocks makes the signal, sure enough ! That is he, entering the 
 turret with his mother, no doubt. 
 
 III. EVENING. Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. LUIGI 
 and his MOTHER entering. 
 
 Mother. If there blew wind, you 'd hear a long sigh, easing 
 The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 
 
 Luigi. Here in the archway ? 
 
 Mother. Oh no, no in farther, 
 
 Where the echo is made, on the ridge. 
 
 Luigi. Here surely, then. 
 
 How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up ! 
 Hark " Lucius Junius ! " The very ghost of a voice 
 Whose body is caught and kept by ... what are those ? 
 Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead ? 
 They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair 
 That lean out of their topmost fortress look 
 And listen, mountain men, to what we say, 
 Hand under chin of each grave earthy face. 
 Up and show faces all of you ! " All of you ! " 
 That 's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb ; old Franz, 
 Come down and meet your fate ? Hark " Meet your fate ! ' 
 
 Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi do not 
 Go to his City ! Putting crime aside, 
 Half of these ills of Italy are feigned : 
 Your Pellicos and writers for effect, 
 Write for effect. 
 
 Luigi. Hush ! Say A writes, and B. 
 
 Mother. These A's and B's write for effect, I say. 
 Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good 
 Is silent; you hear each petty injury, 
 None of his virtues ; he is old beside, 
 Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 
 Do A and B not kill him themselves ?
 
 PIPPA PASSES 353 
 
 Luigi. They teach 
 
 Others to kill him me and, if I fail, 
 Others to succeed ; now, if A tried and failed, 
 I could not teach that : mine 's the lesser task. 
 Mother, they visit night by night . . . 
 
 Mother. You, Luigi ? 
 
 Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 
 
 Luigi. Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint, 
 You may assure yourself I say and say 
 Ever to myself ! At times nay, even as now 
 We sit I think my mind is touched, suspect 
 All is not sound : but is not knowing that, 
 What constitutes one sane or otherwise ? 
 I know I am thus so, all is right again. 
 I laugh at myself as through the town I walk, 
 And see men merry as if no Italy 
 Were suffering ; then I ponder "I am rich, 
 Young, healthy ; why should this fact trouble me, 
 More than it troubles these ? " But it does trouble. 
 No, trouble 's a bad word : for as I walk 
 There 's springing and melody and giddiness, 
 And old quaint turns and passages of my youth, 
 Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves, 
 Return to me whatever may amuse me : 
 And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven 
 Accords with me, all things suspend their strife, 
 The very cicala laughs " There goes he, and there! 
 Feast him, the time is short ; he is on his way 
 For the world's sake : feast him this once, our friend ! " 
 And in return for all this, I can trip 
 Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 
 This evening, mother ! 
 
 Mother. But mistrust yourself 
 
 Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him ! 
 
 Luigi. Oh, there I feel am sure that I am right ! 
 
 Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere means 
 To this wild enterprise : say, you are right, 
 How should one in your state e'er bring to pass 
 What would require a cool head, a cold heart, 
 And a calm hand ? You never will escape. 
 
 Luigi. Escape ? To even wish that, would spoil all. 
 The dying is best part of it. Too much 
 Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine, 
 To leave myself excuse for longer life : 
 Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy, 
 That I might finish with it ere my fellows
 
 354 P1PPA PASSES 
 
 Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay ? 
 
 I was put at the board-head, helped to all 
 
 At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
 
 God must be glad one loves his world so much. 
 
 I can give news of earth to all the dead 
 
 Who ask me : last year's sunsets, and great stars 
 
 Which had a right to come first and see ebb 
 
 The crimson wave that drifts the sun away 
 
 Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims 
 
 That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood, 
 
 Impatient of the azure and that day 
 
 In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm 
 
 May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights 
 
 Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 
 
 Mother. (He will not go !) 
 
 Luigi. You smile at me ? 'T is true, 
 
 Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 
 Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
 As round about some antique altar wreathe 
 The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls. 
 
 Mother. See now : you reach the city, you must cross 
 His threshold how ? 
 
 Luigi. Oh, that 's if we conspired ! 
 
 Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess 
 But guess not how the qualities most fit 
 For such an office, qualities I have, 
 Would little stead me, otherwise employed, 
 Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 
 Every one knows for what his excellence 
 Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
 For what his worst defect might serve : and yet 
 Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder 
 In search of a distorted ash ? I find 
 The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. 
 Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man 
 Arriving at the palace on my errand ! 
 No, no ! I have a handsome dress packed up 
 White satin here, to set off my black hair ; 
 In I shall march for you may watch your life out 
 Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you ; 
 More than one man spoils everything. March straight 
 Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for, 
 Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 
 Through guards and guards I have rehearsed it all 
 Inside the turret here a hundred times. 
 Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe !
 
 PIPPA PASSES 355 
 
 But where they cluster thickliest is the door 
 
 Of doors ; they '11 let you pass they '11 never blab 
 
 Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, 
 
 Whence he is bound and what 's his business now. 
 
 Walk in straight up to. him ; you have no knife : 
 
 Be prompt, how should he scream ? Then, out with you ! 
 
 Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 
 
 You 're free, you 're free ! Oh mother, I could dream 
 
 They got about me Andrea from his exile, 
 
 Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave ! 
 
 Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism 
 The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
 To acquire : he loves himself and next, the world 
 If he must love beyond, but nought between : 
 As a short-sighted man sees nought midway 
 His body and the sun above. But you 
 Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 
 To my least wish, and running o'er with love : 
 I could not call you cruel or unkind. 
 Once more, your ground for killing him ! then go ! 
 
 Luigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me ? 
 How first the Austrians got these provinces . . . 
 (If that is all, I '11 satisfy you soon) 
 Never by conquest but by cunning, for 
 That treaty whereby . . . 
 
 Mother. Well ? 
 
 Luigi. (Sure, he 's arrived, 
 
 The tell-tale cuckoo : spring 's his confidant, 
 And he lets out her April purposes !) 
 Or ... better go at once to modern time. 
 He has . . . they have ... in fact, I understand 
 But can't restate the matter ; that 's my boast : 
 Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
 Things they have made me feel. 
 
 Mother. Why go to-night ? 
 
 Morn 's for adventure. Jupiter is now 
 A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi ! 
 
 Luigi. " I am the bright and morning-star," saith God 
 And, *' to such an one I give the morning-star." 
 The gift of the morning-star ! Have I God's gift 
 Of the morning-star ? 
 
 Mother. Chiara will love to see 
 
 That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 
 
 Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live through June ! 
 Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps 
 That triumph at the heels of June the god
 
 356 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 Leading his revel through our leafy world. 
 Yes, Chiara will be here. 
 
 Mother. In June : remember, 
 
 Yourself appointed that month for her coming. 
 
 Luigi. Was that low noise the echo ? 
 
 Mother. The night-wind. 
 
 She must be grown with her blue eyes upturned 
 As if life were one long and sweet surprise : 
 In June she comes. 
 
 Luigi. We were to see together 
 
 The Titian at Treviso. There, again ! 
 
 [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing 
 
 A king lived long ago, 
 In the morning of the world, 
 When earth was nigher heaven than now ; 
 And the king's lodes curled, 
 Disparting o'er a forehvad full 
 As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn 
 Of some sacrificial bull 
 Only calm as a babe new-born : 
 For he was got to a sleepy mood, 
 So safe from all decrepitude, 
 Age with its bane, so sure gone by, 
 (The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 
 That, hfiving lived thus long, there seemed 
 No need the king should ever die. 
 Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die ! 
 Among the rocks his city was : 
 Before his palace, in the sun, 
 He sat to see his people pass, 
 And judge them every one 
 From its threshold of smooth stone. 
 They Jialed him many a valley-thief 
 Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief 
 Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, 
 Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 
 On the sea-sand left aground ; 
 And sometimes clung about his feet, 
 With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 
 A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 
 Of one with sullen thickset brows: 
 And sometimes from the prison-house 
 The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 
 Who through some chink had pushed and pressed 
 On knees and elbows, belly and breast,
 
 P1PPA PASSES 357 
 
 Worm-like into the temple, caught 
 
 He was by the very god, 
 
 Who ever in the darkness strode 
 
 Backward and forward, keeping watch 
 
 O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch ! 
 
 These, all and every one, 
 
 The king judged, sitting in the sun. 
 Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the sun ! 
 
 His councillors, on left and right, 
 
 Looked anxious up, but no surprise 
 
 Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes 
 
 Where the very blue had turned to white. 
 
 'Tis said, a Python scared one day 
 
 The breathless city, till he came, 
 
 Withforky tongue and eyes on flame, 
 
 Where the old king sat to judge alway ; 
 
 But when he saw the sweepy hair 
 
 Girt with a crown of berries rare 
 
 Which the god will hardly give to wear 
 
 To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 
 
 In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 
 
 At his wondrous forest rites, 
 
 Seeing this, he did not dare 
 
 Approach that threshold in the sun, 
 
 Assault the old king smiling there. 
 
 Such grace had kings when the world begun ! 
 
 [PippA passes. 
 
 Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the world ends ! 
 The Python at the city, on the throne, 
 And brave men, God would crown for slaying him, 
 Lurk in by-corners lest they fall his prey. 
 Are crowns yet to be won in this late time, 
 Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
 'T is God's voice calls : how could I stay ? Farewell ! 
 
 Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the Turret to the Bishop's 
 Brother's House, close to the Duomo S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting 
 on the steps. 
 
 ls Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice the stout seafarer ! 
 Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings. 
 Let us all wish ; you, wish first 1 
 
 2d Girl. I ? This sunset 
 
 To finish. 
 
 3d Girl. That old somebody I know, 
 Grayer and older than my grandfather,
 
 3o8 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 To give me the same treat he gave last week 
 Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers, 
 Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling 
 The while some folly about how well 1 fare, 
 Let sit and eat my supper quietly : 
 Since had he not himself been late this morning 
 Detained at never mind where, had he not . . . 
 " Eh, baggage, had I not ! " 
 
 2d Girl. How she can lie ! 
 
 3d Girl. Look there by the nails ! 
 
 2d Girl. What makes your fingers red t 
 
 3d Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad words with 
 On the bright table : how he laughed ! 
 
 1st Girl. My turn. 
 
 Spring 's come and summer 's coming. I would wear 
 A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands, 
 With plaits here, close about the throat, all day ; 
 And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed ; 
 And have new milk to drink, apples to eat, 
 Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . . ah, I should say, 
 This is away in the fields miles ! 
 
 3d Girl. Say at once 
 
 You 'd be at home : she VI always be at home ! 
 Now comes the story of the farm among 
 The cherry orchards, and how April snowed 
 White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool, 
 They 've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were, 
 Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage, 
 Made a dung-hill of your garden ! 
 
 1st Girl. They destroy 
 
 My garden since I left them ? well perhaps 
 I would have done so : so I hope they have ! 
 A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall ; 
 They called it mine, I have forgotten why, 
 It must have been there long ere I was born : 
 Cric eric I think I hear the wasps o'erhead 
 Pricking the papers strung to flutter there 
 And keep off birds in fruit-time coarse long papers, 
 And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through. 
 
 3d Girl. How her mouth twitches ! Where was I ? before 
 She broke in with her wishes and long gowns 
 And wasps would I be such a fool ! Oh, here ! 
 This is my way : I answer every one 
 Who asks me why I make so much of him 
 (If you say, "you love him" straight "he'll not be 
 gulled ! ")
 
 PIPPA PASSES 359 
 
 " He that seduced me when I was a girl 
 
 Thus high had eyes like yours, or hair like yours, 
 
 Brown, red, white," as the case may be : that pleases! 
 
 See how that beetle burnishes in the path ! 
 
 There sparkles he along the dust : and, there 
 
 Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least ! 
 
 \st Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed one 
 Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
 Up there, would shine no more that day nor next. 
 
 2d Girl. When you were young ? Nor are you young, that 's 
 
 true. 
 
 How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away ! 
 Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still ? 
 No matter, so you keep your curious hair. 
 I wish they 'd find a way to dye our hair 
 Your color any lighter tint, indeed, 
 Than black : the men say they are sick of black, 
 Black eyes, black hair ! 
 
 th Girl. Sick of yours, like enough. 
 
 Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
 And ortolans ? Giovita, of the palace, 
 Engaged (but there 's no trusting him) to slice me 
 Polenta with a knife that had cut up 
 An ortolan. 
 
 2d Girl. Why, there ! Is not that Pippa 
 We are to talk to, under the window, quick ! 
 Where the lights are ? 
 
 1st Girl. That she ? No, or she would sing, 
 
 For the Intendant said . . . 
 
 3d Girl. Oh, you sing first ! 
 
 Then, if she listens and comes close ... I '11 tell you, 
 Sing that song the young English noble made, 
 Who took you for the purest of the pure, 
 And meant to leave the world for you what fun ! 
 
 2d Girl. [sings.~\ 
 
 You 'II love me yet ! and 1 can tarry 
 
 Your love's protracted growing : 
 June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, 
 
 From, seeds of April's sowing. 
 
 I plant a heartfull now : some seed 
 
 At least is sure to strike, 
 And yield what you 'II not pluck indeed, 
 
 Not love, but, may be, like.
 
 360 P1PPA PASSES 
 
 You 'II look at least on love's remains, 
 
 A grave 's one violet : 
 Your look ? that pays a thousand pains. 
 
 What 's death ? You 'II love me yet ! 
 
 3d Girl, [to PIPPA who approaches.'] Oh you may come 
 closer we shall not eat you ! Why, you seem the very person 
 that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently 
 in love with, I '11 tell you all about it. 
 
 IV. NIGHT. Inside the Palace by the Duomo. MONSIGNOR, dis- 
 missing his Attendants. 
 
 Mon. Thanks, friends, many thanks ! I chiefly desire life 
 now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know 
 something of already. What, a repast prepared ? Benedicto 
 benedicatur . . . ugh, ugh ! Where was I ? Oh, as you were 
 remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter- 
 weather : but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your 
 Julys here. To be sure, when 't was full summer at Messina, as 
 we priests used to cross in procession the great square on As- 
 sumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist 
 suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on them- 
 selves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go ! [ To the 
 Intendant.] Not you, Ugo ! [ The others leave the apartment.] 
 I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo. 
 
 Jnten. Uguccio 
 
 Mon. . . . 'guccio Stefani, man ! of Ascoli, Fermo and Fos- 
 sombruno ; what I do need instructing about, are these ac- 
 counts of your administration of my poor brother's affairs. 
 Ugh ! I shall never get through a third part of your accounts : 
 take some of these dainties before we attempt it, however. Are 
 you bashful to that degree ? For me, a crust and water suffice. 
 
 Inten. Do you choose this especial night to question me ? 
 
 Mon. This night, Ugo. You have managed my late brother's 
 affairs since the death of our elder brother : fourteen years and 
 a month, all but three days. On the Third of December, I find 
 him . . . 
 
 Inten. If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your 
 brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning so far back : they 
 will hardly bear looking into, so far back. 
 
 Mon. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, nothing but disappointments here 
 below ! I remark a considerable payment made to yourself on 
 this Third of December. Talk of disappointments ! There was 
 a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost 
 to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both : he WH
 
 P1PPA PASSES 361 
 
 going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me 
 some marvellous change that has happened in his notions of 
 Art. Here 's his letter, " He never had a clearly conceived 
 Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could 
 manage a chisel, he has practised expressing other men's Ideals ; 
 and, in the very perfection he has attained to, he foresees an 
 ultimate failure : his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed 
 course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal expertness 
 the ancient types, let the novel one appear never so palpably to 
 his spirit. There is but one method of escape : confiding the 
 virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of 
 sculptor, and paint, not carve, its characteristics," strike out, 
 I dare say, a school like Correggio : how think you, Ugo ? 
 
 Inten. Is Correggio a painter ? 
 
 Mon. Foolish Jules ! and yet, after all, why foolish ? He 
 may probably will, fail egregiously ; but if there should arise 
 a new painter, will it not be in some such way, by a poet now, 
 or a musician, (spirits who have conceived and perfected an 
 Ideal through some other channel) transferring it to this, and 
 escaping our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them ; eh, 
 Ugo ? If you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo ! 
 
 Inten. Sir, I can submit no longer to this course of yours. 
 First, you select the group of which I formed one, next you 
 thin it gradually, always retaining me with your smile, and 
 so do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with you 
 between four stone walls. And now then ? Let this farce, this 
 chatter end now : what is it you want with me ? 
 
 Mon. Ugo ! 
 
 Inten. From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me 
 as you questioned me about this and the other article in those 
 papers why your brother should have given me this villa, that 
 podere, and your nod at the end meant, what ? 
 
 Mon. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here. If once 
 you set me coughing, Ugo ! 
 
 Inten. I have your brother's hand and seal to all I possess : 
 now ask me what for ! what service I did him ask me ! 
 
 M on. I would better not : I should rip up old disgraces, let 
 out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of 
 Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your true name,) was the 
 interdict ever taken off you for robbing that church at Cesena ? 
 
 Inten. No, nor needs be : for when I murdered your brother's 
 friend, Pasquale, for him . . . 
 
 Mon. Ah, he employed you in that business, did he ? Well, 
 I must let you keep, as you say, this villa and that podere, for 
 fear the world should find out my relations were of so indifferent 
 a stamp ? Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and
 
 PIP PA PASSES 
 
 century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting 
 themselves with every wickedness under heaven : my own father 
 . . . rest his soul ! I have, I know, a chapel to support that it 
 may rest : my dear two dead brothers were, what you know 
 tolerably well ; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them in 
 vice, if not in wealth : but from my boyhood I came out from 
 among them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. My glory 
 springs from another source ; or if from this, by contrast only, 
 for I, the bishop, am the brother of your employers, Ugo. I 
 hope to repair some of their wrong, however ; so far as my 
 brother's ill-gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop the con- 
 sequences of his crime : and not one soldo shall escape me. 
 Maffeo, the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves 
 pick up and commit murders with ; what opportunities the 
 virtuous forego, the villanous seize. Because, to pleasure my- 
 self apart from other considerations, my food would be millet- 
 cake, my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw, am I therefore 
 to let you, the off-scouring of the earth, seduce the poor and 
 ignorant by appropriating a pomp these will be sure to think 
 lessens the abominations so unaccountably and exclusively as- 
 sociated with it ? Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a 
 murderer and thief, that you may beget by means of them other 
 murderers and thieves ? No if my cough would but allow 
 me to speak ! 
 
 Inten. What am I to expect ? You are going to punish me ? 
 
 Mon. Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford to cast 
 away a chance. I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and 
 only a month or two of life to do it in. How should I dare to 
 say ... 
 
 Inten. " Forgive us our trespasses " ? 
 
 Mon. My friend, it is because I avow myself a very worm, 
 sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would 
 applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning ? 
 I ? who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less 
 than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin. 
 much less keep others out. No : I do trespass, but will not 
 double that by allowing you to trespass. 
 
 Inten. And suppose the villas are not your brother's to give, 
 nor yours to take ? Oh, you are hasty enough just now ! 
 
 Mon. 1,2 N 3 ! ay, can you read the substance of a 
 letter, N 3, I have received from Rome ? It is precisely on 
 the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a cer- 
 tain child of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded 
 to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the in- 
 stigation of my late younger brother that the Pontiff enjoins 
 on me not merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punish
 
 PIPPA PASSES 363 
 
 ment, but the taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heri- 
 tage for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, 
 whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing 
 those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing up your papers, 
 Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice brings my people from 
 the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to con- 
 fess quietly, and jsave me i-aising my voice. Why, man, do I 
 not know the old story ? The heir between the succeeding heir, 
 and this heir's ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, 
 and the life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence ? 
 Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant ? Come now ! 
 
 Inten. So old a story, and tell it no better ? When did such 
 an instrument ever produce such an effect ? Either the child 
 smiles in his face ; or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put 
 himself in the employer's power so thoroughly : the child is al- 
 ways ready to produce as you say howsoever, wheresoever 
 and whensoever. 
 
 Mon. Liar ! 
 
 Inten. Strike me ? Ah, so might a father chastise ! I shall 
 sleep soundly to-night at least, though the gallows await me to- 
 morrow ; for what a life did I lead ! Carlo of Cesena reminds 
 me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity ; which hap- 
 pens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will confess 
 all to the good bishop you ! 
 
 Mon. I see through the trick, caitiff ! I would you spoke 
 truth for once. All shall be sifted, however seven times sifted. 
 
 Inten. And how my absurd riches encumbered me ! I dared 
 not lay claim to above half my possessions. Let me but once 
 unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and die ! 
 
 Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like your brother I 
 frightened to death : let us understand one another. Sir, I will 
 make away with her for -you the girl here close at hand ; 
 not the stupid obvious kind of killing; do not speak know 
 nothing of her nor of me ! I see her every day saw her this 
 morning : of course there is to be no killing ; but at Rome the 
 courtesans perish off every three years, and I can entice her 
 thither have indeed begun operations already. There 's a 
 certain lusty blue-eyed florid-complexioned English knave, I and 
 the Police employ occasionally. You assent, I perceive no, 
 that 's not it assent I do not say but you will let me con- 
 vert my present havings and holdings into cash, and give me 
 time to cross the Alps-? 'T is but a little black-eyed pretty 
 singing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of 
 harm's way up to this present ; for I always intended to make 
 your life a plague to you with her. 'T is as well settled once 
 and forever. Some women I have procured will pass Blu-
 
 364 PIPPA PASSES 
 
 phocks, my handsome scoundrel, off for somebody ; and once 
 Pippa entangled ! you conceive ? Through her singing ? Is 
 it a bargain ? 
 
 [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing 
 Overhead the tree-tops meet, 
 Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 
 There was nought above me, nought below, 
 My childhood had not learned to know : 
 For, what are the voices of birds 
 Ay, and of beasts, but words, our words, 
 Only so much more sweet ? 
 The knowledge of that with my life begun. 
 But I had so near made ont the sun, 
 And counted your stars, the seven and one, 
 Like the fingers of my hand : 
 Nay, I could all but understand 
 Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 
 And just when out of her soft fifty changes 
 JVo unfamiliar face might overlook me 
 Suddenly God took me. 
 
 [PIPPA passes. 
 
 Mon. [springing up.~\ My people one and all all 
 within there ! Gag this villain tie him hand and foot ! He 
 dares . . I know not half he dares but remove him quick ! 
 Miserere mei, Domine ! Quick, I say ! 
 
 PIPPA' s Chamber again. She enters it. 
 
 The bee with his comb, 
 
 The mouse at her dray, 
 
 The grub in its tomb, 
 
 While winter away ; 
 
 But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray, 
 
 How fare they ? 
 
 Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze ! 
 ' Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze " 
 
 The summer of life so easy to spend, 
 
 And care for to-morrow so soon put away ! 
 
 But winter hastens at summer's end, 
 
 And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray, 
 
 How fare they? 
 
 No bidding me then to ... what did Zanze say ? 
 " Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes 
 
 More like "... (what said she ?) " and less like canoes ! " 
 
 How pert that girl was ! would I be those pert
 
 PIPPA PASSES 365 
 
 Impudent staring women ! It had done me, 
 
 However, surely no such mighty hurt 
 
 To learn his name who passed that jest upon me : 
 
 No foreigner, that I can recollect, 
 
 Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect 
 
 Our silk-mills none with blue eyes and thick rings 
 
 Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. 
 
 Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 
 
 We shall do better, see what next year brings I 
 
 I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
 
 More destitute than you perhaps next year ! 
 
 Bluph . . . something ! I had caught the uncouth name 
 
 But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 
 
 Above us bound to spoil such idle chatter 
 
 As ours : it were indeed a serious matter 
 
 If silly talk like ours should put to shame 
 
 The pious man, the man devoid of blame, 
 
 The . . . ah but ah but, all the same, 
 
 No mere mortal has a right 
 
 To carry that exalted air ; 
 
 Best people are not angels quite : 
 
 While not the worst of people's doings scare 
 
 The devil ; so there 's that proud look to spare ! 
 
 Which is mere counsel to myself, mind ! for 
 I have just been the holy Monsignor : 
 And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, 
 And you too, Luigi! how that Luigi started 
 Out of the turret doubtlessly departed 
 On some good errand or another, 
 For he passed just now in a traveller's trim, 
 And the sullen company that prowled 
 About his path, I noticed, scowled 
 As if they had lost a prey in him. 
 And I was Jules the sculptor's bride, 
 And I was Ottima beside, 
 And now what am I ? tired of f ooling. 
 Day for folly, night for schooling ! 
 New year's day is over a"nd spent, 
 111 or well, I must be content. 
 
 Even my lily 's asleep, I vow : 
 Wake up here 's a friend I 've plucked you ! 
 Call this flower a heart' s-ease now ! 
 Something rare, let me instruct you, 
 Is this, with petals triply swollen. 
 Three times spotted, thrice the pollen ; 
 While the leaves and parts that witness
 
 566 P1PPA PASSES 
 
 Old proportions and their fitness, 
 Here remain unchanged, unmoved now ; 
 Call this pampered thing improved now ! 
 Suppose there 's a king of the flowers 
 And a girl-show held in his bowers 
 " Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 
 Says he, " Zanze from the Brenta, 
 I have made her gorge polenta 
 Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 
 As her . . . name there 's no pronouncing ! 
 See this heightened color too, 
 For she swilled Breganze wine 
 Till her nose turned deep carmine ; 
 'T was but white when wild she grew. 
 And only by this Zanze's eyes 
 Of which we could not change the size, 
 The magnitude of all achieved 
 Otherwise, may be perceived." 
 
 Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day ! 
 
 How could that red sun drop in that black cloud ? 
 
 Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, 
 
 Dispensed with, never more to be allowed ! 
 
 Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 
 
 Oh lark, be day's apostle 
 
 To mavis, merle and throstle, 
 
 Bid them their betters jostle 
 
 From day and its delights ! 
 
 But at night, brother owlet, over the woods, 
 
 Toll the world to thy chantry ; 
 
 Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 
 
 Full complines with gallantry : 
 
 Then, owls and bats, 
 
 Cowls and twats. 
 
 Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 
 
 Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 
 
 [After she has begun to undress herself. 
 Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
 How near I ever might approach all these 
 I only fancied being, this long day : 
 Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
 As to ... in some way . . . move them if you please, 
 Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
 For instance, if I wind 
 Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 
 
 [Sitting on the bedside.
 
 PIPPA PASSES 267 
 
 And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 
 
 Ah me, and my important part with them, 
 
 This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
 
 True in some sense or other, I suppose. 
 
 [As she lies down. 
 
 God hless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
 No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right. 
 
 All service ranks the same with God 
 With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
 Are we j there is no last nor first. 
 
 [She sleeps.
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 A TRAGEDY 
 
 So far as I know, this tragedy is the first artistic consequence of what 
 Voltaire termed ' ' a terrible event without consequences ; ' ' and although 
 it professes to be historical, I have taken more pains to arrive at the history 
 than most readers would thank me for particularizing : since acquainted, 
 as I will hope them to be, with the chief circumstances of Victor's remark- 
 able European career nor quite ignorant of the sad and surprising facts 
 I am about to reproduce (a tolerable account of which is to be found, for 
 instance, in Abbe* Roman's Re'cit, or even the fifth of Lord Orrery's Letters 
 from Italy ) I cannot expect them to be versed, nor desirous of becoming 
 so, in all the detail of the memoirs, correspondence, and relations of the 
 time. From these only may be obtained a knowledge of the fiery and 
 axidacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and 
 singular fertility in resources, of Victor the extreme and painful sensi- 
 bility, prolonged immaturity of powers, earnest good purpose and vacillat- 
 ing will of Charles the noble and right woman's manliness of his wife 
 and the ill-considered rascality and subsequent better-advised rectitude of 
 D'Ormea. When I say, therefore, that I cannot but believe my statement 
 (combining as it does what appears correct in Voltaire and plausible in Con- 
 dorcet) more true to person and thing than any it has hitherto been my 
 fortune to meet with, no doubt my word will be taken, and my evidence 
 spared as readily. R. B. 
 
 LONDON, 1842. 
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 VICTOR AMADEUS, First King of Sardinia. 
 CHARLES EMMANUEL, his Son, Prince of Piedmont. 
 POLYXENA, Wife of Charles. 
 D'ORMEA, Minister. 
 
 SCENE. The Council Chamber of Eivoli Palace, near Turin, communicating 
 with a Hall at the back, an Apartment to the left and another to the right of 
 the stage. 
 
 TIME, 1730-1. 
 
 FIRST YEAR, 1730. KING VICTOR. 
 
 PART I. 
 CHARLES, POLYXENA. 
 
 Cha. You think so ? Well, I do not. 
 
 Pol. My beloved, 
 
 All must clear up ; we shall be happy yet : 
 This cannot last forever oh, may change 
 To-day or any day !
 
 370 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Cha. May change ? Ah yes 
 
 May change ! 
 
 Pol. Endure it, then. 
 
 Cha. No doubt, a life 
 
 Like this drags on, now better and now worse. 
 My father may . . . may take to loving me ; 
 And he may take D'Ormea closer yet 
 To counsel him ; may even cast off her 
 That bad Sebastian ; but he also may 
 ... Or no, Polyxena, my only friend, 
 He may not force you from me ? 
 
 Pol. Now, force me 
 
 From you ! me, close by you as if there gloomed 
 No Sebastians, no D'Ormeas on our path 
 At Rivoli or Turin, still at hand, 
 Arch-counsellor, prime confidant . . . force me ! 
 
 Cha. Because I felt as sure, as I feel sure 
 We clasp hands now, of being happy once. 
 Young was I, quite neglected, nor concerned 
 By the world's business that engrossed so much 
 My father and my brother : if I peered 
 From out my privacy, amid the crash 
 And blaze of nations, domineered those two. 
 'T was war, peace France our foe, now England, friend 
 In love with Spain at feud with Austria ! Well 
 I wondered, laughed a moment's laugh for pride 
 In the chivalrous couple, then let drop 
 My curtain "I am out of it," I said 
 When . . . 
 
 Pol. You have told me, Charles. 
 
 Cha. Polyxena 
 
 When suddenly, a warm March day, just that ! 
 Just so much sunshine as the cottage child 
 Basks in delighted, while the cottager 
 Takes off his bonnet, as he ceases work, 
 To catch the more of it and it must fall 
 Heavily on my brother ! Had you seen 
 Philip the lion-featured ! not like me ! 
 
 Pol. I know 
 
 Cha. And Philip's mouth yet fast to mine, 
 
 His dead cheek on my cheek, his arm still round 
 My neck, they bade me rise, " for I was heir 
 To the Duke," they said, " the right hand of the Duke : " 
 Till then he was my father, not the Duke. 
 So ... let me finish . . . the whole intricate 
 World's-business their dead boy was born to, I
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 371 
 
 Must conquer, ay, the brilliant thing he was, 
 I, of a sudden must be : my faults, my follies, 
 
 All bitter truths were told me, all at once, 
 To end the sooner. What I simply styled 
 Their overlooking me, had been contempt : 
 How should the Duke employ himself, forsooth, 
 With such an one, while lordly Philip rode 
 
 By him their Turin through ? But he was punished, 
 
 And must put up with me ! 'T was sad enough 
 
 To learn my future portion and submit. 
 
 And then the wear and worry, blame on blame ! 
 
 For, spring-sounds in my ears, spring-smells about, 
 
 How could I but grow dizzy in their pent 
 
 Dim palace-rooms at first ? My mother's look 
 
 As they discussed my insignificance, 
 
 She and my father, and I sitting by, 
 
 I bore ; I knew how brave a son they missed ; 
 
 Philip had gayly run state-papers through, 
 
 While Charles was spelling at them painfully ! 
 
 But Victor was my father spite of that. 
 
 " Duke Victor's entire life has been," I said, 
 
 " Innumerable efforts to one end ; 
 
 And on the point now of that end's success, 
 
 Our Ducal turning to a Kingly crown, 
 
 Where 's time to be reminded 't is his child 
 
 He spurns ? " And so I suffered scarcely suffered, 
 
 Since I had you at length ! 
 
 Pol. To serve in place 
 
 Of monarch, minister and mistress, Charles ! 
 
 Cha. But, once that crown obtained, then was 't not like 
 Our lot would alter ? " When he rests, takes breath, 
 Glances around, sees who there 'a left to love 
 Now that my mother 's dead, sees I am left 
 Is it not like he '11 love me at the last ? " 
 Well, Savoy turns Sardinia ; the Duke 's King : 
 Could I precisely then could you expect 
 His harshness to redouble ? These few months 
 Have been . . . have been . . . Polyxena, do you 
 And God conduct me, or I lose myself ! 
 What would he have ? What is 't they want with me ? 
 Him with this mistress and this minister, 
 
 You see me and you hear him ; judge us both ! 
 Pronounce what I should do, Polyxena ! 
 
 Pol. Endure, endure, beloved ! Say you not 
 He is your father ? All 's so incident 
 To hovel sway ! Beside, our life must change :
 
 372 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Or you '11 acquire his kingcraft, or he '11 find 
 
 Harshness a sorry way of teaching it. 
 
 I bear this not that there 's so much to bear. 
 
 Cha. You bear ? Do not I know that you, though bound 
 To silence for my sake, are perishing 
 Piecemeal beside me ? And how otherwise 
 When every creephole from the hideous Court 
 Is stopped ; the Minister to dog me, here 
 The Mistress posted to entrap you, there ! 
 And thus shall we grow old in such a life ; 
 Not careless, never estranged, but old : to alter 
 Our life, there is so much to alter ! 
 
 Pol. Come 
 
 Is it agreed that we forego complaint 
 Even at Turin, yet complain we here 
 At Rivoli ? 'T were wiser you announced 
 Our presence to the King. What 's now afoot 
 I wonder ? Not that any more 's to dread 
 Than every day's embarrassment : but guess 
 For me, why train so fast succeeded train 
 On the high-road, each gayer still than each ! 
 I noticed your Archbishop's pursuivant, 
 The sable cloak and silver cross ; such pomp 
 Bodes . . . what now, Charles ? Can you conceive ? 
 
 Cha. Not I. 
 
 Pol. A matter of some moment 
 
 Cha. There 's our life ! 
 
 Which of the group of loiterers that stare 
 From the lime-avenue, divines that I 
 About to figure presently, he thinks, 
 In face of all assembled am the one 
 Who knows precisely least about it ? 
 
 Pol. Tush ! 
 
 D'Ormea's contrivance ! 
 
 Cha. Ay, how otherwise 
 
 Should the young Prince serve for the old King's foil ? 
 
 So that the simplest courtier may remark 
 'T were idle raising parties for a Prince 
 Content to linger the court's laughing-stock. 
 Something, 't is like, about that weary business 
 
 [Pointing to papers he has laid doom, and which POLYXENA examines. 
 
 Not that I comprehend three words, of course, 
 After all last night's study. 
 
 Pol. The faint heart ! 
 
 Why, as we rode and y u rehearsed just now 
 Its substance . . . (that 's the folded speech I mean,
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 373 
 
 Concerning the Reduction of the Fiefs) 
 
 What would you have ? I fancied while you spoke, 
 Some tones were just your father's. 
 
 Cha. Flattery ! 
 
 Pol. I fancied so : and here lurks, sure enough, 
 My note upon the Spanish Claims ! You 've mastered 
 The fief-speech thoroughly : this other, mind, 
 Is an. opinion you deliver, stay, 
 Best read it slowly over once to me ; 
 Read there 's bare time ; you read it firmly loud 
 
 Rather loud, looking in his face, don't sink 
 
 Your eye once ay, thus ! " If Spain claims "... begin. 
 
 Just as you look at me ! 
 
 Cha. At you ! Oh truly, 
 
 You have I seen, say, marshalling your troops, 
 Dismissing councils, or, through doors ajar, 
 Head sunk on hand, devoured by slow chagrins 
 
 Then radiant, for a crown had all at once 
 Seemed possible again ! I can behold 
 Him, whose least whisper ties my spirit fast, 
 
 In this sweet brow, nought could divert me from 
 Save objects like Sebastian's shameless lip, 
 Or worse, the clipped gray hair and dead white face 
 And dwindling eye as if it ached with guile, 
 D'Ormea wears . . . 
 
 [As lie kisses her, enter from the KING'S apartment D'ORMEA. 
 
 I said he would divert 
 My kisses from your brow ! 
 
 D'O. [Aside, j Here ! So, King Victor 
 
 Spoke truth for once : and who 's ordained, but I 
 To make that memorable ? Both in call, 
 As he declared ! Were 't better gnash the teeth, 
 Or laugh outright now ? 
 
 Cha. [to POL.] What 's his visit for ? 
 
 D'O. [Aside.'] I question if they even speak to me. 
 
 Pol. [to CHA.] Face the man ! He '11 suppose you fear him, 
 
 else. 
 [Aloud.] The Marquis bears the King's command, no doubt? 
 
 D'O. [Aside.~\ Precisely ! If I threatened him, perhaps ? 
 Well, this at least is punishment enough ! 
 Men used to promise punishment would come. 
 
 Cha. Deliver the King's message, Marquis ! 
 
 D'O. [Aside.'] Ah 
 
 So anxious for his fate ? [Aloud.~\ A word, my Prince, 
 Before you see your father just one word 
 Of counsel !
 
 374 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Cha. Oh, your counsel certainly ! 
 
 Polyxena, the Marquis counsels us ! 
 Wcfl, sir ? Be brief, however I 
 
 D'O. What ? You know 
 
 As much as I ? preceded me, most like, 
 In knowledge ! So ! ('T is in his eye, beside 
 His voice : he knows it, and his heart 's on flame 
 Already !) You surmise why you, myself, 
 Del Borgo, Spava, fifty nobles more. 
 Are summoned thus ? 
 
 Cha. Is the Prince used to know, 
 
 At any time, the pleasure of the King, 
 Before his minister ? Polyxena, 
 Stay here till I conclude my task : I feel 
 Your presence (smile not) through the walls, and take 
 Fresh heart. The King 's within that chamber ? 
 
 D'O. [Passing the table whereon a paper lies, exclaims, as he glances 
 at it, "Spain:" 
 
 Pol. [Aside to CHA.] Tarry awhile : what ails the minister ? 
 
 D'O. Madam, I do not often trouble you. 
 The Prince loathes, and you scorn me let that pass ! 
 But since it touches him and you, not me, 
 Bid the Prince listen ! 
 
 Pol. [to CHA.] Surely you will listen : 
 
 Deceit ? Those fingers crumpling up his vest ? 
 Cha. Deceitful to the very fingers' ends ! 
 
 D'O. [who has approached them, overlooks the other paper CHARLES 
 
 continues to hold. 
 
 My project for the Fiefs ! As I supposed ! 
 Sir, I must give you light upon those measures 
 For this is mine, and that I spied of Spain, 
 Mine too ! 
 
 Cha. Release me ! Do you gloze on me 
 Who bear in the world's face (that is, the world 
 You make for me at Turin) your contempt ? 
 
 Your measures ? When was not a hateful task 
 D'Ormea's imposition ? Leave my robe ! 
 
 What post can I bestow, what grant concede ? 
 Or do you take me for the King ? 
 
 D'O. Not I! 
 
 Not yet for King, not for, as yet, thank God, 
 One who in ... shall I say a year, a montli ? 
 Ay ! shall be wretcheder than e'er was slave 
 In his Sardinia, Europe's spectacle 
 
 And the world's by-word ! What ? The Prince aggrieved 
 rhat I excluded him our counsels ? Here 
 
 [Touching the paper in CHARLES'S hand
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 375 
 
 Accept a method of extorting gold 
 
 From Savoy's nobles, who must wring its worth 
 
 In silver first from tillers of the soil, 
 
 Whose hinds again have to contribute brass 
 
 To make up the amount : there 's counsel, sir, 
 
 My counsel, one year old ; and the fruit, this 
 
 Savoy 's become a mass of misery 
 
 And wrath, which one man has to meet the King : 
 
 You 're not the King ! Another counsel, sir I 
 
 Spain entertains a project (here it lies) 
 
 Which, guessed, makes Austria offer that same King 
 
 Thus much to baffle Spain ; he promises ; 
 
 Then comes Spain, breathless lest she be forestalled, 
 
 Her offer follows ; and he promises . . . 
 
 Cha. Promises, sir, when he has just agreed 
 To Austria's offer ? 
 
 D'O. That 's a counsel, Prince ! 
 
 But past our foresight, Spain and Austria (choosing 
 To make their quarrel up between themselves 
 Without the intervention of a friend) 
 Produce both treaties, and both promises . . . 
 
 Cha. How? 
 
 D'O. Prince, a counsel ! And the fruit of that ? 
 
 Both parties covenant afresh, to fall 
 Together on their friend, blot out his name, 
 Abolish him from Europe. So, take note, 
 Here 's Austria and here 's Spain to fight against, 
 And what sustains the Kia^ but Savoy here, 
 A miserable people mad with wrongs ? 
 You 're not the King ! 
 
 Cha. Polyxena, you said 
 
 All would clear up : all does clear up to me. 
 
 D'O. Clear up ! 'Tis no such thing to envy, then? 
 You see the King's state in its length and breadth ? 
 You blame me now for keeping you aloof 
 From counsels and the fruit of counsels ? Wait 
 Till I explain this morning's business ! 
 
 Cha. [Aside.] No 
 
 Stoop to my father, yes, D'Ormea, no ; 
 The King's son, not to the King's counsellor ! 
 I will do something, but at least retain 
 The credit of my deed ! [Almtd.'] Then it is this 
 You now expressly come to tell me ? 
 
 D'O. This 
 
 To tell ! You apprehend me ? 
 
 Cha, Perfectly.
 
 376 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Further, D'Ormea, you have shown yourself, 
 For the first time these many weeks and mouths, 
 Disposed to do my bidding ? 
 
 Z>'0. From the heart ! 
 
 Cha. Acquaint my father, first, I wait his pleasure : 
 Next ... or, I '11 tell you at a fitter time. 
 Acquaint the King ! 
 
 I? 0. [Aside.] If I 'scape Victor yet ! 
 
 First, to prevent this stroke at me : if not, 
 Then, to avenge it ! [To CHA.] Gracious sir, I go. [Goes. 
 
 Cha. God, I forbore ! Which more offends, that man 
 Or that man's master ? Is it come to this ? 
 Have they supposed (the sharpest insult yet) 
 I needed e'en his intervention ? No ! 
 No dull am I, conceded, but so dull, 
 Scarcely ! Their step decides me. 
 
 Pol. How decides ? 
 
 Cha. You would be freed D'Ormea's eye and hers ? 
 
 Could fly the court with me and live content ? 
 So, this it is for which the knights assemble ! 
 The whispers and the closeting of late, 
 
 The savageness and insolence of old, 
 
 For this ! 
 
 Pot. What mean you ? 
 
 Cha. How ? You fail to catch 
 
 Their clever plot ? I missed it, but could you ? 
 These last two months of care to inculcate 
 How dull I am, D'Ormea's present visit 
 To prove that, being dull, I might be worse 
 Were I a King as wretched as now dull 
 You recognize in it no winding up 
 Of a long plot ? 
 
 Pol. Why should there be a plot ? 
 
 Cha. The crown 's secure now ; I should shame the crown : 
 An old complaint ; the point is, how to gain 
 My place for one, more fit in Victor's eyes, 
 His mistress the Sebastian's child. 
 
 Pol. In truth ? 
 
 Cha. They dare not quite dethrone Sardinia's Prince : 
 But they may descant on my dulness till 
 They sting me into even praying them 
 Grant leave to hide my head, resign my state, 
 And end the coil. Not see now ? In a word, 
 They 'd have me tender them myself my rights 
 As one incapable ; some cause for that, 
 Since I delayed thus long to see their drift !
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 377 
 
 I shall apprise the King he may resume 
 My rights this moment. 
 
 Pol. Pause ! I dare not think 
 
 So ill of Victor. 
 
 Cha. Think no ill of him ! 
 
 Pol. Nor think him, then, so shallow as to suffer 
 His purpose be divined thus easily. 
 And yet you are the last of a great line ; 
 There 's a great heritage at stake ; new days 
 Seemed to await this newest of the realms 
 Of Europe : Charles, you must withstand this ! 
 
 Cha. Ah 
 
 You dare not then renounce the splendid court 
 For one whom all the world despises ? Speak ! 
 
 Pol. My gentle husband, speak I will, and truth. 
 Were this as you believe, and I once sure 
 Your duty lay in so renouncing rule, 
 I could . . . could ? Oh what happiness it were 
 To live, my Charles, and die, alone with you ! 
 
 Cha. I grieve I asked you. To the presence, then ! 
 By this, D'Ormea acquaints the King, no doubt, 
 He fears I am too simple for mere hints, 
 And that no less will serve than Victor's mouth 
 Demonstrating in council what I am. 
 I have not breathed, I think, these many years ! 
 
 Pol. Why, it may be ! if he desire to wed 
 That woman, call legitimate her child. 
 
 Cha. You see as much ? Oh, let his will have way ! 
 You '11 not repent confiding in me, love ? 
 There 's many a brighter spot in Piedmont, far, 
 Than Rivoli. I '11 seek him : or, suppose 
 You hear first how I mean to speak my mind ? 
 Loudly and firmly both, this time, be sure ! 
 I yet may see your Rhine-land, who can tell ? 
 Once away, ever then away ! I breathe. 
 
 Pol. And I too breathe. 
 
 Cha. Come, my Polyxena !
 
 378 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 KING VICTOR. 
 PART II. 
 
 Enter KING VICTOR, bearing the regalia on a cushion, from his apart- 
 ment. He calls loudly 
 
 D'Ormea ! for patience fails me, treading thus 
 
 Among the obscure trains I have laid, my knights 
 
 Safe in the hall here in that anteroom, 
 
 My son, D'Ormea, where ? Of this, one touch 
 
 [Laying down the crown, 
 
 This fireball to these mute black cold trains then 
 Outbreak enough ! 
 
 [Contemplating it.~\ To lose all, after all ! 
 This, glancing o'er my house for ages shaped, 
 Brave meteor, like the crown of Cyprus now, 
 Jerusalem, Spain, England, every change 
 The braver, and when I have clutched a prize 
 My ancestry died wan with watching for, 
 To lose it ! by a slip, a fault, a trick 
 Learnt to advantage once and not unlearned , 
 
 When past the use, " just this once more " (I thought) 
 " Use it with Spain and Austria happily, 
 And then away with trick ! " An oversight 
 I 'd have repaired thrice over, any time 
 These fifty years, must happen now ! There 's peace 
 At length ; and I, to make the most of peace, 
 Ventured my project on our people here, 
 As needing not their help : which Europe knows, 
 And means, cold-blooded, to dispose herself 
 (Apart from plausibilities of war) 
 To crush the new-made King who ne'er till now 
 Feared her. As Duke, I lost each foot of earth 
 And laughed at her : my name was left, my sword 
 Left, all was left ! But she can take, she knows, 
 This crown, herself conceded . . . 
 
 That 's to try, 
 
 Kind Europe ! My career 's not closed as yet ! 
 This boy was ever subject to my will, 
 Timid and tame the fitter ! D'Ormea, too 
 What if the sovereign also rid himself 
 Of thee, his prime of parasites ? I delay ! 
 D'Ormea ! \As D'ORMEA enters, the King seats himself 
 
 My son, the Prince attends he ?
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 379 
 
 D'O. Sir, 
 
 He does attend. The crown prepared ! it seems 
 That you persist in your resolve. 
 
 Vic. Who 's come ? 
 
 The chancellor and the chamberlain ? My knights ? 
 
 D' 0. The whole Annunziata. If, my liege, 
 Your fortune had not tottered worse than now . . . 
 
 Vic. Del Borgo has drawn up the schedules ? mine 
 My son's, too ? Excellent ! Only, beware 
 Of the least blunder, or we look but fools. 
 First, you read the Annulment of the Oaths ; 
 Del Borgo follows ... no, the Prince shall sign ; 
 Then let Del Borgo read the Instrument : 
 On which, I enter. 
 
 D" 1 0. Sir, this may be truth ; 
 
 You, sir, may do as you affect may break 
 Your engine, me, to pieces : try at least 
 If not a spring remain worth saving ! Take 
 My counsel as I 've counselled many times ! 
 What if the Spaniard and the Austrian threat ? 
 There 's England, Holland, Venice which ally 
 Select you ? 
 
 Vic. Aha ! Come, D'Ormea, " truth " 
 
 Was on your lip a minute since. Allies ? 
 I 've broken faith with Venice, Holland, England 
 As who knows if not you ? 
 
 D 1 0. But why with me 
 
 Break faith with one ally, your best, break faith ? 
 
 Vic. When first I stumbled on you, Marquis 'twas 
 At Mondovi a little lawyer's clerk . . . 
 
 D' 0. Therefore your soul's ally ! who brought you through 
 Your quarrel with the Pope, at pains enough 
 Who simply echoed you in these affairs 
 On whom you cannot therefore visit, these 
 Affairs' ill fortune whom you trust to guide 
 You safe (yes, on my soul) through these affairs ! 
 
 Vic. I was about to notice, had you not 
 Prevented me, that since that great town kept 
 With its chicane D'Ormea's satchel stuffed 
 And D'Ormea's self sufficiently recluse, 
 He missed a sight, my naval armament 
 When I burned Toulon. How the skiff exults 
 Upon the galliot's wave ! rises its height, 
 O'ertops it even ; but the great wave bursts, 
 And hell-deep in the horrible profound 
 Buries itself the galliot : shall the skiff 
 Think to escape the sea's black trough in turn ?
 
 380 KING VICTOR AND K1XG CHARLES 
 
 Apply this : you have been my minister 
 
 Next me, above me possibly ; sad post, 
 Huge care, abundant lack of peace of mind ; 
 Who would desiderate the eminence ? 
 
 You gave your soul to get it ; you 'd yet give 
 Your soul to keep it, as I mean you shall, 
 D'Ormea ! What if the wave ebbed with me ? 
 Whereas it cants you to another crest ; 
 I toss you to my son ; ride out your ride ! 
 
 Z>' O. Ah, you so much despise me ? 
 
 Vic. You, D'Ormea? 
 
 Nowise : and I '11 inform you why. A king 
 Must in his time have many ministers, 
 And I 've been rash enough to part with mine 
 When I thought proper. Of the tribe, not one 
 ( ... Or wait, did Pianezze ? ... ah, just the same !) 
 Not one of them, ere his remonstrance reached 
 The length of yours, but has assured me (commonly 
 Standing much as you stand, or nearer, say, 
 The door to make his exit on his speech) 
 
 I should repent of what I did. D'Ormea, 
 Be candid, you approached it when I bade you 
 Prepare the schedules ! But you stopped in time, 
 You have not so assured me : how should I 
 Despise you then ? 
 
 Enter CHARLES. 
 
 Vic. [changing his tone.] Are you instructed ? Do 
 My order, point by point ! About it, sir ! 
 
 D 1 0. You so despise me ! [Aside.] One last stay remains 
 The boy's discretion there. 
 
 [To CHARLES.] For your sake, Prince, 
 I pleaded, wholly in your interest, 
 To save you from this fate ! 
 
 Cha. [Aside.] Must I be told 
 
 The Prince was supplicated for by him ? 
 
 Vic. [to D 1 0.~\ Apprise Del Borgo, Spava and the rest, 
 Our son attends them; then return. 
 
 D' 0. One word ! 
 
 Cha. [Aside.] A moment's pause and they would drive me 
 
 hence, 
 I do believe ! 
 
 D' 0. [Aside.] Let but the boy be firm ! 
 
 Vic. You disobey ? 
 
 Cha. [to />' 0.] You do not disobey 
 Me, at least ? Did you promise that or no ? 
 
 D'O. Sir, I am yours : what would you ? Yours am I !
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 381 
 
 Cha. When I have said what I shall say, 't is like 
 Your face will ne'er again disgust me. Go ! 
 Through you, as through a breast of glass, I see. 
 And for your conduct, from my youth till now, 
 Take my contempt ! You might have spared me much, 
 Secured me somewhat, nor so harmed yourself : 
 That 's over now. Go, ne'er to come again ! 
 
 D' 0. As son, the father father, as the son ! 
 My wits ! My wits ! [Goes 
 
 Vic. [Seated.] And you, what meant you, pray, 
 Speaking thus to D'Ormea ? 
 
 Cha. Let us not 
 
 Waste words upon D'Ormea ! Those I spent 
 Have half unsettled what I came to say. 
 His presence vexes to my very soul. 
 
 Vic. One called to manage a kingdom, Charles, needs heart 
 To bear up under worse annoyances 
 Than seems D'Ormea to me, at least. 
 
 Cha. [Aside.] Ah, good ! 
 
 He keeps me to the point ! Then be it so. 
 [Aloud.] Last night, sir, brought me certain papers these 
 To be reported on, your way of late. 
 Is it last night's result that you demand ? 
 
 Vic. For God's sake, what has night brought forth ? Pronounce 
 The . . . what 's your word ? result ! 
 
 Cha. Sir, that had proved 
 
 Quite worthy of your sneer, no doubt : a few 
 Lame thoughts, regard for you alone could wring, 
 Lame as they are, from brains like mine, believe ! 
 As 't is, sir. I am spared both toil and sneer. 
 These are the papers. 
 
 Vic. Well, sir ? I suppose 
 
 You hardly burned them. Now for your result ! 
 
 Cha. I never should have done great things of course, 
 But ... oh my father, had you loved me more ! 
 
 Vic. Loved ? [Aside.] Has D'Ormea played me false, I 
 
 wonder ? 
 
 [Aloud.] Why, Charles, a king's love is diffused yourself 
 May overlook, perchance, your part in it. 
 Our monarchy is absolutest now 
 In Europe, or my trouble 's thrown away. 
 I love, my mode, that subjects each and all 
 May have the power of loving, all and each, 
 Their mode : I doubt not, many have their sons 
 To trifle with, talk soft to, all day long : 
 I have that crown, this chair, D'Ormea, Charles !
 
 882 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Cha. 'T is well I am a subject then, not you. 
 
 Vic. [Aside.] D'Ormea has told him everything. 
 
 [Aloud.] Aha, 
 
 I apprehend you : when all 's said, you take 
 Your private station to be prized beyond 
 My own, for instance ? 
 
 Cha. Do and ever did 
 
 So take it : 't is the method you pursue 
 That grieves . . . 
 
 Vic. These words ! Let me express, my friend, 
 
 Your thoughts. You penetrate what I supposed 
 Secret. D'Ormea plies his trade betimes ! 
 I purpose to resign my crown to you. 
 
 Cha. Tome? 
 
 Vic. Now, in that chamber. 
 
 Cha. You resign 
 
 The crown to me ? 
 
 Vic. And time snough, Charles, sure ? 
 
 Confess with me, at four-and-sixty years 
 A crown 's a load. I covet quiet once 
 Before I die, and summoned you for that. 
 
 Cha. 'T is I will speak : you ever hated me, 
 I bore it, have insulted me, borne too 
 Now you insult yourself ; and I remember 
 What I believed you, what you really are, 
 And cannot bear it. What ! My life has passed 
 Under your eye, tormented as you know, 
 Your whole sagacities, one after one, 
 At leisure brought to play on me to prove me 
 A fool, I thought and I submitted ; now 
 You 'd prove . . . what would you prove me ? 
 
 Vic. This to me ? 
 
 I hardly know you ! 
 
 Cha. Know me ? Oh indeed 
 
 You do not ! Wait till I complain next time 
 Of my simplicity ! for here 's a sage 
 Knows the world well, is not to be deceived, 
 And his experience and his Macchiavels, 
 D'Ormeas, teach him what ? that I this while 
 Have envied him his crown ! He has not smiled, 
 I warrant, has not eaten, drunk, nor slept, 
 For I was plotting with my Princess yonder ! 
 Who knows what we might do or might not do ? 
 Go now, be politic, astound the world ! 
 That sentry in the antechamber nay, 
 The varlet who disposed this precious trap 
 
 [Pointing to the crown
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 383 
 
 That was to take me ask them if they think 
 Their own sons envy them their posts ! Know me ! 
 
 Vic. But you know me, it seems ; so, learn, in hrief, 
 My pleasure. This assembly is convened . . . 
 
 Cha. Tell me, that woman put it in your head ! 
 You were not sole contriver of the scheme, 
 My father ! 
 
 Vic. Now observe me, sir ! I jest 
 
 Seldom on these points, never. Here, I say, 
 The knights assemble to see me concede, 
 And you accept, Sardinia's crown. 
 
 Cha. Farewell ! 
 
 'T were vain to hope to change this : I can end it. 
 Not that I cease from being yours, when sunk 
 Into obscurity : I '11 die for you, 
 But not annoy you with my presence. Sir, 
 Farewell! Farewell! [Enter D'ORMEA. 
 
 jyO. [Aside.] Ha, sure he 's changed again 
 Means not to fall into the cunning trap ! 
 Then Victor, I shall yet escape you, Victor ! 
 
 Vic. [suddenly placing the crown upon the head of CHARLES. 
 D'Ormea, your King ! 
 
 [To CHARLES.] My son, obey me ! Charles, 
 
 Your father, clearer-sighted than yourself, 
 Decides it must be so. 'Faith, this looks real ! 
 My reasons after ; reason upon reason 
 After : but now, obey me ! Trust in me ! 
 By this, you save Sardinia, you save me ! 
 Why, the boy swoons ! [To Z>'0.] Come this side ! 
 
 Z>'0. [as CHARLES turns from him to VICTOR.] You persist? 
 
 Vic. Yes, I conceive the gesture's meaning. 'Faith, 
 He almost seems to hate you : how is that ? 
 Be reassured, my Charles ! Is 't over now ? 
 Then, Marquis, tell the new King what remains 
 To do ! A moment's work. Del Borgo reads 
 The Act of Abdication out, you sign it, 
 Then I sign ; after that, come back to me. 
 
 D'O. Sir, for the last time, pause ! 
 
 Vic. Five minutes longer 
 
 I am your sovereign, Marquis. Hesitate 
 And I '11 so turn those minutes to account 
 That . . . Ay, you recollect me ! [Aside.] Could I bring 
 My foolish mind to undergo the reading 
 That Act of Abdication ! 
 
 [As CHARLES motions D'ORMEA to precede him. 
 Thanks, dear Charles ! 
 
 [CHARLES and D'ORMEA retire.
 
 384 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Vic. A novel feature in the boy, indeed 
 Just what I feared he wanted most. Quite right, 
 This earnest tone : your truth, now for effect ! 
 It answers every purpose : with that look, 
 That voice, I hear him : " I began no treaty," 
 (He speaks to Spain,) " nor ever dreamed of this 
 You show me ; this I from my soul regret ; 
 But if my father signed it, bid not me 
 Dishonor him who gave me all, beside : " 
 And, " true," says Spain, " 't were harsh to visit that 
 Upon the Prince." Then come the nobles trooping : 
 " I grieve at these exactions I had cut 
 This hand off ere impose them ; but shall I 
 Undo my father's deed ? " and they confer : 
 " Doubtless he was no party, after all ; 
 Give the Prince time ! " 
 
 Ay, give us time, but time ! 
 Only, he must not, when the dark day comes, 
 Refer our friends to me and frustrate all. 
 We '11 have no child's play, no desponding fits, 
 No Charles at each cross turn entreating Victor 
 To take his crown again. Guard against that! 
 
 Enter D'ORMEA. 
 Long live King Charles ! 
 
 No Charles's counsellor ! 
 Well, is it over, Marquis ? Did I jest ? 
 
 D'O. " King Charles ! " What then may you be ? 
 
 Vic. Anything ! 
 
 A country gentleman that, cured of bustle, 
 Now beats a quick retreat toward Chambery, 
 Would hunt and hawk and leave you noisy folk 
 To drive your trade without him. I 'm Count Remont 
 Count Tende any little place's Count ! 
 
 D'O. Then Victor, Captain against Catinat 
 At Staffarde, where the French beat you ; and Duke 
 At Turin, where you beat the French ; King late 
 Of Savoy, Piedmont, Montferrat, Sardinia, 
 Now, " any little place's Count " 
 
 Vic. Proceed ! 
 
 jyQ. Breaker of vows to God, who crowned you first ; 
 Breaker of vows to man, who kept you since ; 
 Most ptofligate to me who outraged God 
 And man to serve you, and am made pay crimes 
 I was but privy to, by passing thus 
 To your imbecile son who, well you know, 
 Must (when the people here, and nations there,
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 385 
 
 Clamor for you the main delinquent, slipped 
 From King to " Count of any little place ") 
 Must needs surrender me, all in his reach, 
 I, sir. forgive you : for I see the end 
 See you on your return (you will return) 
 To him you trust, a moment . . . 
 
 Vic. Trust him ? How ? 
 
 My poor man, merely a prime-minister, 
 Make me know where my trust errs ! 
 
 D'O. In his fear, 
 
 His love, his but discover for yourself 
 What you are weakest, trusting in ! 
 
 Vic. Aha, 
 
 D'Ormea, not a shrewder scheme than this 
 In your repertory ? You know old Victor 
 Vain, choleric, inconstant, rash (I 've heard 
 Talkers who little thought the King so close) 
 Felicitous now, were 't not, to provoke him 
 To clean forget, one minute afterward, 
 His solemn act, and call the nobles back 
 And pray them give again the very power 
 He has abjured ? for the dear sake of what ? 
 Vengeance on you, D'Ormea ! No : such am I, 
 Count Tende or Count anything you please, 
 Only, the same that did the things you say, 
 And, among other things you say not, used 
 Your finest fibre, meanest muscle, you 
 I used, and now, since you will have it so, 
 Leave to your fate mere lumber in the midst, 
 You and your works. Why, what on earth beside 
 Are you made for, you sort of ministers ? 
 
 D' 0, Not left, though, to my fate ! Your witless son 
 Has more wit than to load himself with lumber : 
 He foils you that way, and I follow you. 
 
 Vic. Stay with my son protect the weaker side ! 
 
 D'O. Ay, to be tossed the people like a rag, 
 And flung by them for Spain and Austria's sport, 
 Abolishing the record of your part 
 In all this perfidy ! 
 
 Vic. Prevent, beside, 
 
 My own return ! 
 
 Z>' 0. That 's half prevented now ! 
 
 'T will go hard but you find a wondrous charm 
 In exile, to discredit me. The Alps, 
 Silk-mills to watch, vines asking vigilance 
 Hounds open for the stag, your hawk 's a-wing
 
 386 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Brave days that wait the Louis of the South, 
 Italy's Janus ! 
 
 Vic. So, the lawyer's clerk 
 
 Won't tell me that I shall repent! 
 
 D'O. You give me 
 
 Full leave to ask if you repent ? 
 
 Vic. Whene'er 
 
 Sufficient time 's elapsed for that, you judge ! 
 
 [Shouts inside, "KiNG CHARLES!" 
 
 Z>' 0. Do you repent ? 
 
 Vic. [after a slight paiise.~] . . . I 've kept them waiting? 
 
 Yes ! 
 
 Come in, complete the Abdication, sir ! [ They go out. 
 
 Enter POLYXENA. 
 
 Pol. A shout ! The sycophants are free of Charles ! 
 Oh is not this like Italy ? No fruit 
 Of his or my distempered fancy, this, 
 But just an ordinary fact ! Beside, 
 Here they 've set forms for such proceedings ; Victor 
 Imprisoned his own mother : he should know, 
 If any, how a son 's to be deprived 
 Of a son's right. Our duty 's palpable. 
 Ne'er was my husband for the wily king 
 And the unworthy subjects : be it so ! 
 
 Come you safe out of them, my Charles ! Our life 
 Grows not the broad and dazzling life, I dreamed 
 Might prove your lot ; for strength was shut in you 
 None guessed but I strength which, untrammelled once, 
 Had little shamed your vaunted ancestry 
 Patience and self-devotion, fortitude, 
 Simplicity and utter truthfulness 
 All which, they shout to lose ! 
 
 So, now my work 
 
 Begins to save him from regret. Save Charles 
 Regret ? the noble nature ! He 's not made 
 Like these Italians : 't is a German soul. 
 
 CHARLES enters croumed. 
 Oh, where 's the King's heir ? Gone : the Crown-prince ? 
 
 Gone : 
 
 Whei-e 's Savoy ? Gone ! Sardinia ? Gone ! But Charles 
 Is left ! And when my Rhine-land bowers arrive, 
 If he looked almost handsome yester-twilight 
 As his gray eyes seemed widening into black 
 Because I praised him, then how will he look ? 
 Farewell, you stripped and whited mulberry-trees 
 Bound each to each by lazy ropes of vine !
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 387 
 
 Now I '11 teach you my language : I 'm not forced 
 To speak Italian now, Charles ? 
 [She sees the crown,] What is this ? 
 
 Answer me who has done this ? Answer ! 
 
 Cha. He ! 
 
 I am King now. 
 
 Pol. Oh worst, worst, worst of all ! 
 
 Tell me ! What, Victor ? He has made you King ? 
 What 's he then ? What 's to follow this ? You, King ? 
 
 Cha. Have I done wrong ? Yes, for you were not by ! 
 
 Pol. Tell me from first to last. 
 
 Cha. Hush a new world 
 
 Brightens before me ; he is moved away 
 The dark form that eclipsed it, he subsides 
 Into a shape supporting me like you, 
 And I, alone, tend upward, more and more 
 Tend upward : I am grown Sardinia's King. 
 
 Pol. Now stop : was not this Victor, Duke of Savoy 
 At ten years old ? 
 
 Cha. He was. 
 
 Pol. And the Duke spent, 
 
 Since then, just four-and-fifty years in toil 
 To be what ? 
 
 Cha. King. 
 
 Pol. Then why unking himself ? 
 
 Cha. Those years are cause enough. 
 
 Pol. The only cause ? 
 
 Cha. Some new perplexities. 
 
 Pol. Which you can solve 
 
 Although he cannot ? 
 
 Cha. He assures me so. 
 
 Pol. And this he means shall last how long ? 
 
 Cha. How long ? 
 
 Think you I fear the perils I confront ? 
 He 's praising me before the people's face 
 My people ! 
 
 Pol. Then he 's changed grown kind, the King ? 
 
 Where can the trap be ? 
 
 Cha. Heart and soul I pledge ! 
 
 My father, could I guard the crown you gained, 
 Transmit as I received it, all good else 
 Would I surrender ! 
 
 Pol. Ah, it opens then 
 
 Before you, all you dreaded formerly ? 
 You are rejoiced to be a king, my Charles ? 
 
 Cha. So much to dare ? The better, much to dread ?
 
 388 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 The better. I '11 adventure though alone. 
 Triumph or die, there 's Victor still to witness 
 Who dies or triumphs either way, alone ! 
 
 Pol. Once I had found my share in triumph, Charles, 
 Or death. 
 
 Cha. But you are I ! But you I call 
 To take, Heaven's proxy, vows I tendered Heaven 
 A moment since. I will deserve the crown ! 
 
 Pol. You will. [Aside.~\ No doubt it were a glorious thing 
 For any people, if a heart like his 
 Ruled over it. I would I saw the trap. 
 Enter VICTOR. 
 'T is he must show me. 
 
 Vic. So, the mask falls off 
 
 An old man's foolish love at last. Spare thanks ! 
 I know you, and Polyxena I know. 
 
 Here 's Charles I am his guest now does he bid me 
 Be seated ? And my light-hairud blue-eyed child 
 Must not forget the old man far away 
 At Chambery, who dozes while she reigns. 
 
 Pol. Most grateful shall we now be, talking least 
 Of gratitude indeed of anything 
 That hinders what yourself must need to say 
 To Charles. 
 
 Cha. Pray speak, sir ! 
 
 Vic. 'Faith, not much to say : 
 
 Only what shows itself, you once i' the point 
 Of sight. You 're now the King : you '11 comprehend 
 Much you may oft have wondered at the shifts, 
 Dissimulation, wiliness I showed. 
 
 For what 's our post ? Here 's Savoy and here 's Piedmont, 
 Here 's Montferrat a breadth here, a space there 
 To o'er-sweep all these, what 's one weapon worth ? 
 I often think of how they fought in Greece 
 (Or Rome, which was it ? You 're the scholar, Charles !) 
 You made a front-thrust ? But if your shield too 
 Were not adroitly planted, some shrewd knave 
 Reached you behind ; and him foiled, straight if thong 
 And handle of that shield were not cast loose, 
 And you enabled to outstrip the wind, 
 Fresh foes assailed you, either side ; 'scape these, 
 And reach your place of refuge e'en then, odds 
 If the gate opened unless breath enough 
 Were left in you to make its lord a speech. 
 Oh, you will see ! 
 
 Cha. No : straight on shall I go, 
 
 Truth helping ; win with it or die with it.
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 389 
 
 Vic. 'Faith, Charles, you 're not made Europe's fighting-man ! 
 The barrier-guarder, if you please. You clutch 
 Hold and consolidate, with envious France 
 This side, with Austria that, the territory 
 I held ay, and will hold . . . which you shall hold 
 Despite the couple ! But I 've surely earned 
 Exemption from these weary politics, 
 
 The privilege to prattle with my son 
 
 And daughter here, though Europe wait the while. 
 
 Pol. Nay, sir, at Chambery, away forever, 
 As soon you will be, 't is farewell we bid you : 
 Turn these few fleeting moments to account ! 
 'T is just as though it were a death. 
 
 Vic. Indeed ! 
 
 Pol. [Aside.] Is the trap there ? 
 
 Cha. Ay, call this parting death ! 
 
 The sacreder your memory becomes. 
 If I misrule Sardinia, how bring back 
 My father ? 
 
 Vic. I mean . . . 
 
 Pol. [who watches VICTOR narrowly this while] 
 
 Your father does not mean 
 You should be ruling for your father's sake : 
 It is your people must concern you wholly 
 Instead of him. You mean this, sir ? (He drops 
 My hand !) 
 
 Cha. That people is now part of me. 
 
 Vic. About the people ! I took certain measures 
 Some short time since . . . Oh, I know well, you know 
 But little of my measures ! These affect 
 The nobles ; we 've resumed some grants, imposed 
 A tax or two : prepare yourself, in short, 
 For clamor on that score. Mark me : you yield 
 No jot of aught entrusted you ! 
 
 Pol. No jot 
 
 You yield ! 
 
 Cha. My father, when I took the oath, 
 
 Although my eye might stray in search of yours, 
 I heard it, understood it, promised God 
 What you require. Till from this eminence 
 He move me, here I keep, nor shall concede 
 The meanest of my rights. 
 
 Vic. [Aside.] The boy 's a fool ! 
 
 Or rather, I 'm a fool : for, what 's wrong here ? 
 To-day the sweets of reigning: let to-morrow 
 
 Be ready with its bitters.
 
 390 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Enter D'ORMEA. 
 
 There 's beside 
 Somewhat to press upon your notice first. 
 
 Cha. Then why delay it for an instant, sir ? 
 That Spanish claim perchance ? And, now you speak, 
 This morning, my opinion was mature, 
 Which, boy-like, I was bashful in producing 
 To one I ne'er am like to fear in future ! 
 My thought is formed upon that Spanish claim. 
 
 Vic. Betimes indeed. Not now, Charles ! You require 
 A host of papers on it. 
 
 D'O. [coming forward."] Here they are. 
 [To CHA.] I, sir, was minister and much beside 
 Of the late monarch ; to say little, him 
 I served : on you I have, to say e'en less, 
 No claim. This case contains those papers : with them 
 I tender you my office. 
 
 Vic. [hastily.^ Keep him, Charles ! 
 
 There 's reason for it many reasons : you 
 Distrust him, nor are so far wrong there, - but 
 He 's mixed up in this matter he '11 desire 
 To quit you, for occasions known to me : 
 Do not accept those reasons : have him stay ! 
 
 Pol. \_Aside.~\ His minister thrust on us ! 
 
 Cha. [to D'ORMEA.] Sir, believe, 
 
 In justice to myself, you do not need 
 E'en this commending : howsoe'er might seem 
 My feelings toward you, as a private man, 
 They quit me in the vast and untried field 
 Of action. Though I shall myself (as late 
 In your own hearing I engaged to do) 
 Preside o'er my Sardinia, yet your help 
 Is necessary. Think the past forgotten 
 And serve me now ! 
 
 D'O. I did not offer you 
 
 My service would that I could serve you, sir ! 
 As for the Spanish matter . . . 
 
 Vic. But dispatch 
 
 At least the dead, in my good daughter's phrase, 
 Before the living ! Help to house me safe 
 Ere with D'Ormea you set the world agape ! 
 Here is a paper will you overlook 
 What I propose reserving for my needs ? 
 I get as far from you as possible : 
 Here 's what I reckon my expenditure. 
 
 Cha. [reading.] A miserable fifty thousand crowns !
 
 391 
 
 Vic. Oh, quite enough for country gentlemen ! 
 Beside, the exchequer happens . . . but find out 
 All that, yourself ! 
 
 Cha. [still reading] " Count Tende " what means this ? 
 
 Vic.. Me : you were but an infant when I burst 
 Through the defile of Tende upon France. 
 Had only my allies kept true to me ! 
 No matter. Tende 's, then, a name I take 
 Just as ... 
 
 D'O. The Marchioness Sebastian takes 
 
 The name of Spigno. 
 
 Cha. How, sir? 
 
 Vic. [to D'ORMEA.] Fool ! All that 
 
 Was for my own detailing. [To CHARLES.] That anon ! 
 
 Cha. [to D'ORMEA.] Explain what you have said, sir ! 
 
 D'O. I supposed 
 
 The marriage of the King to her I named, 
 Profoundly kept a secret these few weeks, 
 Was not to be one, now he 's Count. 
 
 Pol. [Aside.] With us 
 
 The minister with him the mistress ! 
 
 Cha. [to VICTOR.] No 
 
 Tell me you have not taken her that woman 
 To live with, past recall ! 
 
 Vic. And where 's the crime . . . 
 
 Pol. [to CHARLES.] True, sir, this is a matter past recall 
 And past your cognizance. A day before, 
 And you had been compelled to note this now 
 Why note it? The King saved his House from shame: 
 What the Count did, is no concern of yours. 
 
 Cha. [after a pause] The Spanish claim, D'Ormea ! 
 
 Vic. Why, my son, 
 
 I took some ill-advised . . . one's age, in fact, 
 Spoils everything : though I was over-reached, 
 A younger brain, we '11 trust, may extricate 
 Sardinia readily. To-morrow, D'Ormea, 
 Inform the King ! 
 
 D'O. [without regarding VICTOR, and leisurely.] 
 Thus stands the case with Spain : 
 When first the Infant Carlos claimed his proper 
 Succession to the throne of Tuscany . . . 
 
 Vic. I tell you, that stands over ! Let that rest ! 
 There is the policy ! 
 
 Cha. [to D'ORMEA.] Thus much I know, 
 And more too much. The remedy ? 
 
 D'O. Of course! 
 
 No glimpse of one.
 
 392 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Vic. No remedy at all ! 
 
 It makes the remedy itself time makes it. 
 
 D'O. [to CHAKLES.] But if ... 
 
 Vic. [still more hastily.'] In fine, I shall take care of that : 
 And, with another project that I have . . . 
 
 D'O. [turning on him.] Oh, since Count Tende means to 
 
 take again 
 King Victor's crown ! 
 
 Pol. [throwing herself at VICTOR'S feet.'] E'en now retake 
 
 it, sir ! 
 
 Oh, speak ! We are your subjects both, once more ! 
 Say it a word effects it ! You meant not, 
 Nor do mean now, to take it : but you must ! 
 'T is in you in your nature and the shame 's 
 Not half the shame 't would grow to afterwards ! 
 
 Cha. Polyxena! 
 
 Pol. A word recalls the knights 
 
 Say it ! What 's promising and what 's the past ? 
 Say you are still King Victor ! 
 
 D' 0. Better say 
 
 The Count repents, in brief ! [VICTOR rises. 
 
 Cha. With such a crime 
 
 I have not charged you, sir ! 
 
 Pol. Charles turns from me ! 
 
 SECOND YEAR, 1731. KING CHARLES. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Enter QUEEN POLYXENA and D'ORMEA. A pause. 
 
 Pol. And now, sir, what have you to say ? 
 
 D'O. Count Tende . . , 
 
 Pol. Affirm not I betrayed you ; you resolve 
 t On uttering this strange intelligence 
 Nay, post yourself to find me ere I reach 
 The capital, because you know King Charles 
 Tarries a day or two at Evian baths 
 Behind me : but take warning, here and thus 
 
 [Seating herself in the royal seat 
 I listen, if I listen not your friend. 
 Explicitly the statement, if you still 
 Persist to urge it on me, must proceed : 
 I am not made for aught else. 
 
 D'O. Good ! Count Tende . . . 
 
 Pol. I, who mistrust you, shall acquaint King Charles, 
 Who even more mistrusts you.
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 393 
 
 D'O. Does he so ? 
 
 Pol. Why should he not ? 
 
 Z>' 0. Ay, why not ? Motives, seek 
 
 You virtuous people, motives ! Say, I serve 
 God at the devil's bidding will that do ? 
 I 'ra proud : our people have been pacified, 
 Really I know not how 
 
 Pol. By truthfulness. 
 
 D'O. Exactly ; that shows I had nought to do 
 With pacifying them. Our foreign perils 
 Also exceed my means to stay : but here 
 'T is otherwise, and my pride 's piqued. Count Tende 
 Completes a full year's absence : would you, madam, 
 Have the old monarch back, his mistress back, 
 His measures back ? I pray you, act upon 
 My counsel, or they will be. 
 
 Pol. When ? 
 
 D'O. Let's think. 
 
 Home-matters settled Victor 's coming now ; 
 Let foreign matters settle Victor 's here 
 Unless I stop him ; as I will, this way. 
 
 Pol. [reading the papers he presents. ,] If this should prove 
 
 a plot 'twixt you and Victor ? 
 You seek annoyances to give pretext 
 For what you say you fear ! 
 
 D'O. Oh, possibly! 
 
 I go for nothing. Only show King Charles 
 That thus Count Tende purposes return, 
 And style me his inviter, if you please ! 
 
 Pol. Half of your tale is true ; most like, the Count 
 Seeks to return : but why stay you with us ? 
 To aid in such emergencies. 
 
 D'O. Keep safe 
 
 Tbose papers : or, to serve me, leave no proof 
 I thus have counselled ! when the Count returns, 
 And the King abdicates, 't will stead me little 
 To have thus counselled. 
 
 Pol. The King abdicate ! 
 
 D'O. He 's good, we knew long since wise, we discover 
 Firm, let us hope : but I 'd have gone to work 
 With him away. Well ! 
 
 [CHARLES without.'] In the Council Chamber ? 
 
 D'O. All's lost! 
 
 Pol. Oh, surely not King Charles ! He 's changed 
 That's not this year's care-burdened voice and step : 
 'T is last year's step, the Prince's voice .'
 
 394 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 D'O. I know. 
 
 Enter CHARLES D'ORMEA retiring a little. 
 
 Cha. Now wish me joy, Polyxena ! Wish it me 
 The old way ! [She embraces hint 
 
 There was too much cause for that ! 
 But I have found myself again. What news 
 At Turin ? Oh, if you but felt the load 
 I 'm free of free ! I said this year would end 
 Or it, or me but I am free, thank God ! 
 
 Pol. How, Charles? 
 
 Cha. You do not guess ? The day I found 
 
 Sardinia's hideous coil, at home, abroad, 
 And how my father was involved in it, 
 Of course, I vowed to rest and smile no more 
 Until I cleared his name from obloquy. 
 We did the people right 't was much to gain 
 That point, redress our nobles' grievance, too 
 But that took place here, was no crying shame : 
 All must be done abroad, if I abroad 
 Appeased the justly-angered Powers, destroyed 
 The scandal, took down Victor's name at last 
 From a bad eminence, I then might breathe 
 And rest ! No moment was to lose. Behold 
 The proud result a Treaty, Austria, Spain 
 Agree to 
 
 D'O. [Aside.] I shall merely stipulate 
 For an experienced headsman. 
 
 Cha. Not a soul 
 
 Is compromised : the blotted past 's a blank : 
 Even D'Ormea escapes unquestioned. See ! 
 It reached me from Vienna ; I remained 
 At Evian to dispatch the Count his news ; 
 'T is gone to Chambery a week ago 
 And here am I : do I deserve to feel 
 Your warm white arms around me ? 
 
 IfO. [coming forward.] He knows that? 
 
 Cha. What, in Heaven's name, means this? 
 
 D' 0. He knows that matters 
 
 Are settled at Vienna ? Not too late ! 
 Plainly, unless you post this very hour 
 Some man you trust (say, me) to Chambery 
 And take precautions I acquaint you with, 
 Your father will return here. 
 
 Cha. Are you crazed, 
 
 D'Ormea ? Here ? For what ? As well return 
 To take his crown ! 
 
 D'O. He will return for that.
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 395 
 
 Cha. [to POLYXENA.] You have not listened to this man ? 
 
 Pol. He spoke 
 
 About your safety and I listened. 
 
 \_He disengages himself from her arms. 
 
 Cha. [to D'ORMEA.] What 
 
 Apprised you of the Count's intentions ? 
 
 D'O. Me? 
 
 His heart, sir ; you may not be used to read 
 Such evidence however ; therefore read 
 
 [Pointing to POLYXENA'S papers. 
 My evidence. 
 
 Cha. [to POLYXENA.] Oh, worthy this of you ! 
 And of your speech I never have forgotten, 
 Though I professed forgetfulness ; which haunts me 
 As if I did not know how false it was ; 
 Which made me toil unconsciously thus long 
 That there might be no least occasion left 
 For aught of its prediction coming true ! 
 And now, when there is left no least occasion 
 To instigate my father to such crime 
 When I might venture to forget (I hoped) 
 That speech and recognize Polyxena 
 Oh worthy, to revive, and tenfold worse, 
 That plague ! D'Ormea at your ear, his slanders 
 Still in your hand ! Silent ? 
 
 Pol. As the wronged are. 
 
 Cha. And you, D'Ormea, since when have you presumed 
 To spy upon my father ? I conceive 
 What that wise paper shows, and easily. 
 Since when ? 
 
 D'O. The when and where and how belong 
 
 To me. 'Tis sad work, but I deal in such. 
 You ofttimes serve yourself ; I 'd serve you here : 
 Use makes me not so squeamish. In a word, 
 Since the first hour he went to Chambery, 
 Of his seven servants, five have I suborned. 
 
 Cha. You hate my father ? 
 
 D'O. Oh, just as you will ! 
 
 [Looking at POLYXENA. 
 
 A minute since, I loved him hate him, now ! 
 What matter ? if you ponder just one thing : 
 Has he that treaty ? he is setting forward 
 Already. Are your guards here ? 
 
 Cha. Well for you 
 
 They are not ! [_To POL.] Him I knew of old, but you 
 To hear that pickthank, further his designs ! [To D'O.
 
 396 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Guards ? were they here, I 'd bid them, for your trouble, 
 Arrest you. 
 
 D'O. Guards you shall not want. I lived 
 
 The servant of your choice, not of your need. 
 You never greatly needed me till now 
 That you discard me. This is my arrest. 
 Again I tender you my charge its duty 
 Would bid me press you read those documents. 
 Here, sir ! [Offering his badge of office, 
 
 Cha. [taking it.~\ The papers also ! Do you think 
 I dare not read them ? 
 
 Pol. Read them, sir ! 
 
 Cha. They prove, 
 
 My father, still a month within the year 
 Since he so solemnly consigned it me, 
 Means to resume his crown ? They shall prove that, 
 Or my best dungeon . . . 
 
 D' 0. Even say, Chambery ! 
 
 'T is vacant, I surmise, by this. 
 
 Cha. You prove 
 
 Your words or pay their forfeit, sir. Go there ! 
 Polyxena, one chance to rend the veil 
 Thickening and blackening 'twixt us two ! Do say, 
 You '11 see the falsehood of the charges proved ! 
 Do say, at least, you wish to see them proved 
 False charges my heart's love of other times ! 
 
 Pol. Ah, Charles ! 
 
 Cha. [to D'ORMEA.] Precede me, sir ! 
 
 D'O. And I 'm at length 
 
 A martyr for the truth ! No end, they say, 
 Of miracles. My conscious innocence ! 
 
 \_As they go out, enter by the middle door, at which he pauses 
 VICTOR. 
 
 Vic. Sure I heard voices ? No. Well, I do best 
 To make at once for this, the heart o' the place. 
 The old room ! Nothing changed ! So near my seat, 
 D'Ormea ? [_Pushing away the stool which is by tJie KING'S 
 
 chair. 
 
 I want that meeting over first, 
 I know not why. Tush, he, D'Ormea, slow 
 To hearten me, the supple knave ? That burst 
 Of spite so eased him ! He '11 inform me ... 
 
 What? 
 
 Why come I hither ? All 's in rough : let all 
 Remain rough. There 's full time to draw back nay, 
 There 's nought to draw back from, as yet ; whereas, 
 If reason should be, lo arrest a course
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 397 
 
 Of error reason good, to interpose 
 And save, as I have saved so many times, 
 Our House, admonish my son's giddy youth, 
 Relieve him of a weight that proves too much 
 Now is the time, or now, or never. 
 
 'Faith, 
 
 This kind of step is pitiful, not due 
 To Charles, this stealing back hither, because 
 He 's from his capital ! Oh Victor ! Victor ! 
 But thus it is. The age of crafty men 
 Is loathsome ; youth contrives to carry off 
 Dissimulation ; we may intersperse 
 Extenuating passages of strength, 
 Ardor, vivacity and wit may turn 
 E'en guile into a voluntary grace : 
 But one's old age, when graces drop away 
 And leave guile the pure staple of our lives 
 Ah, loathsome ! 
 
 Not so or why pause I ? Turin 
 Is mine to have, were I so minded, for 
 The asking ; all the army 's mine I 've witnessed 
 Each private fight beneath me ; all the Court 's 
 Mine too ; and, best of all, D'Ormea 's still 
 D'Ormea and mine. There 's some grace clinging yet. 
 Had I decided on this step, ere midnight 
 I 'd take the crown. 
 
 No. Just this step to rise 
 Exhausts me. Here am I arrived : the rest 
 Must be done for me. Would I could sit here 
 And let things right themselves, the masque unmasque 
 Of the old King, crownless, gray hair and hot blood, 
 The young King, crowned, but calm before his time, 
 They say, the eager mistress with her taunts, 
 And the sad earnest wife who motions me 
 Away ay, there she knelt to me ! E'en yet 
 I can return and sleep at Chambery 
 A dream out. 
 
 Rather shake it off at Turin, 
 King Victor ! Say : to Turin yes, or no ? 
 
 'T is this relentless noonday-lighted chamber, 
 Lighted like life but silent as the grave, 
 That disconcerts me. That 's the change must strike. 
 No silence last year ! Some one flung doors wide 
 (Those two great doors which scrutinize me now) 
 And out I went 'mid crowds of men men talking, 
 Men watching if my lip fell or brow knit, 
 Men saw me safe forth, put me on my road :
 
 398 KING VICTOR AND KING CIlMiLES 
 
 That makes the misery of this return. 
 
 Oh had a battle done it ! Had I dropped, 
 
 Haling some battle, three entire days old, 
 
 Hither and thither by the forehead dropped 
 
 In Spain, in Austria, best of all, in France 
 
 Spurned on its horns or underneath its hoofs, 
 
 When the spent monster went upon its knees 
 
 To pad and pash the prostrate wretch I, Victor, 
 
 Sole to have stood up against France, beat down 
 
 By inches, brayed to pieces finally 
 
 In some vast unimaginable charge, 
 
 A flying hell of horse and foot and guns 
 
 Over me, and all 's lost, forever lost, 
 
 There 's no more Victor when the world wakes up ! 
 
 Then silence, as of a raw battlefield, 
 
 Throughout the world. Then after (as whole days 
 
 After, you catch at intervals faint noise 
 
 Through the stiff crust of frozen blood) there creeps 
 
 A rumor forth, so faint, no noise at all, 
 
 That a strange old man, with face outworn for wounds, 
 
 Is stumbling on from frontier town to town, 
 
 Begging a pittance that may help him find 
 
 His Turin out ; what scorn and laughter follow 
 
 The coin you fling into his cap ! And last, 
 
 Some bright morn, how men crowd about the midst 
 
 O' the market-place, where takes the old king breath 
 
 Ere with his crutch he strike the palace-gate 
 
 Wide ope ! 
 
 To Turin, yes or no or no ? 
 Re-enter CHARLES urith papers. 
 
 Cha. Just as I thought ! A miserable falsehood 
 Of hirelings discontented with their pay 
 And longing for enfranchisement ! A few 
 Testy expressions of old age that thinks 
 To keep alive its dignity o'er slaves 
 By means that suit their natures ! 
 
 [Tearing them.] Thus they shake 
 My faith in Victor ! 
 
 [ Turning, he discovers VICTOR 
 
 Vic. [after a pause."} Not at Evian, Charles ? 
 What 's this ? Why do you run to close the doors ? 
 No welcome for your father ? 
 
 Cha. [Aside.'] Not his voice ! 
 
 What would I give for one imperious tone 
 Of the old sort ! That 's gone forever. 
 
 Vic. Must 
 
 I ask once more . . .
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 399 
 
 Cha. No I concede it, sir ! 
 
 You are returned for . . . true, your health declines ; 
 True, Chambery 's a bleak unkindly spot ; 
 You 'd choose one fitter for your final lodge 
 Veneria, or Moncaglier ay, that 's closed 
 And I concede it. 
 
 Vic. I received advices 
 
 Of the conclusion of the Spanish matter, 
 Dated from Evian Baths . . . 
 
 Cha. And you forbore 
 
 To visit me at Evian, satisfied 
 The work I had to do would fully task 
 The little wit I have, and that your presence 
 Would only disconcert me 
 
 Vic. Charles ? 
 
 Cha. Me, set 
 
 Forever in a foreign course to yours, 
 And . . . 
 
 Sir, this way of wile were good to catch, 
 But I have not the sleight of it. The truth ! 
 Though I sink under it ! What brings you here ? 
 
 Vic. Not hope of this reception, certainly, 
 From one who 'd scarce assume a stranger mode 
 Of speech, did I return to bring about 
 Some awfullest calamity ! 
 
 Cha. You mean, 
 
 Did you require your crown again ! Oh yes, 
 I should speak otherwise ! But turn not that 
 To jesting ! Sir, the truth ! Your health declines ? 
 Is aught deficient in your equipage ? 
 Wisely you seek myself to make complaint, 
 And foil the malice of the world which laughs 
 At petty discontents ; but I shall care 
 That not a soul knows of this visit. Speak ! 
 
 Vic. [Aside.~\ Here is the grateful much-professing son 
 Prepared to worship me, for whose sole sake 
 I think to waive my plans of public good ! 
 [Alcnid.] Nay, Charles, if I did seek to take once more 
 My crown, were so disposed to plague myself, 
 What would be warrant for this bitterness ? 
 I gave it grant I would resume it well ? 
 
 Cha. I should say simply leaving out the why 
 And how you made me swear to keep that crown : 
 And as you then intended . . . 
 
 Vic. Fool ! What way 
 
 Could I intend or not intend ? As man,
 
 400 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 With a man's will, when I say " I intend," 
 
 I can intend up to a certain point, 
 
 No farther. I intended to preserve 
 
 The crown of Savoy and Sardinia whole : 
 
 And if events arise demonstrating 
 
 The way, I hoped should guard it, rather like 
 
 To lose it ... 
 
 Cha. Keep within your sphere and mine ! 
 
 It is God's province we usurp on, else. 
 Here, blindfold through the maze of things we walk 
 By a slight clue of false, true, right and wrong ; 
 All else is rambling and presumption. I 
 Have sworn to keep this kingdom : there 's my truth. 
 
 Vic. Truth, boy, is here, within my breast ; aud in 
 Your recognition of it, truth is, too ; 
 And in the effect of all this tortuous dealing 
 With falsehood, used to carry out the truth, 
 In its success, this falsehood turns, again, 
 Truth for the world ! But you are right : these themes 
 Are over-subtle. I should rather say 
 In such a case, frankly, it fails, my scheme : 
 I hoped to see you bring about, yourself, 
 What I must bring about. I interpose 
 On your behalf with my son's good in sight 
 To hold what he is nearly letting go, 
 Confirm his title, add a grace perhaps. 
 There 's Sicily, for instance, granted me 
 And taken back, some years since : till I give 
 That island with the rest, my work 's half done. 
 For his sake, therefore, as of those he rules . . . 
 
 Cha. Our sakes are one ; and that, you could not say, 
 Because my answer would present itself 
 Foi-thwith : a year has wrought an age's change. 
 This people 's not the people now, you once 
 Could benefit ; nor is my policy 
 Your policy. 
 
 Vic. [with an ouiburst.~\ I know it ! You undo 
 All I have done my life of toil and care ' 
 I left you this the absolutest rule 
 In Europe : do you think I sit and smile, 
 Bid you throw power to the populace 
 See my Sardinia, that has kept apart, 
 Join in the mad and democratic whirl 
 Whereto I see all Europe haste full tide ? 
 England casts off her kings ; France mimics England :
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 401 
 
 This realm I hoped was safe ! Yet here I talk, 
 When I can save it, not by force alone, 
 But bidding plagues, which follow sons like you, 
 Fasten upon my disobedient . . . 
 
 [Recollecting himself.] Surely 
 I could say this if minded so my son ? 
 
 Cha. You could not. Bitterer curses than your curse 
 Have I long since denounced upon myself 
 If I misused my power. In fear of these 
 I entered on those measures will abide 
 By them : so, I should say, Count Tende . . . 
 
 Vic. No ! 
 
 But no ! But if, my Charles, your more than old 
 Half-foolish father urged these arguments, 
 And then confessed them futile, but said plainly 
 That he forgot his promise, found his strength 
 Fail him, had thought at savage Chambery 
 Too much of brilliant Turin, Rivoli here, 
 And Susa, and Veneria, and Superga 
 Pined for the pleasant places he had built 
 When he was fortunate and young 
 
 Cha. My father ! 
 
 Vic. Stay yet ! and if he said he could not die 
 Deprived of baubles he had put aside, 
 He deemed, forever of the Crown that binds 
 Your brairfup, whole, sound and impregnable, 
 Creating kingliness the Sceptre too, 
 Whose mere wind, should you wave it, back would beat 
 Invaders and the golden Ball which throbs 
 As if you grasped the palpitating heart 
 Indeed o' the realm, to mould as choose you may ! 
 If I must totter up and down the streets 
 My sires built, where myself have introduced 
 And fostered laws and letters, sciences, 
 The civil and the military arts ! 
 Stay, Charles ! I see you letting me pretend 
 To live my former self once more King Victor, 
 The venturous yet politic : they style me 
 Again, the Father of the Prince : friends wink 
 Good-humoredly at the delusion you 
 So sedulously guard from all rough truths 
 That else would break upon my dotage ! You 
 Whom now I see preventing my old shame 
 I tell not, point by cruel point, my tale 
 For is 't not in your breast my brow is hid ? 
 Is not your hand extended ? Say you not . . .
 
 402 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Enter D'ORMEA, leading in POLYXKNA. 
 
 Pol. [advancing and withdrawing CHAKLES to VICTOR.] 
 In this conjuncture even, he would say 
 (Though with a moistened eye and quivering lip) 
 The suppliant is my father. I must save 
 A great man from himself, nor see him fling 
 His well-earned fame away : there must not follow 
 Ruin so utter, a break-down of worth 
 So absolute : no enemy shall learn, 
 He thrust his child 'twixt danger and himself, 
 And, when that child somehow stood danger out, 
 Stole back with serpent wiles to ruin Charles 
 
 Body, that 's much. and soul, that 's more and realm, 
 That 's most of all ! No enemy shall say . . . 
 
 If 0. Do you repent, sir ? 
 
 Vic. [resuming himself.] D'Ormea ? This is well ! 
 Worthily done, King Charles, craftily done ! 
 Judiciously you post these, to o'erhear 
 The little your importunate father thrusts 
 Himself on you to say ! Ah, they '11 correct 
 The amiable blind facility 
 You show in answering his peevish suit. 
 What can he need to sue for ? Thanks, D'Ormea ! 
 Have you fulfilled your office? but for you, 
 The old Count might have drawn some few more livres 
 To swell his income ! Had you, lady, missed 
 The moment, a permission would be granted 
 To buttress up my ruinous old pile ! 
 But you remember properly the list 
 Of wise precautions I took when I gave 
 Nearly as much away to reap the fruits 
 I should have looked for ! 
 
 Cha. Thanks, sir : degrade me, 
 
 So you remain yourself ! Adieu ! 
 
 Vic. I '11 not 
 
 Forget it for the future, nor presume 
 Next time to slight such mediators ! Nay 
 Had I first moved them both to intercede, 
 I might secure a chamber in Moncaglier 
 
 Who knows ? 
 
 Cha. Adieu ! 
 
 Vic. You bid me this adieu 
 
 With the old spirit ? 
 
 Cha. Adieu ! 
 
 Vic. Charles Charles ! 
 
 Cha. Adieu ! 
 
 [VICTOR goes.
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 403 
 
 Cha. You were mistaken, Marquis, as you hear ! 
 'T was for another purpose the Count came. 
 The Count desires Moncaglier. Give the order ! 
 
 TJO. [leisurely. ,] Your minister has lost your confidence, 
 Asserting late, for his own purposes, 
 Count Tende would . . . 
 
 Cha. \flinging his badge back.~\ Be still the minister ! 
 And give a loose to your insulting joy ; 
 It irks me more thus stifled than expressed : 
 Loose it ! 
 
 If 0. There 's none to loose, alas ! I see 
 I never am to die a martyr. 
 
 Pol. Charles ! 
 
 Cha. No praise, at least, Polyxena no praise ! 
 
 KING CHARLES. 
 
 PART II. 
 D'ORMEA seated, folding papers he has been examining. 
 
 This at the last effects it : now, King Charles 
 
 Or else King Victor that 's a balance : but now, 
 
 D'Ormea the arch-culprit, either turn 
 
 O' the scale, that 's sure enough. A point to solve, 
 
 My masters, moralists, whate'er your style ! 
 
 When you discover why I push myself 
 
 Into a pitfall you 'd pass safely by, 
 
 Impart to me among the rest ! No matter. 
 
 Prompt are the righteous ever with their rede 
 
 To us the wrongful : lesson them this once ! 
 
 For safe among the wicked are you set, 
 
 D'Ormea ! We lament life's brevity, 
 
 Yet quarter e'en the threescore years and ten, 
 
 Nor stick to call the quarter roundly " life." 
 
 D'Ormea was wicked, say, some twenty years ; 
 
 A tree so long was stunted ; afterward, 
 
 What if it grew, continued growing, till 
 
 No fellow of the forest equalled it? 
 
 'T was a stump then ; a stump it still must be : 
 
 While forward saplings, at the outset checked, 
 
 In virtue of that first sprout keep their style 
 
 Amid the forest's green fraternity. 
 
 Thus I shoot up to surely get lopped down 
 
 And bound up for the burning. Now for it ! 
 
 Enter CHARLES and POLYXENA with Attendants.
 
 404 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 D'O. [rises.] Sir, in the due discharge of this my office 
 This enforced summons of yourself from Turin, 
 And the disclosure I am bound to make 
 To-night, there must already be, I feel, 
 So much that wounds . . . 
 
 Cha. Well, sir ? 
 
 If 0. That I, perchance, 
 
 May utter also what, another time, 
 Would irk much, it may prove less irksome now. 
 
 Cha. What would you utter ? 
 
 D'0. That I from my soul 
 
 Grieve at to-night's event : for you I grieve, 
 E'en grieve for . . . 
 
 Cha. Tush, another time for talk ! 
 
 My kingdom is in imminent danger ? 
 
 D'O. Let 
 
 The Count communicate with France its King, 
 His grandson, will have Fleury's aid for this, 
 Though for no othtT war. 
 
 Cha. First for the levies : 
 
 What forces can I muster presently ? 
 
 [D'ORMEA delivers papers which CHAKLES inspects. 
 
 Cha. Good very good. Montorio . . . how is this ? 
 Equips me double the old complement 
 Of soldiers ? 
 
 D'0. Since his land has been relieved 
 
 From double imposts, this he manages : 
 But under the late monarch . . . 
 
 Cha. Peace ! I know. 
 
 Count Spava has omitted mentioning 
 What proxy is to head these troops of his. 
 
 D'O. Count Spava means to head his troops himself. 
 Something to fight for now ; " Whereas," says he, 
 " Under the sovereign's father "... 
 
 Cha. It would seem 
 
 That all my people love me. 
 
 D'O. Yes. 
 
 [To POLYXENA whtye CHARLES continues to inspect the papers 
 
 A temper 
 
 Like Victor's may avail to keep a state ; 
 He terrifies men and they fall not off ; 
 Good to restrain : best, if restraint were all. 
 But, with the silent circle round him, ends 
 Such sway : our King's begins precisely there. 
 For to suggest, impel and set at work, 
 Is quite another function. Men may slight,
 
 KING VICTOR AND KINO CHARLES 405 
 
 In time of peace, the King who brought them peace : 
 In war, his voice, his eyes, help more than fear. 
 They love you, sir ! 
 
 Oka. [to Attendants. ~\ Bring the regalia forth ! 
 Quit the room ! And now, Marquis, answer me ! 
 Why should the King of France invade my realm ? 
 
 D'O. Why ? Did I not acquaint your Majesty 
 An hour ago ? 
 
 Cha. I choose to hear again 
 
 What then I heard. 
 
 D'O. Because, sir, as I said, 
 
 Your father is resolved to have his crown 
 At any risk ; and, as I judge, calls in 
 The foreigner to aid him. 
 
 Cha. And your reason 
 
 For saying this ? 
 
 D'O. [Aside.] Ay, just his father's way ! 
 [To CH.] The Count wrote yesterday to your forces' Chief, 
 Rhebinder made demand of help 
 
 Cha. To try 
 
 Rhebinder he 's of alien blood. Aught else ? 
 
 D'O- Receiving a refusal, some hours after, 
 The Count called on Del Borgo to deliver 
 The Act of Abdication : he refusing, 
 Or hesitating, rather 
 
 Cha. What ensued ? 
 
 D'O. At midnight, only two hours since, at Turin, 
 He rode in person to the citadel 
 With one attendant, to Soccorso gate, 
 And bade the governor, San Remi, open 
 Admit him. 
 
 Cha. For a purpose I divine. 
 
 These three were faithful, then ? 
 
 DO. They told it me : 
 
 And I 
 
 Cha. Most faithful 
 
 D 0. Tell it you with this 
 
 Moreover of my own : if, an hour hence, 
 You have not interposed, the Count will be 
 0' the road to France for succor. 
 
 Cha. Very good ! 
 
 You do your duty now to me your monarch 
 Fully, I warrant^ have, that is, your project 
 For saving both of us disgrace, no doubt ? 
 
 _D' 0. I give my counsel, and the only one. 
 A month since, I besought you to employ
 
 406 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 Restraints which had prevented many a pang: 
 But now the harsher course must be pursued. 
 These papers, made for the emergency, 
 Will pain you to subscribe : this is a list 
 Of those suspected merely men to watch ; 
 Phis of the few of the Count's very household 
 You must, however reluctantly, arrest ; 
 While here 's a method of remonstrance sure 
 Not stronger than the case demands to take 
 With the Count's self. 
 
 Cha. Deliver those three papers. 
 
 Pol. [while CHARLES inspects them to 
 Your measures are not over-harsh, sir : France 
 Will hardly be deterred from her intents 
 By these. 
 
 D'O. If who proposes might dispose, 
 I could soon satisfy you. Even these, 
 Hear what he '11 say at my presenting ! 
 
 Cha. [who has signed them.~\ There ! 
 
 About the warrants ! You 've my signature. 
 What turns you pale ? I do my duty by you 
 In acting boldly thus on your advice. 
 
 D'O. [reading them separately.'] Arrest the people I sus 
 pected merely ? 
 
 Cha. Did you suspect them ? 
 
 D'O. Doubtless: but but sir, 
 
 This Forquieri 's governor of Turin, 
 And Rivarol and he have influence over 
 Half of the capital ! Rabella, too ? 
 Why, sir 
 
 Cha. Oh, leave the fear to me ! 
 
 D'O. [still reading. ~\ You bid me 
 
 Incarcerate the people on this list ? 
 Sir 
 
 Cha. But you never bade arrest those men, 
 So close related to my father too, 
 On trifling grounds? 
 
 D'O. Oh, as for that, St. George, 
 
 President of Chambery's senators, 
 Is hatching treason ! still 
 
 [_More troubled.'] Sir, Count Cumiane 
 Is brother to your father's wife ! What 's here ? 
 Arrest the wife herself ? 
 
 Cha. You seem to think 
 
 A venial crime this plot against me. Well ? 
 
 D'O. [who has read the last paper. ~] Wherefore am I thus 
 ruined ? Why not take
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 407 
 
 My life at once ? This poor formality 
 
 Is, let me say, unworthy you ! Prevent it 
 
 You, madam ! I have served you, am prepared 
 
 For all disgraces : only, let disgrace 
 
 Be plain, be proper proper for the world 
 
 To pass its judgment on 'twixt you and me ! 
 
 Take back your warrant, I will none of it ! 
 
 Cha. Here is a man to talk of fickleness ! 
 He stakes his life upon my father's falsehood ; 
 I bid him . . . 
 
 D'O. Not you ! Were he trebly false, 
 
 You do not bid me . . . 
 
 Cha. Is 't not written there ? 
 
 I thought so : give I '11 set it right. 
 
 D'O. Is it there? 
 
 Oh yes, and plain arrest him now drag here 
 Your father ! And were all six times as plain, 
 Do you suppose I trust it ? 
 
 Cha,. Just one word ! 
 
 You bring him, taken in the act of flight, 
 Or else your life is forfeit. 
 
 D'O. Ay, to Turin 
 
 I bring him, and to-morrow ? 
 
 Cha. Here and now ! 
 
 The whole thing is a lie, a hateful lie, 
 As I believed and as my father said. 
 I knew it from the first, but was compelled 
 To circumvent you ; and the great D'Ormea, 
 That baffled Alberoni and tricked Coscia, 
 The miserable sower of such discord 
 'Twixt sire and son, is in the toils at last. 
 Oh I see ! you arrive this plan of yours, 
 Weak as it is, torments sufficiently 
 A sick old peevish man wrings hasty speech, 
 An ill-considered threat from him ; that 's noted ; 
 Then out you ferret papers, his amusement 
 In lonely hours of lassitude examine 
 The day-by-day report of your paid spies 
 And back you come : all was not ripe, you find, 
 And, as you hope, may keep from ripening yet, 
 But you were in bare time ! Only, 't were best 
 I never saw my father these old men 
 Are potent in excuses : and meanwhile, 
 D'Ormea 's the man I cannot do without ! 
 
 Pd. Charles 
 
 Cha. Ah, no question I You against me too !
 
 408 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 You 'd have me eat and drink and sleep, live, die, 
 
 With this lie coiled about me, choking me ! 
 
 No, no, D'Ormea ! You venture life, you say, 
 
 Upon my father's perfidy : and I 
 
 Have, on the whole, no right to disregard 
 
 The chains of testimony you thus wind 
 
 About me ; though I do do from my soul 
 
 Discredit them : still I must authorize 
 
 These measures, and -I will. Perugia ! 
 
 [Many Officers enter, .] Count 
 
 You and Solar, with all the force you have, 
 Stand at the Marquis' orders : what he bida, 
 Implicitly perform ! You are to bring 
 A traitor here ; the man that 's likest one 
 At present, fronts me ; you are at his beck 
 For a full hour ! he undertakes to show 
 A fouler than himself, but, failing tliat, 
 Return with him, and, as my father lives, 
 He dies this night ! The clemency you blame 
 So oft, shall be revoked rights exercised, 
 Too long abjured. 
 
 [To D'ORMEA.] Now, sir, about the work ! 
 To save your king and country ! Take the wan-ant ! 
 
 D'O. You hear the sovereign's mandate, Count Perugia? 
 Obey me ! As your diligence, expect 
 Reward ! All follow to Montcaglier ! 
 
 Cha. [in great anguish.} D'Ormea ! [D'ORMEA goes. 
 
 He goes, lit up with that appalling smile ! 
 
 [ To POLYXENA after a pause. 
 At least you understand all this ? 
 
 Pol. These means 
 
 Of our defence these measures of precaution ? 
 
 Cha. It must be the best way : I should have else 
 Withered beneath his scorn. 
 
 Pol. What would you say ? 
 
 Cha. Why, do you think I mean to keep the crown, 
 Polyxena ? 
 
 Pol. You then believe the story 
 
 In spite of all that Victor comes ? 
 
 Cha. Believe it ? 
 
 I know that he is coming feel the strength 
 That has upheld me leave me at his coming ! 
 'T was mine, and now he takes his own again. 
 Some kinds of strength are well enough to have ; 
 But who 's to have that strength ? Let my crown go ! 
 I meant to keep it ; but I cannot cannot !
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 409 
 
 Only, he shall not taunt me he, the first . . . 
 
 See if he would not be the first to taunt me 
 
 With having left his kingdom at a word, 
 
 With letting it be conquered without stroke, 
 
 With . . . no no 't is no worse than when he left ! 
 
 I 've just to bid him take it. and, that over, 
 
 We '11 fly away fly, for I loathe this Turin, 
 
 This Rivoli, all titles loathe, all state. 
 
 We 'd best go to your country unless God 
 
 Send I die now ! 
 
 Pol. Charles, hear me ! 
 
 Cha. And again 
 
 Shall you be my Polyxena you '11 take me 
 Out of this woe ! Yes, do speak, and keep speaking ! 
 I would not let you speak just now, for fear 
 You 'd counsel me against him : but talk, now, 
 As we two used to talk in blessed times : 
 Bid me endure all his caprices ; take me 
 From this mad post above him ! 
 
 Pol. I believe 
 
 We are undone, but from a different cause. 
 Ah 1 your resources, down to the least guard, 
 Are at D'Ormea's beck. What if, the while, 
 He act in concert with your father ? We 
 Indeed were lost. This lonely Rivoli 
 Where find a better place for them ? 
 
 Cha. [pacing the room.~\ And why 
 
 Does Victor come ? To undo all that 's done, 
 Restore the past, prevent the future ! Seat 
 His mistress in your seat, and place in mine 
 . . . Oh, my own people, whom will you find there, 
 To ask of, to consult with, to care for, 
 
 To hold up with your hands ? Whom ? One that 's false 
 False from the head's crown to the foot's sole, false ! 
 The best is, that I knew it in my heart 
 From the beginning, and expected this, 
 And hated you, Polyxena, because 
 You saw through him, though I too saw through him, 
 Saw that he meant this while he crowned me, while 
 He prayed for me, nay, while he kissed my brow, 
 I saw 
 
 Pol. But if your measures take effect, 
 D'Ormea true to you ? 
 
 Cha. Then worst of all ! 
 
 I shall have loosed that callous wretch on him ! 
 Well may the woman taunt him with his child
 
 410 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 I, eating here his bread, clothed in his clothes, 
 Seated upon his seat, let slip D'Ormea 
 To outrage him ! We talk perchance he tears 
 My father from his bed ; the old hands feel 
 For one who is not, but who should be there : 
 He finds D'Ormea ! D'Ormea too finds him ! 
 The crowded chamber when the lights go out 
 Closed doors the horrid scuffle in the dark 
 The accursed prompting of the minute ! My guards ! 
 To horse and after, with me and prevent ! 
 
 Pol. [seizing his handj\ King Charles ! Pause here upon 
 
 this strip of time 
 Allotted you out of eternity ! 
 
 Crowns are from God : you in his name hold yours. 
 Your life 's no least thing, were it fit your life 
 Should be abjured along with rule ; but now, 
 Keep both ! Your duty is to live and rule 
 You, who would vulgarly look fine enough 
 In the world's eye, deserting your soul's charge, 
 Ay, you would have men's praise, this Rivoli 
 Would be illumined ! While, as 't is, no doubt, 
 Something of stain will ever rest on you ; 
 No one will rightly know why you refused 
 To abdicate ; they '11 talk of deeds you could 
 Have done, no doubt, nor do I much expect 
 Future achievement will blot out the past, 
 Envelop it in haze nor shall we two 
 Live happy any more. 'T will be, I feel, 
 Only in moments that the duty 's seen 
 As palpably as now : the months, the years 
 Of painful indistinctness are to come, 
 While daily must we tread these palace-rooms 
 Pregnant with memories of the past : your eye 
 May turn to mine and find no comfort there, 
 Through fancies that beset me, as yourself, 
 Of other courses, with far other issues, 
 We might have taken this great night : such bear, 
 As I will bear ! What matters happiness ? 
 Duty ! There 's man's one moment : this is yours ! 
 
 [Putting the crown on his head, and the sceptre in his hand, she placet 
 him on his seat : a long pause and silence. 
 Enter D'ORMEA and VICTOR, with Guards. 
 
 Vic. At last I speak ; but once that once, to you ! 
 'T is you I ask, not these your varletry, 
 Who 's King of us ? 
 
 Cha. \_from his seat.~\ Count Tende . . .
 
 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 411 
 
 Vic. What your spies 
 
 Assert I ponder in my soul, I say 
 Here to your face, amid your guards ! I choose 
 To take again the crown whose shadow I gave 
 For still its potency surrounds the weak 
 White locks their felon hands have discomposed. 
 Or I '11 not ask who 's King, but simply, who 
 Withholds the crown I claim ? Deliver it ! 
 I have no friend in the wide world : nor France 
 Nor England cares for me : you see the sum 
 Of what 1 can avail. Deliver it ! 
 
 Cha. Take it, my father ! 
 
 And now say in turn, 
 
 Was it done well, my father sure not well, 
 To try me thus ! I might have seen much cause 
 For keeping it too easily seen cause ! 
 But, from that moment, e'en more wofully 
 My life had pined away, than pine it will. 
 Already you have much to answer for. 
 My life to pine is nothing, her sunk eyes 
 Were happy once ! No doubt, my people think 
 I am their King still . . . but I cannot strive ! 
 Take it! 
 
 Vic. \one hand on the crown CHARLES offers, the other on his 
 
 neck.] So few years give it quietly, 
 My son ! It will drop from me. See you not ? 
 A crown 's unlike a sword to give away 
 That, let a strong hand to a weak hand give ! 
 But crowns should slip from palsied brows to heads 
 Young as this head : yet mine is weak enough, 
 E'en weaker than I knew. I seek for phrases 
 To vindicate my right. 'T is of a piece ! 
 All is alike gone by with me who beat 
 Once D'Orleans in his lines his very lines ! 
 To have been Eugene's comrade, Louis's rival, 
 And now . . . 
 
 Cha. [putting the crown on him, to the rest.] The King 
 speaks, yet none kneels, I think ! 
 
 Vic. I am then King ! As I became a King 
 Despite the nations, kept myself a King, 
 So I die King, with Kingship dying too 
 Around me ! I have lasted Europe's time ! 
 What wants my story of completion ? Where 
 Must needs the damning break show ? Who mistrusts 
 My children here tell they of any break 
 'Twixt my day's sunrise and its fiery fall ?
 
 412 KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES 
 
 And who were by me when I died but they ? 
 D'Ormea there ! 
 
 Cha. What means he ? 
 
 Vic. Ever there ! 
 
 Charles how to save your story ! Mine must go ! 
 Say say that you refused the crown to me ! 
 Charles, yours shall be my story ! You immured 
 Me, say, at Rivoli. A single year 
 I spend without a sight of you, then die. 
 That will serve every purpose tell that tale 
 The world ! 
 
 Cha. Mistrust me ? Help ! 
 
 Vic. Past help, past reach ! 
 
 'T is in the heart you cannot reach the heart : 
 This broke mine, that I did believe, you, Charles, 
 Would have denied me and disgraced me. 
 
 Pol. Charles 
 
 Has never ceased to be your subject, sir ! 
 He reigned at first through setting up yourself 
 As pattern : if he e'er seemed harsh to you, 
 'T was from a too intense appreciation 
 Of your own character : he acted you 
 Ne'er for an instant did I think it real, 
 Nor look for any other than this end. 
 I hold him worlds the worse on that account ; 
 But so it was. 
 
 Cha. [to POLYX.] I love you now indeed ! 
 [To VICTOR.] You never knew me ! 
 
 Vic. Hardly till this moment, 
 
 When I seem learning many other things 
 Because the time for using them is past. 
 If 't were to do again ! That 's idly wished. 
 Truthfulness might prove policy as good 
 As guile. Is this my daughter's forehead ? Yes : 
 I 've made it fitter now to be a queen's 
 Than formerly : I 've ploughed the deep lines there 
 Which keep too well a crown from slipping off. 
 No matter. Guile has made me King again. 
 Louis 't was in King Victor's time : long since, 
 When Louis reigned and, also, Victor reigned. 
 How the world talks already of us two ! 
 God of eclipse and each discolored star, 
 Why do I linger then ? 
 
 Ha ! Where lurks he ? 
 D'Ormea! Nearer to your King ! Now stand ! 
 
 [Collecting his strength as D'ORMEA approaches. 
 You lied, D'Ormea ! I do not repent. [Dies.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE TEXT OF PAULINE AS REVISED BY MR. BROWNING 
 IN 1865 FROM HIS ORIGINAL PUBLICATION IN 1833.
 
 PAULINE 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION 
 
 Plus ne suis ce que f ai fie", 
 Et ne le s;aurois jamais etre. 
 
 MAKOT. 
 
 NON dubito, quin titnlus libri nostri raritate sua quamplurimos alliciat 
 ad legendum : inter quos nonnulli obliquae opinionis, mente languid!, multi 
 etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum, ingrati accedent, qui temeraria sua 
 ignorantia, vix eonspecto titulo clamabunt : Nos vetita docere, hseresium 
 semina jacere : piis auribus offendiculo, praeclaris ingeniis scandalo esse : 
 . . . adeo conscientise suas consulentes, ut nee Apollo, nee Musae omnes, 
 neque Angelus de ccelo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant: 
 quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nee intelligant, nee 
 memineriut : nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt : Acherontis ostium est in hoc 
 libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, 
 qui iequa mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prudentise discretionem 
 adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto 
 namque vos et utilitatis haud parum et voluptatis plurimum accepturos. 
 Quod si qua repereritis, quaa vobis non placeant, mittite ilia, nee utimini. 
 NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PBOBO, SED NAKRO. Caetera tamen prop- 
 terea non respuite . . . Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adoles- 
 centiaB nostrae, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui. Hen. Corn. 
 Agrippa, De Occult. Philosoph. in Prefat. 
 LONDON. January, 1833. 
 V. A. XX. 
 
 PAULINE, mine own, bend o'er me thy soft breast 
 Shall pant to mine bend o'er me thy sweet eyes, 
 And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms 
 Drawing me to thee these build up a screen 
 To shut me in with thee, and from all fear ; 
 So that I might unlock the sleepless brood 
 Of fancies from my soul, their lurking-place, 
 Nor doubt that each would pass, ne'er to return 
 To one so watched, so loved and so secured. 
 But what can guard thee but thy naked love ? 
 Ah dearest, whoso sucks a poisoned wound 
 Envenoms his own veins ! Thou art so good, 
 So calm if thou shouldst wear a brow less light 
 For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept 
 From out thy soul as from a sacred star ! 
 Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain
 
 PAULINE 
 
 To hope to sing ; some woe would light on me, 
 
 Nature would point at one whose quivering lip 
 
 Was bathed in her enchantments, whose brow burned 
 
 Beneath the crown to which her secrets knelt, 
 
 Who learned the spell which can call up the dead, 
 
 And then departed smiling like a fiend 
 
 Who has deceived God, if such one should seek 
 
 Again her altars and stand robed and crowned 
 
 Amid the faithful : sad confession first, 
 
 Remorse and pardon and old claims renewed, 
 
 Ere I can be as I shall be no more. 
 
 I had been spared this shame if I had sat 
 
 By thee forever from the first, in place 
 
 Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good, 
 
 Or with them, as an earnest of their truth : 
 
 No thought nor hope having been shut from thee, 
 
 No vague wish unexplained, no wandering aim 
 
 Sent back to bind on fancy's wings and seek 
 
 Some strange fair world where it might be a law ; 
 
 But doubting nothing, had been led by thee, 
 
 Through youth, and saved, as one at length awaked 
 
 Who has slept through a peril. Ah vain, vain ! 
 
 Thou lovest me ; the past is in its grave 
 Though its ghost haunts us ; still this much is ours, 
 To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing 
 Wait for us in the darkness. Thou lovest me ; 
 And thou art to receive not love but faith, 
 For which thou wilt be mine, and smile and take 
 All shapes and shames, and veil without a fear 
 That form which music follows like a slave : 
 And I look to thee and I trust in thee, 
 As in a Northern night one looks alway 
 Unto the East for morn and spring and joy. 
 Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state, 
 And, resting on some few old feelings won 
 Back by thy beauty, wouldst that I essay 
 The task which was to me what now thou art : 
 And why should I conceal one weakness more ? 
 
 Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter 
 Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath 
 Blew soft from the moist hills ; the black-thorn boughs, 
 So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
 In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
 
 PAULINE *3 
 
 Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
 
 Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 
 
 I walked with thee who knew'st not a deep shame 
 
 Lurked beneath smiles and careless words which sought 
 
 To hide it till they wandered and were mute, 
 
 As we stood listening on a sunny mound 
 
 To the wind murmuring in the damp copse, 
 
 Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing 
 
 Betrayed by sleep ; until the feeling rushed 
 
 That I was low indeed, yet not so low 
 
 As to endure the calmness of thine eyes ; 
 
 And so I told thee all, while the cool breast 
 
 I leaned on altered not its quiet beating, 
 
 And long ere words like a hurt bird's complaint 
 
 Bade me look up and be what I had been, 
 
 I felt despair could never live by thee : 
 
 Thou wilt remember. Thou art not more dear 
 
 Than song was once to me ; and I ne'er sung 
 
 But as one entering bright halls where all 
 
 Will rise and shout for him : sure I must own 
 
 That I am fallen, having chosen gifts 
 
 Distinct from theirs that I am sad and fain 
 
 Would give up all to be but where I was, 
 
 Not high as I had been if faithful found, 
 
 But low and weak yet full of hope, and sure 
 
 Of goodness as of life that I would lose 
 
 All this gay mastery of mind, to sit 
 
 Once more with them, trusting in truth and love, 
 
 And with an aim not being what I am. 
 
 Pauline, I am ruined who believed 
 
 That though my soul had floated from its sphere 
 Of wild dominion into the dim orb 
 Of self that it was strong and free as ever ! 
 It has conformed itself to that dim orb, 
 Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now 
 Must stay where it alone can be adored. 
 
 1 have felt this in dreams in dreams in which 
 I seemed the fate from which I fled ; I felt 
 
 A strange delight in causing my decay ; 
 
 I was a fiend in darkness chained forever 
 
 Within some ocean-cave ; and ages rolled, 
 
 Till through the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came 
 
 A white swan to remain with me ; and ages 
 
 Rolled, yet I tired not of my first joy 
 
 In gazing on the peace of its pure wings : 
 
 And then I said, " It is most fair to me,
 
 4* PAULINE 
 
 Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change 
 From the thick darkness, sure its eyes are dim, 
 Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed 
 With sleeping ages here ; it cannot leave me, 
 For it would seem, in light beside its kind, 
 Withered, though here to me most beautiful." 
 And then I was a young witch whose blue eyes, 
 As she stood naked by the river springs, 
 Drew down a god ; I watched his radiant form 
 Growing less radiant, and it gladdened me ; 
 Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine 
 Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven, 
 He turned to look at me, ere I could lose 
 The grin with which I viewed his perishing : 
 And he shrieked and departed and sat long 
 By his deserted throne, but sunk at last 
 Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled 
 Around him, " I am still a god to thee." 
 Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall, 
 For all the wandering and all the weakness 
 Will be a saddest comment on the song : 
 And if, that done, I can be young again, 
 I will give up all gained, as willingly 
 As one gives up a charm which shuts him out 
 From hope or part of care in human kind. 
 As life wanes, all its cares and strife and toil 
 Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees 
 Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass 
 Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, 
 The morning swallows with their songs like words, 
 All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts : 
 So, aught connected with my early life, 
 My rude songs or my wild imaginings, 
 How I look on them most distinct amid 
 The fever and the stir of after years ! 
 
 I ne'er had ventured e'er to hope for this ; 
 Had not the glow I felt at His award, 
 Assured me all was not extinct within : 
 His whom all honor, whose renown springs up 
 Like sunlight which will visit all the world, 
 So that e'en they who sneered at him at first, 
 Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls 
 From his foul nets which some lit torch invades, 
 Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. 
 Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive ?
 
 PA ULINE *5 
 
 Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever ! 
 
 Thou art gone from us ; years go by and spring 
 
 Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 
 
 Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise, 
 
 But none like thee : they stand, thy majesties, 
 
 Like mighty works which tell some spirit there 
 
 Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, 
 
 Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 
 
 And left us, never to return, and all 
 
 Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. 
 
 The air seems bright with thy past presence yet, 
 
 But thou art still for me as thou hast been 
 
 When I have stood with thee as on a throne 
 
 With all thy dim creations gathered round 
 
 Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them, 
 
 And creatures of my own were mixed with them, 
 
 Like things half-lived, catching and giving life. 
 
 But thou art still for me, who have adored 
 
 Though single, panting but to hear thy name 
 
 Which I believed a spell to me alone, 
 
 Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men ! 
 
 As one should worship long a sacred spring 
 
 Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross, 
 
 And one small tree embowers droopingly, 
 
 Joying to see some wandering insect won 
 
 To live in its few rushes, or some locust, 
 
 To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird 
 
 Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air : 
 
 And then should find it but the fountain-head, 
 
 Long lost, of some great river washing towns 
 
 And towers, and seeing old woods which will live 
 
 But by its banks untrod of human foot, 
 
 Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering 
 
 In light as some thing lieth half of life 
 
 Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change ; 
 
 Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay 
 
 Its course in vain, for it does ever spread 
 
 Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on, 
 
 Being the pulse of some great country so 
 
 Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world ! 
 
 And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret, 
 
 That I am not what I have been to thee : 
 
 Like a girl one has loved long silently 
 
 In her first loveliness in some retreat, 
 
 When, first emerged, all gaze and glow to view 
 
 Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bleed
 
 6* PAULINE 
 
 Like a mountain berry : doubtless it is sweet 
 To see her thus adored, but there have been 
 Moments when all the world was in his praise, 
 Sweeter than all the pride of after hours. 
 Yet, sun-treader, all hail ! From my heart's heart 
 I bid thee hail ! E'en in my wildest dreams, 
 I am proud to feel I would have thrown up all 
 The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me, 
 To have seen thee for a moment as thou art. 
 And if thou livest, if thou lovest, spirit ! 
 Remember me who set this final seal 
 To wandering thought that one so pure as thou 
 Could never die. Remember me who flung 
 All honor from my soul yet paused and said, 
 :< There is one spark of love remaining yet, 
 For I have nought in common with him, shapes 
 Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms 
 Seek me, which ne'er could fasten on his mind ; 
 And though I feel how low I am to him, 
 Yet I aim not even to catch a tone 
 Of all the harmonies which he called up ; 
 So, one gleam still remains, although the last." 
 Remember me who praise thee e'en with tears, 
 For never more shall I walk calm with thee ; 
 Thy sweet imaginings are as an air, 
 A melody some wondrous singer sings, 
 Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve, 
 They dream not to essay ; yet it no less 
 But more is honored. I was thine in shame, 
 And now when all thy proud renown is out, 
 I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim 
 With looking for some star which breaks on him 
 Altered and worn and weak and full of tears. 
 
 Autumn has come like spring returned to us, 
 
 Won from her girlishness ; like one returned 
 
 A friend that was a lover nor forgets 
 
 The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts 
 
 Of fading years ; whose soft mouth quivers yet 
 
 With the old smile but yet so changed and still ! 
 
 And here am I the scoffer, who have probed 
 
 Life's vanity, won by a word again 
 
 Into my own life for one little word 
 
 Of this sweet friend who lives in loving me, 
 
 Lives strangely on my thoughts and looks and words, 
 
 As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing
 
 PA ULINE 
 
 Its silent course of quietness and joy. 
 
 dearest, if indeed I tell the past, 
 Mayst thou forget it as a sad sick dream ! 
 Or if it linger my lost soul too soon 
 Sinks to itself and whispers, we shall be 
 
 But closer linked, two creatures whom the earth 
 Bears singly, with strange feelings unrevealed 
 But to each other ; or two lonely things 
 Created by some power whose reign is done, 
 Having no part in God or his bright world. 
 
 1 am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft, 
 As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book, 
 And in the heaven stars steal out one by one 
 As hunted men steal to their mountain watch. 
 I must not think, lest this new impulse die 
 
 In which I trust ; I have no confidence : 
 So, I will sing on fast as fancies come ; 
 Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints. 
 
 I strip my mind bare, whose first elements 
 I shall unveil not as they struggled forth 
 In infancy, nor as they now exist, 
 That I am grown above them and can rule 
 But in that middle stage when they were full 
 Yet ere I had disposed them to my will ; 
 And then I shall show how these elements 
 Produced my present state, and what it is. 
 
 I am made up of an intensest life, 
 
 Of a most clear idea of consciousness 
 
 Of self, distinct from all its qualities, 
 
 From all affections, passions, feelings, powers ; 
 
 And thus far it exists, if tracked in all : 
 
 But linked, in me, to self-supremacy, 
 
 Existing as a centre to all things, 
 
 Most potent to create and rule and call 
 
 Upon all things to minister to it ; 
 
 And to a principle of restlessness 
 
 Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all 
 
 This is myself ; and I should thus have been 
 
 Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. 
 
 And of my powers, one springs up to save 
 From utter death a soul with such desire 
 Confined to clay which is the only one 
 Which marks me 'an imagination which
 
 8* PAULINE 
 
 Has been an angel to me, coming not 
 In fitful visions but beside me ever 
 And never failing me ; so, though my mind 
 Forgets not, not a shred of life forgets, 
 Yet I can take a secret pride in calling 
 The dark past up to quell it regally. 
 
 A mind like this must dissipate itself, 
 
 But I have always had one lode-star ; now, 
 
 As I look back, I see that I have wasted 
 
 Or progressed as I looked towards that star 
 
 A need, a trust, a yearning after God : 
 
 A feeling I have analyzed but late, 
 
 But it existed, and was reconciled 
 
 With a neglect of all I deemed his laws, 
 
 Which yet, when seen in others, I abhorred. 
 
 I felt as one beloved, and so shut in 
 
 From fear : and thence I date my trust in signs 
 
 And omens, for I saw God everywhere ; 
 
 And I can only lay it to the fruit 
 
 Of a sad after-time that I could doubt 
 
 Even his being having always felt 
 
 His presence, never acting from myself, 
 
 Still trusting in a hand that leads me through 
 
 All danger ; and this feeling still has fought 
 
 Against my weakest reason and resolve. 
 
 And I can love nothing and this dull truth 
 Has come the last : but sense supplies a love 
 Encircling me and mingling with my life. 
 
 These make myself : for I have sought in vain 
 To trace how they were formed by circumstance, 
 For I still find them turning my wild youth 
 Where they alone displayed themselves, converting 
 All objects to their use : now see their course. 
 
 They came to me in my first dawn of life 
 Which passed alone with wisest ancient books 
 All halo-girt with fancies of my own ; 
 And I myself went with the tale a god 
 Wandering after beauty, or a giant 
 Standing vast in the sunset an old hunter 
 Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief, 
 Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos.
 
 PAULINE *9 
 
 I tell you, nought has ever been so clear 
 
 As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives : 
 
 I had not seen a work of lofty art, 
 
 Nor woman's beauty nor sweet nature's face, 
 
 Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those 
 
 On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, 
 
 The deep groves and white temples and wet caves : 
 
 And nothing ever will surprise me now 
 
 Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, 
 
 Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair. 
 
 And strange it is that I who could so dream 
 
 Should e'er have stooped to aim at aught beneath 
 
 Aught low, or painful ; but I never doubted, 
 
 So, as I grew, I rudely shaped my life 
 
 To my immediate wants ; yet strong beneath 
 
 Was a vague sense of powers folded up 
 
 A sense that though those shadowy times were past 
 
 Their spirit dwelt in me, and I should rule. 
 
 Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down 
 
 My soul till it was changed. I lost myself, 
 
 And were it not that I so loathe that time, 
 
 I could recall how first I learned to turn 
 
 My mind against itself ; and the effects 
 
 In deeds for which remorse were vain as for 
 
 The wanderings of delirious dream ; yet thence 
 
 Came cunning, envy, falsehood, which so long 
 
 Have spotted me : at length 1 was restored. 
 
 Yet long the influence remained ; and nought 
 But the still life I led, apart from all, 
 Which left my soul to seek its old delights, 
 Could e'er have brought me thus far back to peace, 
 As peace returned, I sought out some pursuit ; 
 And song rose, no new impulse but the one 
 With which all others best could be combined. 
 My life has not been that of those whose heaven 
 Was lampless save where poesy shone out ; 
 But as a clime where glittering mountain-tops 
 And glancing sea and forests steeped in light 
 Give back reflected the far-flashing sun ; 
 For music (which is earnest of a heaven, 
 Seeing we know emotions strange by it, 
 Not else to be revealed,) is as a voice, 
 A low voice calling fancy, as a friend,
 
 10* PAULINE 
 
 To the green woods in the gay summer time : 
 And she fills all the way with dancing shapes 
 Which have made painters pale, and' they go on 
 While stars look at them and winds call to them 
 As they leave life's path for the twilight world 
 Where the dead gather. This was not at first, 
 For I scarce knew what I would do. I had 
 No wish to paint, no yearning ; but I sang. 
 
 And first I sang as I in dream have seen 
 
 Music wait on a lyrist for some thought, 
 
 Yet singing to herself until it came. 
 
 I turned to those old rimes and scenes where all 
 
 That 's beautiful had birth for me, and made 
 
 Rude verses on them all ; and then I paused 
 
 I had done nothing, so I sought to know 
 
 What mind had yet achieved. No fear was mine 
 
 As I gazed on the works of mighty bards, 
 
 In the first joy at finding my own thoughts 
 
 Recorded and my powers exemplified, 
 
 And feeling their aspirings were my own. 
 
 And then I first explored passion and mind ; 
 
 And I began afresh ; I rather sought 
 
 To rival what I wondered at, than form 
 
 Creations of my own ; so, much was light 
 
 Lent back by others, yet much was my own. 
 
 I paused again, a change was coming on, 
 
 I was no more a boy, the past was breaking 
 
 Before the coming and like fever worked. 
 
 I first thought on myself, and here my powers 
 
 Burst out : I dreamed not of restraint but gazed 
 
 On all things : schemes and systems went and came, 
 
 And I was proud (being vainest of the weak) 
 
 In wandering o'er them to seek out some one 
 
 To be my own, as one should wander o'er 
 
 The white way for a star. 
 
 And my choice fell 
 Not so much on a system as a man 
 On one, whom praise of mine would not offend, 
 Who was as calm as beauty, being such 
 Unto mankind as thou to me, Pauline, 
 Believing in them and devoting all 
 His soul's strength to their winning back to peace ; 
 Who sent forth hopes and longings for their sake,
 
 PA UL1NE * 11 
 
 Clothed in all passion's melodies, which first 
 
 Caught me and set me, as to a sweet task, 
 
 To gather every breathing of his songs : 
 
 And woven with them there were words which seemed 
 
 A key to a new world, the muttering 
 
 Of angels of some thing unguessed by man. 
 
 How my heart beat as I went on and found 
 
 Much there, I felt my own mind had conceived, 
 
 But there living and burning ! Soon the whole 
 
 Of his conceptions dawned on me ; their praise 
 
 Is in the tongues of men, men's brows are high 
 
 When his name means a triumph and a pride, 
 
 So, my weak hands may well forbear to dim 
 
 What then seemed my bright fate : I threw myself 
 
 To meet it, I was vowed to liberty, 
 
 Men were to be as gods and earth as heaven, 
 
 And I ah, what a life was mine to be ! 
 
 My whole soul rose to meet it. Now, Pauline, 
 
 1 shall go mad, if I recall that time 1 
 
 Oh let me look back ere I leave forever 
 The time which was an hour that one waits 
 For a fair girl that comes a withered hag ! 
 And I was lonely, far from woods and fields, 
 And amid dullest sights, who should be loose 
 As a stag ; yet I was full of joy, who lived 
 With Plato and who had the key to life ; 
 And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, 
 And many a thought did I build up on thought, 
 As the wild bee hangs cell to cell ; in vain, 
 For I must still go on, my mind rests not. 
 
 'T was in my plan to look on real life 
 
 Which was all new to me ; my theories 
 
 Were firm, so I left them, to look upon 
 
 Men and their cares and hopes and fears and joys ; 
 
 And as I pondered on them all I sought 
 
 How best life's end might be attained an end 
 
 Comprising every joy. I deeply mused. 
 
 And suddenly without heart-wreck I awoke 
 
 As from a dream : I said, " 'T was beautiful 
 
 Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it ! " 
 
 As some world-wanderer sees in a far meadow 
 
 Strange towers and walled gardens thick with trees, 
 
 Where singing goes on and delicious mirth,
 
 12* PAULINE 
 
 And laughing fairy creatures peeping over, 
 And on the morrow when he comes to live 
 Forever by those springs and trees fruit-flushed 
 And fairy bowers, all his search is vain. 
 First went my hopes of perfecting mankind, 
 And faith in them, then freedom in itself 
 And virtue in itself, and then my motives, ends 
 And powers and loves, and human love went last. 
 I felt this no decay, because new powers 
 Rose as old feelings left wit, mockery 
 And happiness ; for I had oft been sad, 
 Mistrusting my resolves, but now I cast 
 Hope joyously away : I laughed and said, 
 " No more of this ! " I must not think : at length 
 I looked again to see how all went on. 
 
 My powers were greater : as some temple seemed 
 My soul, where nought is changed and incense rolls 
 Around the altar, only God is gone 
 And some dark spirit sitteth in his seat. 
 So, I passed through the temple and to me 
 Knelt troops of shadows, and they cried, ' Hail, king ! 
 We serve thee now and thou shalt serve no more ! 
 Call on us, prove us, let ns worship thee ! " 
 And I said, " Are ye strong ? Let fancy bear me 
 Far from the past ! " And I was borne away, 
 As Arab birds float sleeping in the wind, 
 O'er deserts, towers and forests, I being calm ; 
 And I said, " I have nursed up energies, 
 They will prey on me." And a band knelt low 
 And cried, " Lord, we are here and we will make 
 A way for thee in thine appointed life ! 
 Oh look on us ! " And I said, " Ye will worship 
 Me ; but my heart must worship too." They shouted, 
 " Thyself, thou art our king ! " So, I stood there 
 Smiling .... 
 
 And buoyant and rejoicing was the spirit 
 With which I looked out how to end my days ; 
 I felt once more myself, my powers were mine ; 
 I found that youth or health so lifted me 
 That, spite of all life's vanity, no grief 
 Came nigh me, I must ever be light-hearted ; 
 And that this feeling was the only veil 
 Betwixt me and despair : so, if age came, 
 I should be as a wreck linked to a soul 
 Yet fluttering, or mind-broken and aware
 
 PAULINE *13 
 
 Of my decay. So a long summer morn 
 Found me ; and ere noon came, I had resolved 
 No age should come on me ere youth's hope went, 
 For I would wear myself out, like that morn 
 Which wasted not a sunbeam ; every joy 
 I would make mine, and die. And thus I sought 
 To chain my spirit down which I had fed 
 With thoughts of fame. I said, " The troubled life 
 Of genius, seen so bright when working forth 
 Some trusted end, seems sad when all in vain 
 Most sad when men have parted with all joy 
 For their wild fancy's sake, which waited first 
 As an obedient spirit when delight 
 Came not with her alone ; but alters soon, 
 Comes darkened, seldom, hastening to depart, 
 Leaving a heavy darkness and warm tears. 
 But I shall never lose her ; she will live 
 Brighter for such seclusion. I but catch 
 A hue, a glance of what I sing, so, pain 
 Is linked with pleasure, for I ne'er may tell 
 The radiant sights which dazzle me ; but now 
 They shall be all my own ; and let them fade 
 Untold others shall rise as fair, as fast ! 
 And when all 's done, the few dim gleams transferred," 
 (For a new thought sprung up that it were well 
 To leave all shadowy hope, and weave such lays 
 As would encircle me with praise and love, 
 So, I should not die utterly, I should bring 
 One branch from the gold forest, like the knight 
 Of old tales, witnessing I had been there) 
 " And when all 's done, how vain seems e'en success 
 And all the influence poets have o'er men ! 
 'T is a fine thing that one weak as myself 
 Should sit in his lone room, knowing the words 
 He utters in his solitude shall move 
 Men like a swift wind that though he be forgotten, 
 Fair eyes shall glisten when his beauteous dreams 
 Of love come true in happier frames than his. 
 Ay, the still night brought thoughts like these, but morn 
 Came and the mockery again laughed out 
 At hollow praises, and smiles almost sneers ; 
 And my soul's idol seemed to whisper me 
 To dwell with him and his unhonored name : 
 And I well knew my spirit, that would be 
 First in the struggle, and again would make 
 All bow to it, and I should sink again.
 
 PA ULINE 
 
 " And then know that this curse will come on us, 
 To see our idols perish ; we may wither, 
 Nor marvel, we are clay, but our low fate 
 Should not extend to them, whom trustingly 
 We sent before into time's yawning gulf 
 To face whate'er might lurk in darkness there. 
 To see the painter's glory pass, and feel 
 Sweet music move us not as once, or, worst, 
 To see decaying wits ere the frail body 
 Decays ! Nought makes me trust in love so really 
 As the delight of the contented lowness 
 With which I gaze on souls I 'd keep forever 
 In beauty ; I 'd be sad to equal them ; 
 I 'd feed their fame e'en from my heart's best blood, 
 Withering unseen that they might flourish still." 
 
 Pauline, my sweet friend, thou dost not forget 
 
 How this mood swayed me when thou first wast mine, 
 
 When I had set myself to live this life, 
 
 Defying all opinion. Ere thou earnest 
 
 I was most happy, sweet, for old delights 
 
 Had come like birds again ; music, my life, 
 
 I nourished more than ever, and old lore 
 
 Loved for itself and all it shows the king 
 
 Treading the purple calmly to his death, 
 
 While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk, 
 
 The giant shades of fate, silently flitting, 
 
 Pile the dim outline of the coming doom ; 
 
 And him sitting alone in blood while friends 
 
 Are hunting far in the sunshine ; and the boy 
 
 With his white breast and brow and clustering curls 
 
 Streaked with his mother's blood, and striving hard 
 
 To tell his story ere his reason goes. 
 
 And when I loved thee as I 've loved so oft, 
 
 Thou lovedst me, and I wondered and looked in 
 
 My heart to find some feeling like such love, 
 
 Believing I was still what I had been ; 
 
 And soon I found all faith had gone from me, 
 
 And the late glow of life, changing like clouds, 
 
 'Twas not the morn-blush widening into day, 
 
 But evening colored by the dying sun 
 
 While darkness is quick hastening. I will tell 
 
 My state as though 'twere none of mine despair 
 
 Cannot come near me thus it is with me. 
 
 Souls alter not, and mine must progress still ; 
 
 And this I knew not when I flung away
 
 PAULINE *15 
 
 My youth's chief aims. I ne'er supposed the loss 
 
 Of what few I retained, for no resource 
 
 Awaits me : now behold the change of all. 
 
 I cannot chain my soul, it will not rest 
 
 In its clay prison, this most narrow sphere : 
 
 It has strange powers and feelings and desires, 
 
 Which I cannot account for nor explain, 
 
 But which I stifle not, being bound to trust 
 
 All feelings equally, to hear all sides : 
 
 Yet I cannot indulge them, and they live, 
 
 Referring to some state or life unknown. 
 
 My selfishness is satiated not, 
 
 It wears me like a flame ; my hunger for 
 
 All pleasure, howsoe'er minute, is pain ; 
 
 I envy how I envy him whose mind 
 
 Turns with its energies to some one end, 
 
 To elevate a sect or a pursuit 
 
 However mean ! So, my still baffled hopes 
 
 Seek out abstractions ; I would have but one 
 
 Delight on earth, so it were wholly mine, 
 
 One rapture all my soul could fill : and this 
 
 Wild feeling places me in dream afar 
 
 In some wild country where the eye can see 
 
 No end to the far hills and dales bestrewn 
 
 With shining towers and dwellings : I grow mad 
 
 Well-nigh, to know not one abode but holds 
 
 Some pleasure, for my soul could grasp them all 
 
 But must remain with this vile form. I look 
 
 With hope to age at last, which quenching much, 
 
 May let me concentrate the sparks it spares. 
 
 This restlessness of passion meets in me 
 A craving after knowledge : the sole proof 
 Of a commanding will is in that power 
 Repressed ; for I beheld it in its dawn, 
 That sleepless harpy with its budding wings, 
 And I considered whether I should yield 
 All hopes and fears, to live alone with it, 
 Finding a recompense in its wild eyes ; 
 And when I found that I should perish so, 
 I bade its wild eyes close from me forever, 
 And I am left alone with my delights ; 
 So, it lies in me a chained thing, still ready 
 To serve me if I loose its slightest bond : 
 I cannot but be proud of my bright slave.
 
 16* PAULINE 
 
 And thus I know this earth is not my sphere, 
 
 For I cannot so narrow me but that 
 
 I still exceed it : in their elements 
 
 My love would pass my reason ; but since here 
 
 Love must receive its objects from this earth 
 
 While reason will be chainless, the few truths 
 
 Caught from its wanderings have sufficed to quell 
 
 All love below ; then what must be that love 
 
 Which, with the object it demands, would quell 
 
 Reason though it soared with the seraphim ''. 
 
 No, what I feel may pass all human love 
 
 Yet fall far short of what my love should be. 
 
 And yet I seem more warped in this than aught, 
 
 For here myself stands out more hideously : 
 
 I can forget myself in friendship, fame, 
 
 Or liberty, or love of mighty souls ; 
 
 But I begin to know what thing hate is 
 
 To sicken and to quiver and grow white 
 
 And I myself have furnished its first prey. 
 
 All my sad weaknesses, this wavering will, 
 
 This selfishness, this still decaying frame . . . 
 
 But I must never grieve while I can pass 
 
 Far from such thoughts as now, Andromeda ! 
 
 And she is with me : years roll, I shall change, 
 
 But change can touch her not so beautiful 
 
 With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair 
 
 Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, 
 
 And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, 
 
 Resting upon her eyes and face and hair 
 
 As she awaits the snake on the wet beach 
 
 By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking 
 
 At her feet ; quite naked and alone ; a thing 
 
 You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God 
 
 Will come in thunder from the stars to save her. 
 
 Let it j5ass ! I will call another change. 
 
 I will be gifted with a wondrous soul, 
 
 Yet sunk by error to men's sympathy, 
 
 And in the wane of life, yet only so 
 
 As to call up their fears ; and there shall come 
 
 A time requiring youth's best energies ; 
 
 And straight I fling age, sorrow, sickness off, 
 
 And I rise triumphing over my decay. 
 
 And thus it is that I supply the chasm 
 'Twixt what I am and all that I would be . 
 But then to know nothing, to hope for nothing,
 
 PAULINE *17 
 
 To seize on life's dull joys from a strange fear 
 Lest, losing them, all 's lost and nought remains ! 
 
 There 's some vile juggle with my reason here ; 
 
 I feel I but explain to my own loss 
 
 These impulses ; they live no less the same. 
 
 Liberty ! what though I despair ? my blood 
 
 Rose not at a slave's name proudlier than now, 
 
 And sympathy, obscured by sophistries ! 
 
 Why have not I sought refuge in myself, 
 
 But for the woes I saw and could not stay ? 
 
 And love ! do I not love thee, my Pauline ? 
 
 I cherish prejudice, lest I be left 
 
 Utterly loveless witness this belief 
 
 In poets, though sad change has come there too ; 
 
 No more I leave myself to follow them 
 
 Unconsciously I measure me by them 
 
 Let me forget it : and I cherish most 
 
 My love of England how her name, a word 
 
 Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat ! 
 
 Pauline, I could do anything not now 
 
 All 's fever but when calm shall come again, 
 
 I am prepared : I have made life my own. 
 
 I would not be content with all the change 
 
 One frame should feel, but I have gone in thought 
 
 Through all conjuncture, I have lived all life 
 
 When it is most alive, where strangest fate 
 
 New shapes it past surmise the tales of men 
 
 Bit by some curse or in the grasps of doom 
 
 Half-visible and still increasing round, 
 
 Or crowning their wide being's general aim. 
 
 These are wild fancies, but I feel, sweet friend, 
 As one breathing his weakness to the ear 
 Of pitying angel dear as a winter flower, 
 A slight flower growing alone, and offering 
 Its frail cup of three leaves to the cold sun. 
 Yet joyous and confiding like the triumph 
 Of a child : and why am I not worthy thee ? 
 I can live all the life of plants, and gaze 
 Drowsily on the bees that flit and play, 
 Or bare my breast for sunbeams which will kill, 
 Or open in the night of sounds, to look 
 For the dim stars ; I can mount with the bird 
 Leaping airily his pyramid of leaves
 
 18* PAULINE 
 
 And twisted boughs of some tall mountain tree, 
 Or rise cheerfully springing to the heavens ; 
 Or like a fish breathe-in the morning air 
 In the misty sunrwarm water ; or with flowers 
 And trees can smile in light at the sinking sun 
 Just as the storm comes, as a girl would look 
 On a departing lover most serene. 
 
 Pauline, come with me, see how I could build 
 A home for us, out of the world, in thought ! 
 I am inspired : come with me, Pauline ! 
 
 Night, and one single ridge of narrow path 
 Between the sullen river and the woods 
 Waving and muttering, for the moonless night 
 Has shaped them into images of lif e, 
 Like the upraising of the giant-ghosts, 
 Looking on earth to know how their sons fare : 
 Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell 
 Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting 
 Of thy soft breasts. No, we will pass to morning 
 Morning, the rocks and valleys and old woods. 
 How the sun brightens in the mist, and here, 
 Half in the air, like creatures of the place, 
 Trusting the element, living on high boughs 
 That swing in the wind look at the golden spray 
 Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract 
 Amid the broken rocks ! Shall we stay here 
 With the wild hawks ? No ; ere the hot noon come, 
 Dive we down safe ! See this our new retreat 
 Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, 
 Dark, tangled, old and green, still sloping down 
 To a small pool whose waters lie asleep 
 Amid the trailing boughs turned water-plants : 
 And tall trees over-arch to keep us in, 
 Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts, 
 And in the dreamy water one small group 
 Of two or three strange trees are got together 
 Wondering at all around, as strange beasts herd 
 Together far from their own land : all wildness, 
 No turf nor moss, for boughs and plants pave all, 
 And tongues of bank go shelving in the waters, 
 Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head, 
 And old gray stones lie making eddies there, 
 The wild-mice cross them dry-shod : deeper in ! 
 Shut thy soft eyes now look still deeper in !
 
 PA UL1NE * 19 
 
 This is the very heart of the woods all round 
 
 Mountain-like heaped above us ; yet even here 
 
 One pond of water gleams ; far off the river 
 
 Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land ; but one 
 
 One thin clear sheet has overleaped and wound 
 
 Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies 
 
 Still, as but let by sufferance ; the trees bend 
 
 O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl, 
 
 And through their roots long creeping plants stretch out 
 
 Their twined hair, steeped and sparkling ; farther on, 
 
 Tall rushes and thick flag-knots have combined 
 
 To narrow it ; so, at length, a silver thread, 
 
 It winds, all noiselessly through the deep wood 
 
 Till through a cleft-way, through the moss and stone, 
 
 It joins its parent-river with a shout. 
 
 Up for the glowing day, leave the old woods ! 
 
 See, they part, like a ruined arch : the sky ! 
 
 Nothing but sky appears, so close the roots 
 
 And grass of the hill-top level with the air 
 
 Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats laden 
 
 With light, like a dead whale that white birds pick, 
 
 Floating away in the sun in some north sea. 
 
 Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air, 
 
 The clear, dear breath of God that loveth us, 
 
 Where small birds reel and winds take their delight ! 
 
 Water is beautiful, but not like air : 
 
 See, where the solid azure waters lie 
 
 Made as of thickened air, and down below, 
 
 The fern-ranks like a forest spread themselves 
 
 As though each pore could feel the element ; 
 
 Where the quick glancing serpent winds his way, 
 
 Float with me there, Pauline ! but not like air. 
 
 Down the hill ! Stop a clump of trees, see, set 
 
 On a heap of rocks, which look o'er the far plains, 
 
 And envious climbing shrubs would mount to rest 
 
 And peer from their spread boughs ; there they wave, 
 
 looking 
 
 At the muleteers who whistle as they go 
 To the merry chime of their morning bells, and all 
 The little smoking cots and fields and banks 
 And copses bright in the sun. My spirit wanders : 
 Hedge-rows for me still, living hedge-rows where 
 The bushes close and clasp above and keep 
 Thought in I am concentrated I feel ; 
 But my soul saddens when it looks beyond : 
 I cannot be immortal nor taste all.
 
 20* PAULINE 
 
 God, where does this tend these struggling aims ? * 
 What would I have ? What is this " sleep '' which seems 
 To bound all ? can there be a " waking " point 
 
 Of crowning life ? The soul would never rule ; 
 It would be first in all things, it would have 
 Its utmost pleasure filled, but, that complete, 
 Commanding, for commanding, sickens it. 
 The last point I can trace is, rest, beneath 
 Some better essence than itself, in weakness ; 
 This is " myself," not what I think should be : 
 And what is that I hunger for but God ? 
 My God, my God, let me for once look on thee 
 As though nought else existed, we alone ! 
 And as creation crumbles, my soul's spark 
 Expands till I can say, Even from myself 
 
 1 need thee and I feel thee and I love thee : 
 I do not plead my rapture in thy works 
 For love of thee, nor that I feel as one 
 Who cannot die : but there is that in me 
 
 Which turns to thee, which loves or which should love. 
 Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress ? 
 Why have I labored to put out my life ? 
 Is it not in my nature to adore, 
 
 * Je crains bien que mon pauvre ami ne soit pas toujours parfaitement 
 compris dans ce qui reste a lire de cet Strange fragment, mais il est moins 
 propre que tout autre a e'claircir ce qui de sa nature ne peut jamais etrc 
 que songe et confusion. D'ailleurs je ne sais trop si en che reliant a mieux 
 co-ordoimer certaines parties 1'on ne courrait pas le risque de nuire au seul 
 me"rite auquel une production si singuliere peut pre"tendre, celui de donner 
 une ide'e assez precise du genre qu'elle n'a fait qu' e'baucher. Ce de"but 
 sans prevention, ce remuement des passions qui va d'abord en accroissant et. 
 puis s'appaise par degres, ces elans de I'ame, ce retour soudain sur soi- 
 meme, et par-dessus tout, la tournure d' esprit tout particuliere de mon 
 ami, rendent les changeniens presque impossibles. Les raisons qu'il fait 
 valoir ailleurs, et d'autres encore plus puissantes, out fait, trouver grficc .\ 
 mes yeux pour cet e'crit qu'autrement je lui eusse conseille'de jeter au feu. 
 Je n'en crois pas moins au grand principe de toute composition a ce 
 principe de Shakespeare, de Rafaelle, de Beethoven, d'ou il suit que la 
 concentration des ide'es est due bien plus ;\ leur conception qu'Ji leur mist! 
 en execution : j'ai tout lieu de craindre que la premiere de ces qualite's ne 
 soit encore e'trangere a mon ami, et je doute fort qu'un redoublement de 
 travail lui fasse acque'rir la seconde. Le mieux serait de bruler ceci ; mais 
 que faire ? 
 
 Je crois que dans ce qui suit il fait allusion h un certain examen qu'il fit 
 autrefois de I'ame ou plutot de son ame, pour de"couvrir la suite des objete 
 auxquels il lui serait possible d'attendre, et dont chacun une fois obtenu 
 devait former une espece de plateau d'oto 1'on pouvait aper^evoir d'autres 
 buts, d'autres projets, d'autres jouissances qui, h leur tour, devaient etre 
 surmonte's. II en re'sultait que 1'oubli et le sommeil devaient tout ter- 
 miner. Cette ide'e, que je nesaisispas parfaitement, lui est peutetrr MUSSJ 
 inintelligible qu'& moi. PAUUNK.
 
 PAULINE *21 
 
 And e'en for all my reason do I not 
 
 Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him now ? 
 
 Can I forego the trust that he loves me ? 
 
 Do I not feel a love which only ONE .... 
 
 thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed ! 
 
 1 have denied thee calmly do I not 
 Pant when I read of thy consummate deeds, 
 And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash 
 The brightest gleams of earth's philosophy ? 
 Do I not shake to hear aught question thee ? 
 If I am erring save me, madden me, 
 
 Take from me powers and pleasures, let me die 
 
 Ages, so I see thee ! I am knit round 
 
 As with a charm by sin and lust and pride, 
 
 Yet though my wandering dreams have seen all shapes 
 
 Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee 
 
 Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee 
 
 In the damp night by weeping Olivet, 
 
 Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less, 
 
 Or dying with thee on the lonely cross, 
 
 Or witnessing thy bursting from the tomb. 
 
 A mortal, sin's familiar friend, doth here 
 Avow that he will give all earth's reward, 
 But to believe and humbly teach the faith, 
 In suffering and poverty and shame, 
 Only believing he is not unloved. 
 
 And now, my Pauline, I am thine forever ! 
 
 I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up 
 
 Deserting me, and old shades gathering on ; 
 
 Yet while its last light waits, I would say much, 
 
 And chiefly, I am glad that I have said 
 
 That love which I have ever felt for thee 
 
 But seldom told ; our hearts so beat together 
 
 That speech is mockery ; but when dark hours come, 
 
 And I feel sad, and thou, sweet, deem'st it strange 
 
 A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove, 
 
 Look on this lay I dedicate to thee, 
 
 Which through thee I began, and which I end, 
 
 Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell 
 
 That I am thine, and more than ever now 
 
 That I am sinking fast : yet though I sink, 
 
 No less I feel that thou hast brought me bliss 
 
 And that I still may hope to win it back. 
 
 Thou knowest, dear friend, I could not think all calm,
 
 22* PAULINE 
 
 For wild dreams followed me and bore me off, 
 And all was indistinct ; ere one was caught 
 Another glanced ; so, dazzled by my wealth, 
 Knowing not which to leave nor which to choose, 
 For all my thoughts so floated, nought was fixed. 
 And then thou saidst a pei-fect bard was one 
 Who shadowed out the stages of all life, 
 And so thou bad'st me tell this my first stage. 
 'T is done, and even now I feel all dim the shift 
 Of thought ; these are my last thoughts ; I discern 
 Faintly immortal life and truth and good. 
 And why thou must be mine is, that e'en now 
 In the dim hush of night, that I have done, 
 With fears and sad forebodings, I look through 
 And say, E'en at the last I have her still, 
 With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven 
 When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, 
 And clouds float white in the sun like broods of swans. 
 How the blood lies upon her cheek, all spread 
 As thinned by kisses ! only in her lips 
 It wells and pulses like a living thing, 
 And her neck looks like marble misted o'er 
 With love-breath, a dear thing to kiss and love, 
 Standing beneath me, looking out to me, 
 As I might kill her and be loved for it. 
 
 Love me love me, Pauline, love nought but me, 
 Leave me not ! All these words are wild and weak, 
 Believe them not, Pauline ! I stooped so low 
 But to behold thee purer by my side, 
 To show thou art my breath, my life, a last 
 Resource, an extreme want : never believe 
 Aught better could so look to thee ; nor seek 
 Again the world of good thoughts left for me ! 
 There were bright troops of undiscovered suns, 
 Each equal in their radiant course ; there were 
 Clusters of far fair isles which ocean kept 
 For his own joy, and his waves broke on them, 
 Without a choice ; and there was a dim crowd 
 Of visions, each a part of the dim whole : 
 And one star left his peers and came with peace 
 Upon a storm, and all eyes pined for him ; 
 And one isle harbored a sea-beaten ship, 
 And the crew wandered in its bowers and plucked 
 Its fruits and gave up all their hopes for home ; 
 And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep,
 
 PA UL1NE * 23 
 
 And he said, " I am singled out by God, 
 
 No sin must touch me." I am very weak, 
 
 But what I would express is, Leave me not, 
 
 Still sit by me with beating breast and hair 
 
 Loosened, be watching earnest by my side, 
 
 Turning my books or kissing me when I 
 
 Look up like summer wind ! Be still to me 
 
 A key to music's mystery when mind fails, 
 
 A reason, a solution and a clue ! 
 
 You see I have thrown off my prescribed rules : 
 
 I hope in myself and hope and pant and love. 
 
 You '11 find me better, know me more than when 
 
 You loved me as I was. Smile not ! I have 
 
 Much yet to gladden you, to dawn on you ; 
 
 No more of the past ! I '11 look within no more : 
 
 I have too trusted to my own wild wants, 
 
 Too trusted to myself, to intuition 
 
 Draining the wine alone in the still night, 
 
 And seeing how, as gathering films arose, 
 
 As by an inspiration life seemed bare 
 
 And grinning in its vanity, and ends 
 
 Hard to be dreamed of, stared at me as fixed, 
 
 And others suddenly became all foul 
 
 As a fair witch turned an old hag at night. 
 
 No more of this ! We will go hand in hand ; 
 
 I will go with thee, even as a child, 
 
 Looking no farther than thy sweet commands, 
 
 And thou hast chosen where this life shall be : 
 
 The land which gave me thee shall be our home, 
 
 Where nature lies all wild amid her lakes 
 
 And snow-swathed mountains and vast pines all girt 
 
 With ropes of snow where nature lies all bare, 
 
 Suffering none to view her but a race 
 
 Most stinted and deformed, like the mute dwarfs 
 
 Which wait upon a naked Indian queen. 
 
 And there (the time being when the heavens are thick 
 
 With storms) I '11 sit with thee while thou dost sing 
 
 Thy native songs, gay as a desert bird 
 
 Who crieth as he flies for perfect joy, 
 
 Or telling me old stories of dead knights ; 
 
 Or I will read old lays to thee how she, 
 
 The fair pale sister, went to her chill grave 
 
 With power to love and to be loved and live : 
 
 Or we will go together, like twin gods 
 
 Of the infernal world, with scented lamp, 
 
 Over the dead, to call and to awake,
 
 24* PAULINE 
 
 Over the unshaped images which lie 
 
 Within my mind's cave : only leaving all 
 
 That tells of the past doubts. So, when spring comes, 
 
 And sunshine comes again like an old smile, 
 
 And the fresh waters and awakened birds 
 
 And budding woods await us, I shall be 
 
 Prepared, and we will go and think again, 
 
 And all old loves shall come to us, but changed 
 
 As some sweet thought which harsh words veiled before 
 
 Feeling God loves us, and that all that errs 
 
 Is a strange dream which death will dissipate. 
 
 And then when I am firm, we '11 seek again 
 
 My own land, and again I will approach 
 
 My old designs, and calmly look on all 
 
 The works of my past weakness, as one views 
 
 Some scene where danger met him long before. 
 
 Ah that such pleasant life should be but dreamed ! 
 
 But whate'er come of it, and though it fade, 
 
 And though ere the cold morning all be gone, 
 
 As it will be ; though music wait for me, 
 
 And fair eyes and bright wine laughing like sin 
 
 Which steals back softly on a soul half saved, 
 
 And I be first to deny all, and despise 
 
 This verse, and these intents which seem so fair, 
 
 Still this is all my own, this moment's pride, 
 
 No less I make an end in perfect joy. 
 
 E'en in my brightest time, a lurking fear 
 
 Possessed me : I well knew ray weak resolves, 
 
 I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep 
 
 Over its treasure, as one half afraid 
 
 To make his riches definite : but now 
 
 These feelings shall not utterly be lost, 
 
 I shall not know again that nameless care 
 
 Lest, leaving all undone in youth, some new 
 
 And undreamed end reveal itself too late : 
 
 For this song shall remain to tell forever 
 
 That when I lost all hope of such a change, 
 
 Suddenly beauty rose on me again. 
 
 No less I make an end in perfect joy, 
 
 For I, having thus again been visited, 
 
 Shall doubt not many another bliss awaits, 
 
 And, though this weak soul sink and darkness come, 
 
 Some little word shall light it up again, 
 
 And I shall see all clearer and love better, 
 
 I shall again go o'er the tracts of thought
 
 PAULINE *25 
 
 As one who has a right, and I shall live 
 With poets, calmer, purer still each time, 
 And beauteous shapes will come to me again, 
 And unknown secrets will be trusted me 
 Which were not mine when wavering ; but now 
 I shall be priest and lover as of old. 
 
 Sun-treader, I believe in God and truth 
 And love ; and as one just escaped from death 
 Would bind himself in bands of friends to feel 
 He lives indeed, so, I would lean on thee ! 
 Thou must be ever with me, most in gloom 
 When such shall come, but chiefly when I die, 
 For I seem, dying, as one going in the dark 
 To fight a giant : and live thou forever, 
 And be to all what thou hast been to me ! 
 All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me 7 
 Know my last state is happy, free from doubt 
 Or touch of fear. Love me and wish me well ! 
 
 RICHMOND, October 22, 1832.
 
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