



Produced by Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig, Katherine Ward
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net





  The Poetical Works
  of
  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  _In Six Volumes_

  Vol. IV.


  London
  Smith, Elder, & Co., 15 Waterloo Place
  1890




CONTENTS.

  POEMS:--
     A Child's Grave at Florence                                     3
     Catarina to Camoens                                            12
     Life and Love                                                  20
     A Denial                                                       22
     Proof and Disproof                                             25
     Question and Answer                                            29
     Inclusions                                                     30
     Insufficiency                                                  32

  SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE                                       33

  CASA GUIDI WINDOWS:--
     First Part                                                     83
     Second Part                                                   134

  POEMS BEFORE CONGRESS:--
     Napoleon III. in Italy                                        171
     The Dance                                                     190
     A Tale of Villafranca                                         195
     A Court Lady                                                  200
     An August Voice                                               207
     Christmas Gifts                                               213
     Italy and the World                                           217
     A Curse for a Nation                                          227

  LAST POEMS:--
     Little Mattie                                                 241
     A False Step                                                  246
     Void in Law                                                   248
     Lord Walter's Wife                                            252
     Bianca among the Nightingales                                 259
     My Kate                                                       267
     A Song for the Ragged Schools of London                       270
     May's Love                                                    279
     Amy's Cruelty                                                 280
     My Heart and I                                                284
     The Best Thing in the World                                   287
     Where's Agnes?                                                288




POEMS


A CHILD'S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.

A.A.E.C.

Born, July 1848. Died, November 1849


  I.

  Of English blood, of Tuscan birth,
    What country should we give her?
  Instead of any on the earth,
    The civic Heavens receive her.

  II.

  And here among the English tombs
    In Tuscan ground we lay her,
  While the blue Tuscan sky endomes
    Our English words of prayer.

  III.

  A little child!--how long she lived,
    By months, not years, is reckoned:
  Born in one July, she survived
    Alone to see a second.

  IV.

  Bright-featured, as the July sun
    Her little face still played in,
  And splendours, with her birth begun,
    Had had no time for fading.

  V.

  So, LILY, from those July hours,
    No wonder we should call her;
  She looked such kinship to the flowers,--
    Was but a little taller.

  VI.

  A Tuscan Lily,--only white,
    As Dante, in abhorrence
  Of red corruption, wished aright
    The lilies of his Florence.

  VII.

  We could not wish her whiter,--her
    Who perfumed with pure blossom
  The house--a lovely thing to wear
    Upon a mother's bosom!

  VIII.

  This July creature thought perhaps
    Our speech not worth assuming;
  She sat upon her parents' laps
    And mimicked the gnat's humming;

  IX.

  Said "father," "mother"--then left off,
    For tongues celestial, fitter:
  Her hair had grown just long enough
    To catch heaven's jasper-glitter.

  X.

  Babes! Love could always hear and see
    Behind the cloud that hid them.
  "Let little children come to Me,
    And do not thou forbid them."

  XI.

  So, unforbidding, have we met,
    And gently here have laid her,
  Though winter is no time to get
    The flowers that should o'erspread her:

  XII.

  We should bring <DW29>s quick with spring,
    Rose, violet, daffodilly,
  And also, above everything,
    White lilies for our Lily.

  XIII.

  Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts,--
    Glad, grateful attestations
  Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts,
    With calm renunciations.

  XIV.

  Her very mother with light feet
    Should leave the place too earthy,
  Saying "The angels have thee, Sweet,
    Because we are not worthy."

  XV.

  But winter kills the orange-buds,
    The gardens in the frost are,
  And all the heart dissolves in floods,
    Remembering we have lost her.

  XVI.

  Poor earth, poor heart,--too weak, too weak
    To miss the July shining!
  Poor heart!--what bitter words we speak
    When God speaks of resigning!

  XVII.

  Sustain this heart in us that faints,
    Thou God, the self-existent!
  We catch up wild at parting saints
    And feel Thy heaven too distant.

  XVIII.

  The wind that swept them out of sin
    Has ruffled all our vesture:
  On the shut door that let them in
    We beat with frantic gesture,--

  XIX.

  To us, us also, open straight!
    The outer life is chilly;
  Are _we_ too, like the earth, to wait
    Till next year for our Lily?

  XX.

  --Oh, my own baby on my knees,
    My leaping, dimpled treasure,
  At every word I write like these,
    Clasped close with stronger pressure!

  XXI.

  Too well my own heart understands,--
    At every word beats fuller--
  My little feet, my little hands,
    And hair of Lily's colour!

  XXII.

  But God gives patience, Love learns strength,
    And Faith remembers promise,
  And Hope itself can smile at length
    On other hopes gone from us.

  XXIII.

  Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death,
    Through struggle made more glorious:
  This mother stills her sobbing breath,
    Renouncing yet victorious.

  XXIV.

  Arms, empty of her child, she lifts
    With spirit unbereaven,--
  "God will not all take back His gifts;
    My Lily's mine in heaven.

  XXV.

  "Still mine! maternal rights serene
    Not given to another!
  The crystal bars shine faint between
    The souls of child and mother.

  XXVI.

  "Meanwhile," the mother cries, "content!
    Our love was well divided:
  Its sweetness following where she went,
    Its anguish stayed where I did.

  XXVII.

  "Well done of God, to halve the lot,
    And give her all the sweetness;
  To us, the empty room and cot,--
    To her, the Heaven's completeness.

  XXVIII.

  "To us, this grave,--to her, the rows
    The mystic palm-trees spring in;
  To us, the silence in the house,--
    To her, the choral singing.

  XXIX.

  "For her, to gladden in God's view,--
    For us, to hope and bear on.
  Grow, Lily, in thy garden new,
    Beside the Rose of Sharon!

  XXX.

  "Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped,
    In love more calm than this is,
  And may the angels dewy-lipped
    Remind thee of our kisses!

  XXXI.

  "While none shall tell thee of our tears,
    These human tears now falling,
  Till, after a few patient years,
    One home shall take us all in.

  XXXII.

  "Child, father, mother--who, left out?
    Not mother, and not father!
  And when, our dying couch about,
    The natural mists shall gather,

  XXXIII.

  "Some smiling angel close shall stand
    In old Correggio's fashion,
  And bear a LILY in his hand,
    For death's ANNUNCIATION."




CATARINA TO CAMOENS

(DYING IN HIS ABSENCE ABROAD, AND REFERRING TO THE POEM IN WHICH HE
RECORDED THE SWEETNESS OF HER EYES).


  I.

  On the door you will not enter,
    I have gazed too long: adieu!
  Hope withdraws her peradventure;
    Death is near me,--and not _you_.
        Come, O lover,
        Close and cover
  These poor eyes, you called, I ween,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  II.

  When I heard you sing that burden
    In my vernal days and bowers,
  Other praises disregarding,
    I but hearkened that of yours--
        Only saying
        In heart-playing,
  "Blessed eyes mine eyes have been,
  If the sweetest HIS have seen!"

  III.

  But all changes. At this vesper,
    Cold the sun shines down the door.
  If you stood there, would you whisper
    "Love, I love you," as before,--
        Death pervading
        Now, and shading
  Eyes you sang of, that yestreen,
  As the sweetest ever seen?

  IV.

  Yes. I think, were you beside them,
    Near the bed I die upon,
  Though their beauty you denied them,
    As you stood there, looking down,
        You would truly
        Call them duly,
  For the love's sake found therein,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  V.

  And if _you_ looked down upon them,
    And if _they_ looked up to _you_,
  All the light which has foregone them
    Would be gathered back anew:
        They would truly
        Be as duly
  Love-transformed to beauty's sheen,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  VI.

  But, ah me! you only see me,
    In your thoughts of loving man,
  Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy
    Through the wavings of my fan;
        And unweeting
        Go repeating,
  In your reverie serene,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen----"

  VII.

  While my spirit leans and reaches
    From my body still and pale,
  Fain to hear what tender speech is
    In your love to help my bale.
        O my poet,
        Come and show it!
  Come, of latest love, to glean
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  VIII.

  O my poet, O my prophet,
    When you praised their sweetness so,
  Did you think, in singing of it,
    That it might be near to go?
        Had you fancies
        From their glances,
  That the grave would quickly screen
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

  IX.

  No reply. The fountain's warble
    In the courtyard sounds alone.
  As the water to the marble
    So my heart falls with a moan
        From love-sighing
        To this dying.
  Death forerunneth Love to win
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  X.

  _Will_ you come? When I'm departed
    Where all sweetnesses are hid,
  Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,
    Will not lift up either lid.
        Cry, O lover,
        Love is over!
  Cry, beneath the cypress green,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  XI.

  When the angelus is ringing,
    Near the convent will you walk,
  And recall the choral singing
    Which brought angels down our talk?
        Spirit-shriven
        I viewed Heaven,
  Till you smiled--"Is earth unclean,
  Sweetest eyes were ever seen?"

  XII.

  When beneath the palace-lattice
    You ride slow as you have done,
  And you see a face there that is
    Not the old familiar one,--
        Will you oftly
        Murmur softly,
  "Here ye watched me morn and e'en,
  Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  XIII.

  When the palace-ladies, sitting
    Round your gittern, shall have said,
  "Poet, sing those verses written
    For the lady who is dead,"
        Will you tremble
        Yet dissemble,--
  Or sing hoarse, with tears between,
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

  XIV.

  "Sweetest eyes!" how sweet in flowings
    The repeated cadence is!
  Though you sang a hundred poems,
    Still the best one would be this.
        I can hear it
        'Twixt my spirit
  And the earth-noise intervene--
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  XV.

  But the priest waits for the praying,
    And the choir are on their knees,
  And the soul must pass away in
    Strains more solemn-high than these.
        _Miserere_
        For the weary!
  Oh, no longer for Catrine
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  XVI.

  Keep my riband, take and keep it,
    (I have loosed it from my hair)[1]
  Feeling, while you overweep it,
    Not alone in your despair,
        Since with saintly
        Watch unfaintly
  Out of heaven shall o'er you lean
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  XVII.

  But--but _now_--yet unremoved
    Up to heaven, they glisten fast;
  You may cast away, Beloved,
    In your future all my past:
        Such old phrases
        May be praises
  For some fairer bosom-queen--
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

  XVIII.

  Eyes of mine, what are ye doing?
    Faithless, faithless,--praised amiss
  If a tear be of your showing,
    Dropt for any hope of HIS!
        Death has boldness
        Besides coldness,
  If unworthy tears demean
  "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

  XIX.

  I will look out to his future;
    I will bless it till it shine.
  Should he ever be a suitor
    Unto sweeter eyes than mine,
        Sunshine gild them,
        Angels shield them,
  Whatsoever eyes terrene
  _Be_ the sweetest HIS have seen!


FOOTNOTES:

   [1] She left him the riband from her hair.




LIFE AND LOVE.


  I.

  Fast this Life of mine was dying,
    Blind already and calm as death,
  Snowflakes on her bosom lying
    Scarcely heaving with her breath.

  II.

  Love came by, and having known her
    In a dream of fabled lands,
  Gently stooped, and laid upon her
    Mystic chrism of holy hands;

  III.

  Drew his smile across her folded
    Eyelids, as the swallow dips;
  Breathed as finely as the cold did
    Through the locking of her lips.

  IV.

  So, when Life looked upward, being
    Warmed and breathed on from above,
  What sight could she have for seeing,
    Evermore ... but only LOVE?




A DENIAL.


  I.

  We have met late--it is too late to meet,
      O friend, not more than friend!
  Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
  And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
      In this last jeopardy
  Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
  How shall I answer thy request for love?
      Look in my face and see.

  II.

  I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
      In silence; drop my hand.
  If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
  In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
      Can life and death agree,
  That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
  I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
      Look in my face and see.

  III.

  I might have loved thee in some former days.
      Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
  As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
  Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
      Had this been asked of me,
  To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,--
  I should have said still ... yes, but _smiled_ and said,
      "Look in my face and see!"

  IV.

  But now ... God sees me, God, who took my heart
      And drowned it in life's surge.
  In all your wide warm earth I have no part--
  A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
      Could Love's great harmony
  The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
  Not weigh me down? am _I_ a wife to choose?
      Look in my face and see--

  V.

  While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
      Some woman of full worth,
  Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
  Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
      One younger, more thought-free
  And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
  With brighter eyes than these ... which are not wet ...
      Look in my face and see!

  VI.

  So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
      To let thee come so near.
  Be counted happy while men call thee great,
  And one beloved woman feels thee dear!--
      Not I!--that cannot be.
  I am lost, I am changed,--I must go farther, where
  The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
      Look in my face and see.

  VII.

  Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
      I bless thee from all such!
  I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
  Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
      Of loyal troth. For me,
  I love thee not, I love thee not!--away!
  Here's no more courage in my soul to say
      "Look in my face and see."




PROOF AND DISPROOF.


  I.

  Dost thou love me, my Beloved?
    Who shall answer yes or no?
  What is proved or disproved
    When my soul inquireth so,
  Dost thou love me, my Beloved?

  II.

  I have seen thy heart to-day,
    Never open to the crowd,
  While to love me aye and aye
    Was the vow as it was vowed
  By thine eyes of steadfast grey.

  III.

  Now I sit alone, alone--
    And the hot tears break and burn,
  Now, Beloved, thou art gone,
    Doubt and terror have their turn.
  _Is_ it love that I have known?

  IV.

  I have known some bitter things,--
    Anguish, anger, solitude.
  Year by year an evil brings,
    Year by year denies a good;
  March winds violate my springs.

  V.

  I have known how sickness bends,
    I have known how sorrow breaks,--
  How quick hopes have sudden ends,
    How the heart thinks till it aches
  Of the smile of buried friends.

  VI.

  Last, I have known _thee_, my brave
    Noble thinker, lover, doer!
  The best knowledge last I have.
    But thou comest as the thrower
  Of fresh flowers upon a grave.

  VII.

  Count what feelings used to move me!
    Can this love assort with those?
  Thou, who art so far above me,
    Wilt thou stoop so, for repose?
  Is it true that thou canst love me?

  VIII.

  Do not blame me if I doubt thee.
    I can call love by its name
  When thine arm is wrapt about me;
    But even love seems not the same,
  When I sit alone, without thee.

  IX.

  In thy clear eyes I descried
    Many a proof of love, to-day;
  But to-night, those unbelied
    Speechful eyes being gone away,
  There's the proof to seek, beside.

  X.

  Dost thou love me, my Beloved?
    Only _thou_ canst answer yes!
  And, thou gone, the proof's disproved,
    And the cry rings answerless--
  Dost thou love me, my Beloved?




QUESTION AND ANSWER.


  I.

  Love you seek for, presupposes
    Summer heat and sunny glow.
  Tell me, do you find moss-roses
    Budding, blooming in the snow?
  Snow might kill the rose-tree's root--
  Shake it quickly from your foot,
    Lest it harm you as you go.

  II.

  From the ivy where it dapples
    A grey ruin, stone by stone,
  Do you look for grapes or apples,
    Or for sad green leaves alone?
  Pluck the leaves off, two or three--
  Keep them for morality
    When you shall be safe and gone.




INCLUSIONS.


  I.

  Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine?
  As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine.
  Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine.

  II.

  Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn closer to thine own?
  My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by many a tear run down.
  Now leave a little space, Dear, lest it should wet thine own.

  III.

  Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul?--
  Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand; the part is in the whole:
  Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to soul.




INSUFFICIENCY.


  I.

  There is no one beside thee and no one above thee,
    Thou standest alone as the nightingale sings!
    And my words that would praise thee are impotent things,
  For none can express thee though all should approve thee.
    I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.

  II.

  Say, what can I do for thee? weary thee, grieve thee?
    Lean on thy shoulder, new burdens to add?
    Weep my tears over thee, making thee sad?
  Oh, hold me not--love me not! let me retrieve thee.
    I love thee so, Dear, that I only can leave thee.




SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE


I.

  I thought once how Theocritus had sung
  Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
  Who each one in a gracious hand appears
  To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
  And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
  I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
  The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
  Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
  A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
  So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
  Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
  And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--
  "Guess now who holds thee?"--"Death," I said. But, there,
  The silver answer rang,--"Not Death, but Love."


II.

  But only three in all God's universe
  Have heard this word thou hast said,--Himself, beside
  Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
  One of us ... _that_ was God, ... and laid the curse
  So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
  My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died,
  The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
  Less absolute exclusion. "Nay" is worse
  From God than from all others, O my friend!
  Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
  Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
  Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
  And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
  We should but vow the faster for the stars.


III.

  Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
  Unlike our uses and our destinies.
  Our ministering two angels look surprise
  On one another, as they strike athwart
  Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
  A guest for queens to social pageantries,
  With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
  Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
  Of chief musician. What hast _thou_ to do
  With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
  A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
  The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
  The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--
  And Death must dig the level where these agree.


IV.

  Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
  Most gracious singer of high poems! where
  The dancers will break footing, from the care
  Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
  And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor
  For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
  To let thy music drop here unaware
  In folds of golden fulness at my door?
  Look up and see the casement broken in,
  The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
  My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
  Hush, call no echo up in further proof
  Of desolation! there's a voice within
  That weeps ... as thou must sing ... alone, aloof.


V.

  I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
  As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
  And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
  The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
  What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
  And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
  Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
  Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
  It might be well perhaps. But if instead
  Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
  The grey dust up, ... those laurels on thine head,
  O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
  That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
  The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go.


VI.

  Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
  Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
  Alone upon the threshold of my door
  Of individual life, I shall command
  The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
  Serenely in the sunshine as before,
  Without the sense of that which I forbore--
  Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
  Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
  With pulses that beat double. What I do
  And what I dream include thee, as the wine
  Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
  God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
  And sees within my eyes the tears of two.


VII.

  The face of all the world is changed, I think,
  Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
  Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
  Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
  Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
  Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
  Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
  God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
  And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
  The names of country, heaven, are changed away
  For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
  And this ... this lute and song ... loved yesterday,
  (The singing angels know) are only dear
  Because thy name moves right in what they say.


VIII.

  What can I give thee back, O liberal
  And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
  And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
  And laid them on the outside of the wall
  For such as I to take or leave withal,
  In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
  Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
  High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
  Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead
  Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
  The colours from my life, and left so dead
  And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
  To give the same as pillow to thy head.
  Go farther! let it serve to trample on.


IX.

  Can it be right to give what I can give?
  To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
  As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
  Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
  Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
  For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
  That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,
  So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
  That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
  Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
  I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
  Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
  Nor give thee any love--which were unjust.
  Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.


X.

  Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
  And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
  Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
  Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
  And love is fire. And when I say at need
  _I love thee_ ... mark!... _I love thee_--in thy sight
  I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
  With conscience of the new rays that proceed
  Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
  In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
  Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
  And what I _feel_, across the inferior features
  Of what I _am_, doth flash itself, and show
  How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.


XI.

  And therefore if to love can be desert,
  I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
  As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
  To bear the burden of a heavy heart,--
  This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
  To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
  To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale
  A melancholy music,--why advert
  To these things? O Beloved, it is plain
  I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
  And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
  From that same love this vindicating grace,
  To live on still in love, and yet in vain,--
  To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.


XII.

  Indeed this very love which is my boast,
  And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
  Doth crown me with a ruby large enow
  To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,--
  This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,
  I should not love withal, unless that thou
  Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
  When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
  And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak
  Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
  Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
  And placed it by thee on a golden throne,--
  And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
  Is by thee only, whom I love alone.


XIII.

  And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
  The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
  And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
  Between our faces, to cast light on each?--
  I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
  My hand to hold my spirit so far off
  From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof
  In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
  Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
  Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--
  Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,
  And rend the garment of my life, in brief,
  By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,
  Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.


XIV.

  If thou must love me, let it be for nought
  Except for love's sake only. Do not say
  "I love her for her smile--her look--her way
  Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
  That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
  A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--
  For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
  Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
  May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
  Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
  A creature might forget to weep, who bore
  Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
  But love me for love's sake, that evermore
  Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.


XV.

  Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
  Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
  For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
  With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
  On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
  As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
  Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
  And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
  Were most impossible failure, if I strove
  To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--
  Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
  Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
  As one who sits and gazes from above,
  Over the rivers to the bitter sea.


XVI.

  And yet, because thou overcomest so,
  Because thou art more noble and like a king,
  Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
  Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
  Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
  How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
  May prove as lordly and complete a thing
  In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
  And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
  To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
  Even so, Beloved, I at last record,
  Here ends my strife. If _thou_ invite me forth,
  I rise above abasement at the word.
  Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.


XVII.

  My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
  God set between His After and Before,
  And strike up and strike off the general roar
  Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
  In a serene air purely. Antidotes
  Of medicated music, answering for
  Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour
  From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
  Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
  How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
  A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
  Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
  A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine?
  A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.


XVIII.

  I never gave a lock of hair away
  To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
  Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
  I ring out to the full brown length and say
  "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday;
  My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
  Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
  As girls do, any more: it only may
  Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
  Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
  Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
  Would take this first, but Love is justified,--
  Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,
  The kiss my mother left here when she died.


XIX.

  The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;
  I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
  And from my poet's forehead to my heart
  Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,--
  As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes
  The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
  The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, ...
  The bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise,
  Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
  Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
  I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
  And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
  Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
  No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.


XX.

  Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
  That thou wast in the world a year ago,
  What time I sat alone here in the snow
  And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
  No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
  Went counting all my chains as if that so
  They never could fall off at any blow
  Struck by thy possible hand,--why, thus I drink
  Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
  Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
  With personal act or speech,--nor ever cull
  Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
  Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
  Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.


XXI.

  Say over again, and yet once over again,
  That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
  Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it.
  Remember, never to the hill or plain,
  Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
  Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
  Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
  By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain
  Cry, "Speak once more--thou lovest!" Who can fear
  Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
  Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
  Say thou dost love me, love me, love me--toll
  The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear,
  To love me also in silence with thy soul.


XXII.

  When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
  Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
  Until the lengthening wings break into fire
  At either curved point,--what bitter wrong
  Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
  Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
  The angels would press on us and aspire
  To drop some golden orb of perfect song
  Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
  Rather on earth, Beloved,--where the unfit
  Contrarious moods of men recoil away
  And isolate pure spirits, and permit
  A place to stand and love in for a day,
  With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.


XXIII.

  Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
  Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
  And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
  Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
  I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read
  Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--
  But ... _so_ much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
  While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
  Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
  Then, love me, Love! look on me--breathe on me!
  As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
  For love, to give up acres and degree,
  I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
  My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!


XXIV.

  Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife,
  Shut in upon itself and do no harm
  In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
  And let us hear no sound of human strife
  After the click of the shutting. Life to life--
  I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
  And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
  Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
  Are weak to injure. Very-whitely still
  The lilies of our lives may reassure
  Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
  Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer
  Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill.
  God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.


XXV.

  A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
  From year to year until I saw thy face,
  And sorrow after sorrow took the place
  Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
  As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
  By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace
  Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace
  Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
  My heavy heart. Then _thou_ didst bid me bring
  And let it drop adown thy calmly great
  Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
  Which its own nature doth precipitate,
  While thine doth close above it, mediating
  Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.


XXVI.

  I lived with visions for my company
  Instead of men and women, years ago,
  And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
  A sweeter music than they played to me.
  But soon their trailing purple was not free
  Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
  And I myself grew faint and blind below
  Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come--to be,
  Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
  Their songs, their splendours (better, yet the same,
  As river-water hallowed into fonts),
  Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
  My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
  Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.


XXVII.

  My own Beloved, who hast lifted me
  From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
  And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
  A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
  Shines out again, as all the angels see,
  Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,
  Who camest to me when the world was gone,
  And I who looked for only God, found _thee_!
  I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.
  As one who stands in dewless asphodel
  Looks backward on the tedious time he had
  In the upper life,--so I, with bosom-swell,
  Make witness, here, between the good and bad,
  That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.


XXVIII.

  My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
  And yet they seem alive and quivering
  Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
  And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
  This said,--he wished to have me in his sight
  Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
  To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,
  Yet I wept for it!--this, ... the paper's light ...
  Said, _Dear, I love thee_; and I sank and quailed
  As if God's future thundered on my past.
  This said, _I am thine_--and so its ink has paled
  With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
  And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed
  If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!


XXIX.

  I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud
  About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
  Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see
  Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
  Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
  I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
  Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
  Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
  Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
  And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
  Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered, everywhere!
  Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
  And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
  I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.


XXX.

  I see thine image through my tears to-night,
  And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
  Refer the cause?--Beloved, is it thou
  Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
  Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
  May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
  On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
  Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
  As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen.
  Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all
  The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
  Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
  For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,
  As now these tears come--falling hot and real?


XXXI.

  Thou comest! all is said without a word.
  I sit beneath thy looks, as children do
  In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through
  Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
  Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred
  In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
  The sin most, but the occasion--that we two
  Should for a moment stand unministered
  By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,
  Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears would rise,
  With thy broad heart serenely interpose:
  Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies
  These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,
  Like callow birds left desert to the skies.


XXXII.

  The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
  To love me, I looked forward to the moon
  To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
  And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
  Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
  And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
  For such man's love!--more like an out-of-tune
  Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
  To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
  Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
  I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
  A wrong on _thee_. For perfect strains may float
  'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,--
  And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.


XXXIII.

  Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
  The name I used to run at, when a child,
  From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,
  To glance up in some face that proved me dear
  With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
  Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
  Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,
  Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,
  While I call God--call God!--So let thy mouth
  Be heir to those who are now exanimate.
  Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
  And catch the early love up in the late.
  Yes, call me by that name,--and I, in truth,
  With the same heart, will answer and not wait.


XXXIV.

  With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
  As those, when thou shalt call me by my name--
  Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
  Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy?
  When called before, I told how hastily
  I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game,
  To run and answer with the smile that came
  At play last moment, and went on with me
  Through my obedience. When I answer now,
  I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
  Yet still my heart goes to thee--ponder how--
  Not as to a single good, but all my good!
  Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
  That no child's foot could run fast as this blood.


XXXV.

  If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
  And be all to me? Shall I never miss
  Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
  That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
  When I look up, to drop on a new range
  Of walls and floors, another home than this?
  Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
  Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
  That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
  To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove;
  For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
  Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
  Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
  And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.


XXXVI.

  When we met first and loved, I did not build
  Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
  To last, a love set pendulous between
  Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
  Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
  The onward path, and feared to overlean
  A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
  And strong since then, I think that God has willed
  A still renewable fear ... O love, O troth ...
  Lest these enclasped hands should never hold,
  This mutual kiss drop down between us both
  As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
  And Love, be false! if _he_, to keep one oath,
  Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold.


XXXVII.

  Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,
  Of all that strong divineness which I know
  For thine and thee, an image only so
  Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
  It is that distant years which did not take
  Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
  Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
  Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
  Thy purity of likeness and distort
  Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit:
  As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
  His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
  Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
  And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.


XXXVIII.

  First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
  The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
  And ever since, it grew more clean and white,
  Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "Oh, list,"
  When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
  I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
  Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
  The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
  Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
  That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,
  With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
  The third upon my lips was folded down
  In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
  I have been proud and said, "My love, my own."


XXXIX.

  Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace
  To look through and behind this mask of me
  (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly
  With their rains), and behold my soul's true face,
  The dim and weary witness of life's race,--
  Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
  Through that same soul's distracting lethargy,
  The patient angel waiting for a place
  In the new Heavens,--because nor sin nor woe,
  Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood,
  Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,
  Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,--
  Nothing repels thee, ... Dearest, teach me so
  To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!


XL.

  Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
  I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.
  I have heard love talked in my early youth,
  And since, not so long back but that the flowers
  Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours
  Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
  For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth
  Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,
  The shell is over-smooth,--and not so much
  Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate
  Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such
  A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait
  Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,
  And think it soon when others cry "Too late."


XLI.

  I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
  With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
  Who paused a little near the prison-wall
  To hear my music in its louder parts
  Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's
  Or temple's occupation, beyond call.
  But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall
  When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's
  Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot
  To hearken what I said between my tears, ...
  Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
  My soul's full meaning into future years,
  That _they_ should lend it utterance, and salute
  Love that endures, from Life that disappears!


XLII.

  "_My future will not copy fair my past_"--
  I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
  My ministering life-angel justified
  The word by his appealing look upcast
  To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
  And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
  To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
  By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
  While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff
  Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.
  I seek no copy now of life's first half:
  Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
  And write me new my future's epigraph,
  New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!


XLIII.

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
  For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
  I love thee to the level of everyday's
  Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
  I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
  I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
  I love thee with the passion put to use
  In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
  With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
  Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
  I shall but love thee better after death.


XLIV.

  Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
  Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
  And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
  In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
  So, in the like name of that love of ours,
  Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
  And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
  From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
  Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
  And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,
  Here's ivy!--take them, as I used to do
  Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
  Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
  And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS

A Poem, IN TWO PARTS


ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.


This poem contains the impressions of the writer upon events in
Tuscany of which she was a witness. "From a window," the critic may
demur. She bows to the objection in the very title of her work. No
continuous narrative nor exposition of political philosophy is
attempted by her. It is a simple story of personal impressions, whose
only value is in the intensity with which they were received, as
proving her warm affection for a beautiful and unfortunate country,
and the sincerity with which they are related, as indicating her own
good faith and freedom from partisanship.

Of the two parts of this poem, the first was written nearly three
years ago, while the second resumes the actual situation of 1851. The
discrepancy between the two parts is a sufficient guarantee to the
public of the truthfulness of the writer, who, though she certainly
escaped the epidemic "falling sickness" of enthusiasm for Pio Nono,
takes shame upon herself that she believed, like a woman, some royal
oaths, and lost sight of the probable consequences of some obvious
popular defects. If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader,
let him understand that to the writer it has been more so. But such
discrepancies we are called upon to accept at every hour by the
conditions of our nature, implying the interval between aspiration
and performance, between faith and disillusion, between hope and
fact.

  "O trusted broken prophecy,
  O richest fortune sourly crost,
  Born for the future, to the future lost!"

Nay, not lost to the future in this case. The future of Italy shall
not be disinherited.

FLORENCE, 1851.




CASA GUIDI WINDOWS.


PART I.

  I heard last night a little child go singing
    'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church,
  _O bella liberta, O bella!_--stringing
    The same words still on notes he went in search
  So high for, you concluded the upspringing
    Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch
  Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green,
    And that the heart of Italy must beat,
  While such a voice had leave to rise serene
    'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street:
  A little child, too, who not long had been
    By mother's finger steadied on his feet,
  And still _O bella liberta_ he sang.

  Then I thought, musing, of the innumerous
    Sweet songs which still for Italy outrang
  From older singers' lips who sang not thus
    Exultingly and purely, yet, with pang
  Fast sheathed in music, touched the heart of us
    So finely that the pity scarcely pained.
  I thought how Filicaja led on others,
    Bewailers for their Italy enchained,
  And how they called her childless among mothers,
    Widow of empires, ay, and scarce refrained
  Cursing her beauty to her face, as brothers
    Might a shamed sister's,--"Had she been less fair
  She were less wretched;"--how, evoking so
    From congregated wrong and heaped despair
  Of men and women writhing under blow,
    Harrowed and hideous in a filthy lair,
  Some personating Image wherein woe
    Was wrapt in beauty from offending much,
  They called it Cybele, or Niobe,
    Or laid it corpse-like on a bier for such,
  Where all the world might drop for Italy
    Those cadenced tears which burn not where they touch,--
  "Juliet of nations, canst thou die as we?
    And was the violet crown that crowned thy head
  So over-large, though new buds made it rough,
    It slipped down and across thine eyelids dead,
  O sweet, fair Juliet?" Of such songs enough,
    Too many of such complaints! behold, instead,
  Void at Verona, Juliet's marble trough:[2]
    As void as that is, are all images
  Men set between themselves and actual wrong,
    To catch the weight of pity, meet the stress
  Of conscience,--since 't is easier to gaze long
    On mournful masks and sad effigies
  Than on real, live, weak creatures crushed by strong.

    For me who stand in Italy to-day
  Where worthier poets stood and sang before,
    I kiss their footsteps yet their words gainsay.
  I can but muse in hope upon this shore
    Of golden Arno as it shoots away
  Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four:
    Bent bridges, seeming to strain off like bows,
  And tremble while the arrowy undertide
    Shoots on and cleaves the marble as it goes,
  And strikes up palace-walls on either side,
    And froths the cornice out in glittering rows,
  With doors and windows quaintly multiplied,
    And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all,
  By whom if flower or kerchief were thrown out
    From any lattice there, the same would fall
  Into the river underneath, no doubt,
    It runs so close and fast 'twixt wall and wall.
  How beautiful! the mountains from without
    In silence listen for the word said next.
  What word will men say,--here where Giotto planted
    His campanile like an unperplexed
  Fine question Heavenward, touching the things granted
    A noble people who, being greatly vexed
  In act, in aspiration keep undaunted?
    What word will God say? Michel's Night and Day
  And Dawn and Twilight wait in marble scorn[3]
    Like dogs upon a dunghill, couched on clay
  From whence the Medicean stamp's outworn,
    The final putting off of all such sway
  By all such hands, and freeing of the unborn
    In Florence and the great world outside Florence.
  Three hundred years his patient statues wait
    In that small chapel of the dim Saint Lawrence:
  Day's eyes are breaking bold and passionate
    Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence
  On darkness and with level looks meet fate,
    When once loose from that marble film of theirs;
  The Night has wild dreams in her sleep, the Dawn
    Is haggard as the sleepless, Twilight wears
  A sort of horror; as the veil withdrawn
    'Twixt the artist's soul and works had left them heirs
  Of speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn,
    Of angers and contempts, of hope and love:
  For not without a meaning did he place
    The princely Urbino on the seat above
  With everlasting shadow on his face,
    While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove
  The ashes of his long-extinguished race
    Which never more shall clog the feet of men.
  I do believe, divinest Angelo,
    That winter-hour in Via Larga, when
  They bade thee build a statue up in snow[4]
    And straight that marvel of thine art again
  Dissolved beneath the sun's Italian glow,
    Thine eyes, dilated with the plastic passion,
  Thawing too in drops of wounded manhood, since,
    To mock alike thine art and indignation,
  Laughed at the palace-window the new prince,--
    ("Aha! this genius needs for exaltation,
  When all's said and however the proud may wince,
    A little marble from our princely mines!")
  I do believe that hour thou laughedst too
    For the whole sad world and for thy Florentines,
  After those few tears, which were only few!
    That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines
  Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,--
    The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first,
  The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank,
    The right-hand, raised but now as if it cursed,
  Dropt, a mere snowball, (till the people sank
    Their voices, though a louder laughter burst
  From the royal window)--thou couldst proudly thank
    God and the prince for promise and presage,
  And laugh the laugh back, I think verily,
    Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage
  To read a wrong into a prophecy,
    And measure a true great man's heritage
  Against a mere great-duke's posterity.
    I think thy soul said then, "I do not need
  A princedom and its quarries, after all;
    For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed,
  On book or board or dust, on floor or wall,
    The same is kept of God who taketh heed
  That not a letter of the meaning fall
    Or ere it touch and teach His world's deep heart,
  Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir!
    So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part,
  To cover up your grave-place and refer
    The proper titles; _I_ live by my art.
  The thought I threw into this snow shall stir
    This gazing people when their gaze is done;
  And the tradition of your act and mine,
    When all the snow is melted in the sun,
  Shall gather up, for unborn men, a sign
    Of what is the true princedom,--ay, and none
  Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine."

    Amen, great Angelo! the day's at hand.
  If many laugh not on it, shall we weep?
    Much more we must not, let us understand.
  Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep
    And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land
  And sketchers lauding ruined towns a-heap,--
    Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth,
  The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake,
    The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth,
  Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake:
    And I, a singer also from my youth,
  Prefer to sing with these who are awake,
    With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear
  The baptism of the holy morning dew,
    (And many of such wakers now are here,
  Complete in their anointed manhood, who
    Will greatly dare and greatlier persevere,)
  Than join those old thin voices with my new,
    And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh
  Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah,--
    Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I
  Go singing rather, "_Bella liberta_,"
    Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry
  "_Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!_"

    "Less wretched if less fair." Perhaps a truth
  Is so far plain in this, that Italy,
    Long trammelled with the purple of her youth
  Against her age's ripe activity,
    Sits still upon her tombs, without death's ruth
  But also without life's brave energy.
    "Now tell us what is Italy?" men ask:
  And others answer, "Virgil, Cicero,
    Catullus, Caesar." What beside? to task
  The memory closer--"Why, Boccaccio,
    Dante, Petrarca,"--and if still the flask
  Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow,--
    "Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,"--all
  Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged again
    The paints with fire of souls electrical,
  Or broke up heaven for music. What more then?
    Why, then, no more. The chaplet's last beads fall
  In naming the last saintship within ken,
    And, after that, none prayeth in the land.
  Alas, this Italy has too long swept
    Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand;
  Of her own past, impassioned nympholept!
    Consenting to be nailed here by the hand
  To the very bay-tree under which she stept
    A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch;
  And, licensing the world too long indeed
    To use her broad phylacteries to staunch
  And stop her bloody lips, she takes no heed
    How one clear word would draw an avalanche
  Of living sons around her, to succeed
    The vanished generations. Can she count
  These oil-eaters with large live mobile mouths
    Agape for macaroni, in the amount
  Of consecrated heroes of her south's
    Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount,
  The gift of gods, being broken, she much loathes
    To let the ground-leaves of the place confer
  A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem
    No nation, but the poet's pensioner,
  With alms from every land of song and dream,
    While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her
  Until their proper breaths, in that extreme
    Of sighing, split the reed on which they played:
  Of which, no more. But never say "no more"
    To Italy's life! Her memories undismayed
  Still argue "evermore;" her graves implore
    Her future to be strong and not afraid;
  Her very statues send their looks before.

    We do not serve the dead--the past is past.
  God lives, and lifts His glorious mornings up
    Before the eyes of men awake at last,
  Who put away the meats they used to sup,
    And down upon the dust of earth outcast
  The dregs remaining of the ancient cup,
    Then turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.
  The Dead, upon their awful 'vantage ground,
    The sun not in their faces, shall abstract
  No more our strength; we will not be discrowned
    As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact
  A barter of the present, for a sound
    Of good so counted in the foregone days.
  O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us
    With rigid hands of desiccating praise,
  And drag us backward by the garment thus,
    To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays!
  We will not henceforth be oblivious
    Of our own lives, because ye lived before,
  Nor of our acts, because ye acted well.
    We thank you that ye first unlatched the door,
  But will not make it inaccessible
    By thankings on the threshold any more.
  We hurry onward to extinguish hell
    With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God's
  Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we
    Die also! and, that then our periods
  Of life may round themselves to memory
    As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods,
  We now must look to it to excel as ye,
    And bear our age as far, unlimited
  By the last mind-mark; so, to be invoked
    By future generations, as their Dead.

  'T is true that when the dust of death has choked
    A great man's voice, the common words he said
  Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked
    Like horses, draw like griffins: this is true
  And acceptable. I, too, should desire,
    When men make record, with the flowers they strew,
  "Savonarola's soul went out in fire
    Upon our Grand-duke's piazza,[5] and burned through
  A moment first, or ere he did expire,
    The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed
  How near God sat and judged the judges there,--"
    Upon the self-same pavement overstrewed
  To cast my violets with as reverent care,
    And prove that all the winters which have snowed
  Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air,
    Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he,
  Savonarola, who, while Peter sank
    With his whole boat-load, called courageously
  "Wake Christ, wake Christ!"--who, having tried the tank
    Of old church-waters used for baptistry
  Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank;
    Who also by a princely deathbed cried,
  "Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul!"
    Then fell back the Magnificent and died
  Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl,
    Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide
  Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul
    To grudge Savonarola and the rest
  Their violets: rather pay them quick and fresh!
    The emphasis of death makes manifest
  The eloquence of action in our flesh;
    And men who, living, were but dimly guessed,
  When once free from their life's entangled mesh,
    Show their full length in graves, or oft indeed
  Exaggerate their stature, in the flat,
    To noble admirations which exceed
  Most nobly, yet will calculate in that
    But accurately. We, who are the seed
  Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat
    Upon our antecedents, we were vile.
  Bring violets rather. If these had not walked
    Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile?
  Therefore bring violets. Yet if we self-baulked
    Stand still, a-strewing violets all the while,
  These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked.
    So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile,
  And having strewn the violets, reap the corn,
    And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough
  And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn,
    And plant the great Hereafter in this Now.

  Of old 't was so. How step by step was worn,
    As each man gained on each securely!--how
  Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal,--
    The ultimate Perfection leaning bright
  From out the sun and stars to bless the leal
    And earnest search of all for Fair and Right
  Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real!
    Because old Jubal blew into delight
  The souls of men with clear-piped melodies,
    If youthful Asaph were content at most
  To draw from Jubal's grave, with listening eyes,
    Traditionary music's floating ghost
  Into the grass-grown silence, were it wise?
    And was 't not wiser, Jubal's breath being lost,
  That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise
    The sun between her white arms flung apart,
  With new glad golden sounds? that David's strings
    O'erflowed his hand with music from his heart?
  So harmony grows full from many springs,
    And happy accident turns holy art.

  You enter, in your Florence wanderings,
    The church of Saint Maria Novella. Pass
  The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel[6]
    Saw One with set fair face as in a glass,
  Dressed out against the fear of death and hell,
    Rustling her silks in pauses of the mass,
  To keep the thought off how her husband fell,
    When she left home, stark dead across her feet,--
  The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save
    Of Dante's daemons; you, in passing it,
  Ascend the right stair from the farther nave
    To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit
  By Cimabue's Virgin. Bright and brave,
    That picture was accounted, mark, of old:
  A king stood bare before its sovran grace,[7]
    A reverent people shouted to behold
  The picture, not the king, and even the place
    Containing such a miracle grew bold,
  Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face
    Which thrilled the artist, after work, to think
  His own ideal Mary-smile should stand
    So very near him,--he, within the brink
  Of all that glory, let in by his hand
    With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink
  Who come to gaze here now; albeit 't was planned
    Sublimely in the thought's simplicity:
  The Lady, throned in empyreal state,
    Minds only the young Babe upon her knee,
  While sidelong angels bear the royal weight,
    Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly
  Oblivion of their wings; the Child thereat
    Stretching its hand like God. If any should,
  Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,
    Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood
  On Cimabue's picture,--Heaven anoints
    The head of no such critic, and his blood
  The poet's curse strikes full on and appoints
    To ague and cold spasms for evermore.
  A noble picture! worthy of the shout
    Wherewith along the streets the people bore
  Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out
    Until they stooped and entered the church door.
  Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about,
    Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,[8]
  And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home
    To paint the things he had painted, with a deep
  And fuller insight, and so overcome
    His chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep
  Of light: for thus we mount into the sum
    Of great things known or acted. I hold, too,
  That Cimabue smiled upon the lad
    At the first stroke which passed what he could do,
  Or else his Virgin's smile had never had
    Such sweetness in 't. All great men who foreknew
  Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad,
    And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned,
  Fanatics of their pure Ideals still
    Far more than of their triumphs, which were found
  With some less vehement struggle of the will.
    If old Margheritone trembled, swooned
  And died despairing at the open sill
    Of other men's achievements (who achieved,
  By loving art beyond the master), he
    Was old Margheritone, and conceived
  Never, at first youth and most ecstasy,
    A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved
  The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully
    Margheritone sickened at the smell
  Of Cimabue's laurel, let him go!
    For Cimabue stood up very well
  In spite of Giotto's, and Angelico
    The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell
  The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow
    Inbreak of angels (whitening through the dim
  That he might paint them), while the sudden sense
    Of Raffael's future was revealed to him
  By force of his own fair works' competence.
    The same blue waters where the dolphins swim
  Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense
    Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way
  Of one another, so to sink; but learn
    The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray
  He throws up in his motions, and discern
    By his clear westering eye, the time of day.
  Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn
    Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say
  There's room here for the weakest man alive
    To live and die, there's room too, I repeat,
  For all the strongest to live well, and strive
    Their own way, by their individual heat,--
  Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive,
    Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet.
  Then let the living live, the dead retain
    Their grave-cold flowers!--though honour's best supplied
  By bringing actions, to prove theirs not vain.

    Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified
  That living men who burn in heart and brain,
    Without the dead were colder. If we tried
  To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure
    The future would not stand. Precipitate
  This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure,
    The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.
  How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer!
    The tall green poplars grew no longer straight
  Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight
    For Athens, and not swear by Marathon?
  Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight?
    Or live, without some dead man's benison?
  Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right,
    If, looking up, he saw not in the sun
  Some angel of the martyrs all day long
    Standing and waiting? Your last rhythm will need
  Your earliest key-note. Could I sing this song,
    If my dead masters had not taken heed
  To help the heavens and earth to make me strong,
    As the wind ever will find out some reed
  And touch it to such issues as belong
    To such a frail thing? None may grudge the Dead
  Libations from full cups. Unless we choose
    To look back to the hills behind us spread,
  The plains before us sadden and confuse;
    If orphaned, we are disinherited.

  I would but turn these lachrymals to use,
    And pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove,
  To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say
    What made my heart beat with exulting love
  A few weeks back?--
                      The day was such a day
    As Florence owes the sun. The sky above,
  Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay,
    And palpitate in glory, like a dove
  Who has flown too fast, full-hearted--take away
    The image! for the heart of man beat higher
  That day in Florence, flooding all her streets
    And piazzas with a tumult and desire.
  The people, with accumulated heats
    And faces turned one way, as if one fire
  Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats
    And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall
  To thank their Grand-duke who, not quite of course,
    Had graciously permitted, at their call,
  The citizens to use their civic force
    To guard their civic homes. So, one and all,
  The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source
    Of this new good at Florence, taking it
  As good so far, presageful of more good,--
    The first torch of Italian freedom, lit
  To toss in the next tiger's face who should
    Approach too near them in a greedy fit,--
  The first pulse of an even flow of blood
    To prove the level of Italian veins
  Towards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed
    From Casa Guidi windows while, in trains
  Of orderly procession--banners raised,
    And intermittent bursts of martial strains
  Which died upon the shout, as if amazed
    By gladness beyond music--they passed on!
  The Magistracy, with insignia, passed,--
    And all the people shouted in the sun,
  And all the thousand windows which had cast
    A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down
  (As if the houses overflowed at last),
    Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes.
  The Lawyers passed,--and still arose the shout,
    And hands broke from the windows to surprise
  Those grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.
    The Priesthood passed,--the friars with worldly-wise
  Keen sidelong glances from their beards about
    The street to see who shouted; many a monk
  Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there:
    Whereat the popular exultation drunk
  With indrawn "vivas" the whole sunny air,
    While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk
  A cloud of kerchiefed hands,--"The church makes fair
    Her welcome in the new Pope's name." Ensued
  The black sign of the "Martyrs"--(name no name,
    But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed
  The Artists; next, the Trades; and after came
    The People,--flag and sign, and rights as good--
  And very loud the shout was for that same
    Motto, "Il popolo." IL POPOLO,--
  The word means dukedom, empire, majesty,
    And kings in such an hour might read it so.
  And next, with banners, each in his degree,
    Deputed representatives a-row
  Of every separate state of Tuscany:
    Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold
  Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare,
    And Massa's lion floated calm in gold,
  Pienza's following with his silver stare,
    Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold,--
  And well might shout our Florence, greeting there
    These, and more brethren. Last, the world had sent
  The various children of her teeming flanks--
    Greeks, English, French--as if to a parliament
  Of lovers of her Italy in ranks,
    Each bearing its land's symbol reverent;
  At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks
    And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof
  Arose; the very house-walls seemed to bend;
    The very windows, up from door to roof,
  Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend
    With passionate looks the gesture's whirling off
  A hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end
    While all these passed; and ever in the crowd,
  Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept
    Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud,
  And none asked any why they laughed and wept:
    Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed
  More warmly did it; two-months' babies leapt
    Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black
  Wide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed
    Each before either, neither glancing back;
  And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed
    Forgot to finger on their throats the slack
  Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest,
    But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes
  Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw.
    O heaven, I think that day had noble use
  Among God's days! So near stood Right and Law,
    Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise
  Nor Right deny, and each in reverent awe
    Honoured the other. And if, ne'ertheless,
  That good day's sun delivered to the vines
    No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess
  Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's
    In any special actual righteousness
  Of what that day he granted, still the signs
    Are good and full of promise, we must say,
  When multitudes approach their kings with prayers
    And kings concede their people's right to pray
  Both in one sunshine. Griefs are not despairs,
    So uttered, nor can royal claims dismay
  When men from humble homes and ducal chairs
    Hate wrong together. It was well to view
  Those banners ruffled in a ruler's face
    Inscribed, "Live freedom, union, and all true
  Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace!"
    Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew
  His little children to the window-place
    He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest
  _They_ too should govern as the people willed.
    What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best,
  Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled
    With good warm human tears which unrepressed
  Ran down. I like his face; the forehead's build
    Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps
  Sufficient comprehension,--mild and sad,
    And careful nobly,--not with care that wraps
  Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad,
    But careful with the care that shuns a lapse
  Of faith and duty, studious not to add
    A burden in the gathering of a gain.
  And so, God save the Duke, I say with those
    Who that day shouted it; and while dukes reign,
  May all wear in the visible overflows
    Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!
  For God must love it better than repose.

  And all the people who went up to let
    Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told--
  Where guess ye that the living people met,
    Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled
  Their banners?
                  In the Loggia? where is set
    Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze or gold,
  (How name the metal, when the statue flings
    Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword
  Superbly calm, as all opposing things,
    Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred
  Since ended?
                  No, the people sought no wings
    From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored
  An inspiration in the place beside
    From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand,
  Where Buonarroti passionately tried
    From out the close-clenched marble to demand
  The head of Rome's sublimest homicide,
    Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand,
  Despairing he could find no model-stuff
    Of Brutus in all Florence where he found
  The gods and gladiators thick enough.
    Nor there! the people chose still holier ground:
  The people, who are simple, blind and rough,
    Know their own angels, after looking round.
  Whom chose they then? where met they?

                                  On the stone
    Called Dante's,--a plain flat stone scarce discerned
  From others in the pavement,--whereupon
    He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned
  To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone
    The lava of his spirit when it burned:
  It is not cold to-day. O passionate
    Poor Dante who, a banished Florentine,
  Didst sit austere at banquets of the great
    And muse upon this far-off stone of thine
  And think how oft some passer used to wait
    A moment, in the golden day's decline,
  With "Good night, dearest Dante!"--well, good night!
    _I_ muse now, Dante, and think verily,
  Though chapelled in the byeway out of sight,
    Ravenna's bones would thrill with ecstasy,
  Couldst know thy favourite stone's elected right
    As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee
  Their earliest chartas from. Good night, good morn,
    Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure
  That thine is better comforted of scorn,
    And looks down earthward in completer cure
  Than when, in Santa Croce church forlorn
    Of any corpse, the architect and hewer
  Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb.[9]
    For now thou art no longer exiled, now
  Best honoured: we salute thee who art come
    Back to the old stone with a softer brow
  Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some
    Good lovers of our age to track and plough[10]
  Their way to, through time's ordures stratified,
    And startle broad awake into the dull
  Bargello chamber: now thou'rt milder-eyed,--
    Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull
  Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side,
    Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful
  At May-game. What do I say? I only meant
    That tender Dante loved his Florence well,
  While Florence, now, to love him is content;
    And, mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell
  Of love's dear incense by the living sent
    To find the dead, is not accessible
  To lazy livers--no narcotic,--not
    Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,--
  But trod out in the morning air by hot
    Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown,
  And use the name of greatness unforgot,
    To meditate what greatness may be done.

  For Dante sits in heaven and ye stand here,
    And more remains for doing, all must feel,
  Than trysting on his stone from year to year
    To shift processions, civic toe to heel,
  The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer
    For what was felt that day? a chariot-wheel
  May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.
    But if that day suggested something good,
  And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,--
    Better means freer. A land's brotherhood
  Is most puissant: men, upon the whole,
    Are what they can be,--nations, what they would.

  Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy!
    Will to be noble! Austrian Metternich
  Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree;
    And thine is like the lion's when the thick
  Dews shudder from it, and no man would be
    The stroker of his mane, much less would prick
  His nostril with a reed. When nations roar
    Like lions, who shall tame them and defraud
  Of the due pasture by the river-shore?
    Roar, therefore! shake your dewlaps dry abroad:
  The amphitheatre with open door
    Leads back upon the benches who applaud
  The last spear-thruster.

                            Yet the Heavens forbid
    That we should call on passion to confront
  The brutal with the brutal and, amid
    This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt
  And lion's-vengeance for the wrongs men did
    And do now, though the spears are getting blunt.
  We only call, because the sight and proof
    Of lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show
  A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof,
    Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe
  As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof:
    Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow
  Or given or taken. Children use the fist
    Until they are of age to use the brain;
  And so we needed Caesars to assist
    Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain
  God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed,
    Until our generations should attain
  Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas,
    Attain already; but a single inch
  Will raise to look down on the swordsman's pass.
    As knightly Roland on the coward's flinch:
  And, after chloroform and ether-gas,
    We find out slowly what the bee and finch
  Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each,
    How to our races we may justify
  Our individual claims and, as we reach
    Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply
  The children's uses,--how to fill a breach
    With olive-branches,--how to quench a lie
  With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek
    With Christ's most conquering kiss. Why, these are things
  Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak
    The "glorious arms" of military kings.
  And so with wide embrace, my England, seek
    To stifle the bad heat and flickerings
  Of this world's false and nearly expended fire!
    Draw palpitating arrows to the wood,
  And twang abroad thy high hopes and thy higher
    Resolves, from that most virtuous altitude!
  Till nations shall unconsciously aspire
    By looking up to thee, and learn that good
  And glory are not different. Announce law
    By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace;
  Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe,
    And how pure hands, stretched simply to release
  A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw
    To be held dreadful. O my England, crease
  Thy purple with no alien agonies,
    No struggles toward encroachment, no vile war!
  Disband thy captains, change thy victories,
    Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are,
  Helping, not humbling.

                            Drums and battle-cries
    Go out in music of the morning-star--
  And soon we shall have thinkers in the place
    Of fighters, each found able as a man
  To strike electric influence through a race,
    Unstayed by city-wall and barbican.
  The poet shall look grander in the face
    Than even of old (when he of Greece began
  To sing "that Achillean wrath which slew
    So many heroes")--seeing he shall treat
  The deeds of souls heroic toward the true,
    The oracles of life, previsions sweet
  And awful like divine swans gliding through
    White arms of Ledas, which will leave the heat
  Of their escaping godship to endue
    The human medium with a heavenly flush.

  Meanwhile, in this same Italy we want
    Not popular passion, to arise and crush,
  But popular conscience, which may covenant
    For what it knows. Concede without a blush,
  To grant the "civic guard" is not to grant
    The civic spirit, living and awake:
  Those lappets on your shoulders, citizens,
    Your eyes strain after sideways till they ache
  (While still, in admirations and amens,
    The crowd comes up on festa-days to take
  The great sight in)--are not intelligence,
    Not courage even--alas, if not the sign
  Of something very noble, they are nought;
    For every day ye dress your sallow kine
  With fringes down their cheeks, though unbesought
    They loll their heavy heads and drag the wine
  And bear the wooden yoke as they were taught
    The first day. What ye want is light--indeed
  Not sunlight--(ye may well look up surprised
    To those unfathomable heavens that feed
  Your purple hills)--but God's light organized
    In some high soul, crowned capable to lead
  The conscious people, conscious and advised,--
    For if we lift a people like mere clay,
  It falls the same. We want thee, O unfound
    And sovran teacher! if thy beard be grey
  Or black, we bid thee rise up from the ground
    And speak the word God giveth thee to say,
  Inspiring into all this people round,
    Instead of passion, thought, which pioneers
  All generous passion, purifies from sin,
    And strikes the hour for. Rise up, teacher! here's
  A crowd to make a nation!--best begin
    By making each a man, till all be peers
  Of earth's true patriots and pure martyrs in
    Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doors
  Which Peter's heirs keep locked so overclose
    They only let the mice across the floors,
  While every churchman dangles, as he goes,
    The great key at his girdle, and abhors
  In Christ's name, meekly. Open wide the house,
    Concede the entrance with Christ's liberal mind,
  And set the tables with His wine and bread.
    What! "commune in both kinds?" In every kind--
  Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited,
    Nothing kept back. For when a man is blind
  To starlight, will he see the rose is red?
    A bondsman shivering at a Jesuit's foot--
  "Vae! mea culpa!"--is not like to stand
    A freedman at a despot's and dispute
  His titles by the balance in his hand,
    Weighing them "suo jure." Tend the root
  If careful of the branches, and expand
    The inner souls of men before you strive
  For civic heroes.

                        But the teacher, where?
    From all these crowded faces, all alive,
  Eyes, of their own lids flashing themselves bare,
    And brows that with a mobile life contrive
  A deeper shadow,--may we in no wise dare
    To put a finger out and touch a man,
  And cry "this is the leader"? What, all these!
    Broad heads, black eyes,--yet not a soul that ran
  From God down with a message? All, to please
    The donna waving measures with her fan,
  And not the judgment-angel on his knees
    (The trumpet just an inch off from his lips),
  Who when he breathes next, will put out the sun?

    Yet mankind's self were foundered in eclipse,
  If lacking doers, with great works to be done;
    And lo, the startled earth already dips
  Back into light; a better day's begun;
    And soon this leader, teacher, will stand plain,
  And build the golden pipes and synthesize
    This people-organ for a holy strain.
  We hold this hope, and still in all these eyes
    Go sounding for the deep look which shall drain
  Suffused thought into channelled enterprise.
    Where is the teacher? What now may he do,
  Who shall do greatly? Doth he gird his waist
    With a monk's rope, like Luther? or pursue
  The goat, like Tell? or dry his nets in haste,
    Like Masaniello when the sky was blue?
  Keep house, like other peasants, with inlaced
    Bare brawny arms about a favourite child,
  And meditative looks beyond the door
    (But not to mark the kidling's teeth have filed
  The green shoots of his vine which last year bore
    Full twenty bunches), or, on triple-piled
  Throne-velvets sit at ease to bless the poor,
    Like other pontiffs, in the Poorest's name?
  The old tiara keeps itself aslope
    Upon his steady brows which, all the same,
  Bend mildly to permit the people's hope?

    Whatever hand shall grasp this oriflamme,
  Whatever man (last peasant or first pope
    Seeking to free his country) shall appear,
  Teach, lead, strike fire into the masses, fill
    These empty bladders with fine air, insphere
  These wills into a unity of will,
    And make of Italy a nation--dear
  And blessed be that man! the Heavens shall kill
    No leaf the earth lets grow for him, and Death
  Shall cast him back upon the lap of Life
    To live more surely, in a clarion-breath
  Of hero-music. Brutus with the knife,
    Rienzi with the fasces, throb beneath
  Rome's stones,--and more who threw away joy's fife
    Like Pallas, that the beauty of their souls
  Might ever shine untroubled and entire:
    But if it can be true that he who rolls
  The Church's thunders will reserve her fire
    For only light,--from eucharistic bowls
  Will pour new life for nations that expire,
    And rend the scarlet of his papal vest
  To gird the weak loins of his countrymen,--
    I hold that he surpasses all the rest
  Of Romans, heroes, patriots; and that when
    He sat down on the throne, he dispossessed
  The first graves of some glory. See again,
    This country-saving is a glorious thing:
  And if a common man achieved it? well.
    Say, a rich man did? excellent. A king?
  That grows sublime. A priest? improbable.
    A pope? Ah, there we stop, and cannot bring
  Our faith up to the leap, with history's bell
    So heavy round the neck of it--albeit
  We fain would grant the possibility
    For _thy_ sake, Pio Nono!

                                    Stretch thy feet
  In that case--I will kiss them reverently
    As any pilgrim to the papal seat:
  And, such proved possible, thy throne to me
    Shall seem as holy a place as Pellico's
  Venetian dungeon, or as Spielberg's grate
    At which the Lombard woman hung the rose
  Of her sweet soul by its own dewy weight,
    To feel the dungeon round her sunshine close,
  And pining so, died early, yet too late
    For what she suffered. Yea, I will not choose
  Betwixt thy throne, Pope Pius, and the spot
    Marked red for ever, spite of rains and dews,
  Where Two fell riddled by the Austrian's shot,
    The brothers Bandiera, who accuse,
  With one same mother-voice and face (that what
    They speak may be invincible) the sins
  Of earth's tormentors before God the just,
    Until the unconscious thunderbolt begins
  To loosen in His grasp.

                            And yet we must
    Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins
  Of circumstance and office, and distrust
    The rich man reasoning in a poor man's hut,
  The poet who neglects pure truth to prove
    Statistic fact, the child who leaves a rut
  For a smoother road, the priest who vows his glove
    Exhales no grace, the prince who walks afoot,
  The woman who has sworn she will not love,
    And this Ninth Pius in Seventh Gregory's chair,
  With Andrea Doria's forehead!

                                Count what goes
    To making up a pope, before he wear
  That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes
    Which went to make the popedom,--the despair
  Of free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows
    Of women's faces, by the <DW19>'s flash
  Tossed out, to the minutest stir and throb
    O' the white lips, the least tremble of a lash,
  To glut the red stare of a licensed mob;
    The short mad cries down oubliettes, and plash
  So horribly far off; priests, trained to rob,
    And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sat
  On nations' hearts most heavily distressed
    With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate--
  We pass these things,--because "the times" are prest
    With necessary charges of the weight
  Of all this sin, and "Calvin, for the rest,
    Made bold to burn Servetus. Ah, men err!"--
  And so do _churches_! which is all we mean
    To bring to proof in any register
  Of theological fat kine and lean:
    So drive them back into the pens! refer
  Old sins (with pourpoint, "quotha" and "I ween")
    Entirely to the old times, the old times;
  Nor ever ask why this preponderant
    Infallible pure Church could set her chimes
  Most loudly then, just then,--most jubilant,
    Precisely then, when mankind stood in crimes
  Full heart-deep, and Heaven's judgments were not scant.
    Inquire still less, what signifies a church
  Of perfect inspiration and pure laws
    Who burns the first man with a brimstone-torch,
  And grinds the second, bone by bone, because
    The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch!
  What _is_ a holy Church unless she awes
    The times down from their sins? Did Christ select
  Such amiable times to come and teach
    Love to, and mercy? The whole world were wrecked
  If every mere great man, who lives to reach
    A little leaf of popular respect,
  Attained not simply by some special breach
    In the age's customs, by some precedence
  In thought and act, which, having proved him higher
    Than those he lived with, proved his competence
  In helping them to wonder and aspire.

    My words are guiltless of the bigot's sense;
  My soul has fire to mingle with the fire
    Of all these souls, within or out of doors
  Of Rome's church or another. I believe
    In one Priest, and one temple with its floors
  Of shining jasper gloom'd at morn and eve
    By countless knees of earnest auditors,
  And crystal walls too lucid to perceive,
    That none may take the measure of the place
  And say "So far the porphyry, then, the flint--
    To this mark mercy goes, and there ends grace,"
  Though still the permeable crystals hint
    At some white starry distance, bathed in space.
  I feel how nature's ice-crusts keep the dint
    Of undersprings of silent Deity.
  I hold the articulated gospels which
    Show Christ among us crucified on tree.
  I love all who love truth, if poor or rich
    In what they have won of truth possessively.
  No altars and no hands defiled with pitch
    Shall scare me off, but I will pray and eat
  With all these--taking leave to choose my ewers--
    And say at last "Your visible churches cheat
  Their inward types; and, if a church assures
    Of standing without failure and defeat,
  The same both fails and lies."

                                  To leave which lures
    Of wider subject through past years,--behold,
  We come back from the popedom to the pope,
    To ponder what he _must_ be, ere we are bold
  For what he _may_ be, with our heavy hope
    To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold,
  Explore this mummy in the priestly cope,
    Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch
  The man within the wrappage, and discern
    How he, an honest man, upon the watch
  Full fifty years for what a man may learn,
    Contrived to get just there; with what a snatch
  Of old-world oboli he had to earn
    The passage through; with what a drowsy sop,
  To drench the busy barkings of his brain;
    What ghosts of pale tradition, wreathed with hop
  'Gainst wakeful thought, he had to entertain
    For heavenly visions; and consent to stop
  The clock at noon, and let the hour remain
    (Without vain windings-up) inviolate
  Against all chimings from the belfry. Lo,
    From every given pope you must abate,
  Albeit you love him, some things--good, you know--
    Which every given heretic you hate,
  Assumes for his, as being plainly so.
    A pope must hold by popes a little,--yes,
  By councils, from Nicaea up to Trent,--
    By hierocratic empire, more or less
  Irresponsible to men,--he must resent
    Each man's particular conscience, and repress
  Inquiry, meditation, argument,
    As tyrants faction. Also, he must not
  Love truth too dangerously, but prefer
    "The interests of the Church" (because a blot
  Is better than a rent, in miniver)--
    Submit to see the people swallow hot
  Husk-porridge, which his chartered churchmen stir
    Quoting the only true God's epigraph,
  "Feed my lambs, Peter!"--must consent to sit
    Attesting with his pastoral ring and staff
  To such a picture of our Lady, hit
    Off well by artist-angels (though not half
  As fair as Giotto would have painted it)--
    To such a vial, where a dead man's blood
  Runs yearly warm beneath a churchman's finger,--
    To such a holy house of stone and wood,
  Whereof a cloud of angels was the bringer
    From Bethlehem to Loreto. Were it good
  For any pope on earth to be a flinger
    Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits?
  Apostates only are iconoclasts.
    He dares not say, while this false thing abets
  That true thing, "This is false." He keeps his fasts
    And prayers, as prayer and fast were silver frets
  To change a note upon a string that lasts,
    And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he
  Did more than this, higher hoped, and braver dared,
    I think he were a pope in jeopardy,
  Or no pope rather, for his truth had barred
    The vaulting of his life,--and certainly,
  If he do only this, mankind's regard
    Moves on from him at once, to seek some new
  Teacher and leader. He is good and great
    According to the deeds a pope can do;
  Most liberal, save those bonds; affectionate,
    As princes may be, and, as priests are, true;
  But only the Ninth Pius after eight,
    When all's praised most. At best and hopefullest,
  He's pope--we want a man! his heart beats warm,
    But, like the prince enchanted to the waist,
  He sits in stone and hardens by a charm
    Into the marble of his throne high-placed.
  Mild benediction waves his saintly arm--
    So, good! but what we want's a perfect man,
  Complete and all alive: half travertine
    Half suits our need, and ill subserves our plan.
  Feet, knees, nerves, sinews, energies divine
    Were never yet too much for men who ran
  In such hard ways as must be this of thine,
    Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art,
  Pope, prince, or peasant! If, indeed, the first,
    The noblest, therefore! since the heroic heart
  Within thee must be great enough to burst
    Those trammels buckling to the baser part
  Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed
    With the same finger.

                            Come, appear, be found,
  If pope or peasant, come! we hear the cock,
    The courtier of the mountains when first crowned
  With golden dawn; and orient glories flock
    To meet the sun upon the highest ground.
  Take voice and work! we wait to hear thee knock
    At some one of our Florentine nine gates,
  On each of which was imaged a sublime
    Face of a Tuscan genius, which, for hate's
  And love's sake, both, our Florence in her prime
    Turned boldly on all comers to her states,
  As heroes turned their shields in antique time
    Emblazoned with honourable acts. And though
  The gates are blank now of such images,
    And Petrarch looks no more from Nicolo
  Toward dear Arezzo, 'twixt the acacia-trees,
    Nor Dante, from gate Gallo--still we know,
  Despite the razing of the blazonries,
    Remains the consecration of the shield:
  The dead heroic faces will start out
    On all these gates, if foes should take the field,
  And blend sublimely, at the earliest shout,
    With living heroes who will scorn to yield
  A hair's-breadth even, when, gazing round about,
    They find in what a glorious company
  They fight the foes of Florence. Who will grudge
    His one poor life, when that great man we see
  Has given five hundred years, the world being judge,
    To help the glory of his Italy?
  Who, born the fair side of the Alps, will budge,
    When Dante stays, when Ariosto stays,
  When Petrarch stays for ever? Ye bring swords,
    My Tuscans? Ay, if wanted in this haze,
  Bring swords: but first bring souls!--bring thoughts and words,
    Unrusted by a tear of yesterday's,
  Yet awful by its wrong,--and cut these cords,
    And mow this green lush falseness to the roots,
  And shut the mouth of hell below the swathe!
    And, if ye can bring songs too, let the lute's
  Recoverable music softly bathe
    Some poet's hand, that, through all bursts and bruits
  Of popular passion, all unripe and rathe
    Convictions of the popular intellect,
  Ye may not lack a finger up the air,
    Annunciative, reproving, pure, erect,
  To show which way your first Ideal bare
    The whiteness of its wings when (sorely pecked
  By falcons on your wrists) it unaware
    Arose up overhead and out of sight.

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

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

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

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


PART II.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

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

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




POEMS BEFORE CONGRESS


PREFACE.


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

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

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

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

ROME: _February 1860_.




NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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

  XIII.

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

  XIV.

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

  XV.

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

  XVI.

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

  XVII.

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

  XVIII.

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

  XIX.

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




THE DANCE.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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


  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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




A TALE OF VILLAFRANCA.

TOLD IN TUSCANY.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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




A COURT LADY.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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

  XIII.

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

  XIV.

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

  XV.

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

  XVI.

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

  XVII.

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

  XVIII.

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

  XIX.

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

  XX.

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

  XXI.

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

  XXII.

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

  XXIII.

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

  XXIV.

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

  XXV.

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

  XXVI.

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

  XXVII.

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




AN AUGUST VOICE.

"Una voce augusta."--_Monitore Toscano_.


  I.

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

  II.

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

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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


FOOTNOTES:

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




CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

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


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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




ITALY AND THE WORLD.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

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

  IX.

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

  X.

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

  XI.

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

  XII.

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

  XIII.

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

  XIV.

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

  XV.

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

  XVI.

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

  XVII.

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

  XVIII.

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

  XIX.

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

  XX.

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

  XXI.

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

  XXII.

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

  XXIII.

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

  XXIV.

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

  XXV.

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

  XXVI.

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

  XXVII.

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

  XXVIII.

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




A CURSE FOR A NATION.

PROLOGUE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




THE CURSE.


  I.

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

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

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

  II.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




LAST POEMS


ADVERTISEMENT.


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

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

A single recent version is added.

LONDON: _February 1862_.


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




LITTLE MATTIE.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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




A FALSE STEP.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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




VOID IN LAW.


  I.

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

  II.

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

  III.

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

  IV.

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

  V.

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

  VI.

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

  VII.

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

  VIII.

  He's ours, though he kissed her but now,
    He's ours, though she kissed in reply:
  He's ours, though himself disavow,
    And God's universe favour the lie;
  Ours to claim, ours to clasp, ours below,
    Ours above, ... if we live, if we die.
          Sleep.

  IX.

  Ah baby, my baby, too rough
    Is my lullaby? What have I said?
  Sleep! When I've wept long enough
    I shall learn to weep softly instead,
  And piece with some alien stuff
    My heart to lie smooth for thy head.
          Sleep.

  X.

  Two souls met upon thee, my sweet;
    Two loves led thee out to the sun:
  Alas, pretty hands, pretty feet,
    If the one who remains (only one)
  Set her grief at thee, turned in a heat
    To thine enemy,--were it well done?
          Sleep.

  XI.

  May He of the manger stand near
    And love thee! An infant He came
  To His own who rejected Him here,
    But the Magi brought gifts all the same.
  _I_ hurry the cross on my Dear!
    _My_ gifts are the griefs I declaim!
          Sleep.




LORD WALTER'S WIFE.


  I.

  "But why do you go?" said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
  And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the
        sea-blue.

  II.

  "Because I fear you," he answered;--"because you are far too fair,
  And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold- hair."

  III.

  "Oh, that," she said, "is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
  And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun."

  IV.

  "Yet farewell so," he answered;--"the sun-stroke's fatal at times.
  I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the
        limes."

  V.

  "Oh, that," she said, "is no reason. You smell a rose through a
        fence:
  If two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles, and where's the
        pretence?"

  VI.

  "But I," he replied, "have promised another, when love was free,
  To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves me."

  VII.

  "Why, that," she said, "is no reason. Love's always free, I am
        told.
  Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it
        will hold?"

  VIII.

  "But you," he replied, "have a daughter, a young little child, who
        was laid
  In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me
        afraid."

  IX.

  "Oh, that," she said, "is no reason. The angels keep out of the
        way;
  And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me
        and stay."

  X.

  At which he rose up in his anger,--"Why, now, you no longer are
        fair!
  Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear."

  XI.

  At which she laughed out in her scorn: "These men! Oh, these men
        overnice,
  Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a
        vice."

  XII.

  Her eyes blazed upon him--"And _you_! You bring us your vices so
        near
  That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 't would
        defame us to hear!

  XIII.

  "What reason had you, and what right,--I appeal to your soul from my
        life,--
  To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.

  XIV.

  "Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you
        imply
  I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me
        as high?

  XV.

  "If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much
  To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise!--shall I thank you for
        such?

  XVI.

  "Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a
        while,
  You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but
        too vile.

  XVII.

  "A moment,--I pray your attention!--I have a poor word in my head
  I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better
        unsaid.

  XVIII.

  "You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a
        ring.
  You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter!--I've broken the
        thing.

  XIX.

  "You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and
        then
  In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and
        some men.

  XX.

  "Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills,
  And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and
        fulfils.

  XXI.

  "I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a
        week,
  For the sake of ... what was it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole
        on a cheek?

  XXII.

  "And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the
        frivolous cant
  About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and
        supplant,

  XXIII.

  "I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or
        avow
  By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.

  XXIV.

  "There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you
        can,
  That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.

  XXV.

  "Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you
        a scar--
  You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.

  XXVI.

  "You wronged me: but then I considered ... there's Walter! And so at
        the end
  I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a
        friend.

  XXVII.

  "Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my
        Walter, be mine!
  Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine."




BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.


  I.

  The cypress stood up like a church
    That night we felt our love would hold,
  And saintly moonlight seemed to search
    And wash the whole world clean as gold;
  The olives crystallized the vales'
    Broad <DW72>s until the hills grew strong:
  The fire-flies and the nightingales
    Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
  The nightingales, the nightingales!

  II.

  Upon the angle of its shade
    The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
  Half up, half down, as double-made,
    Along the ground, against the sky;
  And _we_, too! from such soul-height went
    Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
  We scarce knew if our nature meant
    Most passionate earth or intense heaven
  The nightingales, the nightingales!

  III.

  We paled with love, we shook with love,
    We kissed so close we could not vow;
  Till Giulio whispered "Sweet, above
    God's Ever guaranties this Now."
  And through his words the nightingales
    Drove straight and full their long clear call,
  Like arrows through heroic mails,
    And love was awful in it all.
  The nightingales, the nightingales!

  IV.

  O cold white moonlight of the north,
    Refresh these pulses, quench this hell!
  O coverture of death drawn forth
    Across this garden-chamber ... well!
  But what have nightingales to do
    In gloomy England, called the free ...
  (Yes, free to die in!...) when we two
    Are sundered, singing still to me?
  And still they sing, the nightingales!

  V.

  I think I hear him, how he cried
    "My own soul's life!" between their notes.
  Each man has but one soul supplied,
    And that's immortal. Though his throat's
  On fire with passion now, to _her_
    He can't say what to me he said!
  And yet he moves her, they aver.
    The nightingales sing through my head,--
  The nightingales, the nightingales!

  VI.

  He says to her what moves her most.
    He would not name his soul within
  Her hearing,--rather pays her cost
    With praises to her lips and chin.
  Man has but one soul, 't is ordained,
    And each soul but one love, I add;
  Yet souls are damned and love's profaned;
    These nightingales will sing me mad!
  The nightingales, the nightingales!

  VII.

  I marvel how the birds can sing.
    There's little difference, in their view,
  Betwixt our Tuscan trees that spring
    As vital flames into the blue,
  And dull round blots of foliage meant,
    Like saturated sponges here,
  To suck the fogs up. As content
    Is he too in this land, 't is clear.
  And still they sing, the nightingales.

  VIII.

  My native Florence! dear, forgone!
    I see across the Alpine ridge
  How the last feast-day of Saint John
    Shot rockets from Carraia bridge.
  The luminous city, tall with fire,
    Trod deep down in that river of ours,
  While many a boat with lamp and choir
    Skimmed birdlike over glittering towers.
  I will not hear these nightingales.

  IX.

  I seem to float, _we_ seem to float
    Down Arno's stream in festive guise;
  A boat strikes flame into our boat,
    And up that lady seems to rise
  As then she rose. The shock had flashed
    A vision on us! What a head,
  What leaping eyeballs!--beauty dashed
    To splendour by a sudden dread.
  And still they sing, the nightingales.

  X.

  Too bold to sin, too weak to die;
    Such women are so. As for me,
  I would we had drowned there, he and I,
    That moment, loving perfectly.
  He had not caught her with her loosed
    Gold ringlets ... rarer in the south ...
  Nor heard the "Grazie tanto" bruised
    To sweetness by her English mouth.
  And still they sing, the nightingales.

  XI.

  She had not reached him at my heart
    With her fine tongue, as snakes indeed
  Kill flies; nor had I, for my part,
    Yearned after, in my desperate need,
  And followed him as he did her
    To coasts left bitter by the tide,
  Whose very nightingales, elsewhere
    Delighting, torture and deride!
  For still they sing, the nightingales.

  XII.

  A worthless woman; mere cold clay
    As all false things are: but so fair,
  She takes the breath of men away
    Who gaze upon her unaware.
  I would not play her larcenous tricks
    To have her looks! She lied and stole,
  And spat into my love's pure pyx
    The rank saliva of her soul.
  And still they sing, the nightingales.

  XIII.

  I would not for her white and pink,
    Though such he likes--her grace of limb,
  Though such he has praised--nor yet, I think.
    For life itself, though spent with him,
  Commit such sacrilege, affront
    God's nature which is love, intrude
  'Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt
    Like spiders, in the altar's wood.
  I cannot bear these nightingales.

  XIV.

  If she chose sin, some gentler guise
    She might have sinned in, so it seems:
  She might have pricked out both my eyes,
    And I still seen him in my dreams!
  --Or drugged me in my soup or wine,
    Nor left me angry afterward:
  To die here with his hand in mine,
    His breath upon me, were not hard.
  (Our Lady hush these nightingales!)

  XV.

  But set a springe for _him_, "mio ben,"
    My only good, my first last love!--
  Though Christ knows well what sin is, when
    He sees some things done they must move
  Himself to wonder. Let her pass.
    I think of her by night and day.
  Must _I_ too join her ... out, alas!...
    With Giulio, in each word I say?
  And evermore the nightingales!

  XVI.

  Giulio, my Giulio!--sing they so,
    And you be silent? Do I speak,
  And you not hear? An arm you throw
    Round someone, and I feel so weak?
  --Oh, owl-like birds! They sing for spite,
    They sing for hate, they sing for doom,
  They'll sing through death who sing through night,
    They'll sing and stun me in the tomb--
  The nightingales, the nightingales!




MY KATE.


  I.

  She was not as pretty as women I know,
  And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
  Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
  While she's still remembered on warm and cold days--
                                          My Kate.

  II.

  Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
  You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face:
  And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
  You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth--
                                          My Kate.

  III.

  Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
  You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:
  When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
  Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone--
                                          My Kate.

  IV.

  I doubt if she said to you much that could act
  As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
  In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
  'T was her thinking of others made you think of her--
                                          My Kate.

  V.

  She never found fault with you, never implied
  Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
  Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
  The children were gladder that pulled at her gown--
                                          My Kate.

  VI.

  None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
  They knelt more to God than they used,--that was all:
  If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
  But the charm of her presence was felt when she went--
                                          My Kate.

  VII.

  The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
  She took as she found them, and did them all good;
  It always was so with her--see what you have!
  She has made the grass greener even here ... with her grave--
                                          My Kate.

  VIII.

  My dear one!--when thou wast alive with the rest,
  I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
  And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
  As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart--
                                          My Kate?




A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOL OF LONDON.

WRITTEN IN ROME.


  I.

  I am listening here in Rome.
    "England's strong," say many speakers,
  "If she winks, the Czar must come,
    Prow and topsail, to the breakers."

  II.

  "England's rich in coal and oak,"
    Adds a Roman, getting moody;
  "If she shakes a travelling cloak,
    Down our Appian roll the scudi."

  III.

  "England's righteous," they rejoin:
    "Who shall grudge her exaltations
  When her wealth of golden coin
    Works the welfare of the nations?"

  IV.

  I am listening here in Rome.
    Over Alps a voice is sweeping--
  "England's cruel, save us some
    Of these victims in her keeping!"

  V.

  As the cry beneath the wheel
    Of an old triumphant Roman
  Cleft the people's shouts like steel,
    While the show was spoilt for no man,

  VI.

  Comes that voice. Let others shout,
    Other poets praise my land here:
  I am sadly sitting out,
    Praying, "God forgive her grandeur."

  VII.

  Shall we boast of empire, where
    Time with ruin sits commissioned?
  In God's liberal blue air
    Peter's dome itself looks wizened;

  VIII.

  And the mountains, in disdain,
    Gather back their lights of opal
  From the dumb despondent plain
    Heaped with jawbones of a people.

  IX.

  Lordly English, think it o'er,
    Caesar's doing is all undone!
  You have cannons on your shore,
    And free Parliaments in London;

  X.

  Princes' parks, and merchants' homes,
    Tents for soldiers, ships for seamen,--
  Ay, but ruins worse than Rome's
    In your pauper men and women.

  XI.

  Women leering through the gas
    (Just such bosoms used to nurse you),
  Men, turned wolves by famine--pass!
    Those can speak themselves, and curse you.

  XII.

  But these others--children small,
    Spilt like blots about the city,
  Quay, and street, and palace-wall--
    Take them up into your pity!

  XIII.

  Ragged children with bare feet,
    Whom the angels in white raiment
  Know the names of, to repeat
    When they come on you for payment.

  XIV.

  Ragged children, hungry-eyed,
    Huddled up out of the coldness
  On your doorsteps, side by side,
    Till your footman damns their boldness.

  XV.

  In the alleys, in the squares,
    Begging, lying little rebels;
  In the noisy thoroughfares,
    Struggling on with piteous trebles.

  XVI.

  Patient children--think what pain
    Makes a young child patient--ponder!
  Wronged too commonly to strain
    After right, or wish, or wonder.

  XVII.

  Wicked children, with peaked chins,
    And old foreheads! there are many
  With no pleasures except sins,
    Gambling with a stolen penny.

  XVIII.

  Sickly children, that whine low
    To themselves and not their mothers,
  From mere habit,--never so
    Hoping help or care from others.

  XIX.

  Healthy children, with those blue
    English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
  Fierce and ravenous, staring through
    At the brown loaves of the baker.

  XX.

  I am listening here in Rome,
    And the Romans are confessing,
  "English children pass in bloom
    All the prettiest made for blessing.

  XXI.

  "_Angli angeli!_" (resumed
    From the mediaeval story)
  "Such rose angelhoods, emplumed
    In such ringlets of pure glory!"

  XXII.

  Can we smooth down the bright hair,
    O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
  Our heart's pulses? Can we bear
    The sweet looks of our own children,

  XXIII.

  While those others, lean and small,
    Scurf and mildew of the city,
  Spot our streets, convict us all
    Till we take them into pity?

  XXIV.

  "Is it our fault?" you reply,
    "When, throughout civilization,
  Every nation's empery
    Is asserted by starvation?

  XXV.

  "All these mouths we cannot feed,
    And we cannot clothe these bodies."
  Well, if man's so hard indeed,
    Let them learn at least what God is!

  XXVI.

  Little outcasts from life's fold,
    The grave's hope they may be joined in
  By Christ's covenant consoled
    For our social contract's grinding.

  XXVII.

  If no better can be done,
    Let us do but this,--endeavour
  That the sun behind the sun
    Shine upon them while they shiver!

  XXVIII.

  On the dismal London flags,
    Through the cruel social juggle,
  Put a thought beneath their rags
    To ennoble the heart's struggle.

  XXIX.

  O my sisters, not so much
    Are we asked for--not a blossom
  From our children's nosegay, such
  As we gave it from our bosom,--

  XXX.

  Not the milk left in their cup,
    Not the lamp while they are sleeping,
  Not the little cloak hung up
    While the coat's in daily keeping,--

  XXXI.

  But a place in RAGGED SCHOOLS,
    Where the outcasts may to-morrow
  Learn by gentle words and rules
    Just the uses of their sorrow.

  XXXII.

  O my sisters! children small,
    Blue-eyed, wailing through the city--
  Our own babes cry in them all:
    Let us take them into pity.




MAY'S LOVE.

[Illustration: Handwritten Copy of Poem]


  I.

  You love all, you say,
    Round, beneath, above me:
  Find me then some way
    Better than to love me,
  Me, too, dearest May!

  II.

  O world-kissing eyes
    Which the blue heavens melt to;
  I, sad, overwise,
    Loathe the sweet looks dealt to
  All things--men and flies.

  III.

  You love all, you say:
    Therefore, Dear, abate me
  Just your love, I pray!
    Shut your eyes and hate me--
  Only _me_--fair May!




AMY'S CRUELTY.


  I.

  Fair Amy of the terraced house,
    Assist me to discover
  Why you who would not hurt a mouse
    Can torture so your lover.

  II.

  You give your coffee to the cat,
    You stroke the dog for coming,
  And all your face grows kinder at
    The little brown bee's humming.

  III.

  But when _he_ haunts your door ... the town
    Marks coming and marks going ...
  You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
    To that long piece of sewing!

  IV.

  You never give a look, not you,
    Nor drop him a "Good morning,"
  To keep his long day warm and blue,
    So fretted by your scorning.

  V.

  She shook her head--"The mouse and bee
    For crumb or flower will linger:
  The dog is happy at my knee,
    The cat purrs at my finger.

  VI.

  "But _he_ ... to _him_, the least thing given
    Means great things at a distance;
  He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,
    Soul, body, whole existence.

  VII.

  "They say love gives as well as takes;
    But I'm a simple maiden,--
  My mother's first smile when she wakes
    I still have smiled and prayed in.

  VIII.

  "I only know my mother's love
    Which gives all and asks nothing;
  And this new loving sets the groove
    Too much the way of loathing.

  IX.

  "Unless he gives me all in change,
    I forfeit all things by him:
  The risk is terrible and strange--
    I tremble, doubt, ... deny him.

  X.

  "He's sweetest friend or hardest foe,
    Best angel or worst devil;
  I either hate or ... love him so,
    I can't be merely civil!

  XI.

  "You trust a woman who puts forth
    Her blossoms thick as summer's?
  You think she dreams what love is worth,
    Who casts it to new-comers?

  XII.

  "Such love's a cowslip-ball to fling,
    A moment's pretty pastime;
  _I_ give ... all me, if anything,
    The first time and the last time.

  XIII.

  "Dear neighbour of the trellised house,
    A man should murmur never,
  Though treated worse than dog and mouse,
    Till doated on for ever!"




MY HEART AND I.


  I.

  Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
    We sit beside the headstone thus,
    And wish that name were carved for us.
  The moss reprints more tenderly
    The hard types of the mason's knife,
    As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
  With which we're tired, my heart and I.

  II.

  You see we're tired, my heart and I.
    We dealt with books, we trusted men,
    And in our own blood drenched the pen,
  As if such colours could not fly.
    We walked too straight for fortune's end,
    We loved too true to keep a friend;
  At last we're tired, my heart and I.

  III.

  How tired we feel, my heart and I!
    We seem of no use in the world;
    Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
  About men's eyes indifferently;
    Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
    You sleep; our tears are only wet:
  What do we here, my heart and I?

  IV.

  So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
    It was not thus in that old time
    When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
  To watch the sunset from the sky.
    "Dear love, you're looking tired," he said;
    I, smiling at him, shook my head:
  'T is now we're tired, my heart and I.

  V.

  So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
    Though now none takes me on his arm
    To fold me close and kiss me warm
  Till each quick breath end in a sigh
    Of happy languor. Now, alone,
    We lean upon this graveyard stone,
  Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

  VI.

  Tired out we are, my heart and I.
    Suppose the world brought diadems
    To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
  Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
    We scarcely care to look at even
    A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
  We feel so tired, my heart and I.

  VII.

  Yet who complains? My heart and I?
    In this abundant earth no doubt
    Is little room for things worn out:
  Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
    And if before the days grew rough
    We _once_ were loved, used,--well enough,
  I think, we've fared, my heart and I.




THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.


  What's the best thing in the world?
  June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
  Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
  Truth, not cruel to a friend;
  Pleasure, not in haste to end;
  Beauty, not self-decked and curled
  Till its pride is over-plain;
  Light, that never makes you wink;
  Memory, that gives no pain;
  Love, when, _so_, you're loved again.
  What's the best thing in the world?
  --Something out of it, I think.




WHERE'S AGNES?


  I.

  Nay, if I had come back so,
    And found her dead in her grave,
  And if a friend I know
    Had said, "Be strong, nor rave:
  She lies there, dead below:

  II.

  "I saw her, I who speak,
    White, stiff, the face one blank:
  The blue shade came to her cheek
    Before they nailed the plank,
  For she had been dead a week."

  III.

  Why, if he had spoken so,
    I might have believed the thing,
  Although her look, although
    Her step, laugh, voice's ring
  Lived in me still as they do.

  IV.

  But dead that other way,
    Corrupted thus and lost?
  That sort of worm in the clay?
    I cannot count the cost,
  That I should rise and pay.

  V.

  My Agnes false? such shame?
    She? Rather be it said
  That the pure saint of her name
    Has stood there in her stead,
  And tricked you to this blame.

  VI.

  Her very gown, her cloak
    Fell chastely: no disguise,
  But expression! while she broke
    With her clear grey morning-eyes
  Full upon me and then spoke.

  VII.

  She wore her hair away
    From her forehead,--like a cloud
  Which a little wind in May
    Peels off finely: disallowed
  Though bright enough to stay.

  VIII.

  For the heavens must have the place
    To themselves, to use and shine in,
  As her soul would have her face
    To press through upon mine, in
  That orb of angel grace.

  IX.

  Had she any fault at all,
    'T was having none, I thought too--
  There seemed a sort of thrall;
    As she felt her shadow ought to
  Fall straight upon the wall.

  X.

  Her sweetness strained the sense
    Of common life and duty;
  And every day's expense
    Of moving in such beauty
  Required, almost, defence.

  XI.

  What good, I thought, is done
    By such sweet things, if any?
  This world smells ill i' the sun
    Though the garden-flowers are many,--
  _She_ is only one.

  XII.

  Can a voice so low and soft
    Take open actual part
  With Right,--maintain aloft
    Pure truth in life or art,
  Vexed always, wounded oft?--

  XIII.

  _She_ fit, with that fair pose
    Which melts from curve to curve,
  To stand, run, work with those
    Who wrestle and deserve,
  And speak plain without glose?

  XIV.

  But I turned round on my fear
    Defiant, disagreeing--
  What if God has set her here
    Less for action than for Being?--
  For the eye and for the ear.

  XV.

  Just to show what beauty may,
    Just to prove what music can,--
  And then to die away
    From the presence of a man,
  Who shall learn, henceforth, to pray?

  XVI.

  As a door, left half ajar
    In heaven, would make him think
  How heavenly-different are
    Things glanced at through the chink,
  Till he pined from near to far.

  XVII.

  That door could lead to hell?
    That shining merely meant
  Damnation? What! She fell
    Like a woman, who was sent
  Like an angel, by a spell?

  XVIII.

  She, who scarcely trod the earth,
    Turned mere dirt? My Agnes,--mine!
  Called so! felt of too much worth
    To be used so! too divine
  To be breathed near, and so forth!

  XIX.

  Why, I dared not name a sin
    In her presence: I went round,
  Clipped its name and shut it in
    Some mysterious crystal sound,--
  Changed the dagger for the pin.

  XX.

  Now you name herself _that word_?
    O my Agnes! O my saint!
  Then the great joys of the Lord
    Do not last? Then all this paint
  Runs off nature? leaves a board?

  XXI.

  Who's dead here? No, not she:
    Rather I! or whence this damp
  Cold corruption's misery?
    While my very mourners stamp
  Closer in the clods on me.

  XXII.

  And my mouth is full of dust
    Till I cannot speak and curse--
  Speak and damn him ... "Blame's unjust"?
    Sin blots out the universe,
  All because she would and must?

  XXIII.

  She, my white rose, dropping off
    The high rose-tree branch! and not
  That the night-wind blew too rough,
    Or the noon-sun burnt too hot,
  But, that being a rose--'t was enough!

  XXIV.

  Then henceforth may earth grow trees!
    No more roses!--hard straight lines
  To score lies out! none of these
    Fluctuant curves, but firs and pines,
  Poplars, cedars, cypresses!




END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.


                               PRINTED BY
                SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
                                 LONDON

       *       *       *       *       *




Transcriber Notes

Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation are preserved.

Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.

Greek transliterations indicated by ~tildes~.






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, Volume IV, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

*** 