Poems by William W. Story

TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED IN TESTIMONY OF A FRIENDSHIP WHICH, BEGINNING IN CHILDHOOD, HAS ONLY DEEPENED AND STRENGTHENED WITH TIME; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM, ADMIRATION, AND LOVE FOR HIS HIGH POETIC GENIUS; HIS EXUBERANT HUMOR AND WIT; HIS DELIGHTFUL SOCIAL QUALITIES; AND HIS PURE AND NOBLE CHARACTER.

CASTLE PALO.

“'Tis a bleak, wild place, for a legend fit,”
I thought, as I spelt out over the gate
The Latin inscription, with name and date,
So rusted and crusted with lichens old,
So rotted and spotted by rain and mould,
That in vain I strove to decipher it.
The whole place seemed as if it were dead,
So silent the sunshine over it shed
Its golden light,—and the grasses tall,

That quivered in clefts of the crumbling wall,
And a lizard that glanced with noiseless run
Over the moss-grown broken shield,
And panting, stood in the afternoon sun,—
Alone a token of life revealed.

The castle was silent as a dream,—
And its shadow into the courtyard slanted,
Longer and longer climbing the wall
Slowly to where the lizard panted.
All was still—save the running fall
Of the surf-waves under the stern sea-wall,
As they plunged along with a shaking gleam,—
And I said to myself—“The place is haunted.”

I to myself seemed almost weird
As I mused there, touched by a sort of spell,—
Whether 'twas real or all ideal,
The castle, the sea, and myself as well,
I was not sure, I could not tell,
The whole so like a vision appeared,—

When near me upon the stones I heard
A footfall, that with its echo woke
The sleeping courtyard, and strangely broke
In on my dream,—as a pool is stirred
By a sudden stone in its silence thrown,—
And turning round, at my side I found
A mild old man with a snowy beard.

He seemed a sort of servitor,
By the drab half-livery he wore;
And his quiet look of pride subdued,
Mixed with an air of deference, showed
That he bore an office of service and trust.
Something there was in him fitted my mood,
And rhymed with the ruin and sadness and rust
Of the grim old castle,—a sort of grace,
Dreary and sad, looked out of his face;
A dimmed reflection it seemed to have caught
From a nobler mind and a higher thought;
As if he had held a trusted place
With one of a loftier fortune and race.

“This is a dreary and desolate spot,”
Turning I said to him: “Is there not
Some story or legend of the dead
That hath grown about it?”—He shook his head,
And sighed,—and pointing his veinèd hand
Through a rift in the wall, I saw below,
A dim old figure upon the sand,
That musingly wandered to and fro
Wrapped in a cloak, and with downcast head;
“You see him, that is the Prince,” he said.

“The Prince? why surely no one lives
In this desolate spot, with its fever air,
So deadly although it seems so fair!”
“No,” he answered, “he's only here
For this single day; but every year,
Just when the autumn is shaking the leaves,
For a single day, come rain or storm,
You will meet his noble and princely form,
(For a prince you would not doubt him to be,
Old as he is, and shaken by time,

And so changed from what he was in his prime,)
Wandering alone along the sea,
Musing and sighing constantly.

“Why? your wondering eyes ask; well,
If you command me, the story I'll tell;
Would you be pleased to stand, or sit
On this old stone bench, while I tell you it?

“Our Villa, perhaps, you never have seen;
It lies on the slope of the Alban hill;
Lifting its white face, sunny and still,
Out of the olives' pale grey green,
That, far away as the eye can go,
Stretch up behind it, row upon row.
There, in the garden, the cypresses, stirred
By the sifting winds, half-musing talk,
And the cool, fresh, constant voice is heard
Of the fountains spilling in every walk.
There stately the oleanders grow,
And one long grey wall is a-glow

With golden oranges burning between
Their dark stiff leaves of sombre green,
And there are hedges all clipped and square,
As carven from blocks of malachite,
Where fountains keep spinning their threads of light,
And statues whiten the shadow there.
And, if the sun too fiercely shine,
And one would creep from its noonday glare,
There are galleries dark, where ilexes twine
Their branchy roofs above the head.
Or when at twilight the heats decline,
If one but cross the terraces,
And lean o'er the marble balustrade,
Between the vases whose aloes high
Show their sharp pike-heads against the sky,
What a sight—Madonna mia—he sees!
There stretches our great campagna beneath,
And seems to breathe a rosy breath
Of light and mist, as in peace it sleeps,—
And summery thunder-clouds of rain,
With their slanting spears, run over the plain,

And rush at the ruins, or routed, fly
To the mountains that lift their barriers high,
And stand with their purple pits of shades
Split by the sharp-edged limestone blades,
With opaline lights and tender grades
Of color, that flicker and swoon and die,
Built up like a wall against the sky.

“And this is our villa, where years ago,
When I was a youth and just had come
To the Prince's service, he made his home
For the summer months—how time does flow!
I was in love then, and many a time
To Mariuccia I made a rhyme;
For I was a poet in my small way,
Love makes all of us poets, they say—
Poor Mariuccia! well, no matter,
She's happier now I must suppose,
But she seemed to be happy here—God knows,
And we do not rightly understand;
And when those that we love are taken away,

'Tis hard to see why we should stay;
But it is not long that the trembling sand
Will shake in my hour-glass, and—Well! well!
'Tis not my story I meant to tell—
But somehow or other the old forms rise,
And you'll pardon the tears in these old eyes.

“I was a youth when I came to service
With the old Prince, fifty years since;
A better master no man could find;
And I always did my best to deserve his
Favor, and had it; and when the young Prince
Don Paolo, in whom his mind
And heart and hope were wholly centred,
Grew up to a youth, he gave me charge,
Having trust in me, to wait upon him,
And gladly I did,—for a heart more large,
Into which no vulgar thought e'er entered,
Was never born than Don Paolo's was.
He had but few of the follies that swim
On the surface of youth, mere straws and dust

That sometimes float on the clearest stream.
And I grew to love him, and he to trust;
And the years went on with an easy fleetness;
He growing and ripening every day,
And strengthening into a large, broad sweetness,
And day by day childhood gave way
In his dark mild eyes to a look of pride
And manly confidence and power,
As one who recognized the dower
He was born unto,—and I at his side
Could not but feel how each hour's remove
Parted our minds, though not our love.

“And so youth swift as childhood passed,
And he grew to be a man at last,
And love, like a careless spark of fire,
Dropped in the forest's leafy ways,
Touching his heart when heaping full
Of drifting wishes and dim desire,
In a moment set it all a-blaze.
'Twas the Donna Giulia's noble air

That took his heart so by surprise,
With her large, dark-shadowed wondrous eyes,
And velvet olive skin, and hair
All raven dark with a sheeny glare,
That over her brow so low and square
Was parted thick, and gleaming lay,
Heaped low behind in a heavy braid
Of serpent folds that overweighed
The delicate chin, and nestling laid
Close up to the small, fine ear, where, red
As her rosy lips, two coral drops
Against her ripe cheek dangled and played
Just where its rounded outline stops.

“She came from Naples one summer day,
And after that, he was always away;
Or if he came home, the things that were there
Seemed to annoy him,—there was no rest for him;—
Lonely he wandered,—hated society,—
All the old joys had lost their zest for him,
All things at home brought only satiety.

Sometimes across the country he'd gallop
Madly; and then, as suddenly pull up
And loose the reins of his horse, all reeking,
And pull down his hat, and inwardly speaking,
Stare at the ground or the landscape about him,
With an eye that saw nothing of all without him,
Lost in some coil of confusèd thinking;
Then with a jerk the bridle clinking,
His spurs in the flanks of old Tebro he'd bury,
As if from some thought that had stung him to hurry.

“The Prince and the Princess were blind at first,
As fathers and mothers always are;
But Donna Anna, Don Paolo's sister,
Who always was with him, suspected the worst,
And grew jealous and peevish, and used to enlist her
Sharpest wit, when she found that she missed her
Daily friend; and I must say
That better game and a sharper shooter
One would not find in a summer's day.
But all in vain; he grew muter and muter,

Or pleaded such plainly fictitious excuses
To be alone—that her jesting persistence
She changed for a proud and silent distance,
As if she were wronged,—but all her ruses
Ne'er in the least availed to loose his
Obstinate silence, until at last, her
Patience exhausted, she suddenly cast her
Snowy arms over Paolo's shoulder,
And began to fondle him, kiss him, and tease him,
Saying she never now could please him;
That he used to love her, but now all was over,
That he ceased to be brother because he was lover,
Ending at last in a passionate weeping,
That touched poor Paolo so, that he told her,
And she got his secret into her keeping,—
(And such keeping it was with this Eve's fair daughter
As a very fine colander's keeping of water,
A constant, imperceptible dripping)—
But he for the very telling grew bolder,
And she burnished his hopes with her counsel tender,

And ere the month was a week's time older
The Giulian fortress was pleased to surrender.

“And so this question at last was settled
To the Prince's and Princess's great surprise,
Who, when they were told of it, opened their eyes
With wonder and pleasure,—and contracts were drawn,
Putting those two young hearts in pawn;
And papers were signed,—and one bright dawn
Donna Giulia rode into the court
With Don Paolo, on a steed high mettled,
And reined him up with a sniff and snort,
And glanced around with her sharp wild eyes
Where the lightnings were scarcely sheathed, and dropped
Into Paolo's arms as the horses stopped.

“The Prince and Princess came forth to receive her;
And there, while she stood at Don Paolo's side,

Who gazed at her with a smile of pride
Softened by love, as if he defied
The world to spy a fault in his bride,
My eyes could never a moment leave her;
Something there was of strange and wild,
A kind of hurried and startled look
In her long black eyes, when under their lashes
They suddenly glanced,—like the gleam of a brook,
That under the dense woods darkling flashes
As it sweeps to its fall,—and when she smiled,
A sudden glance like summer lightning
Passed over her face, for a moment bright'ning
With a gleam of dazzling teeth, and then
Retaking the strange weird look again,
The fine lips closely and nervously tight'ning;
Yet there was something of winning grace
In the swaying form and the tremulous face,—
And there, as she stood on the balustrade,
Touched with gleams of sun and shade,
While a sense of uneasy consciousness
Through her diaphonous cheek was glowing,

And moulding to its bashful stress
Her every movement, despite her dissembling
Of an easy confidence, that I
Felt my heart drawn uneasily
Towards her, and all my feelings trembling
Like the snowy ostrich-plume that was blowing
And rippling on her hat, where it set
Fixed by a large blood-red aigrette,—
Though I could not explain the how and why.

“Soon came the wedding, with festal bells
And rustling of silk and stiff brocade
And gleamy satin, and muslin thin
As woven fog that the spiders spin;
And jewels heaved with the bosom swells
Of stately women, whose white arms bare
Clinked their golden manacles;
And laughter and buzz of humming talk
Rose confused through the lighted rooms,
Where the air was thick with rich perfumes;—

And the chandeliers sent forth their glare
Through the open windows, and lit the stalk
Of the fountain that spilled in the open walk,—
And music through all the reeling hall
Throbbed to a hundred dancing feet,
And thrilled through the marble-pillared doors
And the stately pictured corridors,
Where youth and beauty, and age and care,
And love and hate, went to and fro,
Sweeping the flowers in the vases rare
That stood on every marble stair,—
Or talking along the portico.
And noblest of all the nobles there
Went our Don Paolo!
How grand and glad that night he seemed,
To me it was as if I dreamed,
When I thought of the time when he used to run
With his hand in mine along the walk,
And lisp with a boyish confident talk,
And boast of the little nothings he'd done.

“And the Donna Giulia's eyes, like mine,
Gazed after him, as at a thing divine;
And through her cheek, her feelings, like wine
In a delicate goblet, glowed and shone.—
I could have laid down my life to serve her,
When I saw her gaze with such passionate fervor
After his figure wherever it moved,
As if, for all she so deeply loved,
She dared not think he was all her own.

“How often I live that night again,
And taste its joy in a cup of pain;
How I remember, while I was staring
In at the door, and looking at him,
Half as it were in a sort of dream,
He caught my eye, and forward he came
With that old frank way and noble bearing,
And his hand on my shoulder placing, he said,
‘Can you believe it, dear friend,—('tis true
Dear friend, he said,—those were his words,
The very words he said,—‘Dear Friend,’

I shall remember them till my end,)
That 'tis twenty long, long years since you
Taught me to talk; they seem to have sped,
To me, like the swiftest flight of birds,
Like a long, long flight of geese;’ and a smile
Here struck with its sunlight across his face,
And made him look, for a moment's space,
Like the picture of the great old Prince,
Painted by Titian, in his youth,
As I have so often seen it, while
The sunset shone on it where it hangs,
Or used to hang some ten years since,
The first and handsomest of a score
That hang along the corridor,—
Well, just such a flash of sun went o'er
His face as he spoke,—in very truth,
I should have thought 'twas the picture alive,
Only it had not the armor on,
As he called his years a flight of geese—
And, ‘Well,’ he added, ‘dear friend, they've gone,
To you too as swiftly, I do not doubt;

And many a long one more may you live,
And many a long one more may you thrive
Before God calls you to his peace;
But to-day shall not pass away without
My heartiest thanks and my heartiest blessing
For all your kindness.’
Then suddenly, without waiting an answer,
For he saw that something my heart was oppressing
That kept me from speaking, and filled with blindness
My eyes, he left me—but half a man, sir!

“Then off they went on their wedding journey,
And the house was solemn and dull enough;
Donna Anna wished and sighed, and the tough
Old Prince was a little stern and gruff,
And thinking alone of his son's return, he
Went wandering aimless about. At last,
Just as the time was nearly passed
When Paolo should bring back his bride,
Came a letter to say, that he should go

On his homeward way, for a day or so,
Or more, should it afterwards suit their whim,
To the castle old by the salt sea-side,
And I was sent down to prepare for him.

“This is the castle here;
And a place more bleak and drear
You might seek without finding for many a year.
All round, wherever the eye can strain,
Stretches a barren, desolate plain,
Thinly clad with wild, fine grasses,
Through which the free wind sighing passes
As it roams alone,—with here and there
A stunted shrub, to make more bare
Its wildness; or on some swelling knoll
A haycock's grey pyramid and pole,
That with rain and sun grows old and bleaches,—
Till miles away the landscape reaches
To those climbing hills, where blackened patches
Of foliage darken on their sides,
And that old grey cloud lowering rides.

Seaward, far off, there's a tree-fringed tongue
Of land, that into the sea outstretches,
With a purple swell of mountains swung
On the water's rim as far as you see,
Where that great gull flaps so heavily.
But just turn round, can any thing be
More lonely and wild than the castle is,
With its four round turrets and grim flat face,
Looking over the sea that beats at its base;
And its courtyard, where the fountain drips
In the old sarcophagus under the steps,
All green with mould, where that lizard slips,—
And its flapping shutters, and windows grated,
Here pierced, and there, as the whim dictated.—
Can any thing be more dreary than this?

“You see it now in a sunny time,
And this Roman sunshine enchants the slopes
Of the barren plains, as youthful hopes
Turn the dreariest day to rhyme;
But when the night of our chill Decembers

Shuts in at the close of a lowering day,
And the winds roar down from the distance grey,
And rattle the shutters, and scatter the embers,
As they howl down the chimney's blackened throat,
And over the old sea-wall, and under
Those ruined arches with thump and thunder,
Whitens the surf in the stormy night;
And the cold owl hoots in the mouldering moat,
And the wild gull screams as he hurries by,
And the dog sneaks close by the blaze to snore,
And starts from his sleep to answer again
The desolate long-drawn howl of pain
Of the wolf-dog, prowling afar on the moor.
There are sounds in this castle enough to affright
The bravest heart, and for my part, I
Know that the ghosts of the family
Who have fallen by sword, and disease, and murder,
On such terrible nights keep watch and warder.

“Well, the family here came down to meet
Don Paolo, with right willing feet,
And all of their friends, with their equipages,
And liveried riders and liveried pages,
Came down to pic-nic in the castle;
And horses snorted and neighed in the court,
And all was hurry and gladness and bustle;
And the banner spread on the turret made sport
With the dallying wind, and the hall so wide
Rang with voices on every side;
And a shout of welcome rent the air
As Don Paolo leaped from his curricle there,—
The bells on his horses clinking and ringing,
As they shook their proud heads, champing and flinging
White flecks of foam o'er their reeking hide,—
And gave his hand to his laughing bride.

“So they talked and feasted the livelong day,
And strolled along on the shingly beach,
And roamed o'er the castle, and danced in the hall,

And made the Pifferari screech
With their swollen pipes, and all was gay,
With music and mirth and festival.
The Contadine, ah! they were so glad,
All in their festal costumes clad,
O'er bursting bosoms the busto laced,
Spanning with scarlet their ample waist;
Red coral collanas around their neck,
And great, long, dangling ear-rings of gold,
And the stiff tovaglia's snowy fold,
Roofing their head—without a speck.
'Twas a joy to see them dancing there,
To the rub and drone of the tamburello,
Rich in their hearts, and without a care,
As they whirled in the endless Saltarello,—
Now panting and blazing with heat and mirth,
Now resting and laughing, or jesting and quaffing
The blushing wine, of which none was a scorner,
That spilled from the barrel set in the corner;
No merrier day was there ever on earth.

“And so the day went by, and some,
Tired of merriment, had departed,
And some still lingered, the younger-hearted,
To make for a single night their home
In the castle, and journey next day to Rome
With the bride and bridegroom when they started;
And the twilight greened and died in the west,
And the full moon over the swelling breast
Of the eastern sea with a red glare clomb—
And some were wandering far away
On the foam-dashed sand, and others stood
On the battlements of the castle grey,
Watching the moon rise over the flood,
And some were in the courtyard there,
And groups were scattered everywhere.

“I was standing just by the shore,
As it were in a sort of a dream,
Thinking the day and its gladness o'er,
And the difference betwixt me and them,
How I was so old, and poor, and grey,

And they were so young, and rich, and gay,
When all of a sudden a fearful scream,
Shrill and wild, rang in my ear,
That made my whole scalp rise with fear;
And there, as I stood, a figure rushed by,
With its arms flung upward against the sky,
And glancing at me, (Good God! were those eyes
Donna Giulia's eyes, that glared at me so,)
Uttered another thrilling cry,
Just like the first,—then turned with a dash,
And out o'er those ruined arches' ledge,
Wildly fled to their dizzy edge,
And vanished;—and I heard a splash,
A low dull splash, in the waters below.

“I stood for a moment, as if in a trance,
I could not move a hand or limb,
But I thought, 'tis only some horrible whim,
That could not have been Donna Giulia's glance;—
I had a sense as if I stood

Rooted an age there, or ever I could
Gather and fix myself to one
Definite thought to act upon.
Oh! it is easy enough to see,
Here as we stand so quietly,
That the thing to do was to rush and save
Whoever it was from a watery grave;
But all my thoughts were scattered about,
And I could not gather them up again,
And my senses were all like a tangled skein
Of night-mare fancies tied in a knot.

“It was but a moment, I suppose,
Though it seemed a whole eternity,
Before I was down in the swelling sea,
And beating through its great green walls,
That toppled, quivering with flashing snows,
And swimming deep where the moonshine crawls,
Just there, 'neath the arch at the end of the pier,
Grasping after white folds that rose
And puffed, and sank, until at last,

After the agony of a year,
As it seemed to me,—thank God it's past—
I dragged a pale white figure, that drooped
Over my arm, to the shoe-deep sand,
Trailing on it a lifeless hand,
And felt a crowd, that around me stooped
With a buzz of horror, and some one cried,
‘'Tis Donna Giulia—'Tis the bride’—
Then all my senses staggered, and swooped
Into a pit of blackest night,
And my skull crushed in with a terrible pain,
And stars shot round me a fiery rain,
And serpents crawled in my dizzy brain,
And all things vanished from me quite.

“How it was, I afterwards learned,
When my shattered senses returned;—
Ah! I thought there was too much light
In those wild eyes, when I saw them first;
Something too sharp and overbright,
As of a thing divine that was curst—

While they were sitting, bridegroom and bride,
On yon jutting rock by the water's side,
And the growth of their young love tasting o'er,
And she was lying upon his breast,
Gazing up at the rounded moon,
While his one arm was round her thrown,
And their lips at times to each other pressed,
As to drink each other's being strove,
Their soft eyes humid with passionate love;
Suddenly over her countenance
Shot a change, like a lightning's glance,
And a terrible light, wild and insane,
Through their dilating pupils darted,
That seemed with hate and horror to strain.
Up to her feet, as if stung, she started,
And through her nervous lips the light
Of her snowy teeth showed to the night,
As she uttered that fearful maniac scream
That startled the night from its peaceful rest,
And lifting on high a dagger's gleam,
She held concealed in her inner vest,

Plunged it swift in her lover's breast,
And madly fleeing along the shore,
Dashed into the sea—as I told you before.

“When I awoke from my blankness and swoon,
All was still in the castle there,
And in at my window was shining the moon,
Mockingly, with its face so fair;
The guests were gone, the surgeon had come,
In the halls was heard a whispered hum,
And careful steps were coming and going,
And listeners stood outside her door,
That an anxious, weary aspect wore,
And everything else was sad and still,
Save now and then, when a shriek so shrill
That it scared us, and stopped our blood from flowing,
Left the silence stiller than before.

“The wound in his breast was slight, I mean
The bodily wound, but the wound unseen

Was ghastly; and no one could afterwards know
The frank, gay hearted, Don Paolo.
He went like a man with a barb in his heart,
And his smile was so dreary it made one weep,
He haunted the castle and would not depart,
And paced his room long nights without sleep,
As we knew by the rafters overhead,
That creaked with his fitful, pausing tread;
And up and down the corridor,
On the dusty arras that heavily sagged,
And its fringe o'er the pavement rustling dragged,
As the night wind sucked through the struggling door,
And made the hall-light bend and flare,
We saw his uneasy shadow go,
Shrink and shake, and rising grow
To a giant shape, till it darkened o'er
The great hall-window's blear white square,—
And oft as he wandered up and down,
Stretching his arms against the wall,
He would hide his face, and inwardly groan,

With shivering spasms that throbbed through all
His agonized frame,—as a noble oak
That totters under the axe's stroke,
And quivers all over ere it fall—
Often, at length, along the floor,
Weary with pacing to and fro,
Upon the sill of her chamber door
He lay, and listened her voice to hear,
In an agony of love and fear,
Weeping himself away in woe,—
Till the worn-out body yielded at last,
And out of the pain of waking passed;
But never dared he within to go,
For a terrible fever in body and brain,
Through her thoughts like a savage demon ranged,
And coiled round her heart, and all was changed
From love to hate, and from joy to pain.

“Once, as soon as his wound would permit,
He dragged to her door his trembling frame,
And softly entering, breathed her name

In the dearest words that tongue could speak;—
But no sooner heard she his voice than she knit
Her low, dark brows, and glaring round
With wandering eyes, gave a fearful shriek,
Sprang for an instant to the ground,
Then, fell in a long and deathlike fit.

“Health to the body at last came back,
But the mind had lost forever the track
It had wandered from,—in a forest wild,
Of tangled fancies, she roamed alone
Where none could follow, and often smiled,
With that vacant smile, that makes one groan,
It shows how utterly all has flown.
For hours she stood at that casement there,
And drummed on the pane with her fingers fair;
Or sat and twisted them mornings long,
Singing strange scraps of disjointed song,
But over the door-sill she never would go,
And never would see Don Paolo—
Often with patientest schemes he strove,

To call her back to the thought of love,
But his voice alone seemed to madden her brain,
And at last he gave it up as vain.

“You know the demon that haunts the air,
That sleeps on these stretches, so bleak and bare,
The fever that shakes us with fire and ice—
Well, she seemed to defy it, and grew more fair,
Breathing it in, as if the devil
That raged in her brain had some device
To shield her from all other forms of evil;—
But on him, with sorrow wasted away,
It fell, like a tiger, on its prey,
And with her name last on his pallid lips,
That dear, brave spirit, went its way,
Into the shadow of death's eclipse,
In the twilight close of an autumn day.

“I smoothed those dark locks on his brow,—
His dome-like brow, which death had made
So calm and grand, and full of peace;—

A humble, reverential kiss,
Upon its marble cold I laid,
And a prayer of tearful thanks I prayed
To God, who had given him release
From all that we on earth must know;
For I could not look at that face so still,
So still and calm, but it seemed to say,
‘Out of the struggle of earthly ill,
Into peace and love, I have passed away.’

“I could not weep for him, I wept
For myself, and the mother, but more than all
For that old man,—for a terrible pall
Fell over him then, which nothing has swept
For years away, and nothing will,
Till he lies by his son, beneath the turf;—
You see the grave there, beside the wall,
Where he told us to lay him, in sight of the surf;
Well, there we laid him, and ever since,
On the day he died, ('tis this day,) the Prince

Makes to the grave a pilgrimage,
And weeps the tears no time can assuage.

“There is another grave, you say,—
True,—and there, but a year ago,
Her worn-out body to rest we lay,
Where the grass is just beginning to grow;—
An hour before she died, she smiled
With a sane sweet smile, her nurses said,
Like one just awaking from the dead,
And whispered, ‘Dearest Paolo;’
And after that, she was calm and mild,
And spoke as if all the years that had passed,
Since she had loved and seen him last,
Were but a blank and terrible dream,
A wall of darkness that shut her from him—
A night's wild night-mare, that now was fled,—
And she wondered how she had grown so weak,
And why she found it so hard to speak,
And why dear Paolo was not there;
So they told her she would see him soon,

And she turned her o'er, with a placid air,
And slid into death, in a painless swoon.

“But look! the evening air grows damp,
And the dark mists creep along the swamp,
And the bat is flitting to and fro,
And the Prince, there, beckons me—I must go.”

Rome, Nov. 1853.

IN THE WEST.

The minster clock has struck for ten,
The streets are free from maids and men,
The hour has come, and where—are you?

The lights that in the chambers shone,
Have slowly vanished, one by one;
But one still shines, and there—are you!

Put out your light, and come, my love!
The wind sighs in the leaves above,
And I beneath them sigh—for you!

The little brook talks all alone,
Unto the long, flat, mossy stone,
Where silently I wait—for you!

I see the swiftly sliding star,
I hear the watch-dog bark afar,
While, longing here, I wait—for you.

Was that a step upon the grass?
No! 'twas the wind-stirred leaves—alas!
Dear love, I wait, I wait—for you.

Oh, haste! the night is going by,
The streets are still, and not an eye
Is watching, love, but mine,—for you!

IN THE EAST.

Drop a rosebud from the grating,
Just at twilight, love,
Underneath I shall be waiting,
And will glance above;
If you hear a whistle answer,
All below is right,
Drop into my arms, we'll vanish
Far into the night.

At the gate, the slaves are ready
With the palanquin—
Ah! my heart is so unsteady,
Till our flight begin—
Through the level tombs we'll hurry,
Leaving death behind,
And in Shiraz' morning splendor,
Love and Life we'll find.

THE NECKAN.

By the shadowy banks of the river,
That gleamed in the evening light,
As the good priest rode, he pondered
Of Virtue, and Justice, and Right.

He thought of the fallen spirits
To whom the gates of grace
Were closed—who, despite their repentance,
Should never see God's face.

And he crossed his breast and murmured
An Ave as he rode,
While he dreamed of a hell for sinners,
And an unforgiving God.

100

When he heard a strange, sweet music,
From a stringèd instrument,
And a gentle voice and plaintive,
That its sorrow to singing lent.

And there, in the soft green twilight,
A youth with curling hair,
On a rock by the river sat singing
With a pale dejected air.

He knew 'twas the spirit Neckan,
By the elf-locks loosely blown,
And the golden harp he was playing,
And the voice's strange, sad tone.

And a virtuous indignation
In the good priest's breast was born,
So he spoke to the poor lost Neckan
In words of reproof and scorn.

101

“Why play you your harp so sweetly?
Ah! wretched child of sin,
This dead dry staff shall blossom
Before you shall enter in

To the joy of the heavenly kingdom
That is open for children of God.”
Then with feelings half-mixed of pity,
He turned him, and onward rode.

But he stilled the voice of pity,
Though the Neckan, while he spake,
His golden harp threw from him,
And sobbed as his heart would break.

For our good priest said, “'Tis Satan
That tempts me to my loss;”
So he muttered an anathema,
And made the sign of the cross.

102

But as on he slowly ambled,
His head on his breast bent low,
He started, for on his dead dry staff
Thick blossoms began to blow.

And his harsh words he remembered,
And felt, with a painful start,
'Twas God, by the emblem rebuking
His bigoted pride of heart.

So back to the river he hurried,
Where the Neckan sat weeping sore,
And lifting his staff of blossoms
He cried to him, “Weep no more!

“Oh! weep no more, dear Neckan!
For behold! if this staff so dry
Can bourgeon in leaves and blossoms,
Can a spirit ever die?

103

“And God, by such emblem, teaches
To the soul benighted in sin,
That the Postern gate of Repentance
Is open to all to come in;

“To all that desire to enter,
How sunken soe'er they be,
And the arms of God are open
To thee as well as to me.

“For Justice is twinned with Mercy,—
Their two wings spread abroad
Balance the highest angels
That live in the smile of God.”

Then broke through the tears of the Neckan,
A glad sweet smile of light,
And lifting his harp he played it
And sang through the livelong night.

104

THE DEATH OF GREGORY XVI.

Antonio!—Gaetano!—Ho! I say—
Where are ye all?—must I lie here and die—
Die all alone, without a creature near?
I faint with pulling at the bell-rope so.
Help, Gaetano! help!—he will not come;
None, none will come to help a poor old man,—
A wretched man that starves to death with thirst.
Still, I am Pope! I am thy Vicar, God!
And in thy holy name I curse them all!
Now let them die beneath the church's ban,
Die, and their souls unsaved hiss down to hell.
Oh! is there none on whom I've heaped my wealth
Will stay beside my bed, and wipe the sweat

105

From off my brow, and reach to me a drop
Of something, any thing, to cool my mouth?—
There is the distant echo of their feet,
The slam of far-off doors beyond the hall—
What do they there? Oh, for an hour of strength
In these old legs,—but no! I cannot stir,
While they, the villains, ransack all my vaults;
I almost hear them smash the rusted necks
Of cobwebbed bottles filled with rich thick wine,
And swill and laugh, while I burn up with thirst;
Yes, burn like Dives with this hellish thirst—
Give me a drop, I say, of my own wine!

Am I the Pope? why, then, I say come here
You brutes, you beasts, that I so oft have blest.
There's not a peasant that with garlic reeks
And in his foul capanna shakes and burns
With fever, but is better off than I!
He has some friend to reach to his hot lips
At least ditch-water, but I,—I the Pope,

106

Beneath my gold-embroidered canopy,
I ... curse you, beasts and villains that you are!

Hark! there's a step—Gaetano!—Guard!—Holla!
Help! help! come in, whoever you may be!
Come in, I say—no matter for the rules—
Where is the bell—the bell! So, he 's gone too!

I'm not so very old but I might live,
Others have lived to greater age than this;
Oh! let me live a few short years at least,
Or but a year, a little year, oh, God!
I have not finished all your work, you know,
And—let me give these villains their reward.
It almost makes me happy, when I think
Were I once well, what I would do for them;
What lodgings they should have! I'd palace them
In some sweet dungeon where the pleasant walls
Should swarm with vermin, drip with oozy mould
And crawl with unimaginable things.

107

I'd give them dainty fare of mouldy crusts
And fetid water for their luscious drink,
So they should know how sweet it is to lie
The long, black nights, and starve and die like dogs.

And they, their masters, that have bowed and cringed,
Now, while I starve, are marching to and fro
In purple and lace, through lighted palaces
And pursing up their mouths to flatteries
In hopes to get my seat. Oh! let me live,
If but to cheat these Cardinals of mine;
I say I will not yield my seat to them.
Hark! there—that carriage jarring up the court,
That 's one of them to ask if I am dead!
No! no, your Eminence, I'm not yet dead,
Not dead, thank Heaven! I'll live to plague you yet!
There—blessings on you—roll away again!

108

How many hours have I lain here alone
Without a hand or voice to comfort me,
List'ning the clock there with its sharp fierce tick
And the dull roar of distant carriages,
With none to drive away these noisy flies
That swarm with such persistence round my head,
And buzz and drop, and stinging crawl along
My clammy forehead, down my burning nose,
Till I hide stifling 'neath the coverlid,
For I am grown too faint to brush them off;
Now, too, the lamp fails, and but one wick holds
The tottering flame—the others stinking stream
With noisome smoke till all my darkening room
Is thick and stifling with its poisonous smell,
And that last flicker of light at length will go,
And I be left in darkness all alone.

O God! God! God! I have been full of sin—
We all are full,—but spare me from thy wrath.
See what a wretched thing thy creature is.
Let me not die now—fill my veins with strength

109

That I may rule this people yet once more,
Thy vicar on the earth, and teach to them
Thy precepts and the rules of Holy Church.

There flares the light out—darkness here at last;
But keep away, Death, keep away to-night,
I cannot die thus in the dark alone—
Oh, God! you will not let me die here all alone.
Holy Madonna, save me! I will burn
A thousand candles in each Church in Rome
Before thy altars; on thy neck I'll hang
A diamond necklace, richer, costlier far
Than the Colonna wears on her full throat,
Or than outdazzles Piombino's eyes,
If you will save me from this horrid death.

Soft! I have slept, I think; fainted perhaps,
Who knows? but now I wake—ah, yes, again
The infernal darkness, stench, and buzz of flies!
Oh happy dream! come back with your rich wines!

110

Champagne all beady foaming to its brim,
Rich inky Aleatico, the cool
Soft roughness of delicious old Bordeaux,
Flasks of rare Orvieto, thinly sweet,
All these were flowing down my thirsty throat,
In a great stream I stood up to my neck
And they were gurgling in my burning mouth.
Why did I wake to such a cursed life?
Oh! let me dream forever such a dream!
If that be heaven—'tis heaven enough for me.

What 's this I've found? some scattered lemon seeds
Tipped from the glass I drained such hours ago,
How sweet they taste—Good God! how sweet they taste!
Yet stop, I must be careful, they 're so few.

My strength is going, and my head swims round;
What is this sudden change? Death, death, perhaps,
And no one near with the Viaticum.

111

Go call a priest, a priest! Of all the crowd
That fawned upon me, is there none will come
And bring the blessed sacrament and place
The holy wafer on these feverish lips?
Shall I lose heaven? some one come quick, come quick
And help me or my soul will else be lost.

Where is my cope? that richest one I mean,
Stiff with embroidered gold and precious stones.
Fools! bring it quick, I say—tis time to go;
And that great emerald clasp, Cellini's work—
Have you forgot that? you 're such blunderers.
Now then, your Eminences, now to mass!

Spirits, avaunt! ye come to mock me here—
What! will you flee not at the Papal sign?
Off! off! I say—I never did you wrong,
I know you not with your gaunt, haggard cheeks,
And lamping eyes, and withered, crooked limbs.
Why point your fingers at me thus, and thus

112

Make imprecation on my dying head?
Help! Gaetano! Guard! help! help! I say.
Here are the dead men bloody from the axe,
And ghastly prisoners with their clanking chains,
Dancing the dance of death around my bed,
They strangle me I say,—help! help! oh, help!
Am I not God's vicegerent on the earth?

Note.—Gregory XVI. died in the Vatican during the night of the 31st of May, 1846, alone, utterly deserted by even the meanest of his attendants, and suffering for want of the wine prescribed by his physicians as necessary to his sustenance. He was found dead in his bed by his physicians when they visited him in the morning; and at the post mortem examination nothing was found in his stomach but a few lemon seeds. He was 82 years old. In character he was ambitious and cruel; in habits grossly intemperate. A full account of the circumstances of the Pope's death is given by Professor Gajani, in his Memoirs of a Roman Exile, chap. xxxvi.

113

“DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI.”

I.

The bells are ringing, heavily swinging in the belfry to and fro,
The long procession is slowly toiling, toiling on in the street below;
Is it funeral or a festa? Hark! that solemn chanting tells
With responses sad and solemn, as it rises, dies, and dwells,
It is a funeral, not a festa. Low, the De Profundis swells,
And heavily toll for the parted soul the throbbing funeral bells.

114

II.

The priestly column is moving solemn—the dripping, tipping wax-lights flare;
Flare and swale, their guttering droppings caught by the boys that follow there;
Yellow and ghastly over the serges and cowls of Capuchins they glow,
Over their shaven crowns and bearded faces as they chanting go—
Chanting hoarsely the De Profundis while their murmur dies and swells,
And heavily toll for the parted soul the pulsing funeral bells.

III.

See! on their shoulders white-robed holders bear aloft the gloomy bier;
White-robed burial companies bear it; never a friend is walking near:—

115

Heavy with golden hem and broidery blackly flaps the velvet pall;
The golden death-head over the coffin, the golden fringes round it fall,—
While from the lips of careless, hireling priests the De Profundis swells,
And heavily toll for the parted soul the throbbing funeral bells.

IV.

Now in a cluster, torches fluster,—the heavy curtain is pushed away,
As at the wide church-door they enter, and the black-palled coffin lay
On its catafalque, fronting the altar, girdled by candles tall and white,
And there alone in the deepening gloom they leave it to lie till the middle night,—
While the last sad tone of the De Profundis dies through the frescoed dome and swells,
And the last deep knoll for the parted soul peals from the pulsing bells.

116

V.

Thence it is hurried and darkly buried, when the solemn midnight hangs above,
By hirelings buried, without a prayer, or a sobbing last farewell of love,—
Hurried and buried, the pomp all over, with none to shed above it a tear,—
Hurried and hid like a thing of horror, with never a friend or lover near,—
And the solemn tone of the De Profundis now no longer rises and swells,
And no longer toll for the parted soul the throbbing funeral bells.

VI.

When through the portal of death the immortal hath passed, and left this house of clay—
When to the grave this dust deserted is borne upon its silent way,
Light me no torches—no hired procession—but ye beloved ones be near,

117

And lay me beneath the trees to slumber—leave me there with a prayer and tear—
And your voices of love be the De Profundis that from your sorrowing bosoms swells,
While throbbing toll for the parted soul the solemn funeral bells.

Bagni di Lucca, Aug. 22, 1853.

118

IN THE MOUNTAINS.

Our captain's glum to-night, he will not drink,
But ever since he came last night from Rome
He seeks to be alone. Vincenzo, come,
What did you both see, you were with him there?
Throw some pine-knots upon the fire—'tis cold,
These bleak March nights in this damp cave of ours;
The tufa drips—the olive-wood wont blaze,
But smoulders sulky as our captain there,
Or spits out its fierce sparkles now and then.
Draw up, and tell us what you saw at Rome!
And Steno, you and Maso can't you cease
That cursed game of morra; full an hour
I've heard your quattro, cinque, tutti—Come,
Leave off, and hear what 'Cenzo saw at Rome.

119

Viva the Carnival, I say, my boys!
At least, sometimes we can go back to Rome.
Stop! brim your glasses—are you ready, all?
Here's death and hell to all gendarmes, I say,
And, Sangue della Madonna, health to him
Who helps that rosy whiskered English lord
At Subiaco of his golden boys.
Come now, Vincenzo, what you saw at Rome.

“Or bene, since you wish it, here it is;
I wish you joy of it when it is told.
Our Captain there you know will go to Rome
Despite its danger,—and we all know why;
Nina is there,—'tis her black, lustrous eyes
That spoil him for our leader,—half his heart
Is rotten with the thinking of old times,
And how it might have been. If we go on
This way, with sparing knife and blood, as he
Will have it, some fine morning we shall ride
Chained in a cart, with four of those gendarmes

120

Riding beside us—all their carabines
Well primed and loaded,—as Luigi did:
That was a pleasant sight for all of us.
I say, my boys, there 's nothing but the knife
Stops blabbing, shuts the eyes up, shears the tongue.
When I die, let it be upon the grass,
Under the sky, a bullet through my heart,—
That's quickly over—but a noisome cell,
Faugh! in their prisons—is that death or life?
At the Falcone, as I passed to-night,
Per Bacco, I saw, posted on the wall,
(A group of travellers staring at it there,)
Under the Pope's arms, a Proclama,—Well!
There was my measure, and our Captain's too.
He 's brave enough, I know, but then again,
After an accident like that last month
He'll sulk a week—there's no more drink and fun;
But can we help it if we kill sometimes
By accident, or when the blood is up?

121

Then, he 's so soft too at such times—don't speak
In his quick way, but kindly, like a girl,
That one can't quarrel with him. Well, we know
Nina is at the bottom of all that.

“But that 's no news to us—so let it go—
'Twas just the same with Gigi as with him,
His heart was never in our business;
And after he had killed that Englishman,
(Damn him, I only wish he 'd kept at home,)
Half by mischance, and half in self-defence,
The fool so stuck to him,—and that young girl
With her fair hair, screamed curses after us,
And lifted up her bloody hands to heaven,
And fainted on her father's body there,—
Gigi lost heart in life—well! that was bad!
I've thought of that girl, too, more times than once;
But that 's our trade! things are not always sweet.
By God! what we saw yesterday in Rome
Was not so sweet.

122

“Well! well! I'll tell you that—
But just a minute first—You know 'tis now
Just two years to a day since Gigi came
Up in the mountains here to join our band;
And you remember, too, what brought him here;
Bah! 'twas the same thing brought a half a score;
Brought you—and you—and me—and him out there—
Only the old thing—a conspiracy—
Attempt at revolution. We all thought—
Fools! fools! we little handful of tried friends,
All sworn to secrecy,—(we have no brains,
Of course we might have known there was a spy,
Are there not always spies?) we thought to end
The reign of priests, and get back once again
What, some time, God knows when, our fathers had,
The dear old liberty to speak and move
And jerk our neck out from the galling yoke

123

Of Priests and Cardinals;—by heaven! the Priests,
Let us once get the upper hand again,
Shall have a red cloak like the Cardinals,
Dipped in the best of dyes, their own rank blood.
Have they not cursed us all, and spoilt our life?
Since Tolla died, instead of prayer at night,
I've only sworn one oath—I'll keep it too—
God willing. Ah! what wretched fools we were;
Yet who so swift to swear as Angelo;
I almost doubted then, he swore so swift.
The Jesuit! how he urged and pricked us on,
Just to bring in the Sbirri at the last;
Some hid, some fled,—I think I left my mark
Before I fled upon our Jesuit's neck,
He screamed so—but at last there was for all
But one way left, that was not worse than death,
(To leave our dear beloved Italy)
That way was to the mountains—Gigi came,
What was there else for him, to us, of course.
Ah! I remember—we remember all,

124

Those passionate words, that wild grand curse of his,
Like the old Roman pictures, when he held
Both his strained hands up, every finger spread,
And cursed the priests, and then burst into tears;
And how we kissed him and embraced him there;
He was too good for us, something too fine
For our wild life,—a razor to hew stones;—
It was not love of gold nor of revenge,
Nor even the wild freedom of our life,—
'Twas dire necessity—and one thing more,
His love for—you know who—that kept him here.

“After that English girl's affair, he lost
All fire and spirit, hated life, at last,
I think on purpose, flung him in the way
Of capture, thinking death might expiate
This crime—we all of us are so at times,
Only the fits came oftener to him.

125

“Such friendship as the Captain had for him!
Some time the Captain'll go the self-same way,—
You mark my words. But here I come at last
To what we saw at Rome. At nearly four
We reached the gate of San Giovanni, where
Between the wine carts unperceived we slipped,
In Contadino dress,—the soldiers round
Scarce noticed us, then down through the back streets,
(And even there the Carnival flowed o'er)
Where I put on an Arlecchino's dress,
Painted my face with stripes of white and red,
And parted with the Captain—on he went
To Nina—I was for the Carnival,
Again to meet him when the midnight struck.

“Oh! what a joy to be again in Rome!
I could have kissed the pavement in my joy.
All down the Corso's length the Carnival
Was at its maddest height—the narrow street
Swarmed with its life; from windows, balconies,

126

And stagings improvised along the squares,
And hung with rich embroidered tapestries,
Thousands of eager laughing faces looked;
Even the roofs were thronged, the door-ways crammed,
The benches on the sidewalks crowded close
With black-haired girls from the Trastevere,
All smiling. What a tumult of mad joy!
What noises! what costumes! what dusty showers
Of white confetti; what mad pelting there,
With bursts of laughter, mixed with fifes and drums,
And squeaking pipes, and tinkling of guitars;
Flowers flying, falling, raining everywhere;
Flowers on the pavement, where the scrambling boys
Fought for them under files of carriages;
Flowers in great masses at the corners; flowers
In monstrous baskets, borne upon the heads
Of Contadini. Oh! what life and fun!
By heaven! there was but one thing raised my gorge—

127

The Carabinieri,—there they stood,
Like statues, at the opening of the streets—
I would that all their throats were one great throat,
That I could slit it once for all, and then
Die, if need be. And yet, why speak of them?
They are but tools their rascal masters use.

“At last the carriages were driven out,
The cavalry, with clattering hoofs, dashed down
The thronging Corso, splitting through the mass;
Then the wild horses, with their spangles on,
And crackling foil, and beating balls and spurs,
Rushed madly up the street.—The cannon pealed,
And all was over for a time.

“I say
Fill up my glass again! My throat is dry
With all this talking—I say, fill it up,
Up to the brim—no stinting, if I talk.

128

“At One I joined the Captain; I was flushed
With wine; but his face sobered me at once;
He did not speak, but something in his look
Told 'twas no time for jesting. Nina said,
‘Bad news, Lippino, you must leave at once;
Lucky perhaps, you came so late—I fear
Something is wrong. Where have you been tonight?
Drinking and talking? Man, you'll lose your head
If you don't learn to rule that tongue of yours.
Something 's suspected; the police were down
An hour ago, but all was quiet then—
Now they are gone do you slip out and run—
Take the back streets—you'll find some place to sleep,
But be behind Rienzi's house at Four;
He'll meet you there—you must be off at once.
Besides,’ she whispered, ‘Gigi's day has come,
Poor fellow—he won't suffer after Four.’

129

Here her eyes flashed, burning away the tears
That gushed into them, as these words she said.

“Nina! Per Dio! she is worth a man.
If I have ever said our Captain's weak
To think of her so much, I was a fool.
If she loved me as she loves him, I swear
Not all the bayonets of Rome could keep
My foot from out the city—no! nor yours!

“Hist! is he coming? If he is, I stop;
For next to Nina he loved Gigi best;
And now my story is of Gigi.—No!
There stands he still, his hat pulled o'er his brow.
Stay! let me carry him a glass of wine.
Poor fellow! he feels bad enough, I know,
And this damp night air gnaws into one's bones.

“He took it, so all 's well—his voice, perhaps,
A little husky, that was not from cold.
Well, then! the few hours left of night I roamed

130

Through the back streets, and watched the river swirl
Blackly away—then dozed an hour or so
In the dim corner of the Temple of Peace,
Till day began to lighten the gray mists.
At four I met the Captain—neither spoke
A word of Gigi, though we both of us
Thought only of him.—Silently and sad
In the grim dawn we took our way along;
And as we went into the Velabro,
Down through the Bocca della Verità,
We heard the dull beat of a single drum,
The sound of feet, the dragging of a cart.
The sound jarred terribly against the heart;
An awful sense of something vague and dread
Came over me,—we paused,—a moment more
The Confraternità, with hooded heads,
Their dark eyes glaring ghastly through the holes,
And their black banner gilt with skull and bones,
Turned from the street into the open square.
Then files of soldiers—then a guarded cart—

131

God! 'twas Luigi standing there.—My knees
Shook underneath me for a moment's space,
Not out of fear, (you know me all too well
For that, I think.) A ghastly, dreadful sense
Of horror crept along my chilling nerves—
I caught his eye—'twas firm and fixed as Fate;
A smile that I could see, because I knew
My comrade, sudden gleamed across his face,
Then it was locked up in its fierce resolve,
Only his under lip twitched now and then.
Things went as in a dream, the old sad way.
Why tell you how it went? At last he stood
Erect a moment, turned his head all round,
Then suddenly, and with a clear full voice
Cried, shouting, ‘Viva la Republica,
E Liberta per tutt' il popolo
E Morte.’ .... Here a deafening roll of drums
Thundered his voice out.—Swift he was drawn back.
I saw his lips move, and his arms thrown up,

132

The priest beside him raised the crucifix,
Thud, went the axe, .... Gah! what a horrid sound!

“Give me some wine!—Oh, God! when comes the time
For us, the people,—when the miracles
Of San Pietro shall be wrought for us?
Dear, brave Luigi! when that time shall come—
Here, swear it with me, all of you—no spy
Is here among us—for each drop of blood
A cowl shall fall—We'll sweep the streets for them,
They shall not want for dye for Cardinals!

136

SHADOWS AND VOICES AT TWILIGHT.

The fire-light flickers—closed are the shutters—
The fountain and the rain
Plash in the wells, and gush from the gutters
With a dull monotonous pain.

The fire-light flickers—on wall and ceiling
Wild uncouth shadows dance,
To the corners dark so swiftly stealing,
When the flame darts up with a glance.

I know there's a great black shadow mowing
And mocking above me there,
As over the fire my figure bowing
Into its coals I stare.

137

The sparks in the soot are toiling and moiling
Like a crowd of burning flies,—
From its hot pores driven all hissing and boiling
The shrill sap screaming dies.

What voice is that at the window wailing?
That wails in the sobbing rain—
That wails and moans with a voice, now failing,
Now rising with screams of pain.

Is it a friend that shakes and rattles
And beats at the panes so thin?
Or some lost soul with the Fiend that battles,
Imploring to enter in?

Some little child that is freezing and dying,
And longs for the glowing fire,
That pats with its little cold hands—crying
With passionate desire?

138

Is it some spirit that ere he quitteth
This earth, is pausing there,
Some dear friend's flitting spirit that sitteth
On my sill in the bleak night air?

No! 'tis the wind alone that clatters
Against the shuddering pane,
And some tree-branch on the blind that patters
With the gusts of the windy rain.

The world is weird; in these twilight regions
Are shapes of fear and fright—
I shrink from their nightmares that gather in legions,—
Bring in the light!

139

A TESTAMENT.

Dear friend! if Death against my door
Be first to knock, and bid me rise,
What trivial things shall have the power
To bring the tears into your eyes.
You'll gaze upon each worthless thing
That once was mine, and with a sigh
You'll say, “Ah! we were happy then,
In the old days gone by.”

You'll look upon this blackened flute,
And say, “when he was young and gay,
And light of heart, and light of foot,
What sentimental airs he'd play.”
You'll think on those old serenades
You listened to with beaming eye,

140

And say, “Ah! we were happy then,
In the old days gone by.”

You'll turn my old portfolio o'er,
Its rudest scraps you'll cherish then,
For they will have the magic power
To make me live to you again.
You'll travel o'er each pictured scene
That shall survive this hand and eye,
And say, “Ah! we were happy then,
In the old days gone by.”

You'll keep these tools so smoothly worn
With which I shape the facile clay,
And gaze upon them, half-forlorn,
Then lay them carefully away.
You'll say, “His hand could deftly shape,
None knew and valued him as I,
And ah! we were so happy then,
In the old days gone by.”

141

These verses, spiritless and weak,
(Poor weeds that never came to flower,)
Of joyous times to you may speak,
May speak of many a bitter hour.
You'll read the records wrung by pain,
When Death and Grief stood weeping nigh,
And say, “Ah! we were wretched then,
In the old days gone by.”

You'll kindly look on what I've done,
And say, “How earnestly he strove,
Not all in vain, nor all alone,—
I sought to help him with my love,
And if he failed, 'twas not from lack
Of heart and will, and purpose high,”—
And “Ah! we both were happy then,
In the old days gone by.”

And after you have mourned awhile,
And Grief's deep rut hath worn away,

142

Recall my foolish jokes, and smile,
For I would have my memory gay;—
Think of me in my happiest mood,
And speak of me as I were nigh,
And feel that I am with you still,
As in the days gone by.

143

ITALY AND NEW ENGLAND.

“Look on this picture, and on this.”

All is Italian here!—the orange grove,
Through whose cool shade we every morning rove
To pluck its glowing fruit—our villa white
With loggias broad, where far into the night
We sit and breathe the intoxicating air
With orange-blossoms filled, or free from care
In the cool shadow of the morning lie
And dream and watch the lazy boats go by
Laden with fruits for Naples—the soft gales
Swelling and straining in their lateen sails,—
Or, with their canvas, hanging all adroop,
While the oars flash, and rowers rise and stoop.
Look at this broad, flat plain heaped full of trees,
With here and there a villa,—these blue seas

144

Whispering below the sheer cliffs on the shore,
These ochre mountains bare or olived o'er,
The road that clings to them along the coast,
The arching viaducts, the thick vines tost
From tree to tree, that swing with every breeze,—
What can be more Italian than all these?
The streets, too, through whose narrow, dusty track
We ride in files, each on our donkey's back,
When evening's shadow o'er the high gray walls,
O'ertopped with oranges and olives, falls,
And at each corner 'neath its roof of tiles,
Hung with poor offerings, the Madonna smiles
In her rude shrine so picturesque with dirt.
Is this not Italy? Your nerves are hurt
By that expression—dirt—nay, then I see
You love not nature, art, nor Italy.
Nature abhors what housewives love,—the clean—
And beauty hides when pail and brush come in—
She joys in grime, mould, rot, mud, spots, and stains,—
Whitewash your wall, and see what curious pains

145

They take to undo all your hands have done;
Ask help of wind, rain, dust, and sun—
Crack it and twist it, plant its clifts with seeds,
Gray, green, and yellow it with moss and weeds,
Dye it with wet leaves, call the spiders in,
Beseech the lizards there to leave their skin,
Strain every nerve to spoil the work you do;
You do not like it? all the worse for you.

But I forget my theme—just look once more
O'er the blue bay, along whose foam-fringed shore
White Naples glimmers and Resina dreams,—
And 'neath the smoky trail that threatening streams
From bare Vesuvius' cone, through living bloom
Pompeii's ghost peers from its ashy tomb.
Is not this Italy? And that strange song
You hear yon peasant screaming with its long
And drawling minor monotone, has not
That song the very perfume of the spot?

146

A hard old sailor that Ulysses was,
Or he had never had the heart to pass
These fair Sorrento shores—and rather old
Perhaps, for love, if the plain truth were told.
Faith! if our Menicuccia here should sit
On these high cliffs, and beckon me to it
With her black hair and eyes and sunny smile
Mid grapes and oranges—I'd think a while
Ere I refused. His Sirens, I suppose,
Sang the old song that every girl here knows;
Our Menicuccia sings it now and then,
A Siren fair as his—“Ti voglio ben!”

There comes Antonio, lazy, sunny-faced,
Brown as a nut and naked to the waist,
With the brass coin that saves his ship from wreck
Stamped with the Virgin, on his sun-burnt neck.
See! what a store of tempting fruit he brings
In his great basket, that he lightly swings
From off his head, and smiles, and offers heaps
Of luscious oranges, and figs, and grapes,

147

And rusted apricots, and purple plums,
For one carlino—one of his brown thumbs
Uplifted, tells the price—you give him half:
He shrugs, and says, “È poco,” with a laugh.
But see! within this corner where he hides
His red tomatoes with their sabred sides—
Those look like home—but what a difference!
“A revederla,—grazie 'Celenz.”

Stop, dearest, here, and let your fancy roam,
Just for the contrast, to old things at home;
From lazy Italy's poetic shows
To stern New England's puritanic prose.
Remember that gray cottage at the foot
Of the hill's slope, where two great elms had root
Beside the porch, like sentinels to guard
The entrance—and the little fenced-in yard,
With its heaped flower-plots, banked and edged with laths,
Through which were cut those narrow sunken paths,—

148

Oh! what a difference 'twixt that and this!
Yet there we had an unbought happiness.
There grew the autumn flowers our childhood knew,
Rich tiger-lilies, brilliant cockscombs too,
The pale pink clusters of full-flowering flox,
The antique lamps of seedy hollyhocks,
Nasturtiums shedding forth their orange glow
O'er the gray palings, clustering thick below
The freaked sweet-williams, dahlias stiff and bold,
And the rank beauty of the marigold.

Our chamber window, where we used to sit
Long mornings (Ah! how I remember it,)
Looked o'er a slope of green unto a grove,
('Twas there I dared to speak to you of love,)
And 'twixt it and the house a brown slow brook
Slipped through the long rank grass, and singing took
The golden leaves, two willows, old and lopped,
Into its shallow bed as tribute dropped.

149

And close beneath, our kitchen garden spread,
With a wild grape-vine trained along the shed,
That o'er the whitewashed boards its shadow swung,
And bore a fruit that puckered every tongue.
There oft we saw our hostess, formal, prim,
With parchment forehead, lips compressed and grim,
Stiff as a dahlia, walk beside the fence,
And from the shrub-trees pluck a furry quince;
Or in the hot noon's silence many a day
We watched the cat pick daintily her way
Among the beds, and leap the viny coil
Where golden pumpkins dozed upon the soil.

I seem again to see, while talking thus,
The smoke-like beds of tall asparagus,
The rumpled cabbage squat upon the ground,
The bean-vines from their high poles groping round,
The maize heads rusting in the autumn sun
And dropping many a stiff green gonfalon,
And those sad sunflowers, shorn of summer rays,
Bending to earth their great black seedy face.

150

Here in this land of orange, olive, vine,
How strange these memories of mine and thine;
Yet dear, for all its prose, New England seems
Hazed with poetic hues by childhood's dreams.

Do you remember too, how many a day
On the brown needles of the pines we lay,
And o'er us heard the murmur of the breeze
Sift through them, like the swell of far-off seas,
While some red maple through the vistas blazed,
And velvet cones the scarlet sumac raised?
Then, while you wove the barberry's coral spray
Round your straw hat, or in your rustic way
Hung at each ear a cluster, far more fair
Than the gold ear-rings they were strung to there,
I lay and read some poem grand and strong
Of Browning's—or with Tennyson's rich song
Revelled awhile, and in your glowing face
Saw the quick answer to its power or grace.
And oft the chickadee's quick voice we heard,
Or the sharp mewing of the shrill cat-bird,

151

Or the high call from out the upper air
Of some black crow inquiring of us there,
While soft with haze the autumn day passed by,
Till sunset set on fire the western sky.

But see! Domenico the donkey brings,
Now for our ride!—No more New England things—
There come our good friends Nero and his wife,
And there 's our Toffel with them on my life.

152

THE MARCHESE CASTELLO

GIVES HIS VIEWS ON ITALY.

I'm still at work you see, but never mind!
I was about to lay my palette down
Just as I heard you knock. I thought at first
It might be your brave English friend again,
Who stared so when he saw me in my blouse,
As if to say, “By Jove! these foreigners
Are all the same! beggars and noblemen!
Why can't they do as we do?” Now confess
You in a friendly way had over-praised
My merits to him, and he thought to meet
Some Sydney, Bayard, and he found poor me.
His disappointment was so evident
I scarce could hide a smile.... There, fling yourself

153

Upon the sofa there; 'tis rather hard,
But here in our villeggiatura days
We do not live for show,—no! on my soul,
Nor yet for comfort, as you English think;
And you 're half right too, that's the worst of it—
Nothing is sharp as an unpleasant truth;
A lie 's a lie, and there 's the end of it,
But a hard truth, what stomach can digest!
Our comfort here is in our laziness,
Not in our furniture, and house, and all
Those nice appliances you know so well.
Our easy tempers and indifference
Make up to us for your material aids;
We are contented with our easy selves,
You are contented with your easy chair.
You, if your tea 's not right, will fume and scold,
We shrug our shoulders, drink it down, and say,
“Eh! Pazienza!” Yes, I know we 're fools
To be content with anything we have,
For discontent's a sort of bastard child
Of high ambition, that would prick us on

154

To admirable ends—while weak content
Flies to the cloister, and drones out its life,
And childless dies.

That is a little view
I sketched at Ostia one day last May,
With Sandro—what a charming place it is!
With its blue sea, and ruined, rusted walls,
And grassy slopes with marbles scattered o'er—
Of course you've been there, and picked up, no doubt,
Some of those Breccie which you English like.
I'm glad my little picture pleases you;
I think it has a look of air and light—
A sentiment, at least—that 's what we get,
We amateurs, that artists sometimes lose.
How hard it is to get both things at once,
Body and soul,—half of our pictures now
Are mere thin ghosts, and half are corpses quite,—
I said how hard, I should have said how rare,
For nothing 's hard to him who does it well.

155

In Art we work to learn our alphabet;
The language learnt, 'tis easy enough to speak,
If we have only anything to say;
But for the most part in our modern art
I find so many a pretty phrase and word,
Such eloquent expressions of no thought!
And yet how much, how much there is to say!

We here in Italy are artist-born;
Beauty enchants us—we 've more love in us,
As oft you 've said, (it seems so true to me,)
Than in the North is seen. You are more cold,
And for the most part easily mistake
Our warmer natures. You have judgment, sense,
Notions of duty, rules of life and thought,
While we have impulse, passion, feelings quick
For love or hate—mere children as you say—
With the same charms and faults that childhood has.
And mark! between us both this difference,
You never dare express the half you feel,

156

We say the whole, nay, often over-say—
That 's but our nature which you call excess.
And so, you see, we both misapprehend
Each other's virtues, and can only see
Each other's faults. I ask you now, my friend,
What is the notion that most English have
Of us Italians? ignorant and false,
Full of ungoverned passion, quick to spill
Blood at a word; whose best and worst of types
Are bandit, beggar, priest, or some dark boy
Bearing his plaster figures on his head.
But is this all? Is there no gentleman?
Are we then different from all the world?
Now you'll agree how very false this is;
You 've lived with us, and know that kindlier hearts,
More full of sweetness, tenderness—more prompt
To generous acts of pure unselfishness,
More quick to help and sympathize in grief,
Are nowhere found. Just look at Tita here,
Or our Giovanni, or that higher type,
Luigi, the physician of the town;

157

Is there a larger, nobler heart on earth?
Is there a head more wise, a hand more skilled
In his profession—one more free from all
That's poor and petty in his make than he?
Think how for weeks he tended at your bed
Regardless of himself—night after night
For you, a stranger he had never seen,
Solicitous as you had been his child!
And all for what? not money as we know,
But only from the breadth of his great heart.
No ostentation in him, no false pride,
No coward fear of what you thought of him,
But a true gentleman as ever lived.
Ask him to go to Rome—strike with the spur
For his ambition—he will smile and say,
“I am content—the people love me here—
I love the people.” Urge his talents lost
In this small village—tell him he may gain
A world-wide fame, and with it fortune too—
Still he will smile and say, “I am content.”
I own, one will not always meet with such,

158

He's not a universal rule—I know
That other one, the veriest of quacks,
Who stood with white gloves round a dying bed,
And hurried off from all that agony
To dine, and chat, and laugh with some milord—
But he, the thing, is the exception here,
And he's a half-breed, bred in your own land.

So too, you know our best society;
Is it so stupid, ignorant, and dull
As they who never entered it declare?
I know your England; 'tis a noble soil,
Rich in strong minds and educated power,
And stronger in its character than all—
Yet cold and doubting when a stranger comes,
(Unless he be a lion to be shown.)
Each man's his castle—not his house alone,
His wife, his child, his dog, are castles too.
A stranger is the enemy, opposed
By threatening outworks of reserve and pride,
Through which with caution he must work his way.

159

Once entered, all is honest, simple, frank.
You are not quick to feel where you give pain,
And oft indifference hurts us most of all,
As a blunt knife will make the worst of wounds.
But for the brain as well as for the heart,
I will not own a better can be found
In all wide Europe than in Italy.
Priest-ride your people, crush them 'neath the heel
Of despots till no spark of freedom 's left,
Put down your press and schools, and see at last,
If you are better than the worst of us.
I know your answer—'tis a grand one too,
“We carved our freedom with our own right hands;
Do you carve yours.” Ah! many a time we have
Carved that great figure to be overthrown
And haled by Europe down into the dust;
Beside, position worked for you, and chance;
You are an island guarded by wild waves,
Round which the storm flames with its fiery sword,
With a rude coast that battlements you round—
And these are armies to ward off attack.

160

Then, too, your climate 's chill, and wants the charms
That breed desire and lure the foreign foe.
We, all exposed, with thousand easy ports,
A lovely landscape and a gentle sky,
Have been the fighting-ground for centuries,
Where foreign foes have stirred domestic feuds—
For who could help to covet what they saw?
But I admit your grand advantages;
None honors more your struggles for yourselves,
None envies more your Freedom—stretch to us
Your hand and help us when we fight for ours.
And when you scout at us as ignorant,
Ready in crime, and apt for cruel rule,
Look at your factories and mines at home,
Look at the purlieus of your London world,
And tell me have we any thing so bad?

One thing among us never is crushed out,
One thing that we above all nations have—
The love of beauty and the frank, sweet smile,

161

And that best courtesy born of the heart.
No! not the rudest peasant, who all day
Dreams on his staff and tends his nibbling sheep
Among the ruins, is without them all.
The very beggar, with his tattered cloak
Thrown o'er his shoulder, shows his proud descent;
You feel the gens togata lives in him.
And for the highest ranks (excuse the boast)
You will not find more dignity and grace,
At once more simpleness and elegance,
Than in our best society in Rome.
At least, I have not seen it—What say you?
The Englishman is conscious, awkward, cold;
The Frenchman fidgetty, and wants repose;
The German clumsy, always without tact.
I speak of manner, not of matter now,
I say this just to show how easily
We might retort on what they say of us.
But then again, I cannot help but own
We 've not the sparkling esprit of the French,
Nor yet the heartless sneer that spoils it so.

162

We 've not the German's metaphysic depth,
And not his dulness and his uncouth ways.
We 've not your quietness of character,
Your cold, still energies—we also want
Your servile admiration for a lord.

I know as well as any we have faults,
Great faults—the greatest of them, jealousy.
We never can cohere. We may be packed
Like sand-grains by the stress of some great force,
But dry and crumble easily apart;
Yet better than all others we have writ
The laws of politics and government,
And we alone in Europe represent
By all our history, all our struggles fierce
For Freedom, all our great plebeian names,
The truly democratic element.

We need development; and so would you,
Crushed 'neath a despotism stern as ours,
Yet one would think, to hear your countrymen,

163

That all our breed of noble minds was dead,
That learning, genius, power had all died out.
Yet not unknown to science are the names
That Brocchi, Volta, and Galvani bore;
Nor Romagnosi's, in the highest walk
Of Jurisprudence. As Historians, too,
Micali, Rossi, Botta, and Cantù
May surely hold an honorable place.
And in Philology, who stand above
Our Mezzofanti or our learned Mai.
But in Romance, and Poetry, and Art,
What scores of names—I will not call them o'er,
All scholars know them.—Even while I write,
Ruffini adds to you and us a name.

I do not count it a surprise to find
We do so little, but we do so much
With France and Austria treading on our neck.
Take off that pressure,—see our Piedmont
Start like a giant up. Five years ago
She was a child, already she 's a power.

164

You said, how short a time ago, to her
Just what you say to us. Give us a chance,
The seed is good—in free soil it would grow.

But of all people, in our earnest hope
For freedom, least of sympathy we get
From Anglo-Saxon blood, whether it be
On your cold island, or beyond the sea,
America—and from the last the least.
“Only too good for them the government,
They 're only fit to trample on,” 'tis said;
“What! Liberty for them—why that 's a boon
No nation 's fit to have—excepting ours.”

Who taught to them their sea-laws? From whose code
Did commerce draw its rules? What merchants vied
With those of Florence, Genoa, Venice? Where
Got they their phrase of “Merchant Princes?” Say!

165

I will not speak of art,—that's wanting yet,
And always will be in their history,—
But will they blow us some fine Venice glass?
Or build us roads like the Cornice road?
Or weave us velvets like the Genoese,
Or Tuscan silks? ... I see you smile at me,
I was too warm, and so would you be too;
For of all people they should surely have
A generous sympathy, at least, for us;
We found their world, and wrote their history first.

Not that I know these people—no! not I!
I only take your own account of them,
One never meets them in society;
I never knew but one—I must confess
We took a fancy, all of us, to him,
And he liked us almost too well, I fear.
As for the rest, some pretty, fragile girl,
Who on the Pincio's terrace now and then
Is pointed out—is all I know of them.

166

In fact, our notions somewhat are confused
'Twixt you and them—nay, do not take it ill—
They speak your language, and we know them not;
They may be all you say, for what we know,
And yet I hope you are not just to them.

I love my Italy—and when I see
Conceited upstarts, from whatever land,
(Yours, my dear friend, as well as all the rest,)
Whose friends are couriers, and that rabble vile
That haunts the traveller as the jackal haunts
The lion's steps; or rather, like those wolves
That ring about the wounded buffalo
With their white, snarling halo,—when, I say,
Such fellows, puffed with purse-proud ignorance,
Who speak no language but their own, nor know
Our history or hopes, go hurrying through,
And sneer, “These fellows have what they deserve,
Freedom for them is just too good a joke,”
It stirs my blood,—I see, too, it stirs yours.

167

But why complain? you make the same mistake
Among all people—what 's the Frenchman's type?
The dancing master with grimacing airs—
The German 's but a smoking, bearded boor—
And yours, you ought at least to know yourself,
A dull John Bull, with an enormous paunch.

Mark, now, how inconsistently you speak?
First, we are far too fierce and unrestrained
In all our passions to bear Liberty;
Then we 're so weak, and tame, and cowardly,
We suffer wrongs which we might purge with blood.

What do we want? what have we ever asked
That raises thus the pity and contempt
Of your free nations? All we ask is this—
Not a republic yet, no wild vague schemes,
But some free privilege of government,
Some chamber where the people shall have voice
To urge their rights and tell their grievances;
Free schools, a free press, and the right to speak.

168

We ask for something more than simply priests
To govern and direct,—we ask for Law,
For Justice, and for open unbribed courts.
We ask a chance for Commerce and for Trade—
Railroads to chain our glorious land together,
And the white sails of ships that once were ours.

I do not dare to trust myself to speak
Of what has happened down in Naples there,—
All words are weak to utter what I would;
Crimes such as those are punished not by words,
But acts,—and as there lives a God in heaven,
A day will come for retribution soon.

We are not ready then for Liberty!
But with such yoke as now weighs on our neck
How can we grow more ready? How attain
The stature of the man that in us is?
Give us a high room, where no longer cramped
By the low ceiling of our prison cell,
We may at least strive to stand up erect,

169

As best we may with these bent frames of ours.
But tell us not to stand up in our cell!
Give us a chance! the heart and mind of man
Need freedom as the very flowers need light.
You do not say the plant all pale and blanched
In the dark cellar, is not fit for day
Because it changes not to green at once,
Without the daylight;—so, you do not say
First learn to swim before you wet your feet.
Men grow to Freedom, and not all at once,
Full and complete in all her panoply,
Spring like Minerva from the head of Jove.
Bear with us; if we make mistakes at first,
Our sad experience is our surest help!
But now betwixt the bayonets and cowls,
Small chance for heart and mind to grow at all.

Pardon, my friend, for this long talk of mine,
And for my foolish boasting and my warmth!
But why ask pardon? You love Italy,
And you are almost one of us,—how else
Had I dared say the words that I have said?

170

Pray do not go! I wish you to admire
This charming little group of Vieux Saxe
I bought in Rome last week,—I paid too much,
But 't is so delicately, nicely done!
'T is sad the art is so entirely lost;—
This has the very spirit of Watteau;
But those the moderns make in Dresden now,
Are rude and clumsy like a journeyman's.

Do you walk now? If so I'll go with you—
I've painted here so long I must refresh
My eye with nature. If you please, we'll go
Along the galleria by the Lake.
To-day 's a festa—we'll be sure to meet,
Up by the Reformati's convent church
The contadine in their best costumes.

And don't forget to-morrow! by the way—
Our friends are coming from the Villas round
Beyond Frascati to our rustic ball,
And all the pretty contadine too,
With their gallants, dressed in their choicest trim;

171

The village band will play for us to dance,
And you will see our true democracy,
The peasants and the princes, hand in hand,
Not with that dreadful condescending way
Perhaps you fancy—but as friend with friend.

Pardon! I'll open you that lock of ours,
You do not know the trick,—you pull this string:
The lock is broken,—not the only thing
That 's out of order in our Italy;
And there 's a trick to open every door.
Ah, Frà Antonio, you'll excuse me now—
Some other time—you see I'm now engaged.

181

THE PINE.

Alone, without a friend or foe,
Upon the rugged cliff I stand
And see the valley far below
Its social world of trees expand;
A hermit pine I muse above,
And dream and wait for her I love,
For her, the fanciful and free
That brings my purest joy to me.

Oft dancing from the laughing sea
When morning blazes on my crest,
All wild with life and gayety
She springs to me with panting breast.
Her sun-spun ringlets loosely blown,

182

And eyes that seem the dawn to own,
She greets me with impetuous air
And shakes the dew-drops from my hair.

At midnight as I stand asleep,
While constellations stream above,
I hear her up the mountain creep
With sighs and whispers full of love:
There in my arms she gently lies,
And breathes mysterious melodies,
And with her childlike winning ways
Among my leaves and branches plays.

Heaped in the winter's snowy shroud,
With icy fingers to each limb,
Or drenched by summer's thunder-cloud,
Of her, and her alone, I dream;
And where the trees are bending low,
And the broad lake with crispèd flow,
Darkens its face despite the sun,
I watch her through the valley run.

183

Sometimes when parched in summer noon,
She brings me odors from the east,
And draws a cloud before the sun
And fans me into peaceful rest.
In my siesta while I drowse
She rustling slips amid my boughs,
And teases me, the while that I
In dreamy whispers make reply.

Sometimes as if in fierce despair,
The tears of passion on her face,
With tempest locks and angry air
She round me flings her wild embrace,
And sobs, and moans, and madly storms,
And struggles in my aching arms
Until the wild convulsion past
She falls away to sleep at last.

And if my fate at length ordain
This fallen trunk of mine to bear

184

Some stately vessel o'er the main,
I know she'll not forget me there.
And oft the sailor mid the gale,
Above my corse shall hear her wail
And sob with tears of agony,
Far out on the Atlantic sea.

185

VENICE.

There he lies, stabbed by your dagger!
Ah! 'tis too late for remorse, now,
Will all your weeping and kind words
Give back the life to his corse, now?
'Tis my heart's blood on your point there,
Fling it away I implore you,—
Mad, rash Peppino! I hate you
As much as I used to adore you.

Ah, yes! the old man provoked you!
What of it? Here when he caught us
All looked so wrong—He knew nothing—
And—see where one wild act has brought us.
He was my Father—my Father—
'Tis well that you 're silent! what words now

186

Can bridge o'er the crime that disparts us,
Or mend again Life's broken chords, now?

See! that white rose which I gave you
Is spotted with red blood—ah, heaven!
Every thing's lost—How I loved you!
But such crime can be never forgiven!
Never! no never! his blood there
Would cry out against us to blast us—
Hark! there 's a noise in the palace!
What was that gleam that shot past us?

Fly! see the torches are coming,
The steps on the pavement draw nearer!
Fly! there's the voice of Alberto,
And his scabbard rings clearer and clearer.
There lies the gondola yonder,
There, that black spot in the distance;
I'll swear 'twas a bravo that struck him
Before he could draw for resistance.

187

Fly, dearest, fly! I'll forgive you,
Never upbraid you, but love you
Dearer than ever, if only
You'll fly.—Is there nothing will move you?
Fly!—Ah my God! 'tis too late now!
Their torches upon us are streaming,
And there's blood on your face and your doublet—
Ah God—is this real or dreaming?

194

BETWEEN TWELVE AND ONE.

After the merry Twelve's trochaic,
Often I watch alone
The smouldering log, with its coal-mosaic
Like the antique pavement stone—
The flame-tongues licking—the sharp clock ticking
On to the solemn One.

The jesters are gone, the play is over,
The ghosts alone remain;
A song and a sigh together hover
Over the dreaming brain;
To visions tender my soul I surrender,
And sweet memorial pain.

The wine in the half-quaffed glass is gleaming—
And into the stifled air

195

The smoke of the blown-out candle is streaming,
And empty is every chair,—
And never, ah! never, with all our endeavor,
Will the guests again be there.

Thus, when the Twelve go out and leave me,
And every voice has ceased,
I wait for the One that comes to shrive me
Like a single mournful priest,
To list to the lesson of sad confession,
By the last guest at the feast.

Were we all wrong that round the table
Laughed with a merry heart,
And drank Life's bright wine while we were able,
Playing the gayest part—
Because with the morrow cometh sorrow,
And tears from the eyelids start?

196

TO J--- S---.

There sounds the drum in the street,
And the soldiers are marching by,
And the trumpet sounds,—but thy little feet
Are still—and thy joyous cry
Will never that marching greet,
Oh! never, never, again!
Nor thy sunny form at the window stand
To list to that martial strain;
Yet I cannot but think I shall hear thy voice,
Though I know the thought is vain.

I think of thee often as gone
For only a summer's day,
In these earthly gardens laughing to run
With thy friends at thy human play.

197

I dream, when the day is done
I shall hear thy foot on the stair,
And welcome thee back with thine innocent face
And thy frank, pure, noble air,
And kiss thee again, and see thee again,
Till the dream is like despair.

Up in a sunnier field,
I know thou art playing now,
And a purer day to thine eyes unsealed,
And a light on thine angel brow,—
And over and over again
I say,—“He is happier now,
He never will suffer the pain
That is knitting this human brow,
But ah! for us who must here remain
How shall we bear it—how?”

“There is the empty chair
Where he always used to sit,
But his little figure no more is there,

198

A ghost now sits in it.
It sits, and it will not rise
To leave it a moment's space—
Forever there in the empty place;
I see through my streaming eyes
The shadowy shape of that noble grace
That has gone into the skies.

“The little stubbed-out shoes
That he always used to wear,
The little dress, with its pockets filled
With his trifles, is lying there—
How living to me they seem.”
And I gaze at them, and gaze
As if in a sort of dream,
Recalling the vanished days
When he sported in them by hill and stream,
All the happy summer days.

My little beloved boy!
Even where thou art, in heaven,

199

There never can be a purer joy
Than thou to us hast given;
Who never once made us grieve
Till the sad, dark angel came
And opened the heaven-gates to receive
Thy spirit's vestal flame,
And thy human tongue no more would speak
When we called thy beloved name.

Rome, Dec. 1854.

200

THE BROKEN HARP.

It was a harp that 'neath the poet's hand
In earlier happier days
Gave forth such wondrous tones, that all the land
Re-echoed praise.

A cherub's head looked out above the wires,
Whose nerves, so sensitive,
Responded to the singer's wild desires,
And seemed to live.

The slightest touch called forth its music then,
Wild, sorrowing, pensive, gay,
Howe'er 'twas touched, to hearts of maids and men
It found its way.

201

Oft to the old sweet air of love it thrilled,
Oft in the hall at night
Rang, while the wine-cup on the board was spilled,
In mad delight.

Behold it now! how time, neglect, abuse
Have spoiled that cherub brow;
Its strings, half shattered and half hanging loose,
Have no chords now.

And when the singer plays, as play he will,
Among these jarring strings,
Ah! what a sound of horror, wild and shrill,
The least touch brings.

There in the corner of the hall it stands,
Cracked, stained with blood and wine,
The harp that yielded to those youthful hands
Sounds half divine.

220

What knowing thought, oh, ever moaning sea,
Haunts thy perturbed breast—
What dark crime weighs upon thy memory
And spoils thy rest?

Thy soft swell lifts and swings the new-launched yacht
With polished spars and deck,
But crawls and grovels where the bare ribs rot
Of the old wreck.

Oh, treacherous courtier! thy deceitful lie
To youth is gayly told,
But in remorse I see thee cringingly
Crouch to the old.

221

FAIRY-LAND.

(FOR E. M. S.)

When first into Fairy-land I went
I was so happy and so content,
For a little Fairy carried me there
Who had large blue eyes and golden hair.

'Twas a beautiful wood, with great high trees
That scattered gold leaves as they shook in the breeze,
Where the Oriole flashed, and the blue Jay screamed,
And the trees and the skies in the smooth lake dreamed.

And there we wandered about, and played
On the crisping leaves in the sun and shade;
And she carried me where the gleaming brooks
Braided their brown hair over the rocks.

222

And she told me where sweet nuts were found,
In the house of the squirrel under ground;
And she showed me a great flat mossy stone
That we ranged our acorn-cups upon.

There we played party down in the glen,
And made believe ladies and gentlemen;
And put on their airs, and talked of the weather—
Oh! we were both so happy together.

Our cream and our sugar were only pretend,
But we found wild strawberries there without end,
And these on a great leaf-dish we set,
With an arum for pitcher, all dewy wet.

We had at our tea-parties many a friend,
But they, like the sugar and cream, were ‘pretend,’
So we made believe help them, and pour out their cup,
And their berries and cake we ourselves eat up.

223

And there a garden we dug with a stick,
And planted with flower-seeds ever so thick,
And stuck all the wild flowers we found, in it too,
And dug them up daily to see how they grew.

Sometimes both our children we hushed into bed,
And wove wreaths of woodbine to wear on our head,
And barberries for ear-rings we tied on with strings
And went to make visits to queens and to kings.

Oh! 'twas so pleasant there in the wood,
How glad I should be to go back, if I could—
But the fairy returns not that carried me there,
And the place without her would be dreary and bare.

226

THE TORRENT.

In wild exuberant joy from thy mountain home
Thou camest in early spring,
Impetuous, breaking along in foam
And gladdening every thing.

What fulness of life! what scorn of obstacles!
What pride that young heart filled!
The maiden-hair trembled, and all the purple bells
With joy and fear were thrilled.

Over the drudging, laboring wheel with a shout
Thou wentest, with streaming hair,
Thy bounty of diamonds scattering all about
On the aspens flickering there.

227

The maiden smiled as she saw thy sunny flow,
And the youth smiled back in pride,
But the miller gazed at both with an anxious brow
As he shook his head and sighed.

I saw thee later—all shrunken to a thread,
When summer's joy was flown,
Stealing slowly along thy wasted bed,
Fretting at every stone.

The leaves of the maiden-hair were crisp and dry,
The purple bells were gone—
Lonely the maiden wept for the days gone by,
And her cheek was shrunk and wan.

The broken mill-wheel went no longer round—
The miller's grave was there;
Only a bird was singing, whose glad, sweet sound
Brought to the heart despair.

228

TO J. S.

“Better is the sight of the eye than the wandering of the desire.”—

6 Ecclesiastes, ix.

I yield thee unto higher spheres,
I bend my head and say, “Thy will
Not mine be done,” though bitter tears
The while my eyelids fill.

I know thou hast escaped the blight
That wilts us here, and entered now
To perfect day—though in the night
Bereft of thee we bow.

And yet thy little sunny life
Was beautiful as it was brief;
It was not vexed by pain or strife,
It knew but little grief.

229

The sunshine from our house is gone,
And from our hearts their peace and joy;
We feel so terribly alone
Without thee—dearest boy!

Thou mad'st us feel how very fair
God's earth could be, and taught us love;
And in life's tapestry of care
A golden figure wove.

Brave as we will our hearts to bear,
Grief will not wholly be denied;
The ineffectual dykes we rear
Go down before its tide.

We lie all prostrate—cannot feel
God's love—we only cry aloud,
“Oh, God! oh, God!” for all things reel,
And God hides in a cloud.

230

We blindly wail, for we are maimed
Beyond repair, until at last
He lifts us up—all bleeding, lamed,
And shattered by the blast.

He asks, “And would you wish him back,
Whom I have taken to my joy,—
Drag downward to Life's narrow track
Your little spirit boy?”

“No! no!” the spirit makes reply—
“Not back to earthly chance and pain;”
“Yet ah!” the shattered senses cry,
“Would he were here again.”

He was so meshed within our love
That all our heart strings bleeding lie,
And all fond hopes we round him wove
Are now but agony.

231

Yet let us suffer—he is freed,
And on our tears a bridge of light
Is built by God, his steps to lead
To joys beyond our sight.

Rome, Dec. 1853.

232

COUPLETS.

[I. To each his separate work; the ox to drag the plough]

To each his separate work; the ox to drag the plough,
The bird to sing his song upon the blossomy bough.

I do not ask the grain and hay your acres yield,
If I may pluck the flower you trample in your field.

How perfect nature is! the sun, and cloud, and rain
Give me a little song, and ripen all your grain.

[III. Strive not to say the whole! the Poet, in his Art]

Strive not to say the whole! the Poet, in his Art,
Must intimate the whole, and say the smallest part.

The young moon's silver arc her perfect circle tells,
The limitless within Art's bounded outline dwells.

Of every noble work the silent part is best,
Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.

Each act contains the Life, each work of Art the world,
And all the planet laws are in each dew-drop pearled.

234

Of single stones is built the temple's Grecian state,
Yet should the poet not its stones enumerate.

The lizard gliding o'er the Pyramid's huge cone,
Knows not the Pyramids, but only every stone.

Subservient to the form all details must be brought,
All images be slaves to one despotic thought.

[IV. We of our age are part, and every thrill that wakes]

We of our age are part, and every thrill that wakes
The tremulous air of Life, its motion in us makes.

The imitative mass mere empty echo give,
As walls and rocks return the sound that they receive.

But as the bell that high in some cathedral swings,
Stirred by whatever thrill with its own music rings,

235

So finer souls give forth to each vibrating tone
Impinging on their life—a music of their own.

[V. All Arts are one, howe'er distributed they stand]

All Arts are one, howe'er distributed they stand,
Verse, tone, shape, color, form, are fingers on one hand.

[VI. Lift thou thyself above the accidents of life]

Lift thou thyself above the accidents of life,
With pain and joy alike be friends, abjuring strife.

If in thy growing fields the tempest beat thy grain,
See! it hath blown disease from off the stagnant plain.

If Friendship seize the sword, bare thou thy breast and wait,
Love conquers Love, but Hate hath never conquered Hate.

236

Patient the wounded earth receives the plough's sharp share,
And hastes the sweet return of golden grain to bear.

The sea remembers not the vessel's rending keel,
But rushes joyously the ravage to conceal.

So, patient under scorn and injury abide,—
Who conquereth all within may dare the world outside.

[VII. Why fear the critic's pen; if dipped in gall it be]

Why fear the critic's pen; if dipped in gall it be
It but corrodes itself, it cannot injure thee.

Sound speech, howe'er severe, deem thou the surgeon's knife
That cuts the cancer out and thereby saves the life.

237

Yet, let the surgeon heed, the flesh he takes oft lies
So near the patient's heart, that taken thence, he dies.

[VIII. The old because 'tis old the fool will reverence]

The old because 'tis old the fool will reverence—
The new because 'tis new, to him is void of sense.

Leave him with feeble bow his pointless jeer to shoot;
The wise would understand before they would refute.

When sliding down its rails the engine thunders, mark!
From every farm-house runs some foolish cur to bark.

[IX. Yes, thrift is very good. Respect to men of thrift]

Yes, thrift is very good. Respect to men of thrift!
They stick to solid facts, and let the dreamer drift.

238

The earth their mother is, their heart unto her clings,
And since they live with her why should they covet wings?

They find in common life a present task to do,
The distant and the dim let idle poets woo.

Yet out of earth alone was no man ever made?
The imagination gives the very soul to Trade.

The merchant schemes and dreams, with magic numbers plays,
On speculation's wings he threads through fortune's maze.

Across the pathless deep his ships like shuttles fly,
And weave together lands by needs and luxury.

With astrologic faith he on the stars relies,
And ventures all his wealth to shifting winds and skies.

239

He trusts a needle's point, a few weak planks and chart,
To bring an Eastern spice into a Western mart.

What Faith in things unseen! Hath any poet's dreams
More fancy than your plain and sober merchant's schemes?

[X. Live not without a friend! The Alpine rock must own]

Live not without a friend! The Alpine rock must own
Its mossy grace or else be nothing but a stone.

Live not without a God! however low or high,
In every house should be a window to the sky.

[XI. Herein the spirit's gifts are not like those of clay]

Herein the spirit's gifts are not like those of clay—
The spirit does not lose by what it gives away.

240

So at the candle's flame if we another light,
The first hath nothing lost of beautiful or bright.

The lamp of human love like to the candle burns,
Its life is but to give, it seeketh no returns.

[XII. As rooted to the rock the yearning sea-weed grows]

As rooted to the rock the yearning sea-weed grows
And sways unto the tide, and feels its ebbs and flows;

So unto Reason fixed, yet floating ever free
In Feeling's ebb and flow the Artist's life should be.

[XIII. How use and custom steal from fairest things their grace]

How use and custom steal from fairest things their grace,
And how privation makes us feel the vacant place.

The open sky I breathed seemed not so sweet and pure
Till I was doomed this damp, foul dungeon to endure.

241

I never knew, dear friend, your love's necessity,
But by Death's chasm left where once you used to be.

[XIV. While we are young our youth too near for Art doth lie]

While we are young our youth too near for Art doth lie—
Our life a poem is, but for another's eye.

Youth by projection knows how glorious manhood is,
And manhood feels youth's charm by golden memories.

Not in the present we the present charm can feel,
But Memory and Hope have Beauty's wondrous seal.

Time smelts the dross away and leaves the ore alone,
And in a magic ring it sets life's opal stone.

242

[XV. In every leaf is seen the structure of the tree]

In every leaf is seen the structure of the tree—
In every drop, the earth—in man, society.

Nought universal ere was spoken, thought, or done,
That was not owed unto the private truth of one.

All nature is akin—all parts of one vast mind,
And universals we in individuals find.

[XVI. The scholar like a ship is filled with foreign store]

The scholar like a ship is filled with foreign store,
Yet oft his life and thought are barnacled with lore.

Sometimes rich fruit and wine he brings from lands unknown—
And sometimes he returns all ballasted with stone.

Nought in his mind or heart should dead and foreign dwell—
But change into himself like pearls within their shell.

243

Let him assimilate his knowledge as his food,
This, unto feeling, thought; as that, to flesh and blood.

[XVII. What strange and magic power in sympathy resides?]

What strange and magic power in sympathy resides?
It doubles all our joys, our sorrows it divides.

How sweet, dear friend, to feel that I with thee may share
Whatever life may bring of thought, or hope, or care.

Yet in his inmost self must each one stand alone,
Be, think, decide, act, die,—a single separate one.

[XVIII. Pain of the devil is, with God is joy alone]

Pain of the devil is, with God is joy alone,
And love's delicious fruit hath not sin's bitter stone.

Joy is life's natural flow, when feelings meet no shock,
And Sin the eddying whirl around some hidden rock.

244

When in the glow of love, the loved one at thy side,
How broad thy being is—thy sympathy how wide.

Thy love illumes the world; the beggar in thy way
Gets silver now who got but curses yesterday.

[XIX. That dress of thine is made of many lives; I see]

That dress of thine is made of many lives; I see
Upon thy coral there the diver's misery.

Thy shawl is red with blood, for that the camel bled;
The seamstress sewed her pain into thy lace's thread.

The tortured worm gave up his tomb thy silk to make,
The oyster bore his pearl of trouble for thy sake.

The frolic kid was flayed thy snowy hands to hide,
A thousand cochineals to paint thy ribbon died.

245

Thou wouldst not crush a worm, so gentle is thy heart,
And yet, behold! how strange a paradox thou art.

[XX. The conscious Intellect the servant is of Art]

The conscious Intellect the servant is of Art,
The unconscious Phantasy performs the master's part.

Despite the helm and sail the vessel will not go
Howe'er we strive, until the breath of heaven shall blow.

Love is the only key of knowledge as of Art,
Nothing is truly ours but what we learn by heart.

[XXI. Like to the human frame, or like the spreading tree]

Like to the human frame, or like the spreading tree,
So History grows and has its live anatomy.

246

From age to age it grows, here lopped, and stunted there,
And strives its perfect form of Liberty to wear.

Ah! what a wondrous voice of sorrow from it grieves,
As in the air of Time it shakes its myriad leaves.

There sits the carrion crow of Hate, and croaks for Death,
While Love's white dove lies torn and bleeding underneath.

Shall that day never come when all its limbs shall shoot
In peaceful freedom forth to blossom, leaf and fruit.

When lifting perfect up its form unto the skies,
The winds amid its boughs shall weave their melodies.

247

[XXII. I look into thine eyes, myself, dear love, to see]

I look into thine eyes, myself, dear love, to see,
For all I am, and hope, is given unto thee.

[XXIII. Seek not to pour the world into thy little mould]

Seek not to pour the world into thy little mould,
Each as its nature is, its being must unfold.

Enjoy the good, nor seek too much to criticize,
Within the slag of vice the gold of virtue lies.

Vice is not wholly vice, but virtue in the growth,
And falsehood but the germ of undeveloped truth.

Thy virtue is thine own; in others it may be
The meanest vice that man can have—Hypocrisy.

Thou art but as a string in life's vast sounding-board,
And other strings as sweet will not with thine accord.

248

[XXIV. An inward faith alone can make our life sincere]

An inward faith alone can make our life sincere,
And into Art that life transmuted should appear.

Not of a trick or lie those fairest shapes are born,
That seem like human souls that godlike forms have worn.

The Greek in nature saw his gods half-hidden lurk,
And copying nature, wrought his gods into his work.

[XXV. Nature in circles moves round fixed and central laws]

Nature in circles moves round fixed and central laws,
The spirit's spiral path a moving centre draws.

The seed results the tree, the tree results the seed,
Its ultimated fruit but to its root doth lead.

249

But thought strives ever up, beyond itself aspires,
New forms and higher powers are born of its desires.

Rest absolute is death; rest relative alone
To Nature must belong; the soul must on and on.

What askest thou of Death, but that the senses' door
It shall unlock and let the spirit upward soar?

Soar on and up, its God projecting as it goes,
Expanding into love, and joy, and peace—but not repose.

In utter rest the soul could never fitly dwell,
Debarred from upward growth—e'en Paradise were hell.

[XXVI. While work is only task we are apprentices]

While work is only task we are apprentices;
The master does his work with joyfulness and ease.

250

His labor is his joy, and not the prize it brings,
And Nature, while he works, to him her secret sings.

[XXVII. Joy is the tone that sounds through nature's myriad vents]

Joy is the tone that sounds through nature's myriad vents,
But Hate is man's alone, and man alone repents.

Yet life hath nobler shapes than sorrows to beget,
God gives us time to live, act, love, but not regret.

For blighted fruit once borne the fruit-tree does not care,
Nor gratulate itself on what was sound and fair.

So let us joyous live—to-day to be and do,
Nor care if good or bad once on our branches grew.

There is no ruined life beyond the smile of heaven,
And compensating grace for every loss is given.

251

The Coliseum's shell is loved of flower and vine,
And through its shattered rents the peaceful planets shine.

[XXVIII. Nature allows not man his brother to exclude]

Nature allows not man his brother to exclude,
She spreads her feast alike for fool, wise, bad and good.

Each what he can may take, so much and nothing more—
Yet nothing that each takes diminishes her store.

Thy walls and gates may shut my feet from thy estate,
Yet Fancy where she will treads scorning wall and gate.

The acres of dead loam—the wood within the trees,
Thou cravest these alone, so hast thou only these.

252

The poet poor, despised, who loiters dreaming by,
Transmutes this dross to gold with wondrous alchemy.

He owns the landscape there—the fine ethereal part;
For him the bird sings while he listens with his heart.

For him the sunset paints—for him the free winds blow;
He takes the spirit there and lets the dead corpse go.

Thy wealth sticks to the earth, a load thou canst not raise—
His, light as thought and safe from death, he bears always.

[XXIX. We are but what we think, and must immortal be]

We are but what we think, and must immortal be,
Else whence hath come the thought of immortality?

253

The limits of its sphere can nothing ere transcend,
And thought roam where it will can never find its end.

Around the soul one thought of nebulous glory clings,
As Saturn is ensphered within its luminous rings.

This pours upon our life its pure and lambent light,
And brings its fullest joy when sorrow brings the night.

[XXX. The East for sweet luxurious ease and rest]

The East for sweet luxurious ease and rest—
For toil, and pain, and struggle is the West.

The calm siesta, pipe, and soft divan
With mild sensations, are for Eastern man.

The fierce debate, the strife for place and power,
The brain and nerve life is our Western dower.

254

With all our rush and toil we scarcely move,
And lose the truest joy of living—love!

[XXXI. Nature will ne'er repeat; whatever she creates]

Nature will ne'er repeat; whatever she creates
An individual is; she never imitates.

Each life she separate makes, whate'er its class may be,
And men are tones whose chord we call society.

What thou hast done is fair—perchance for thee the best;
But yet there is for me a different behest.

We drill all thoughts and acts to Fashion's monotone,
But various Nature still abhors a unison.

With her wide-ranging hand she modulates the keys,
From seeming discord builds progressive harmonies.

255

If we refuse the tone, that God to each has given,
The symphony is marred that earth plays unto heaven.

[XXXII. Where thou art strong and stout thy friend to thee will show]

Where thou art strong and stout thy friend to thee will show—
Where thou art weak alone is taught thee by thy fee.

Therefore despise him not; but 'neath his battle-axe
See if thy armor ring whole, sound, or 'neath it cracks.

Though friend with flattery soothe, or foe stab through and through,
Praise cannot save the False, nor malice kill the True.

[XXXIII. The Imperfect hath a charm the Perfect cannot own]

The Imperfect hath a charm the Perfect cannot own;
From satisfaction Hope ungirds her flashing zone.

256

No perfect nature shapes—she only hints in each
And tantalizes with her partly finished speech.

[XXXIV. The torch you turn to earth still upward lifts its flame]

The torch you turn to earth still upward lifts its flame,
And so the soul looks up though turned to earth in shame.

268

THE BLACK-LETTER TEXT.

Not till the light of Joy has passed away
The orb of Patience rises full and great
To rule our life with soft and shadowy sway,
And sanctify the ruins of our state.

When sorrow calls us, from the feast we rise,
Its lights are glaring, trivial are its smiles,
And Thought walks on 'mid buried memories,
Like some cowled monk along the tomb-strewn aisles.

We go to Silence—In its cell we sit
And read the mournful missal of man's fate,
The sad black-letter text in which is writ
E'en the illumined chapter of the great.

269

Girt round by walls we never can o'erpeer,
With one dark gate, where all our pathways end,
Puzzled we stand, in hope, but yet in fear,
Unknowing where the ceaseless passers wend.

“Farewell!” they say, “To Love and Joy we go,”
We have not faith, or we should smile again,
But ah! we beat the gate, and wild with woe
We struggle like a madman with his chain.

Yet, with this farthing candle of our Faith,
Into the dark dread void beyond we peer,
There each beholds upon the blank of death
The trembling shadows of his hope or fear.

271

THE AUTUMN CYCLAMEN.

A little timid thing it is,
And though its sisters all are round
It trembles at the slightest breeze,
And ever gazes on the ground.

It does not dare to be alone,
And almost shudders to be seen,
And yet it wears a purple crown
As it were born to be a queen.

The summer's latest child, it rears
Its slender form of bashful grace
And has its mother's dying tears
Upon its pallid little face.

272

The autumn, when it earliest comes,
Like a new step-mother is mild,
But soon a sterner look assumes
And harshly chills the orphan child.

We see her in the dried-up grass,
With yellow leaves around her shed,
Fearing, when we who love her pass,
And hanging down her pensive head.

Villa Barberini, 1853.

273

DIRGE.

Bear him gently to his tomb,
Scatter roses on his bier,
Pure in heart, in vernal bloom,
He hath vanished from us here.

Hushed and low be every strain,
Even-tempered be our grief,
Who could wish him back again,
Even though his life were brief.

He hath vanished from the shroud,
Off the body we must bear,
Like the lightning from the cloud,
Like a song into the air.

274

THE BIVOUAC.

Our camp fire fitfully flashes,
Where darkly we bivouac,
And the morning will see our ashes,
But we come never back.

We have the stars above us
That burn with a pitying light,
But despite the hearts that love us
We are alone in the night.

Alone, and none can reach us,
Of all who would below,
And there is nothing to teach us
What we must die to know.

275

Some struggle, their hot lips parching,
Some die of sheer despair;
But we know not where we are marching,
We know not what we are.

Our comrade falls beside us,
But we cannot give him breath,
And in vain we strive to hide us
Out of the sight of death.

Through tight-pressed lips we mutter
Our soldier watchword, Faith,
If we speak more we stutter,
And none knoweth what he saith.

This is our solemn camping,
In our bivouac at night,
But where shall we be tramping
In the morning's early light?

278

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

“And for our tong, that still is so empayred
By travelling linguists,—I can proved it clear
That no tong has the muses' utterance heyred
For verse, and that swete music to the ear
Strook out of Rhyme so naturally as this.”
Chapman.

Give me of every language, first my vigorous English
Stored with imported wealth, rich in its natural mines—
Grand in its rhythmical cadence, simple for household employment—
Worthy the poet's song, fit for the speech of a man.

Not from one metal alone the perfectest mirror is shapen,
Not from one color is built the rainbow's aërial bridge,

279

Instruments blending together yield the divinest of music,
Out of a myriad flowers sweetest of honey is drawn.

So unto thy close strength is welded and beaten together
Iron dug from the North, ductile gold from the South;
So unto thy broad stream the ice-torrents born in the mountains
Rush, and the rivers pour brimming with sun from the plains.

Thou hast the sharp clean edge and the downright blow of the Saxon,
Thou the majestical march and the stately pomp of the Latin,
Thou the euphonious swell, the rhythmical roll of the Greek;
Thine is the elegant suavity caught from sonorous Italian,

280

Thine the chivalric obeisance, the courteous grace of the Norman—
Thine the Teutonic German's inborn guttural strength.

Raftered by firm-laid consonants, windowed by opening vowels,
Thou securely art built, free to the sun and the air;
Over thy feudal battlements trail the wild tendrils of fancy,
Where in the early morn warbled our earliest birds;
Science looks out from thy watch-tower, love whispers in at thy lattice,
While o'er thy bastions wit flashes its glittering sword.

Not by corruption rotted nor slowly by ages degraded,
Have the sharp consonants gone crumbling away from our words;

281

Virgin and clean is their edge like granite blocks chiselled by Egypt;
Just as when Shakespeare and Milton laid them in glorious verse.

Fitted for every use like a great majestical river,
Blending thy various streams, stately thou flowest along,
Bearing the white-winged ship of Poesy over thy bosom,
Laden with spices that come out of the tropical isles,
Fancy's pleasuring yacht with its bright and fluttering pennons,
Logic's frigates of war and the toil-worn barges of trade.

How art thou freely obedient unto the poet or speaker
When, in a happy hour, thought into speech he translates;

282

Caught on the word's sharp angles flash the bright hues of his fancy—
Grandly the thought rides the words, as a good horseman his steed.

Now, clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hail-stones,
Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower—
Now in a twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee,
Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along—
Now with a sprightlier springiness bounding in triplicate syllables,
Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on,
Now their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas
Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words.

283

Flexile and free in thy gait and simple in all thy construction,
Yielding to every turn thou bearest thy rider along;
Now like our hackney or draught-horse serving our commonest uses,
Now bearing grandly the Poet Pegasus-like to the sky.

Thou art not prisoned in fixed rules, thou art no slave to a grammar,
Thou art an eagle uncaged scorning the perch and the chain,
Hadst thou been fettered and formalized, thou hadst been tamer and weaker.
How could the poor slave walk with thy grand freedom of gait?
Let then grammarians rail and let foreigners sigh for thy signposts,
Wandering lost in thy maze, thy wilds of magnificent growth.

284

Call thee incongruous, wild, of rule and of reason defiant;
I in thy wildness a grand freedom of character find.
So with irregular outline tower up the sky-piercing mountains
Rearing o'er yawning chasms lofty precipitous steeps,
Spreading o'er ledges unclimbable, meadows and slopes of green smoothness,
Bearing the flowers in their clefts, losing their peaks in the clouds.

Therefore it is that I praise thee and never can cease from rejoicing,
Thinking that good stout English is mine and my ancestors' tongue;
Give me its varying music, the flow of its free modulation—
I will not covet the full roll of the glorious Greek,—

285

Luscious and feeble Italian, Latin so formal and stately,
French with its nasal lisp nor German inverted and harsh—
Not while our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices—
Play on the soft flute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war,
Sing with the high sesquialtro, or drawing its full diapason
Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops.

286

SAPPHO.

My love is false and my life is lorn,
Roll on, oh ruthless sea!
The wreath from my head is rudely torn,
Moan, with me!

Curses on her who stole my love!
Curses, Lesbos, light on thee!
False to her, oh! Phaon prove
As to me.

There is the necklace once he gave—
Take it false and changeful sea!
There is the harp for thy treacherous wave!
Now take me!

289

TO G. W. C. AND C. P. C.

The hours on the old Piazza
That overhangs the sea
With a tender and pensive sweetness
At times steal over me;
And again o'er the balcony leaning,
We list to the surf on the beach,
That fills with its solemn warning
The intervals of speech.

We three sit at night in the moonlight,
As we sat in the summer gone,
And we talk of art and nature
And sing as we sit alone;
We sing the old songs of Sorrento,
Where oranges hang o'er the sea,
And our hearts are tender with dreaming
Of days that no more shall be.

290

How gayly the hours went with us
In those old days that are gone,
Ah! would we were all together,
Where now I am standing alone.
Could life be again so perfect?
Ah, never! these years so drain
The heart of its freshness of feeling,
But I long, though the longing be vain.

291

THE LOCUST-TREES.

Fair locust-trees—fair locust-trees,
The noontide bower of booming bees
That clustering poise with busy noise
And round your whitening blossoms hum,
When twilight gray, at close of day,
Creeps nestling deeper in your gloom,
And fire-flies lighten through the night,
Again to you we'll come.

Fair locust-trees—dear locust-trees,
Oh! whisper not unto the breeze
What yesternight in love's true plight
We swore by all the stars above.
Fill with perfume the twilight gloom,
And o'er us spread your blossomy roof
To keep the moon from prying down
To stare upon our love.

292

Fair locust-trees—sweet locust-trees,
Tell not by day the mysteries,
The loves and fears, the night wind hears
When hiding in your leafy breast.
Oh! breathe no word of all you heard,
When lips to clinging lips were pressed,
And burning Youth its maddened troth
Of Passion first expressed.

Fair locust-trees—dear locust-trees,
From you let none the secret tease,
And you shall bloom for years to come
And we will tend you till you die.
When glow-worms light the bank at night,
And crickets clirr and soft bats fly,
We shall be near—then locusts dear
Hide us from every eye.

Castel Gandolfo, July, 1582.

293

SORRENTO.

The midnight, thick with cloud,
Hangs o'er the city's jar,
The spirit's shell is in the crowd,
The spirit is afar;
Far, where in shadowy gloom
Sleeps the dark orange grove,
My sense is drunk with its perfume,
My heart with love.

The slumberous, whispering sea,
Creeps up the sands to lay
Its sliding bosom fringed with pearls
Upon the rounded bay.
List! all the trembling leaves
Are rustling overhead,

294

Where purple grapes are hanging dark
On the trellised loggia spread.

Far off, a misted cloud,
Hangs fair Inarimè.
The boatman's song from the lighted boat
Rises from out the sea.
We listen—then thy voice
Pours forth a honeyed rhyme;
Ah! for the golden nights we passed
In our Italian time.

There is the laugh of girls
That walk along the shore,
The marinaio calls to them
As he suspends his oar.
Vesuvius rumbles sullenly,
With fitful lurid gleam,
The background of all Naples life,
The nightmare of its dream.

295

Oh! lovely, lovely Italy,
I yield me to thy spell!
Reach the guitar, my dearest friend,
We'll sing, “Home! fare thee well!”
Oh! world of work and noise,
What spell hast thou for me?
The syren Beauty charms me here
Beyond the sea.

296

PROLOGUE,

SPOKEN AT THE INAUGURATION OF CRAWFORD'S BRONZE STATUE OF BEETHOVEN, AT THE BOSTON MUSIC HALL, MARCH 1, 1856.

Lift the veil! the work is finished; fresh created from the hands
Of the artist,—grand and simple, there our great Beethoven stands.
Clay no longer—he has risen from the buried mould of earth,
To a golden form transfigured by a new and glorious birth.
Art hath bid the evanescent pause and know no more decay;
Made the mortal shape immortal, that to dust has passed away.
There's the brow by thought o'erladen, with its tempest of wild hair;

297

There the mouth so sternly silent and the square cheeks seamed with care;
There the eyes so visionary, straining out, yet seeing naught
But the inward world of genius and the ideal forms of thought;
There the hand that gave its magic to the cold, dead, ivory keys,
And from out them tore the struggling chords of mighty symphonies.
There the figure, calm, concentred, on its breast the great head bent;—
Stand forever thus, great master! thou thy fittest monument!

Poor in life, by friends deserted, through disease and pain and care,
Bravely, stoutly hast though striven, never yielding to despair;
High the claims of Art upholding; firm to Freedom; in a crowd

298

Where the highest bent as courtiers, speaking manfully and loud.
In thy silent world of deafness, broken by no human word,
Music sang with voice ideal, while thy listening spirit heard;
Tones consoling and prophetic, tones to raise, refine and cheer;
Deathless tones, that thou hast garnered to refresh and charm us here.
And for all these “riches fineless,” all these wondrous gifts of thine,
We have only Fame's dry laurel on thy careworn brow to twine.
We can only say, Great Master, take the homage of our heart;
Be the High Priest in our temple, dedicate to thee and Art;
Stand before us, and enlarge us with thy presence and thy power,
And o'er all Art's deeps and shallows light us like a beacon-tower.

299

In the mighty realm of Music there is but a single speech,
Universal as the world is, that to every heart can reach.
Thou within that realm art monarch, but the humblest vassal there
Knows the accents of that language when it calls to war or prayer.
Underneath its world-wide Banyan, friends the gathering nations sit;
Red Sioux and dreamy German dance and feast and fight to it.
When the storm of battle rages, and the brazen trumpet blares,
Cheering on the serried tumult, in the van its meteor flares;
Sings the laurelled song of conquest, o'er the buried comrade wails,
Plays the peaceful pipes of shepherds in the lone Etrurian vales;

300

Whispers love beneath the lattice, where the honeysuckle clings;
Crowns the bowl and cheers the dancers, and its peace to sorrow brings;—
Nature knows its wondrous magic, always speaks in tune and rhyme;
Doubles in the sea the heaven, echoes on the rocks the chime.
All her forests sway harmonious, all her torrents lisp in song;
And the starry spheres make music, gladly journeying along.

Thou hast touched its mighty mystery, with a finger as of fire;
Thrilled the heart with rapturous longing, bade the struggling soul aspire;
Through thy daring modulations, mounting up o'er dizzy stairs
Of harmonic change and progress, into high Elysian airs,

301

Where the wings of angels graze us, and the voices of the spheres
Seem not far, and glad emotions fill the silent eyes with tears.
What a vast, majestic structure thou hast builded out of sound,
With its high peak piercing Heaven, and its base deep underground.
Vague as air, yet firm and real to the spiritual eye,
Seamed with fire its cloudy bastions far away uplifted lie,
Like those sullen shapes of thunder we behold at close of day,
Piled upon the far horizon, where the jagged lightnings play.
Awful voices, as from Hades, thrill us, growling from its heart;
Sudden splendors blaze from out it, cleaving its black walls apart;
White-winged birds dart forth and vanish, singing, as they pass from sight,

302

Till at last it lifts, and 'neath it shows a field of amber light
Where some single star is shining, throbbing like a new-born thing,
And the earth, all drenched in splendor, lets its happy voices sing.

Topmost crown of ancient Athens towered the Phidian Parthenon;
Upon Freedom's noble forehead, Art the starry jewel, shone.
Here as yet in our Republic, in the furrows of our soil,
Slowly grows Art's timid blossom 'neath the heavy foot of toil.
Spurn it not—but spare it, nurse it, till it gladden all the land;
Hail to-day this seed of promise, planted by a generous hand—
Our first statue to an artist—nobly given, nobly planned.

303

Never is a nation finished while it wants the grace of Art—
Use must borrow robes from Beauty, life must rise above the mart.
Faith and love are all ideal, speaking with a music tone—
And without their touch of magic, labor is the Devil's own.
Therefore are we glad to greet thee, master artist, to thy place,
For we need in all our living Beauty and ideal grace,
Mostly here, to lift our nation, move its heart and calm its nerves,
And to round life's angled duties to imaginative curves.
Mid the jarring din of traffic, let the Orphic tone of Art
Lull the barking Cerberus in us, soothe the cares that gnaw the heart.

304

With thy universal language, that our feeble speech transcends,
Wing our thoughts that creep and grovel, come to us when speaking ends,
Bear us into realms ideal, where the cant of common sense
Dins no more its heartless maxims to the jingling of its pence.
Thence down dropped into the Actual, we shall on our garments bear
Perfume of an unknown region, beauty of celestial air;
Life shall wear a nobler aspect, joy shall greet us in the street;
Earthy dust of low ambition shall be shaken from our feet.
Evil spirits that torment us, into air shall vanish all,
And the magic harp of David soothe the haunted heart of Saul.

305

As of yore the swart Egyptians rent the air with choral song,
When Osiris' golden statue triumphing they bore along;
As along the streets of Florence, borne in glad procession went
Cimabuè's famed Madonna, praised by voice and instrument;
Let our voices sing thy praises, let our instruments combine,
Till the hall with triumph echo, for the hour and place are thine.

306

L'ENVOI.

The corn is reaped from off my field,
But half the ears are spoiled with rot
And all is starveling, and not
What happier acres yield.

The fallow of the year gives stop.
Say! when the spring comes round again,
Is it worth while to sow my grain
And try another crop?

I know not! come to me and say
Good friend! if this thin, arid soil,
Is worth the tilling and the toil
I seem to throw away?

307

Or is it better it should stand
With scarlet poppy, buttercup,
And dandelion peeping up,
A simple pasture land?

A lazy pasture land of ease
Where sheep may crop and goats may graze,
And wavering foot-paths make their ways
To little cottages?

A little Common, unimproved
That care and pains have never irked
Where we may say, “we have not worked,
But we have only loved?”

Jan. '56.

University of Virginia Library