The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning / Cambridge Edition

by Robert Browning

ACT IV

Scene I. Whitehall.

The King, the Queen, Hollis, Lady Carlisle. (Vane, Holland, Savile, in the background.)

Lady Car. Answer them, Hollis, for his sake! One word!

Cha. [To Hollis.] You stand, silent and cold, as though I were

Deceiving you—my friend, my playfellow

Of other times. What wonder after all?

Just so, I dreamed my People loved me.

Hol. Sir,

It is yourself that you deceive, not me.

You 'll quit me comforted, your mind made up

That, since you 've talked thus much and grieved thus much,

All you can do for Strafford has been done.

Queen. If you kill Strafford—(come, we grant you leave.

Suppose)—

Hol. I may withdraw, sir?

Lady Car. Hear them out!

'T is the last chance for Strafford! Hear them out!

Hol. "If we kill Strafford"—on the eighteenth day

Of Strafford's trial—"We!"

Cha. Pym, my good Hollis—

Pym, I should say!

Hol. Ah, true—sir, pardon me!

You witness our proceedings every day;

But the screened gallery, I might have guessed,

Admits of such a partial glimpse at us,

Pym takes up all the room, shuts out the view.

Still, on my honor, sir, the rest of the place

Is not unoccupied. The Commons sit

—That 's England; Ireland sends, and Scotland too,

Their representatives; the Peers that judge

Are easily distinguished; one remarks

The People here and there: but the close curtain

Must hide so much!

Queen. Acquaint your insolent crew.

This day the curtain shall be dashed aside!

It served a purpose.

Hol. Think! This very day?

Ere Strafford rises to defend himself?

Cha. I will defend him, sir!—sanction the past

This day: it ever was my purpose. Rage

At me, not Strafford!

Lady Car. Nobly!—will he not

Do nobly?

Hol. Sir, you will do honestly;

And, for that deed, I too would be a king.

Cha. Only, to do this now!—"deaf" (in your style)

"To subjects' prayers,"—I must oppose them now!

It seems their will the trial should proceed,—

So palpably their will!

Hol. You peril much,

But it were no bright moment save for that.

Strafford, your prime support, the sole roof-tree

Which props this quaking House of Privilege.

(Flood comes, winds beat, and see—the treacherous sand!)

Doubtless, if the mere putting forth an arm

Could save him, you 'd save Strafford.

Cha. And they dare

Consummate calmly this great wrong! No hope?

This ineffaceable wrong! No pity then?

Hol. No plague in store for perfidy?—Farewell!

You call me, sir— [To Lady Carlisle.] You, lady, bade me come

To save the Earl: I came, thank God for it,

To learn how far such perfidy can go!

You, sir, concert with me on saving him

Who have just ruined Strafford!

Cha. I?—and how?

Hol. Eighteen days long he throws, one after one,

Pym's charges back: a blind moth-eaten law!

—He 'll break from it at last: and whom to thank?

The mouse that gnawed the lion's net for him

Got a good friend,—but he, the other mouse,

That looked on while the lion freed himself—

Fared he so well, does any fable say?

Cha. What can you mean?

Hol. Pym never could have proved

Strafford's design of bringing up the troops

To force this kingdom to obedience: Vane—

Your servant, not our friend, has proved it.

Cha. Vane?

Hol. This day. Did Vane deliver up or no

Those notes which, furnished by his son to Pym,

Seal Strafford's fate?

Cha. Sir, as I live, I know

Nothing that Vane has done! What treason next?

I wash my hands of it. Vane, speak the truth!

Ask Vane himself!

Hol. I will not speak to Vane,

Who speak to Pym and Hampden every day.

Queen. Speak to Vane's master then! What gain to him

Were Strafford's death?

Hol. Ha? Strafford cannot turn

As you, sir, sit there—bid you forth, demand

If every hateful act were not set down

In his commission?—whether you contrived

Or no, that all the violence should seem

His work, the gentle ways—your own,—his part,

To counteract the King's kind impulses—

While ... but you know what he could say! And then

He might produce—mark, sir!—a certain charge

To set the King's express command aside,

If need were, and be blameless. He might add ...

Cha. Enough!

Hol. —Who bade him break the Parliament,

Find some pretence for setting up sword-law!

Queen. Retire!

Cha. Once more, whatever Vane dared do,

I know not: he is rash, a fool—I know

Nothing of Vane!

Hol. Well—I believe you. Sir,

Believe me, in return, that ...

[Turning to Lady Carlisle.] Gentle lady,

The few words I would say, the stones might hear

Sooner than these,—I rather speak to you,

You, with the heart! The question, trust me, takes

Another shape, to-day: not, if the King

Or England shall succumb,—but, who shall pay

The forfeit, Strafford or his master. Sir,

You loved me once: think on my warning now!

[Goes out.

Cha. On you and on your warning both!—Carlisle!

That paper!

Queen. But consider!

Cha. Give it me!

There, signed—will that content you? Do not speak!

You have betrayed me, Vane! See! any day,

According to the tenor of that paper,

He bids your brother bring the army up,

Strafford shall head it and take full revenge.

Seek Strafford! Let him have the same, before

He rises to defend himself!

Queen. In truth?

That your shrewd Hollis should have worked a change

Like this! You, late reluctant ...

Cha. Say, Carlisle,

Your brother Percy brings the army up,

Falls on the Parliament—(I 'll think of you,

My Hollis!) say, we plotted long— 't is mine,

The scheme is mine, remember! Say, I cursed

Vane's folly in your hearing! If the Earl

Does rise to do us shame, the fault shall lie

With you, Carlisle!

Lady Car. Nay, fear not me! but still

That 's a bright moment, sir, you throw away.

Tear down the veil and save him!

Queen. Go, Carlisle!

Lady Car. (I shall see Strafford—speak to him: my heart

Must never beat so, then! And if I tell

The truth? What 's gained by falsehood? There they stand

Whose trade it is, whose life it is! How vain

To gild such rottenness! Strafford shall know,

Thoroughly know them!)

Queen. Trust to me! [To Carlisle.] Carlisle,

You seem inclined, alone of all the Court,

To serve poor Strafford: this bold plan of yours

Merits much praise, and yet ...

Lady Car. Time presses, madam.

Queen. Yet—may it not be something premature?

Strafford defends himself to-day—reserves

Some wondrous effort, one may well suppose!

Lady Car. Ay, Hollis hints as much.

Cha.. Why linger then?

Haste with the scheme—my scheme: I shall be there

To watch his look. Tell him I watch his look!

Queen. Stay, we 'll precede you!

Lady Car. At your pleasure.

Cha. Say—

Say, Vane is hardly ever at Whitehall!

I shall be there, remember!

Lady Car. Doubt me not.

Cha. On our return, Carlisle, we wait you here!

Lady Car. I 'll bring his answer. Sir, I follow you.

(Prove the King faithless, and I take away

All Strafford cares to live for: let it be—

'T is the King's scheme!

My Strafford, I can save,

Nay, I have saved you, yet am scarce content,

Because my poor name will not cross your mind.

Strafford, how much I am unworthy you!)

---

Scene II. A passage adjoining Westminster Hall.

Many groups of Spectators of the Trial. Officers of the Court, etc.

1st Spec. More crowd than ever! Not know Hampden, man?

That 's he, by Pym, Pym that is speaking now.

No, truly, if you look so high you 'll see

Little enough of either!

2d Spec. Stay: Pym's arm

Points like a prophet's rod.

3d Spec. Ay, ay, we 've heard

Some pretty speaking: yet the Earl escapes.

4th Spec. I fear it: just a foolish word or two

About his children—and we see, forsooth,

Not England's foe in Strafford, but the man

Who, sick, half-blind ...

2d Spec. What 's that Pym's saying now

Which makes the curtains flutter? look! A hand

Clutches them. Ah! The King's hand!

5th Spec. I had thought

Pym was not near so tall. What said he, friend?

2d Spec. "Nor is this way a novel way of blood,"

And the Earl turns as if to ... Look! look!

Many Spectators. There!

What ails him? No—he rallies, see—goes on,

And Strafford smiles. Strange!

An Officer. Haselrig!

Many Spectators. Friend? Friend?

The Officer. Lost, utterly lost: just when we looked for Pym

To make a stand against the ill effects

Of the Earl's speech! Is Haselrig without?

Pym's message is to him.

3d Spec. Now, said I true?

Will the Earl leave them yet at fault or no?

1st Spec. Never believe it, man! These notes of Vane's

Ruin the Earl.

5th Spec. A brave end: not a whit

Less firm, less Pym all over. Then, the trial

Is closed. No—Strafford means to speak again?

An Officer. Stand back, there!

5th Spec. Why, the Earl is coming hither!

Before the court breaks up! His brother, look,—

You 'd say he 'd deprecated some fierce act

In Strafford's mind just now.

An Officer. Stand back, I say!

2d Spec. Who 's the veiled woman that he talks with?

Many Spectators. Hush—

The Earl! the Earl!

[Enter Strafford, Slingsby, and other Secretaries, Hollis, Lady Carlisle, Maxwell, Balfour, etc. Strafford converses with Lady Carlisle.

Hol. So near the end! Be patient—

Return!

Straf. [To his Secretaries.] Here—anywhere—or, 't is freshest here!

To spend one's April here, the blossom-month:

Set it down here!

[They arrange a table, papers, etc.

So, Pym can quail, can cower

Because I glance at him, yet more 's to do.

What 's to be answered, Slingsby? Let us end!

[To Lady Carlisle.] Child, I refuse his offer; whatsoe'er

It be! Too late! Tell me no word of him!

'T is something, Hollis, I assure you that—

To stand, sick as you are, some eighteen days

Fighting for life and fame against a pack

Of very curs, that lie through thick and thin,

Eat flesh and bread by wholesale, and can't say

"Strafford" if it would take my life!

Lady Car. Be moved!

Glance at the paper!

Straf. Already at my heels!

Pym's faulting bloodhounds scent the track again.

Peace, child! Now, Slingsby!

[Messengers from Lane and other of Strafford's Counsel within the Hall are coming and going during the Scene.

Straf. [setting himself to write and dictate.] I shall beat you, Hollis!

Do you know that? In spite of St. John's tricks,

In spite of Pym—your Pym who shrank from me!

Eliot would have contrived it otherwise.

[To a Messenger.] In truth? This slip, tell Lane, contains as much

As I can call to mind about the matter.

Eliot would have disdained ...

[Calling after the Messenger.] And Radcliffe, say,

The only person who could answer Pym,

Is safe in prison, just for that.

Well, well!

It had not been recorded in that case,

I baffled you.

[To Lady Carlisle.] Nay, child, why look so grieved?

All 's gained without the King! You saw Pym quail?

What shall I do when they acquit me, think you,

But tranquilly resume my task as though

Nothing had intervened since I proposed

To call that traitor to account! Such tricks,

Trust me, shall not be played a second time,

Not even against Laud, with his gray hair—

Your good work, Hollis! Peace! To make amends,

You, Lucy, shall be here when I impeach

Pym and his fellows.

Hol. Wherefore not protest

Against our whole proceeding, long ago?

Why feel indignant now? Why stand this while

Enduring patiently?

Straf. Child, I 'll tell you—

You, and not Pym—you, the slight graceful girl

Tall for a flowering lily, and not Hollis—

Why I stood patient! I was fool enough

To see the will of England in Pym's will;

To fear, myself had wronged her, and to wait

Her judgment: when, behold, in place of it ...

[To a Messenger who whispers.] Tell Lane to answer no such question! Law,—

I grapple with their law! I 'm here to try

My actions by their standard, not my own!

Their law allowed that levy: what 's the rest

To Pym, or Lane, any but God and me?

Lady Car. The King 's so weak! Secure this chance! 'T was Vane,

Never forget, who furnished Pym the notes ...

Straf. Fit,—very fit, those precious notes of Vane,

To close the Trial worthily! I feared

Some spice of nobleness might linger yet

And spoil the character of all the past.

Vane eased me ... and I will go back and say

As much—to Pym, to England! Follow me,

I have a word to say! There, my defence

Is done!

Stay! why be proud? Why care to own

My gladness, my surprise?—Nay, not surprise!

Wherefore insist upon the little pride

Of doing all myself, and sparing him

The pain? Child, say the triumph is my King's!

When Pym grew pale, and trembled, and sank down,

One image was before me: could I fail?

Child, care not for the past, so indistinct,

Obscure—there 's nothing to forgive in it,

'T is so forgotten! From this day begins

A new life, founded on a new belief

In Charles.

Hol. In Charles? Rather believe in Pym!

And here he comes in proof! Appeal to Pym!

Say how unfair ...

Straf. To Pym? I would say nothing!

I would not look upon Pym's face again.

Lady Car. Stay, let me have to think I pressed your hand!

[Strafford and his Friends go out.

(Enter Hampden and Vane.)

Vane. O Hampden, save the great misguided man!

Plead Strafford's cause with Pym! I have remarked

He moved no muscle when we all declaimed

Against him: you had but to breathe—he turned

Those kind calm eyes upon you.

[Enter Pym, the Solicitor-General St. John, the Managers of the Trial, Fiennes, Rudyard, etc.

Rud. Horrible!

Till now all hearts were with you: I withdraw

For one. Too horrible! But we mistake

Your purpose, Pym: you cannot snatch away

The last spar from the drowning man.

Fien. He talks

With St. John of it—see, how quietly!

[To other Presbyterians.] You 'll join us? Strafford may deserve the worst:

But this new course is monstrous. Vane, take heart!

This Bill of his Attainder shall not have

One true man's hand to it.

Vane. Consider, Pym!

Confront your Bill, your own Bill: what is it?

You cannot catch the Earl on any charge,—

No man will say the law has hold of him

On any charge; and therefore you resolve

To take the general sense on his desert,

As though no law existed, and we met

To found one. You refer to Parliament

To speak its thought upon the abortive mass

Of half-borne-out assertions, dubious hints

Hereafter to be cleared, distortions—ay,

And wild inventions. Every man is saved

The task of fixing any single charge

On Strafford: he has but to see in him

The enemy of England.

Pym. A right scruple!

I have heard some called England's enemy

With less consideration.

Vane. Pity me!

Indeed you make me think I was your friend!

I who have murdered Strafford, how remove

That memory from me?

Pym. I absolve you, Vane.

Take you no care for aught that you have done!

Vane. John Hampden, not this Bill! Reject this Bill!

He staggers through the ordeal: let him go,

Strew no fresh fire before him! Plead for us!

When Strafford spoke, your eyes were thick with tears!

Hamp. England speaks louder: who are we, to play

The generous pardoner at her expense,

Magnanimously waive advantages,

And, if he conquer us, applaud his skill?

Vane. He was your friend.

Pym. I have heard that before.

Fien. And England trusts you.

Hamp. Shame be his, who turns

The opportunity of serving her

She trusts him with, to his own mean account—

Who would look nobly frank at her expense!

Fien. I never thought it could have come to this.

Pym. But I have made myself familiar, Fiennes,

With this one thought—have walked, and sat, and slept,

This thought before me. I have done such things,

Being the chosen man that should destroy

The traitor. You have taken up this thought

To play with, for a gentle stimulant,

To give a dignity to idler life

By the dim prospect of emprise to come,

But ever with the softening, sure belief,

That all would end some strange way right at last.

Fien. Had we made out some weightier charge!

Pym. You say

That these are petty charges: can we come

To the real charge at all? There he is safe

In tyranny's stronghold. Apostasy

Is not a crime, treachery not a crime:

The cheek burns, the blood tingles, when you speak

The words, but where 's the power to take revenge

Upon them? We must make occasion serve,—

The oversight shall pay for the main sin

That mocks us.

Rud. But this unexampled course,

This Bill!

Pym. By this, we roll the clouds away

Of precedent and custom, and at once

Bid the great beacon-light God sets in all,

The conscience of each bosom, shine upon

The guilt of Strafford: each man lay his hand

Upon his breast, and judge!

Vane. I only see

Strafford, nor pass his corpse for all beyond!

Rud. and others. Forgive him! He would join us, now he finds

What the King counts reward! The pardon, too,

Should be your own. Yourself should bear to Strafford

The pardon of the Commons.

Pym. Meet him? Strafford?

Have we to meet once more, then? Be it so!

And yet—the prophecy seemed half fulfilled

When, at the Trial, as he gazed, my youth,

Our friendship, divers thoughts came back at once

And left me, for a time ... 'Tis very sad!

To-morrow we discuss the points of law

With Lane—to-morrow?

Vane. Not before to-morrow—

So, time enough! I knew you would relent!

Pym. The next day, Haselrig, you introduce

The Bill of his Attainder. Pray for me!

---

Scene III. Whitehall.

The King.

Cha. My loyal servant! To defend himself

Thus irresistibly,—withholding aught

That seemed to implicate us!

We have done

Less gallantly by Strafford. Well, the future

Must recompense the past.

She tarries long.

I understand you, Strafford, now!

The scheme—

Carlisle 's mad scheme—he 'll sanction it, I fear,

For love of me. 'T was too precipitate:

Before the army 's fairly on its march,

He 'll be at large: no matter.

Well, Carlisle?

(Enter Pym.)

Pym. Fear me not, sir:—my mission is to save,

This time.

Cha. To break thus on me! unannounced!

Pym. It is of Strafford I would speak.

Cha. No more

Of Strafford! I have heard too much from you.

Pym. I spoke, sir, for the People; will you hear

A word upon my own account?

Cha. Of Strafford?

(So turns the tide already? Have we tamed

The insolent brawler?—Strafford's eloquence

Is swift in its effect.) Lord Strafford, sir,

Has spoken for himself.

Pym. Sufficiently.

I would apprise you of the novel course

The People take: the Trial fails.

Cha. Yes, yes:

We are aware, sir: for your part in it

Means shall be found to thank you.

Pym. Pray you, read

This schedule! I would learn from your own mouth

—(It is a matter much concerning me)—

Whether, if two Estates of us concede

The death of Strafford, on the grounds set forth

Within that parchment, you, sir, can resolve

To grant your own consent to it. This Bill

Is framed by me. If you determine, sir,

That England 's manifested will should guide

Your judgment, ere another week such will

Shall manifest itself. If not,—I cast

Aside the measure.

Cha. You can hinder, then,

The introduction of this Bill?

Pym. I can.

Cha. He is my friend, sir: I have wronged him: mark you,

Had I not wronged him, this might be. You think

Because you hate the Earl ... (turn not away,

We know you hate him)—no one else could love

Strafford: but he has saved me, some affirm.

Think of his pride! And do you know one strange,

One frightful thing? We all have used the man

As though a drudge of ours, with not a source

Of happy thoughts except in us; and yet

Strafford has wife and children, household cares,

Just as if we had never been. Ah, sir,

You are moved, even you, a solitary man

Wed to your cause—to England if you will!

Pym. Yes—think, my soul—to England! Draw not back!

Cha. Prevent that Bill, sir! All your course seems fair

Till now. Why, in the end, 't is I should sign

The warrant for his death! You have said much

I ponder on; I never meant, indeed,

Strafford should serve me any more. I take

The Commons' counsel; but this Bill is yours—

Nor worthy of its leader: care not, sir,

For that, however! I will quite forget

You named it to me. You are satisfied?

Pym. Listen to me, sir! Eliot laid his hand,

Wasted and white, upon my forehead once;

Wentworth—he 's gone now!—has talked on, whole nights,

And I beside him; Hampden loves me: sir,

How can I breathe and not wish England well,

And her King well?

Cha. I thank you, sir, who leave

That King his servant. Thanks, sir!

Pym. Let me speak!

—Who may not speak again; whose spirit yearns

For a cool night after this weary day:

—Who would not have my soul turn sicker yet

In a new task, more fatal, more august,

More full of England's utter weal or woe.

I thought, sir, could I find myself with you,

After this trial, alone, as man to man—

I might say something, warn you, pray you, save—

Mark me, King Charles, save—you!

But God must do it. Yet I warn you, sir—

(With Strafford's faded eyes yet full on me)

As you would have no deeper question moved

—"How long the Many must endure the One,"

Assure me, sir, if England give assent

To Strafford's death, you will not interfere!

Or—

Cha. God forsakes me. I am in a net

And cannot move. Let all be as you say!

(Enter Lady Carlisle.)

Lady Car. He loves you—looking beautiful with joy

Because you sent me! he would spare you all

The pain! he never dreamed you would forsake

Your servant in the evil day—nay, see

Your scheme returned! That generous heart of his!

He needs it not—or, needing it, disdains

A course that might endanger you—you, sir,

Whom Strafford from his inmost soul ...

[Seeing Pym.] Well met!

No fear for Strafford! All that 's true and brave

On your own side shall help us: we are now

Stronger than ever.

Ha—what, sir, is this?

All is not well! What parchment have you there?

Pym. Sir, much is saved us both.

Lady Car. This Bill! Your lip

Whitens—you could not read one line to me

Your voice would falter so!

Pym. No recreant yet!

The great word went from England to my soul,

And I arose. The end is very near.

Lady Car. I am to save him! All have shrunk beside;

'T is only I am left. Heaven will make strong

The hand now as the heart. Then let both die!

---

ACT V
Scene I. Whitehall.

Hollis, Lady Carlisle.

Hol. Tell the King then! Come in with me!

Lady Car. Not so!

He must not hear till it succeeds.

Hol. Succeed?

No dream was half so vain—you 'd rescue Strafford

And outwit Pym! I cannot tell you ... lady,

The block pursues me, and the hideous show.

To-day ... is it to-day? And all the while

He 's sure of the King's pardon. Think, I have

To tell this man he is to die. The King

May rend his hair, for me! I 'll not see Strafford.

Lady Car. Only, if I succeed, remember—Charles

Has saved him. He would hardly value life

Unless his gift. My stanch friends wait. Go in—

You must go in to Charles!

Hol. And all beside

Left Stafford long ago. The King has signed

The warrant for his death! the Queen was sick

Of the eternal subject. For the Court,—

The Trial was amusing in its way,

Only too much of it: the Earl withdrew

In time. But you, fragile, alone, so young,

Amid rude mercenaries—you devise

A plan to save him! Even though it fails,

What shall reward you!

Lady Car. I may go, you think,

To France with him? And you reward me, friend,

Who lived with Strafford even from his youth

Before he set his heart on state-affairs

And they bent down that noble brow of his.

I have learned somewhat of his latter life,

And all the future I shall know: but, Hollis,

I ought to make his youth my own as well.

Tell me,—when he is saved!

Hol. My gentle friend,

He should know all and love you, but 't is vain!

Lady Car. Love? no—too late now! Let him love the King!

'Tis the King's scheme! I have your word, remember!

We 'll keep the old delusion up. But, quick!

Quick! Each of us has work to do, beside!

Go to the King! I hope—Hollis—I hope!

Say nothing of my scheme! Hush, while we speak

Think where he is! Now for my gallant friends!

Hol. Where he is? Calling wildly upon Charles,

Guessing his fate, pacing the prison-floor.

Let the King tell him! I 'll not look on Strafford.

---

Scene II. The Tower.

Strafford sitting with his Children. They sing.

O bell' andare

Per barca in mare,

Verso la sera

Di Primavera!

[[See larger image]]

[[Listen]]

William. The boat 's in the broad moonlight all this while—

Verso la sera

Di Primavera!

And the boat shoots from underneath the moon

Into the shadowy distance; only still

You hear the dipping oar—

Verso la sera,

And faint, and fainter, and then all 's quite gone,

Music and light and all, like a lost star.

Anne. But you should sleep, father: you were to sleep.

Straf. I do sleep, Anne; or if not—you must know

There 's such a thing as ...

Wil. You 're too tired to sleep?

Straf. It will come by-and-by and all day long,

In that old quiet house I told you of:

We sleep safe there.

Anne. Why not in Ireland?

Straf. No!

Too many dreams!—That song 's for Venice, William:

You know how Venice looks upon the map—

Isles that the mainland hardly can let go?

Wil. You 've been to Venice, father?

Straf. I was young, then.

Wil. A city with no King; that 's why I like

Even a song that comes from Venice.

Straf. William?

Wil. Oh, I know why! Anne, do you love the King?

But I 'll see Venice for myself one day.

Straf. See many lands, boy—England last of all,—

That way you 'll love her best.

Wil. Why do men say

You sought to ruin her, then?

Straf. Ah,—they say that.

Wil. Why?

Straf. I suppose they must have words to say,

As you to sing.

Anne. But they make songs beside:

Last night I heard one, in the street beneath,

That called you ... Oh, the names!

Wil. Don't mind her, father!

They soon left off when I cried out to them.

Straf. We shall so soon be out of it, my boy!

'T is not worth while: who heeds a foolish song?

Wil. Why, not the King.

Straf. Well: it has been the fate

Of better; and yet,—wherefore not feel sure

That Time, who in the twilight comes to mend

All the fantastic day's caprice, consign

To the low ground once more the ignoble Term,

And raise the Genius on his orb again,—

That Time will do me right?

Anne. (Shall we sing, William?

He does not look thus when we sing.)

Straf. For Ireland,

Something is done: too little, but enough

To show what might have been.

Wil. (I have no heart

To sing now! Anne, how very sad he looks!

Oh, I so hate the King for all he says!)

Straf. Forsook them? What, the common songs will run

That I forsook the People? Nothing more?

Ay, Fame, the busy scribe, will pause, no doubt,

Turning a deaf ear to her thousand slaves

Noisy to be enrolled,—will register

The curious glosses, subtle notices,

Ingenious clearings-up one fain would see

Beside that plain inscription of The Name—

The Patriot Pym, or the Apostate Strafford!

[The Children resume their song timidly, but break off.

(Enter Hollis and an Attendant.)

Straf. No,—Hollis? in good time!—Who is he?

Hol. One

That must be present.

Straf. Ah—I understand.

They will not let me see poor Laud alone.

How politic! They 'd use me by degrees

To solitude: and, just as you came in,

I was solicitous what life to lead

When Strafford 's "not so much as Constable

In the King's service." Is there any means

To keep one's self awake? What would you do

After this bustle, Hollis, in my place?

Hol. Strafford!

Straf. Observe, not but that Pym and you

Will find me news enough—news I shall hear

Under a quince-tree by a fish-pond side

At Wentworth. Garrard must be re-engaged

My newsman. Or, a better project now—

What if when all 's consummated, and the Saints

Reign, and the Senate's work goes swimingly,—

What if I venture up, some day, unseen,

To saunter through the Town, notice how Pym,

Your Tribune, likes Whitehall, drop quietly

Into a tavern, hear a point discussed,

As, whether Strafford's name were John or James—

And be myself appealed to—I, who shall

Myself have near forgotten!

Hol. I would speak ...

Straf. Then you shall speak,—not now. I want just now,

To hear the sound of my own tongue. This place

Is full of ghosts.

Hol. Nay, you must hear me, Strafford!

Straf. Oh, readily! Only, one rare thing more,—

The minister! Who will advise the King,

Turn his Sejanus, Richelieu and what not,

And yet have health—children, for aught I know—

My patient pair of traitors! Ah,—but, William—

Does not his cheek grow thin?

Wil. 'T is you look thin, Father!

Straf. A scamper o'er the breezy wolds

Sets all to-rights.

Hol. You cannot sure forget

A prison-roof is o'er you, Strafford?

Straf. No,

Why, no. I would not touch on that, the first.

I left you that. Well, Hollis? Say at once,

The King can find no time to set me free!

A mask at Theobald's?

Hol. Hold: no such affair

Detains him.

Straf. True: what needs so great a matter?

The Queen's lip may be sore. Well: when he pleases,—

Only, I want the air: it vexes flesh

To be pent up so long.

Hol. The King—I bear

His message, Strafford: pray you, let me speak!

Straf. Go, William! Anne, try o'er your song again!

[The Children retire.

They shall be loyal, friend, at all events.

I know your message: you have nothing new

To tell me: from the first I guessed as much.

I know, instead of coming here himself,

Leading me forth in public by the hand,

The King prefers to leave the door ajar

As though I were escaping—bids me trudge

While the mob gapes upon some show prepared

On the other side of the river! Give at once

His order of release! I 've heard, as well,

Of certain poor manœuvres to avoid

The granting pardon at his proper risk;

First, he must prattle somewhat to the Lords,

Must talk a trifle with the Commons first,

Be grieved I should abuse his confidence,

And far from blaming them, and ... Where 's the order?

Hol. Spare me!

Straf. Why, he 'd not have me steal away?

With an old doublet and a steeple hat

Like Prynne's? Be smuggled into France, perhaps?

Hollis, 't is for my children! 'T was for them

I first consented to stand day by day

And give your Puritans the best of words,

Be patient, speak when called upon, observe

Their rules, and not return them prompt their lie!

What 's in that boy of mine that he should prove

Son to a prison-breaker? I shall stay

And he 'll stay with me. Charles should know as much,

He too has children!

[Turning to Hollis's companion.] Sir, you feel for me!

No need to hide that face! Though it have looked

Upon me from the judgment-seat ... I know

Strangely, that somewhere it has looked on me ...

Your coming has my pardon, nay, my thanks:

For there is one who comes not.

Hol. Whom forgive,

As one to die!

Straf. True, all die, and all need

Forgiveness: I forgive him from my soul.

Hol. 'T is a world's wonder: Strafford, you must die!

Straf. Sir, if your errand is to set me free

This heartless jest mars much. Ha! Tears in truth?

We 'll end this! See this paper, warm—feel—warm

With lying next my heart! Whose hand is there?

Whose promise? Read, and loud for God to hear!

"Strafford shall take no hurt"—read it, I say!

"In person, honor, nor estate"—

Hol. The King ...

Straf. I could unking him by a breath! You sit

Where Loudon sat, who came to prophesy

The certain end, and offer me Pym's grace

If I 'd renounce the King: and I stood firm

On the King's faith. The King who lives ...

Hol. To sign

The warrant for your death.

Straf. "Put not your trust

In princes, neither in the sons of men,

In whom is no salvation!"

Hol. Trust in God!

The scaffold is prepared: they wait for you:

He has consented. Cast the earth behind!

Cha. You would not see me, Strafford, at your foot!

It was wrung from me! Only, curse me not!

Hol. [To Strafford.] As you hope grace and pardon in your need,

Be merciful to this most wretched man. [Voices from within.

Verso la sera

Di Primavera.

Straf. You 'll be good to those children, sir? I know

You 'll not believe her, even should the Queen

Think they take after one they rarely saw.

I had intended that my son should live

A stranger to these matters: but you are

So utterly deprived of friends! He too

Must serve you—will you not be good to him?

Or, stay, sir, do not promise—do not swear!

You, Hollis—do the best you can for me!

I 've not a soul to trust to: Wandesford 's dead,

And you 've got Radcliffe safe, Laud's turn comes next:

I 've found small time of late for my affairs,

But I trust any of you, Pym himself—

No one could hurt them: there 's an infant, too,—

These tedious cares! Your Majesty could spare them.

Nay—pardon me, my King! I had forgotten

Your education, trials, much temptation,

Some weakness: there escaped a peevish word—

'T is gone: I bless you at the last. You know

All 's between you and me: what has the world

To do with it? Farewell!

Cha. [at the door.] Balfour! Balfour!

(Enter Balfour.)

The Parliament!—go to them: I grant all

Demands. Their sittings shall be permanent:

Tell them to keep their money if they will:

I 'll come to them for every coat I wear

And every crust I eat: only I choose

To pardon Strafford. As the Queen shall choose!

—You never heard the People howl for blood,

Beside!

Balfour. Your Majesty may hear them now:

The walls can hardly keep their murmurs out:

Please you retire!

Cha. Take all the troops, Balfour!

Bal. There are some hundred thousand of the crowd.

Cha. Come with me, Strafford! You 'll not fear, at least!

Straf. Balfour, say nothing to the world of this!

I charge you, as a dying man, forget

You gazed upon this agony of one ...

Of one ... or if ... why, you may say, Balfour,

The King was sorry: 'tis no shame in him:

Yes, you may say he even wept, Balfour,

And that I walked the lighter to the block

Because of it. I shall walk lightly, sir!

Earth fades, heaven breaks on me: I shall stand next

Before God's throne: the moment 's close at hand

When man the first, last time, has leave to lay

His whole heart bare before its Maker, leave

To clear up the long error of a life

And choose one happiness for evermore.

With all mortality about me, Charles,

The sudden wreck, the dregs of violent death—

What if, despite the opening angel-song,

There penetrate one prayer for you? Be saved

Through me! Bear witness, no one could prevent

My death! Lead on! ere he awake—best, now!

All must be ready: did you say, Balfour,

The crowd began to murmur? They 'll be kept

Too late for sermon at St. Antholin's!

Now! But tread softly—children are at play

In the next room. Precede! I follow—

(Enter Lady Carlisle, with many Attendants.)

Lady Car Me!

Follow me, Strafford, and be saved! The King?

[To the King.] Well—as you ordered, they are ranged without,

The convoy ... [seeing the King's state.]

[To Strafford.] You know all, then! Why, I thought

It looked best that the King should save you,—Charles

Alone; 't is a shame that you should owe me aught.

Or no, not shame! Strafford, you 'll not feel shame

At being saved by me?

Hol. All true! Oh Strafford,

She saves you! all her deed! this lady's deed!

And is the boat in readiness? You, friend,

Are Billingsley, no doubt. Speak to her, Strafford!

See how she trembles, waiting for your voice!

The world 's to learn its bravest story yet.

Lady Car. Talk afterward! Long nights in France enough,

To sit beneath the vines and talk of home.

Straf. You love me, child? Ah, Strafford can be loved

As well as Vane! I could escape, then?

Lady Car. Haste!

Advance the torches, Bryan!

Straf. I will die.

They call me proud: but England had no right,

When she encountered me—her strength to mine—

To find the chosen foe a craven. Girl,

I fought her to the utterance, I fell,

I am hers now, and I will die. Beside,

The lookers-on! Eliot is all about

This place, with his most uncomplaining brow.

Lady Car. Strafford!

Straf. I think if you could know how much

I love you, you would be repaid, my friend!

Lady Car. Then, for my sake!

Straf. Even for your sweet sake, I stay.

Hol. For their sake!

Straf. To bequeath a stain?

Leave me! Girl, humor me and let me die!

Lady Car. Bid him escape—wake, King! Bid him escape!

Straf. True, I will go! Die and forsake the King?

I 'll not draw back from the last service.

Lady Car. Strafford!

Straf. And, after all, what is disgrace to me?

Let us come, child! That it should end this way!

Lead then! but I feel strangely: it was not

To end this way.

Lady Car. Lean—lean on me!

Straf. My King!

Oh, had he trusted me—his friend of friends!

Lady Car. I can support him, Hollis!

Straf. Not this way!

This gate—I dreamed of it, this very gate.

Lady Car. It opens on the river: our good boat

Is moored below, our friends are there.

Straf. The same:

Only with something ominous and dark,

Fatal, inevitable.

Lady Car. Strafford! Strafford!

Straf. Not by this gate! I feel what will be there!

I dreamed of it, I tell you: touch it not!

Lady Car. To save the King,—Strafford, to save the King!

[As Strafford opens the door, Pym is discovered with Hampden, Vane, etc. Strafford falls back: Pym follows slowly and confronts him.

Pym. Have I done well? Speak, England! Whose sole sake

I still have labored for, with disregard

To my own heart,—for whom my youth was made

Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up

Her sacrifice—this friend, this Wentworth here—

Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may be,

And whom, for his forsaking England's cause,

I hunted by all means (trusting that she

Would sanctify all means) even to the block

Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel

No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour

I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I

Would never leave him: I do leave him now.

I render up my charge (be witness, God!)

To England who imposed it. I have done

Her bidding—poorly, wrongly,—it may be,

With ill effects—for I am weak, a man:

Still, I have done my best, my human best,

Not faltering for a moment. It is done.

And this said, if I say ... yes, I will say

I never loved but one man—David not

More Jonathan! Even thus, I love him now

And look for my chief portion in that world

Where great hearts led astray are turned again,

(Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon:

My mission over, I shall not live long,)—

Ay, here I know I talk—I dare and must,

Of England, and her great reward, as all

I look for there; but in my inmost heart,

Believe, I think of stealing quite away

To walk once more with Wentworth—my youth's friend

Purged from all error, gloriously renewed,

And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed ...

This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase

Too hot. A thin mist—is it blood?—enwraps

The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be!

Straf. I have loved England too; we 'll meet then, Pym;

As well die now! Youth is the only time

To think and to decide on a great course:

Manhood with action follows; but 'tis dreary

To have to alter our whole life in age—

The time past, the strength gone! As well die now.

When we meet, Pym, I 'd be set right—not now!

Best die. Then if there 's any fault, fault too

Dies, smothered up. Poor gray old little Laud

May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church,

In some blind corner. And there 's no one left.

I trust the King now wholly to you, Pym!

And yet, I know not: I shall not be there:

Friends fail—if he have any. And he 's weak,

And loves the Queen, and ... Oh, my fate is nothing—

Nothing! But not that awful head—not that!

Pym. If England shall declare such will to me ...

Straf. Pym, you help England! I, that am to die,

What I must see! 'tis here—all here! My God,

Let me but gasp out, in one word of fire,

How thou wilt plague him, satiating hell!

What? England that you help, become through you

A green and putrefying charnel, left

Our children ... some of us have children, Pym—

Some who, without that, still must ever wear

A darkened brow, an over-serious look,

And never properly be young! No word?

What if I curse you? Send a strong curse forth

Clothed from my heart, lapped round with horror till

She 's fit with her white face to walk the world

Scaring kind natures from your cause and you—

Then to sit down with you at the board-head,

The gathering for prayer ... O speak, but speak!

... Creep up, and quietly follow each one home,

You, you, you, be a nestling care for each

To sleep with,—hardly moaning in his dreams,

She gnaws so quietly,—till, lo he starts,

Gets off with half a heart eaten away!

Oh, shall you 'scape with less if she 's my child?

You will not say a word—to me—to Him?

Pym. If England shall declare such will to me ...

Straf. No, not for England now, not for Heaven now,—

See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to you!

There, I will thank you for the death, my friend!

This is the meeting: let me love you well!

Pym. England,—I am thine own! Dost thou exact

That service? I obey thee to the end.

Straf. O God, I shall die first—I shall die first!

---

SORDELLO

Browning began Sordello in 1837, interrupted his work to write the earlier parts of Bells and Pomegranates, but resumed it and completed it in 1840, when it was published by Moxon. In 1863, when reprinting the poem, Browning dedicated it as below to M. Milsand, and in his dedication wrote practically a preface to the poem.

TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON

Dear Friend,—Let the next poem be introduced by your name, therefore remembered along with one of the deepest of my affections, and so repay all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than they really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with care for a man or book such would be surmounted, and without it what avails the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into what the many might—instead of what the few must—like; but after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day think so; and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I trust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours, R. B.

London, June 9, 1863.

Concerning this revised edition he wrote to a friend:—

"I do not understand what —— can mean by saying that Sordello has been 'rewritten.' I did certainly at one time intend to rewrite much of it, but changed my mind,—and the edition which I reprinted was the same in all respects as its predecessors—only with an elucidatory heading to each page, and some few alterations, presumably for the better, in the text, such as occur in most of my works. I cannot remember a single instance of any importance that is rewritten, and I only suppose that —— has taken project for performance, and set down as 'done' what was for a while intended to be done."

For the sake of such elucidation as these head-lines give, they are introduced here as side-notes.

SORDELLO
BOOK THE FIRST

Who will, may hear Sordello's story told:

His story? Who believes me shall behold

The man, pursue his fortunes to the end,

Like me: for as the friendless-people's friend

A Quixotic attempt.

Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din

And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin

Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out

Sordello, compassed murkily about

With ravage of six long sad hundred years.

Only believe me. Ye believe?

Appears

Verona ... Never, I should warn you first,

Of my own choice had this, if not the worst

Yet not the best expedient, served to tell

A story I could body forth so well

By making speak, myself kept out of view,

The very man as he was wont to do,

And leaving you to say the rest for him.

Since, though I might be proud to see the dim

Abysmal past divide its hateful surge,

Letting of all men this one man emerge

Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,

I should delight in watching first to last

His progress as you watch it, not a whit

More in the secret than yourselves who sit

Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems

Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,

Makers of quite new men, producing them,

Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem

The wearer's quality; or take their stand,

Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand,

Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends,

Why the Poet himself addresses his audience—

Summoned together from the world's four ends,

Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell,

To hear the story I propose to tell.

Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick,

Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick,

And shaming her; 'tis not for fate to choose

Silence or song because she can refuse

Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache

Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake:

I have experienced something of her spite;

But there 's a realm wherein she has no right

And I have many lovers. Say, but few

Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view

The host I muster! Many a lighted face

Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace;

What else should tempt them back to taste our air

Except to see how their successors fare?

My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man

Striving to look as living as he can,

Brother by breathing brother; thou art set,

Clear-witted critic, by ... but I 'll not fret

A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen

Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean

Few living, many dead.

The living in good earnest—ye elect

Chiefly for love—suppose not I reject

Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep,

Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep,

To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,

Shelley departing, Verona appears.

Verona! stay—thou, spirit, come not near

Now—not this time desert thy cloudy place

To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!

I need not fear this audience, I make free

With them, but then this is no place for thee!

The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown

Up out of memories of Marathon,

Would echo like his own sword's griding screech

Braying a Persian shield,—the silver speech

Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin,

Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in

The knights to tilt,—wert thou to hear! What heart

Have I to play my puppets, bear my part

Before these worthies?

Lo, the past is hurled

In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world,

Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears

Its outline, kindles at the core, appears

Verona. 'Tis six hundred years and more

Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore

The purple, and the Third Honorius filled

The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled:

A last remains of sunset dimly burned

O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned

By the wind back upon its bearer's hand

In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,

The woods beneath lay black. A single eye

From all Verona cared for the soft sky.

But, gathering in its ancient market-place,

Talked group with restless group; and not a face

But wrath made livid, for among them were

Death's stanch purveyors, such as have in care

To feast him. Fear had long since taken root

In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit.

The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way

It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and gray

Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro,

How her Guelfs are discomfited.

Letting the silent luxury trickle slow

About the hollows where a heart should be;

But the young gulped with a delirious glee

Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood

At the fierce news: for, be it understood,

Envoys apprised Verona that her prince

Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since

A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust

Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust

With Ecelin Romano, from his seat

Ferrara,—over-zealous in the feat

And stumbling on a peril unaware,

Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare,

They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue.

Why they entreat the Lombard League,

Immediate succor from the Lombard League

Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope,

For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope

Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast!

Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast.

"Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes

Mirth for the devil when he undertakes

To play the Ecelin; as if it cost

Merely your pushing-by to gain a post

Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all,

There be sound reasons that preferment fall

On our beloved" ...

"Duke o' the Rood, why not?"

Shouted an Estian, "grudge ye such a lot?

The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,

Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown,

That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts,

And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts."

"Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane

Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain

To fly but forced the earth his couch to make

Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake,

Waits he the Kaiser 's coming; and as yet

That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let

Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs

The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs

The sea it means to cross because of him.

Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim;

Creep closer on the creature! Every day

Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say,

Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips

Telling upon his perished finger-tips

How many ancestors are to depose

Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze

Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt

Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt

When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet

Buccio Virtù—God's wafer, and the street

Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm

With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm!

This could not last. Off Salinguerra went

To Padua, Podestà, 'with pure intent,'

Said he, 'my presence, judged the single bar

To permanent tranquillity, may jar

No longer'—so! his back is fairly turned?

The pair of goodly palaces are burned,

The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk

A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk

In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way,

In their changed fortune at Ferrara:

Old Salinguerra back again—I say,

Old Salinguerra in the town once more

Uprooting, overturning, flame before,

Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled;

Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead

Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne,

He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone,

Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce

Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce,

On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth

To see troop after troop encamp beneath

I' the standing-corn thick o'er the scanty patch

It took so many patient months to snatch

Out of the marsh; while just within their walls

Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls

A parley: 'let the Count wind up the war!'

Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star,

Agrees to enter for the kindest ends

Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends,

No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort

Should fly Ferrara at the bare report.

Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog;

'Ten, twenty, thirty,—curse the catalogue

Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows

Not the least sign of life'—whereat arose

A general growl: 'How? With his victors by?

I and my Veronese? My troops and I?

Receive us, was your word?' So jogged they on,

Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone

Into the trap!"—

Six hundred years ago!

Such the time's aspect and peculiar woe

(Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles,

Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills

His sprawling path through letters anciently

Made fine and large to suit some abbot's eye)

When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask,

Flung John of Brienne's favor from his casque,

Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave

Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve

Losses to Otho and to Barbaross,

Or make the Alps less easy to recross;

And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear,

Was excommunicate that very year.

"The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!"

Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife,

For the times grow stormy again.

Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin,

Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin,

Its cry; what cry?

"The Emperor to come!"

His crowd of feudatories, all and some,

That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields,

One fighter on his fellow, to our fields,

Scattered anon, took station here and there,

And carried it, till now, with little care—

Cannot but cry for him; how else rebut

Us longer? Cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut

In the mid-sea, each domineering crest

Which naught save such another throe can wrest

From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown

Since o'er the waters, twine and tangle thrown

Too thick, too fast accumulating round,

Too sure to over-riot and confound

Ere long each brilliant islet with itself,

Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf,

Whirling the sea-drift wide: alas, the bruised

And sullen wreck! Sunlight to be diffused

For that! Sunlight, 'neath which, a scum at first,

The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst

Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main,

And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again,

So kindly blazed it—that same blaze to brood

O'er every cluster of the multitude

Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments,

An emulous exchange of pulses, vents

Of nature into nature; till some growth

Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe

The Ghibellins' wish: the Guelfs' wish.

A surface solid now, continuous, one:

"The Pope, for us the People, who begun

The People, carries on the People thus,

To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!"

See you?

Or say, Two Principles that live

Each fitly by its Representative.

"Hill-cat"—who called him so?—the gracefullest

Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest

Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur,

Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr

Soothes jealous neighbors when a Saxon scout

—Arpo or Yoland, is it?—one without

A country or a name, presumes to couch

Beside their noblest; until men avouch

That, of all Houses in the Trevisan,

Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van,

How Ecelo's house grew head of those,

Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled

That name at Milan on the page of gold,

Godego's lord,—Ramon, Marostica,

Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria,

And every sheep-cote on the Suabian's fief!

No laughter when his son, "the Lombard Chief"

Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent

To Italy along the Vale of Trent,

Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now—

The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow,

The Asolan and Euganean hills,

The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills

Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay

Among and care about them; day by day

Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot,

A castle building to defend a cot,

A cot built for a castle to defend,

Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end

To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge

By sunken gallery and soaring bridge.

He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems

The griesliest nightmare of the Church's dreams,

—A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged

From its old interests, and nowise changed

By its new neighborhood: perchance the vaunt

Of Otho, "my own Este shall supplant

Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in

A son as cruel; and this Ecelin

Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall

And curling and compliant; but for all

Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck

Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek

Proved 't was some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went

To feed: whereas Romano's instrument,

Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole

I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole

Successively, why should not he shed blood

To further a design? Men understood

Living was pleasant to him as he wore

His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er,

Propped on his truncheon in the public way,

While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray,

Lost at Oliero's convent.

Hill-cats, face

Our Azzo, our Guelf-Lion! Why disgrace

As Azzo Lord of Este heads these.

A worthiness conspicuous near and far

(Atii at Rome while free and consular,

Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun)

By trumpeting the Church's princely son?

—Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine,

Ancona's march, Ferrara's ... ask, in fine,

Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk

Found it intolerable to be sunk

(Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell)

Quite out of summer while alive and well:

Ended when by his mat the Prior stood,

'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood,

Striving to coax from his decrepit brains

The reason Father Porphyry took pains

To blot those ten lines out which used to stand

First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand.

The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore

Count Richard's Palace at Verona.

Was vested in a certain Twenty-four;

And while within his palace these debate

Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate,

Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare

Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care

For aught that 's seen or heard until we shut

The smother in, the lights, all noises but

The carroch's booming: safe at last! Why strange

Such a recess should lurk behind a range

Of banquet-rooms? Your finger—thus—you push

A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush

Upon the banqueters, select your prey,

Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way

Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear

A preconcerted signal to appear;

Or if you simply crouch with beating heart,

Of the couple found therein,

Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part

To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now;

Nor any ... does that one man sleep whose brow

The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er?

What woman stood beside him? not the more

Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes

Because that arras fell between! Her wise

And lulling words are yet about the room,

Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom

Down even to her vesture's creeping stir.

And so reclines he, saturate with her,

Until an outcry from the square beneath

Pierces the charm: he springs up, glad to breathe,

Above the cunning element, and shakes

The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks

On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it,

The lean frame like a half-burnt taper, lit

Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away

Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day,

In his wool wedding-robe.

For he—for he,

Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy,

(If I should falter now)—for he is thine!

Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine!

A herald-star I know thou didst absorb

Relentless into the consummate orb

That scared it from its right to roll along

A sempiternal path with dance and song

Fulfilling its allotted period,

Serenest of the progeny of God—

Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops

With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops

Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent

Utterly with thee, its shy element

Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear.

Still, what if I approach the august sphere

Named now with only one name, disentwine

That under-current soft and argentine

From its fierce mate in the majestic mass

Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass

In John's transcendent vision,—launch once more

That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore

Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,

Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume—

Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope

Into a darkness quieted by hope;

Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye

In gracious twilights where his chosen lie,—

I would do this! If I should falter now!

One belongs to Dante; his Birthplace.

In Mantua territory half is slough,

Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks

Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes

With sand the summer through: but 't is morass

In winter up to Mantua walls. There was,

Some thirty years before this evening's coil,

One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil,

Goito; just a castle built amid

A few low mountains; firs and larches hid

Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound

The rest. Some captured creature in a pound,

Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress,

Secure beside in its own loveliness,

So peered with airy head, below, above,

The castle at its toils, the lapwings love

To glean among at grape-time. Pass within.

A maze of corridors contrived for sin,

Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past,

You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last

A maple-panelled room: that haze which seems

Floating about the panel, if there gleams

A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold

And in light-graven characters unfold

The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade

Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made,

Cut like a company of palms to prop

The roof, each kissing top entwined with top,

Leaning together; in the carver's mind

Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined

With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair

Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear

A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick

To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick

A Vault inside the Castle at Goito,

Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits

Across the buttress suffer light by fits

Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop—

A dullish gray-streaked cumbrous font, a group

Round it,—each side of it, where'er one sees,—

Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides

Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh

Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh

First pulse of life shot brightening the snow.

The font's edge burdens every shoulder, so

They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed;

Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed,

Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil

Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale,

Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length

Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength

Goes when the grate above shuts heavily.

So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see,

Like priestesses because of sin impure

Penanced forever, who resigned endure,

Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs.

And every eve, Sordello's visit begs

Pardon for them: constant as eve he came

To sit beside each in her turn, the same

As one of them, a certain space: and awe

And what Sordello would see there.

Made a great indistinctness till he saw

Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks,

Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks

And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain

Her load were lightened, one shade less the stain

Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt

From off the rosary whereby the crypt

Keeps count of the contritions of its charge?

Then with a step more light, a heart more large,

He may depart, leave her and every one

To linger out the penance in mute stone.

Ah, but Sordello? 'T is the tale I mean

To tell you.

In this castle may be seen,

On the hill-tops, or underneath the vines,

Or eastward by the mound of firs and pines

That shuts out Mantua, still in loneliness,

A slender boy in a loose page's dress,

Sordello: do but look on him awhile

Watching ('t is autumn) with an earnest smile

The noisy flock of thievish birds at work

Among the yellowing vineyards; see him lurk

His boyhood in the domain of Ecelin.

('T is winter with its sullenest of storms)

Beside that arras-length of broidered forms,

On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light

Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright

—Ecelo, dismal father of the brood,

And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed,

Auria, and their Child, with all his wives

From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives,

Lady of the castle, Adelaide. His face

—Look, now he turns away! Yourselves shall trace

(The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine,

A sharp and restless lip, so well combine

With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive

Delight at every sense; you can believe

Sordello foremost in the regal class

Nature has broadly severed from her mass

Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames

Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,

For loose fertility; a footfall there

Suffices to upturn to the warm air

Half-germinating spices; mere decay

Produces richer life; and day by day

New pollen on the lily-petal grows,

And still more labyrinthine buds the rose.

You recognize at once the finer dress

Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness

At eye and ear, while round the rest is furled

(As though she would not trust them with her world)

A veil that shows a sky not near so blue,

And lets but half the sun look fervid through.

How a poet's soul comes into play.

How can such love?—like souls on each full-fraught

Discovery brooding, blind at first to aught

Beyond its beauty, till exceeding love

Becomes an aching weight; and, to remove

A curse that haunts such natures—to preclude

Their finding out themselves can work no good

To what they love nor make it very blest

By their endeavor,—they are fain invest

The lifeless thing with life from their own soul,

Availing it to purpose, to control,

To dwell distinct and have peculiar joy

And separate interests that may employ

That beauty fitly, for its proper sake.

Nor rest they here; fresh births of beauty wake

Fresh homage, every grade of love is past,

With every mode of loveliness: then cast

Inferior idols off their borrowed crown

Before a coming glory. Up and down

Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine

To throb the secret forth; a touch divine—

And the sealed eyeball owns the mystic rod;

Visibly through his garden walketh God.

What denotes such a soul's progress.

So fare they. Now revert. One character

Denotes them through the progress and the stir,—

A need to blend with each external charm,

Bury themselves, the whole heart wide and warm,—

In something not themselves; they would belong

To what they worship—stronger and more strong

Thus prodigally fed—which gathers shape

And feature, soon imprisons past escape

The votary framed to love and to submit

Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it,

Whence grew the idol's empery. So runs

A legend; light had birth ere moons and suns,

Flowing through space a river and alone,

Till chaos burst and blank the spheres were strown

Hither and thither, foundering and blind:

When into each of them rushed light—to find

Itself no place, foiled of its radiant chance.

Let such forego their just inheritance!

For there 's a class that eagerly looks, too,

On beauty, but, unlike the gentler crew,

Proclaims each new revealment born a twin

With a distinctest consciousness within,

Referring still the quality, now first

Revealed, to their own soul—its instinct nursed

In silence, now remembered better, shown

More thoroughly, but not the less their own;

A dream come true; the special exercise

How poets class at length—

Of any special function that implies

The being fair, or good, or wise, or strong,

Dormant within their nature all along—

Whose fault? So, homage, other souls direct

Without, turns inward. "How should this deject

Thee, soul?" they murmur; "wherefore strength be quelled

Because, its trivial accidents withheld,

Organs are missed that clog the world, inert,

Wanting a will, to quicken and exert,

Like thine—existence cannot satiate,

Cannot surprise? Laugh thou at envious fate,

Who, from earth's simplest combination stampt

With individuality—uncrampt

By living its faint elemental life,

Dost soar to heaven's complexest essence, rife

With grandeurs, unaffronted to the last,

For honor,

Equal to being all!"

In truth? Thou hast

Life, then—wilt challenge life for us: our race

Is vindicated so, obtains its place

In thy ascent, the first of us; whom we

Or shame—

May follow, to the meanest, finally,

With our more bounded wills?

Ah, but to find

A certain mood enervate such a mind,

Counsel it slumber in the solitude

Thus reached, nor, stooping, task for mankind's good

Its nature just as life and time accord

"—Too narrow an arena to reward

Emprise—the world's occasion worthless since

Not absolutely fitted to evince

Its mastery!" Or if yet worse befall,

And a desire possess it to put all

That nature forth, forcing our straitened sphere

Contain it,—to display completely here

The mastery another life should learn,

Thrusting in time eternity's concern,—

So that Sordello ...

Which may the Gods avert

Fool, who spied the mark

Of leprosy upon him, violet-dark

Already as he loiters? Born just now,

With the new century, beside the glow

And efflorescence out of barbarism;

Witness a Greek or two from the abysm

That stray through Florence-town with studious air,

Calming the chisel of that Pisan pair:

If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet!

While at Siena is Guidone set,

Forehead on hand; a painful birth must be

Matured ere Saint Eufemia's sacristy

Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze

At the moon: look you! The same orange haze,—

The same blue stripe round that—and, in the midst,

Thy spectral whiteness, Mother-maid, who didst

Pursue the dizzy painter!

Woe, then, worth

Any officious babble letting forth

The leprosy confirmed and ruinous

To spirit lodged in a contracted house!

Go back to the beginning, rather; blend

It gently with Sordello's life; the end

Is piteous, you may see, but much between

Pleasant enough. Meantime, some pyx to screen

The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon

The goblin! So they found at Babylon,

(Colleagues, mad Lucius and sage Antonine)

Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine,

In rummaging among the rarities,

A certain coffer; he who made the prize

Opened it greedily; and out there curled

Just such another plague, for half the world

Was stung. Crawl in then, hag, and couch asquat,

Keeping that blotchy bosom thick in spot

Until your time is ripe! The coffer-lid

Is fastened, and the coffer safely hid

Under the Loxian's choicest gifts of gold.

Who will may hear Sordello's story told,

And now he never could remember when

He dwelt not at Goito. Calmly, then,

From Sordello, now in childhood.

About this secret lodge of Adelaide's

Glided his youth away; beyond the glades

On the fir-forest border, and the rim

Of the low range of mountain, was for him

No other world: but this appeared his own

To wander through at pleasure and alone.

The castle too seemed empty; far and wide

Might he disport; only the northern side

Lay under a mysterious interdict—

Slight, just enough remembered to restrict

His roaming to the corridors, the vault

Where those font-bearers expiate their fault,

The maple-chamber, and the little nooks

And nests, and breezy parapet that looks

Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled.

Some foreign women-servants, very old,

Tended and crept about him—all his clue

To the world's business and embroiled ado

Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most.

The delights of his childish fancy,

And first a simple sense of life engrossed

Sordello in his drowsy Paradise;

The day's adventures for the day suffice—

Its constant tribute of perceptions strange.

With sleep and stir in healthy interchange,

Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease

Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees,

Eats the life out of every luscious plant,

And, when September finds them sere or scant,

Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite,

And hies him after unforeseen delight.

So fed Sordello, not a shard dissheathed;

As ever, round each new discovery, wreathed

Luxuriantly the fancies infantine

His admiration, bent on making fine

Its novel friend at any risk, would fling

In gay profusion forth; a ficklest king,

Confessed those minions!—eager to dispense

So much from his own stock of thought and sense

As might enable each to stand alone

And serve him for a fellow; with his own,

Joining the qualities that just before

Had graced some older favorite. Thus they wore

A fluctuating halo, yesterday

Set flicker and to-morrow filched away,—

Those upland objects each of separate name,

Each with an aspect never twice the same,

Waxing and waning as the new-born host

Of fancies, like a single night's hoar-frost,

Which could blow out a great bubble,

Gave to familiar things a face grotesque;

Only, preserving through the mad burlesque

A grave regard. Conceive! the orpine patch

Blossoming earliest on the log-house thatch

The day those archers wound along the vines—

Related to the Chief that left their lines

To climb with clinking step the northern stair

Up to the solitary chambers where

Sordello never came. Thus thrall reached thrall;

He o'er-festooning every interval,

As the adventurous spider, making light

Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height,

From barbican to battlement: so flung

Fantasies forth and in their centre swung

Our architect,—the breezy morning fresh

Above, and merry,—all his waving mesh

Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged.

This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged

To laying such a spangled fabric low

Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow.

But its abundant will was balked here: doubt

Being secure awhile from intrusion.

Rose tardily in one so fenced about

From most that nurtures judgment, care and pain:

Judgment, that dull expedient we are fain,

Less favored, to adopt betimes and force

Stead us, diverted from our natural course

Of joys—contrive some yet amid the dearth,

Vary and render them, it may be, worth

Most we forego. Suppose Sordello hence

Selfish enough, without a moral sense

However feeble; what informed the boy

Others desired a portion in his joy?

Or say a ruthful chance broke woof and warp—

A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp,

A fawn breathless beneath the precipice,

A bird with unsoiled breast and unfilmed eyes

Warm in the brake—could these undo the trance

Lapping Sordello? Not a circumstance

That makes for you, friend Naddo! Eat fern-seed

And peer beside us and report indeed

If (your word) "genius" dawned with throes and stings

And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs,

Summers and winters quietly came and went.

Time put at length that period to content,

By right the world should have imposed: bereft

Of its good offices, Sordello, left

To study his companions, managed rip

Their fringe off, learn the true relationship,

Core with its crust, their nature with his own:

Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone.

As if the poppy felt with him! Though he

Partook the poppy's red effrontery

Till Autumn spoiled their fleering quite with rain,

And, turbanless, a coarse brown rattling crane

Lay bare. That 's gone: yet why renounce, for that,

His disenchanted tributaries—flat

Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn,

Their simple presence might not well be borne

Whose parley was a transport once: recall

The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all,

A poppy:—why distrust the evidence

Of each soon satisfied and healthy sense?

But it comes; and new-born judgment

The new-born judgment answered, "little boots

Beholding other creatures' attributes

And having none!" or, say that it sufficed,

"Yet, could one but possess, one's self," (enticed

Judgment) "some special office!" Naught beside

Serves you? "Well then, be somehow justified

For this ignoble wish to circumscribe

And concentrate, rather than swell, the tribe

Of actual pleasures: what, now, from without

Effects it?—proves, despite a lurking doubt,

Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared?

That, tasting joys by proxy thus, you fared

Decides that he needs sympathizers.

The better for them?" Thus much craved his soul.

Alas, from the beginning love is whole

And true; if sure of naught beside, most sure

Of its own truth at least; nor may endure

A crowd to see its face, that cannot know

How hot the pulses throb its heart below.

While its own helplessness and utter want

Of means to worthily be ministrant

To what it worships, do but fan the more

Its flame, exalt the idol far before

Itself as it would have it ever be.

Souls like Sordello, on the contrary,

Coerced and put to shame, retaining will,

Care little, take mysterious comfort still,

But look forth tremblingly to ascertain

If others judge their claims not urged in vain,

And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud.

So, they must ever live before a crowd:

—"Vanity," Naddo tells you.

Whence contrive

A crowd, now? From these women just alive,

That archer-troop? Forth glided—not alone

Each painted warrior, every girl of stone,

Nor Adelaide (bent double o'er a scroll,

One maiden at her knees, that eve, his soul

Shook as he stumbled through the arras'd glooms

On them, for, 'mid quaint robes and weird perfumes,

Started the meagre Tuscan up,—her eyes,

The maiden's, also, bluer with surprise)

—But the entire out-world: whatever, scraps

And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps,

Conceited the world's offices, and he

Had hitherto transferred to flower or tree,

Not counted a befitting heritage

Each, of its own right, singly to engage

Some man, no other,—such now dared to stand

Alone. Strength, wisdom, grace on every hand

Soon disengaged themselves, and he discerned

A sort of human life: at least, was turned

He therefore creates such a company;

A stream of lifelike figures through his brain.

Lord, liegeman, valvassor and suzerain,

Ere he could choose, surrounded him; a stuff

To work his pleasure on; there, sure enough:

But as for gazing, what shall fix that gaze?

Are they to simply testify the ways

He who convoked them sends his soul along

With the cloud's thunder or a dove's brood-song?

—While they live each his life, boast each his own

Each of which, leading its own life,

Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone

In some one point where something dearest loved

Is easiest gained—far worthier to be proved

Than aught he envies in the forest-wights!

No simple and self-evident delights,

But mixed desires of unimagined range,

Contrasts or combinations, new and strange,

Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized

By this, the sudden company—loves prized

By those who are to prize his own amount

Of loves. Once care because such make account,

Allow that foreign recognitions stamp

The current value, and his crowd shall vamp

Him counterfeits enough; and so their print

Be on the piece, 'tis gold, attests the mint.

And "good," pronounce they whom his new appeal

Is made to: if their casual print conceal—

This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss

What he has lived without, nor felt the loss—

Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome,

—What matter? So must speech expand the dumb

Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late

Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate,

Betakes himself to study hungrily

Just what the puppets his crude fantasy

Supposes notablest,—popes, kings, priests, knights,—

May please to promulgate for appetites;

Accepting all their artificial joys

Not as he views them, but as he employs

Each shape to estimate the other's stock

Of attributes, whereon—a marshalled flock

Of authorized enjoyments—he may spend

Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend

With tree and flower—nay more entirely, else

'T were mockery: for instance, "How excels

My life that chieftain's?" (who apprised the youth

Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth,

Imperial Vicar?) "Turns he in his tent

Remissly? Be it so—my head is bent

Deliciously amid my girls to sleep.

What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep

I climbed an hour ago with little toil:

We are alike there. But can I, too, foil

The Guelf's paid stabber, carelessly afford

Saint Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword

Baffling the treason in a moment?" Here

No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer

To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand,

Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand

With Ecelin's success—try, now! He soon

Was satisfied, returned as to the moon

From earth: left each abortive boy's attempt

Has qualities impossible to a boy,

For feats, from failure happily exempt,

In fancy at his beck. "One day I will

Accomplish it! Are they not older still

—Not grown up men and women? 'T is beside

Only a dream; and though I must abide

With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent

For all myself, acquire an instrument

For acting what these people act; my soul

Hunting a body out may gain its whole

Desire some day!" How else express chagrin

And resignation, show the hope steal in

With which he let sink from an aching wrist

The rough-hewn ash-bow? Straight, a gold shaft hissed

Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down

Superbly! "Crosses to the breach! God's Town

Is gained him back!" Why bend rough ash-bows more?

Thus lives he: if not careless as before,

Comforted: for one may anticipate,

Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate

Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names

Startle, real places of enormous fames,

Este abroad and Ecelin at home

To worship him,—Mantua, Verona, Rome

To witness it. Who grudges time so spent?

Rather test qualities to heart's content—

Summon them, thrice selected, near and far—

Compress the starriest into one star,

So, only to be appropriated in fancy,

And grasp the whole at once!

The pageant thinned

Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind

His spirit passed to winnow and divide;

Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side

The strong clave to the wise; with either classed

The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed

Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced

Themselves eventually, graces loosed,

Strengths lavished, all to heighten up One Shape

Whose potency no creature should escape.

Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen's talk?

Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk,

Is some gray scorching Sarasenic wine

The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline—

Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped,

Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped,

Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent,

To keep in mind his sluggish armament

Of Canaan:—Friedrich's, all the pomp and fierce

Demeanor! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce

So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells,

And practised on till the real come.

Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells

On the obdurate! That right arm indeed

Has thunder for its slave; but where 's the need

Of thunder if the stricken multitude

Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood,

While songs go up exulting, then dispread,

Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead

Like an escape of angels? 'T is the tune,

Nor much unlike the words his women croon

Smilingly, colorless and faint-designed

Each, as a worn-out queen's face some remind

Of her extreme youth's love-tales. "Eglamor

Made that!" Half minstrel and half emperor,

What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew.

The kinder sort were easy to subdue

By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones;

And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones

Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this,

Striving to name afresh the antique bliss,

Instead of saying, neither less nor more,

He means to be perfect—say, Apollo;

He had discovered, as our world before,

Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid

Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid

The youth—what thefts of every clime and day

Contributed to purfle the array

He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine

'Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen,

Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped

Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped

He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock—

Though really on the stubs of living rock

Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof,

Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof,

Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly,

Born of the simmering quiet, there to die.

Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied

Mighty descents of forest; multiplied

Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees,

There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease,

And, proud of its observer, straight the wood

Tried old surprises on him; black it stood

A sudden barrier ('t was a cloud passed o'er)

So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more

Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)

Each clump, behold, was glistening detached

A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems!

Yet could not he denounce the stratagems

He saw thro', till, hours thence, aloft would hang

White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang

To measure, that whole palpitating breast

Of heaven, 't was Apollo, nature prest

At eve to worship.

Time stole: by degrees

The Pythons perish off; his votaries

Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem

Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem

Emphatic; only girls are very slow

To disappear—his Delians! Some that glow

O' the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench

Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench;

Alike in one material circumstance—

All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance

The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice,

And Apollo must one day find Daphne.

His Daphne! "We secure Count Richard's voice

In Este's counsels, good for Este's ends

As our Taurello," say his faded friends,

"By granting him our Palma!"—the sole child,

They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled

Ecelin, years before this Adelaide

Wedded and turned him wicked: "but the maid

Rejects his suit," those sleepy women boast.

She, scorning all beside, deserves the most

Sordello: so, conspicuous in his world

Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled

Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound

About her like a glory! even the ground

Was bright as with spilt sunbeams; breathe not, breathe

Not!—poised, see, one leg doubled underneath,

Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow,

Rests, but the other, listlessly below,

O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air,

The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where

The languid blood lies heavily; yet calm

On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm,

As but suspended in the act to rise

By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes

But when will this dream turn truth?

Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets

Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms.

Time fleets:

That 's worst! Because the pre-appointed age

Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage

And crowd she promised. Lean he grows and pale,

Though restlessly at rest. Hardly avail

Fancies to soothe him. Time steals, yet alone

He tarries here! The earnest smile is gone.

How long this might continue matters not;

For the time is ripe, and he ready.

—Forever, possibly; since to the spot

None come: our lingering Taurello quits

Mantua at last, and light our lady flits

Back to her place disburdened of a care.

Strange—to be constant here if he is there!

Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both

Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth

Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb

And Richard wavering: let but Friedrich come,

Find matter for the minstrelsy's report!

—Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court

To sing us a Messina morning up,

And, double rillet of a drinking cup,

Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth,

Northward to Provence that, and thus far south

The other. What a method to apprise

Neighbors of births, espousals, obsequies!

Which in their very tongue the Troubadour

Records; and his performance makes a tour,

For Trouveres bear the miracle about,

Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout,

Until the Formidable House is famed

Over the country—as Taurello aimed,

Who introduced, although the rest adopt,

The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped,

Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse

No longer, in the light of day pursues

Her plans at Mantua: whence an accident

Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content,

Opened, like any flash that cures the blind,

The veritable business of mankind.

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