SONNETS FROM THE ITALIAN.
upon the death of the redeemer.
by minzoni.
When, in that last, loud wail, the Son of God
Rent open graves and shook the mountain's steep—
Adam, affrighted from his world-long sleep,
Raised up his head; then stark and upright stood:
With fear and wonder filled, he moved around
His troubled eyes—then asked, with throbbing heart,
Who was that awful One who hung apart,
Gore-stained and lifeless, on the curst tree bound.
Soon as he learned, his penitent hand defiled
His shriveled brow and bloodless cheeks, and tore
The hoary locks that streamed his shoulders o'er.
Turning to Eve, in lamentation wild,
He cried, 'till Calvary echoed to the cry—
"Woman! for thee I've given my Lord to die!"
two sonnets on judas.
by monti.
i.
Down on the Temple-floor the traitor flung
The infamous bribe for which he sold the Lord,
Then in despair rushed forth, and with a cord,
From out the tree, his reprobate body hung.
Pent in his throat, the struggling spirit poured
A mingled sound of rage and wildest grief,
And Christ it cursed, and its own sin in chief,
Which glutted hell with triumphs so abhorred.
Forth with a howl at last the spirit fled.
Then Justice bore it to the holy mount,
And dipping there her finger in the fount
Of Christ's all-sacred blood, the sentence dread
Wrote on its brow of everlasting woe,
Then, loathing, plunged it into hell below.
ii.
Down into hell that wretched soul she flung,
When lo! a mighty earthquake shook the ground;
The mountain reeled. The wind swept fierce around
The black and strangled body where it hung.
From Calvary at eve, the angels wending,
On slow, hushed wing, their holy vigil o'er,
Saw it afar, and swift their white wings, blending
With trembling fear, their pure eyes spread before.
Meanwhile fiends pluck the corse down in the gloom,
And on their burning shoulders, as a bier,
Convey the burden to its nameless doom.
Cursing and howling, downward thus they steer
Their hell-ward course, and in its depths restore
The wandering soul to its damned corse once more.
sonnet upon judas.
by gianni.
Spent with the struggles of his mad despair,
Judas hung gasping from the fatal tree;
Then swift the tempter-fiend sprang on him there,
Flapping his flame-red wings exultingly.
With griping claws he clutched the noose that bound
The traitor's throat, and hurled him down below,
Where hell's hot depths, incessant bubbling glow
His burning flesh and crackling bones around:
There, mid the gloomy shades, asunder riven
By storm and lurid flame, was Satan seen;
Relaxing his stern brow, with hideous grin.
Within his dusky arms the wretch he caught,
And with smutched lips, fuliginous and hot,
Repaid the kiss which he to Christ had given.