POTO.
’Tis an old ilex-bough,
That sails along like a black, ruffled swan
A space above the ground.
ALEXANDER.
Draw in, draw in, draw in,
My light of service, Gaspare—the wind
Would, if it could, extinguish you.
Go yonder!
Set further in upon the table there
That vase ... enamel with the whirl-blast round it,
And the enamel matchless! Did you tell me
My lord Antoniotto Pallavicini
Waits for an audience? Of a truth, the tempest
Drove not His peace from Christ within the ship.
Well—introduce the Cardinal St. Praxede. [Exit Poto.
Vespers will sound directly; but the bell
Of the old, dying day will shape a tinkle
In this mad, hammering gale, and no one hear.
[Re-enter Monsignore Gaspare Poto with the Lord
Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini.]
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
Holiness,
What wind!
ALEXANDER.
Santi, it wrenches everything it handles—
No touching, but possession. Lord Antoniotto,
You come to seek the dispensation. Poto
Will tell you when I reached my bed last night;
Yet with all industry your business lingered
Still far beyond my goal. I crave your patience.
So many festivals this jubilee,
Processions, triumphs! O my Lord Cardinal,
Think—and the great rejoicing yesterday
When our young Duke received from Holy Church
The Order of the Mystic Rose that blossoms
Upon the banks of the abundant rivers—
Crown of the Church triumphant, militant.
My lord, the pity you were held at sea,
Delayed at Ostia too! Our Duke knelt down;
He took the emblem, kissed the hand, and kissed
The foot of Christ’s vicegerent; then together
We stood erect, and he advanced; for once
He went before me—that was joy!—before me,
The Rose in his right hand, the hovering Dove
On his beretta, with its fretted rays,
A nimbus round him from the monster pearls,
And he before me like a star of heaven!
You have heard the Sacred College makes him Vicar,
Duke of Romagna, Count of Imola,
Forli? There were some seventeen Cardinals
Signed, when I signed the Bull.