"God bless you, Frank!" said I; "I forgive you everything. Say no more."
"Hollo! what's up?" cried Frank.
"Well, certainly, it was a little imprudent for you to neglect writing the whole address of the letter you sent to Anna Tarlingford. I thought it was for Arabella."
"Dear me!" said Frank, twinkling, "what then?"
That is enough.
* * * * *
ITALY, 1859.
Wait a little: do we not wait?
Louis Napoleon is not Fate;
Francis Joseph is not Time;
There's One hath swifter feet than Crime;
Cannon-parliaments settle nought;
Venice is Austria's,—whose is Thought?
Minié is good, but, spite of change,
Gutenberg's gun has the longer range.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever!
Wait, we say; our years are long;
Men are weak, but Man is strong;
Since the stars first curved their rings,
We have looked on many things;
Great wars come and great wars go,
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow;
We shall see him come and gone,
This second-hand Napoleon.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever!
We saw the elder Corsican,
And Clotho muttered as she span,
While crowned lackeys bore the train
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne,—
"Sister, stint not length of thread!
Sister, stay the scissors dread!
On St. Helen's granite bleak,
Hark, the vulture whets his beak!"
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever!
In the shadow, year out, year in,
The silent headsman waits forever!