dwindled down

To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown
Better through age, his parts still in repute,
Subtle -- how else? - but hardly so astute
As his contemporaneous friends professed;
Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,
Known by each neighbour, and allowed
for, let

Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret
Men who would miss their boyhood's
bugbear: "trap

10 "The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap "A battered pinion!" --was the word. In fine,

One flap too much and Venice's marine
Was meddled with; no overlooking that!
She captured him in his Ferrara, fat
And florid at a banquet, more by fraud
Than force, to speak the truth; there's
slender laud

Ascribed you for assisting eighty years
To pull his death on such a man; fate
shears

The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine thread

20 You fritter: so, presiding his board-head, The old smile, your assurance all went well With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!) In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,

Who loves the world - and thus allowed the thin

Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin, And massy muscled big-boned Alberic (Mere man, alas !) to put his problem quick 54 To demonstration prove wherever's will To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip

Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip,

They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand

(So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band

Together, cross their coats as for Christ's

cause,

And saving Milan win the world's applause.

Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew
Never so pleasant as in Valley Rù
By San Zenon where Alberic in turn
Saw his exasperated captors burn
Seven children and their mother; then,
regaled

So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed To death through raunce and bramblebush. I take

God's part and testify that 'mid the brake Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll, You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll The earthquake spared it last year, laying

flat

60

As perfect triumph were not sure for all, But, on a few, enduring damp must fall, -A transient struggle, haply a painful

sense

Of the inferior nature's clinging whence
Slight starting tears easily wiped away,
Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play
Of irrepressible admiration

not

Aspiring, all considered, to their lot Who ever, just as they prepare ascend 10 Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend Thy frank delight at their exclusive track, That upturned fervid face and hair put back!

Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes

Many a tale, of this retreat betimes, Was born: Sordello die at once for men? The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved Who thus, by fortune ordering events, 20 Passed with posterity, to all intents, For just the god he never could become. As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb

In praise of him: while what he should have been,

Could be, and was not

mean

the one step too

For him to take, we suffer at this day
Because of: Ecelin had pushed away
Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take
That step Sordello spurned, for the world's
sake:

He did much but Sordello's chance was

Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill
By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,
Morning just up, higher and higher runs
A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's 5c
On the square castle's inner-court's low
wall

Like the chine of some extinct animal
Half turned to earth and flowers; and
through the haze

(Save where some slender patches of grey maize

Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed The whole hill-side of dew and powderfrost

Matting the balm and mountain camomile. Up and up goes he, singing all the while Some unintelligible words to beat The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet, 60 So worsted is he at "the few fine locks "Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks

"Sun-blanched the livelong summer,"
all that's left

Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,
Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect
He sleeps, the feverish poet- I suspect
Not utterly companionless; but, friends,
Wake up! The ghost's gone, and the
story ends

I'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or
ghoul,

That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,
Evil or good, judicious authors think
According as they vanish in a stink
Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye

snuff

Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough!
Merely the savour's rareness; any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose:
Rifle a musk-pod and 'twill ache like yours!
I'd tell you that same pungency ensures
An after-gust, but that were overbold.
Who would has heard Sordello's story told. 8

1

And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest
Me, who am only Pippa, old-year's sor-

row,

Cast off last night, will come again to

morrow:

Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall bor

row

Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's

sorrow.

All other men and women that this earth Belongs to, who all days alike possess, Make general plenty cure particular dearth, 10 Get more joy one way, if another, less: Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven

What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven,

Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's!

Try now! Take Asolo's Four Happiest
Ones

And let thy morning rain on that superb
Great haughty Ottima; can rain disturb
Her Sebald's homage? All the while thy
rain

Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window

Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' 40 guard.

But Pippa-just one such mischance would spoil

Her day that lightens the next twelve-
month's toil

At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!
And here I let time slip for nought!
Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught
With a single splash from my ewer!
You that would mock the best pursuer,
Was my basin over-deep?
One splash of water ruins you asleep,
And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits
Wheeling and counterwheeling,
Reeling, broken beyond healing:
Now grow together on the ceiling!
That will task your wits.

Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped

to see

Morsel after morsel flee
As merrily, as giddily.
Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on,
Where settles by degrees the radiant crip-
ple?

Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon? 1
New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple,
Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk
bird's poll!

Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple

-

Of ocean, bud there, fairies watch unroll

Such turban-flowers; I say, such lamps disperse

Thick red flame through that dusk green universe!

I am queen of thee, floweret!
And each fleshy blossom
Preserve I not (safer
Than leaves that embower it,
Or shells that embosom)

From weevil and chafer? Laugh through my pane then; solicit the bee;

Gibe him, be sure; and, in midst of thy glee,

Love thy queen, worship me!

Worship whom else? For am I not, this day,

Whate'er I please? What shall I please to-day?

My morn, noon, eve and night - how spend my day?

To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk,

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