GIOVANNI, when the huntsman blew his horn
O'er the last stag that started from the brake,
And in the heather turned to stand at bay,
Appeared not; and at close of day was found
Bathed in his innocent blood. Too well, alas,
The trembling Cosмo guessed the deed, the doer;
And, having caused the body to be borne
In secret to that Chamber-at an hour
When all slept sound, save she who bore them both,
Who little thought of what was yet to come,
And lived but to be told-he bade GARZIA
Arise and follow him. Holding in one hand
A winking lamp, and in the other a key
Massive and dungeon-like, thither he led;
And, having entered in and locked the door,
The father fixed his eyes upon the son,
And closely questioned him. No change betrayed
Or guilt or fear. Then Cosмo lifted up
The bloody sheet. Look there! Look there!' he cried.
'Blood calls for blood-and from a father's hand!
--Unless thyself wilt save him that sad office.
What!' he exclaimed, when, shuddering at the sight,
The boy breathed out, I stood but on my guard.'
'Dar'st thou then blacken one who never wronged thee,
Who would not set his foot upon a worm?—
Yes, thou must die, lest others fall by thee,
And thou shouldst be the slayer of us all.'
Then from GARZIA's belt he drew the blade,
That fatal one which spilt his brother's blood;
And, kneeling on the ground, Great God!' he cried,
'Grant me the strength to do an act of Justice.
Thou knowest what it costs me; but, alas,
How can I spare myself, sparing none else?
Grant me the strength, the will—and oh forgive
The sinful soul of a most wretched son.
'Tis a most wretched father that implores it.'
Long on GARZIA's neck he hung and wept,
Long pressed him to his bosom tenderly;
And then, but while he held him by the arm,
Thrusting him backward, turned away his face,
And stabbed him to the heart.
Well might a Youth,*
Studious of men, anxious to learn and know,
When in the train of some great embassy
He came, a visitant, to Cosmo's court,
Think on the past; and, as he wandered thro'
The ample spaces of an ancient house, †
Silent, deserted-stop awhile to dwell
Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall
Together, as of Two in bonds of love,
Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude
+ The Palazzo Vecchio. Cosмo had left it several years before.
From the sad looks of him who could have told,
The terrible truth.--Well might he heave a sigh
For poor humanity, when he beheld
That very COSMO shaking o'er his fire,
Drowsy and deaf and inarticulate,
Wrapt in his night-gown, o'er a sick man's mess,
In the last stage-death-struck and deadly pale;
His wife, another, not his ELEANOR,
At once his nurse and his interpreter.
THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE.
'Tis morning. Let us wander thro' the fields,
Where CIMABUE found a shepherd-boy*
Tracing his idle fancies on the ground;
And let us from the top of FIESOLE,
Whence GALILEO's glass by night observed
The phases of the moon, look round below
On ARNO'S vale, where the dove-coloured steer
Is ploughing up and down among the vines,
While many a careless note is sung aloud,
Filling the air with sweetness—and on thee,
Beautiful FLORENCE, all within thy walls,
Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers,
Drawn to our feet.
From that small spire, just caught
By the bright ray, that church among the rest
By One of Old distinguished as The Bride, †
Let us in thought pursue (what can we better?)
Those who assembled there at matin-time; +
+ Santa Maria Novella. For its grace and beauty it was called by Michael Angelo La Sposa.'
In the year of the Great Plague. See the Decameron.
Who, when Vice revelled and along the street
Tables were set, what time the bearer's bell
Rang to demand the dead at every door,
Came out into the meadows; and, awhile
Wandering in idleness, but not in folly,
Sat down in the high grass and in the shade
Of many a tree sun-proof-day after day,
When all was still and nothing to be heard
But the cicala's voice among the olives,
Relating in a ring, to banish care,
Their hundred tales. Round the green hill they went,
Round underneath-first to a splendid house,
Gherardi, as an old tradition runs,
That on the left, just rising from the vale;
A place for Luxury—the painted rooms,
The open galleries and middle court
Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers.
Then westward to another, nobler yet;
That on the right, now known as the Palmieri,
Where Art with Nature vied-a Paradise,
With verdurous walls, and many a trellissed walk
All rose and jasmine, many a twilight-glade
Crossed by the deer. Then to the Ladies' Vale;
And the clear lake, that as by magic seemed
To lift up to the surface every stone
Of lustre there, and the diminutive fish
Innumerable, dropt with crimson and gold,
Now motionless, now glancing to the sun.
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