For them had sought—death and yet worse than death' To meet him, and to part with him forever! Time and their wrongs had changed them all — him most! 'T was he-'t was he himself—'t was GIACOMO! From long and exquisite pain, he sobs and cries, "My son," returns the Doge, 'Obey. Thy country wills it." 110 GIACOMO That night embarked; sent to an early grave Came when he slept in peace. The ship, that sailed Bore back a lifeless corse. Generous as brave, Affection, kindness, the sweet offices Of duty and love were from his tenderest years Then was thy cup, old man, full to the brim. But thou wert yet alive; and there was one, Who would not leave thee; fastening on thy flank, One of a name illustrious as thine own! One of the Ten! one of the Invisible Three! "" "I am most willing to retire," said he : "But I have sworn, and cannot of myself. Do with me as ye please." He was deposed, He, who had reigned so long and gloriously; His ducal bonnet taken from his brow, His robes stript off, his seal and signet-ring Broken before him. But now nothing moved The meekness of his soul. All things alike! Among the six that came with the decree, FOSCARI saw one he knew not, and inquired His name. "I am the son of MARCO MEMMO." "Ah!" he replied, "thy father was my friend." And now he goes. "It is the hour and past. I have no business here." Avoid the gazing crowd? "But wilt thou not That way is private." "No! as I entered, so will I retire." By the same stairs up which he came in state; But whence the deadly hate That caused all this - the hate of LOREDANO? It was a legacy his father left, Who, but for FoSCARI, had reigned in Venice, And, like the venom in the serpent's bag, Gathered and grew! Nothing but turned to hate! 119 In vain did FOSCARI supplicate for peace, Offering in marriage his fair ISABEL. He changed not, with a dreadful piety Who talked of vengeance; grasping by the hand Done or imagined. When his father died, They whispered, ""T was by poison!" and the words He wrote it on the tomb 11 ('t is there in marble), Among the debtors in his leger-book 114 Ye who sit Brooding from day to day, from day to day As though the hour was come to whet your fangs, MARCOLINI. IT was midnight; the great clock had struck and was still echoing through every porch and gallery in the quarter of ST. MARK, when a young citizen, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home under it from an interview with his mistress. His step was light, for his heart was so. Her parents had just consented to their marriage; and the very day was named. "Lovely GIULIETTA!" he cried. "And shall I then call thee mine at last? Who was ever so blest as thy MARCOLINI?" But, as he spoke, he stopped; for something glittered on the pavement before him. It was a scabbard of rich workmanship; and the discovery, what was it but an earnest of good fortune? "Rest thou there!" he cried, thrusting it gayly into his belt. "If another claims thee not, thou hast changed masters!" And on he went as before, humming the burden of a song which he and his GIULIETTA had been singing together. But how little do we know what the next minute will bring forth! He turned by the Church of ST. GEMINIANO, and in three steps he met the watch. A murder had just been committed. The senator RENALDI had been found dead at his door, the dagger left in his heart; and the unfortunate MARCOLINI was dragged away for examination. The place, the time, everything served to excite, to justify suspicion; and no sooner had he entered the guard-house than a damning witness appeared against him. The bravo in his flight had thrown away his scabbard; and, smeared with blood, with blood not yet dry, it was now in the belt of MARCOLINI. Its patrician ornaments struck every eye; and, when the fatal dagger was produced and compared with it, not a doubt of his guilt remained. Still there is in the innocent an energy and a composure, an energy when they speak and a composure when they are silent, to which none can be altogether insensible; and the judge delayed for some time to pronounce the sentence, though he was a near relation of the dead. At length, however, it came; and MARCOLINI lost his life, GIULIETTA her reason. Not many years afterwards the truth revealed itself, the real criminal in his last moments confessing the crime and hence the custom in VENICE, a custom that long prevailed, for a crier to cry out in the court before a sentence was passed, "Ricordatevi del povero MARCOLINI!" 116 Great, indeed, was the lamentation throughout the city. and the judge, dying, directed that thenceforth and forever a mass should be sung every night in a chapel of the ducal |