The day arrives, and the court assembles. The claim is stated, and the evidence given. And now the defence is called for- but none is made; not a syllable is uttered; and, after a pause and a consultation of some minutes, the Judges are proceeding to give judgment, silence having been proclaimed in the court, when LoRENZO rises and thus addresses them. Reverend Signors. Young as I am, may I venture to speak before you? I would speak in behalf of one who has none else to help her; and I will not keep you long. Much has been said; much, on the sacred nature of the obligation and we acknowledge it in its full force. Let it be fulfilled, and to the last letter. It is what we solicit, what we require. But to whom is the bag of gold to be delivered? What says the bond? Not to one not to two-but to the three. Let the three stand forth and claim it.'
From that day, (for who can doubt the issue?) none were sought, none employed, but the subtle, the eloquent LORENZO. Wealth followed Fame; nor need I say how soon he sat at his marriage-feast, or who sat beside him.
ONE of two things MONTRIOLI may have,
My envy or compassion. Both he cannot.
Yet on he goes, numbering as miseries,
What least of all he would consent to lose,
What most indeed he prides himself upon,
And, for not having, most despises me.
'At morn the minister exacts an hour;
At noon the king. Then comes the council-board;
And then the chase, the supper. When, ah, when,
The leisure and the liberty I sigh for?
Not when at home; at home a miscreant-crew,
That now no longer serve me, mine the service.
And then that old hereditary bore,
The steward, his stories longer than his rent-roll,
Who enters, quill in ear, and, one by one,
As tho' I lived to write, and wrote to live,
Unrolls his leases for my signature.'
He clanks his fetters to disturb my peace.
Yet who would wear them, and become the slave
Of wealth and power, renouncing willingly
His freedom, and the hours that fly so fast,
A burden or a curse when misemployed,
But to the wise how precious!-every day
A little life, a blank to be inscribed
With gentle deeds, such as in after-time
Console, rejoice, whene'er we turn the leaf
To read them? All, wherever in the scale,
Have, be they high or low, or rich or poor,
Inherit they a sheep-hook or a sceptre,
Much to be grateful for; but most has he,
Born in that middle sphere, that temperate zone,
Where Knowledge lights his lamp, there most secure,
And Wisdom comes, if ever, she who dwells
Above the clouds, above the firmament,
That Seraph sitting in the heaven of heavens.
What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power, Are baubles nothing worth, that only serve To rouse us up, as children in the schools
Are roused up to exertion. The reward
Is in the race we run, not in the prize;
And they, the few, that have it ere they earn it,
Having, by favour or inheritance,
These dangerous gifts placed in their idle hands,
And all that should await on worth well-tried,
All in the glorious days of old reserved
For manhood most mature or reverend age,
Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride
That glows in him who on himself relies,
Entering the lists of life.
THEY stand between the mountains and the sea;
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not!
The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck.
The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak,
Points to the work of magic and moves on.
Time was they stood along the crowded street,
Temples of Gods! and on their ample steps
What various habits, various tongues beset
The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice!
Time was perhaps the third who sought for Justice;
And here the accuser stood, and there the accused;
And here the judges sate, and heard, and judged.
All silent now!-as in the ages past,
Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust.
How many centuries did the sun go round.
From MOUNT ALBURNUS to the TYRRHENE sea,
While, by some spell rendered invisible,
Or, if approached, approached by him alone
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained
As in the darkness of a sepulchre,
Waiting the appointed time! All, all within
Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right,
And taken to herself what man renounced;
No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus,
But with thick ivy hung or branching fern;
Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure!
From my youth upward have I longed to tread
This classic ground-And am I here at last?
Wandering at will through the long porticoes,
And catching, as through some majestic grove,
Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like,
Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up,
Towns like the living rock from which they grew?
A cloudy region, black and desolate,
Where once a slave withstood a world in arms.*
The air is sweet with violets, running wild
'Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals;
Sweet as when TULLY, writing down his thoughts,
Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost,
(Turning to thee, divine Philosophy,
Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul)
Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago,
For ATHENS; when a ship, if north-east winds
Blew from the PESTAN gardens, slacked her course.
On as he moved along the level shore,
These temples, in their splendour eminent
'Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers,
* Spartacus. See Plutarch in the Life of Crassus.
Reflecting back the radiance of the west,
Well might he dream of Glory!-Now, coiled up,
The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf
Suckles her young: and, as alone I stand
In this, the nobler pile, the elements
Of earth and air its only floor and covering,
How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs
Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round
On the rough pediment to sit and sing;
Or the green lizard rustling through the grass,
And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring,
To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.
In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries,
(Gigantic shadows, broken and confused,
Athwart the innumerable columns flung)
In such an hour he came, who saw and told,
Led by the mighty Genius of the Place.
Walls of some capital city first appeared, Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn;
- And what within them? what within the midst These Three in more than their original grandeur, And, round about, no stone upon another? As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear, And, turning, left them to the elements.
'Tis said a stranger in the days of old (Some say a DORIAN, some a SYBARITE; But distant things are ever lost in clouds) 'Tis said a stranger came, and, with his plough, Traced out the site; and POSIDONIA rose, Severely great, NEPTUNE the tutelar God;
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