of the dreary flamingo-haunted Camargue. Both of these buildings have porches splendidly incrusted with sculptures, half-classical, half-mediæval, marking the transition from ancient to modern art. But that of St Gilles is by far the richer and more elaborate. The whole façade of this church is one mass of intricate decoration; Norman arches and carved lions, like those of Lombard architecture, mingling fantastically with Greek scrolls of fruit and flowers, with elegant Corinthian columns jutting out upon the church steps, and with the old conventional wave - border that is called Etruscan in our modern jargon. From the midst of florid fret and foliage lean mild faces of saints and Madonnas. Symbols of evangelists with halfhuman, half-animal eyes and wings, are interwoven with the leafy bowers of Cupids. Grave apostles stand erect beneath acanthus wreaths that ought to crisp the forehead of a laughing Faun or Bacchus. And yet so full, exuberant, and deftly-chosen are these various elements, that there remains no sense of incongruity or discord. The medieval spirit had much trouble to disentangle itself from classic reminiscences; and, fortunately for the picturesqueness of St Gilles, it did not succeed. How strangely different is the result of this transition in the south from those severe and rigid forms which we call Romanesque in Germany and Normandy and England. EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH. ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON. FOUNTAIN of woe! Harbour of endless ire! Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, O forge of fraud ! O prison dark and dire, Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. Founded in chaste and humble poverty, Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? Even from foul and loathed adultery, The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. TO STEFANO COLONNA. WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE. GLORIOUS Colonna, thou on whose high head Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread : Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI. ON LEAVING AVIGNON. BACKWARD at every weary step and slow These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. But when I think how joy is turned to woe, Remembering my short life and whence I fare, I stay my feet for anguish and despair, And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. At times amid the storm of misery This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor Can severed from their spirit hope to live. Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory How I to lovers this great guerdon give, Free from all human bondage to endure? IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII. THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE. THE wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow Leaves the loved spot where he hath passed his years, Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, To see their father's tottering steps and slow. In these last days of life he nothing fears, Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, Lady, to find in other features dim The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. |