In death's elaborate elect retreat.

I was a Prince,-this monument was wrought
That I in honor might eternal stand;

In vain, subdued by Buonarroti's hand,

The conscious stone is pregnant with his thought; He to this brooding rock his fame devised,

And he, not I, is here immortalized.

JAMES ERNEST NESMITH.

THE DUOMO

TWILIGHT the hour. How doubly twilight here,
Where early blent are roof and architrave
(As in a mountain hollowed to a cave),
And ev❜n the glance of noonday is austere!
Now, what reverberations fill the ear,

As though commingling storm and torrent gave Some waste place speech, or prophet message clave,

For the first time, a desert vast and drear!

Source of the sounds, beyond the altar high,A preaching monk. His burden he repeats: "Gesu e Cristo!" How his accents thrill,

As, in the wild, the first evangel cry!

And still, I hear them, 'midst the murmuring

streets,

In twilight Florence, medieval still.

EDITH MATILDA THOMAS.

SAN MINIATO

SEE, I have climbed the mountainside
Up to this holy house of God,
Where once that Angel-Painter trod
Who saw the heavens opened wide,

And throned upon the crescent moon
The Virginal white Queen of Grace,—
Mary! could I but see thy face
Death could not come at all too soon.

O crowned by God with thorns and pain!
Mother of Christ! O mystic wife!
My heart is weary of this life
And over-sad to sing again.

O crowned by God with love and flame!
O crowned by Christ the Holy One
O listen ere the searching sun

Show to the world my sin and shame.

OSCAR WILDE.

IN SAN LORENZO

Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear?

Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear

When the word falls from heaven-Let there be

light.

Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite
To wake thee while the old sorrow and shame

were near;

We spake not loud for thy sake, and for fear Lest thou shouldst lose the rest that was thy right, The blessing given thee that was thine alone. The happiness to sleep and to be stone:

Nay, we kept silence of thee for thy sake Albeit we know thee alive, and left with thee The great good gift to feel not nor to see; But will not yet thine Angel bid thee wake? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

FROM "LOVE IN ITALY”

THE air was heavy with the scent of flowers
When from the height of Fiesole we gazed
Where Brunelleschi's dome and the two towers
Shone in the sunset,-like three fingers raised
To point a heaven where Art and Worship blend.
A last long spire of flame shot through the sky
And left thee sad: "The glory of the end,―
How sweet to die in Florence!" was thy sigh.
But I replied, "Rather, the golden bars

Of day are burst: the world doth onward move
To larger life beneath the infinite stars,
The calm of night comes winged on the breath
Of roses, dearest heart. When Youth and Love
And Florence meet, can there be thought of
JOHN HALL INGHAM.

Death?"

ARCETRI

THE TOMB OF GALILEO

I HAVE grown weary of the idle show

Of pompous Castle and pretentious Court, Of Churches-dingy wrecks of long ago— Of swords and guns in arsenal or fort.

I sicken at the sight of tarnished toys,
Of dead-and-buried mistresses of kings,
Of spears of warring barons-bearded boys
Who fumed and fought for cheap and childish
things.

I care not for the saint of mythic fame,
Who wore brass haloes on an empty head;
The so-called patriot, who in Freedom's name,
Heaped neighboring lands with hillocks of the
dead.

But here lies one, the brave, the great, the good, Worth all the kings and queens the whole world round;

Make bare your head in reverential mood,

For here indeed you tread on Holy Ground.

His life, from selfish earthly motives purged,

Was consecrated unto you and me;

He took the blow, that we might go unscourged, And wore the chains, that we might wander free.

He found the long-lost Pleiad, Saturn's band, And brought Jove's moons to yonder Tuscan hill;

The second Joshua, at whose command

The heavens ceased turning and the sun stood still.

The moon in starry-frosted skies of night
Shall write in splendor Galileo's name,
And sun to sun at noon and morning light

Shall blazon heaven with Galileo's fame.
WALTER Malone.