And, having caused the body to be borne

In secret to that Chamber-at an hour

When all slept sound, save the disconsolate Mother,*

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 COSMO lifted up

The bloody sheet. "Look there! Look there!"

he cried.

"Blood calls for blood-and from a father's hand!

* Eleonora di Toledo.

-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 side he took the dagger,
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 who implores it."

Long on GARZIA's neck he hung, and wept

Tenderly, long pressed him to his bosom;

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 DE THOU,

When in his youth he came to Cosmo's court,

Think on the Past; and, as he wandered through

The Ancient Palace-through those ample spaces

Silent, deserted-stop awhile to dwell

Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall

Together, as of two in bonds of love,

One in a Cardinal's habit, one in black,

Those of the unhappy brothers, and infer

From the deep silence that his questions drew,

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 Eleonora,

At once his nurse and his interpreter.

XXI.

'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 oxen
Are ploughing up and down among the vines,

While many a careless note is sung aloud,

* Giotto.

L