2

For the miraculous gem that to the wearer
Gave signs infallible of coming ill, (117)

PART II.
That clouded though the vehicle of death
Were an invisible perfume.
Happy then

I.
The guest to whom at sleeping-time 't was said,

THE PILGRIM.
But in an under-voice (a lady's page
Speaks in no louder) « Pass not on, That door

It was an hour of universal joy.
Leads to another which awaits your coming,

The lark was up and at the gate of heaven, One in the floor-now left, alas, unbolted. (118) Singing, as sure to enter when he came; No eye detects il-lying under-foot,

The butterfly was basking in my path, Just as you enter, at the threshold-stone;

His radiant wings unfolded. From below Ready to fall and plunge you into darkness,

The bell of prayer rose slowly, plaintively;
Darkness and long oblivion !»

And odours, such as welcome in the day,
Then indeed

Such as salute the early traveller,
Where lurk'd not danger? Through the fairy-land And come and go, each sweeter than the last,
No seat of pleasure glittering half-way down,

Were rising. Till and valley breathed delight;
No hunting-place-but with some damning spot And not a living thing but blessed the hour!
That will not be wash'd out! There, at Caiano,(119) In every bush and brake there was a voice
Where, when the hawks were looded and Night came, Responsive!
Pulci would set the table in a roar

From the Thrasymene, that now
With his wild lay (120)—there, where the Sun descends, Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold,
And hill and dale are lost, veil'd with his beams, And from the shore that once, when armies met,(123)
The fair Venetian I died-she and her lord,

Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible Died of a posset druge'd by him who sate

The rage, the slaughter, I had turn'd away; And saw them suffer, tlinging back the charge,

The path, that led me, leading through a wood, The murderer on the murder'd.

A fairy-wilderness of fruits and flowers,

Sobs of Grief, And by a brook (124) that, in the day of strife, Sounds inarticulate--suddenly stopt,

Ran blood, but now runs amber—when a glade, And follow'd by a struggle and a gasp,

Far, far within, sunn'd only at noon-day, A gasp in death, are heard yet in Cerreto,

Suddenly open'd. Many a bench was there, Along the marble halls and staircases,

Each round its ancient elm; and many a track, Nightly at twelve; and, at the self-same hour,

Well-known to them that from the high-way loved Shricks, such as penetrate the in most soul,

Awhile to deviate. In the midst a cross Such as awake the innocent babe to long,

Of mouldering stone as in a temple stood, Long wailing, echo through the emptiness

Solemn, severe; coeval with the trees Of diat old den far up among the hills, (121)

That round it in majestic order rose; Frowning on him who comes from Pietra-Mala : And on the lowest step a Pilgrim knell, In them, in both, within five days and less,

Clasping his hands in prayer. He was the first Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair,

Yet seen by me (save in a midnight-masque, Welcomed with kisses, and slain cruelly,

A revel, where none cares to play his parl, One with the knife, one with the fatal noose.

And they, that speak, at once dissolve the charm)

The first in sober truth, no counterfeit; But lo, the Sun is setting ; (122) earth and sky

And, when his orisons were duly paid, One blaze of glory-What but now we saw

He rose, and we exchanged, as all are wont, As though it were not, though it had not been!

A traveller's greeting. He lingers yet; and, lessening to a point,

Young, and of an age Shines like the eye of Heaven-then withdraws;

When Youth is most attractive, when a light And from the zenith to the utmost skirts

Plays round and round, reflected, if I err not, All is celestial red! The hour is come,

From some attendant Spirit, that ere long When they that sail along the distant seas

(His charge relinquish'd with a sigh, a tear) Languish for home; and they that in the morn Wings his flight upward-with a look he won Said to sweet friends « farewell,» melt as at parting;

My favour; and, the spell of silence broke,

I could not but continue.
When, journeying on, the pilgrim, if he hears,
As now we hear it, echoing round the hill,

« Whence, - I ask'd, The bell that seems to mourn the dying day,

- Whence art thou ?»---- From Mont' alto,» he replied, Slackens his pace and sighs, and those he loved

My native village in the Apennines. -
Loves more than ever.
But who feels it not?

« And whither journeying?..

?s-- « To the holy shrine And well may we, for we are far away.

Of Saint Antonio in the City of Padua. Let us retire, and hail it in our hearts.

Perhaps, if thou hast ever gone so far,

Thou wilt direct my course.s—« Most willingly; Bianca Capello.

. See Note. But thou hast much to do, much to endure,

Ere thou hast enter'd where the silver lamps
Burn ever.

Tell meI would not transgress,
Yet ask I must-what could have brought thee forth,
Nothing in act or thought to be atoned for?»—

C

• It was a vow I made in my distress.

Loosely with locks of hair-I look'd and saw We were so blest, none were so blest as we,

What, seen in such an hour by Sancho Panza, Till Sickness came. First, as death-struck, I fell; Had given his honest countenance a breadth, Then my beloved sister; and ere long,

Ilis cheeks a flush of pleasure and surprise, Worn with continual watchings, night and day, Unknown before, had chain'd him to the spot, Our saint-like mother. Worse and worse she grew;

And thou, Sir Knight, hadsı traversed hill and dale, And in my anguish, my despair, I vow'd,

Squire-less. That if she lived, if Heaven restored her to us,

Below and winding far away, I would forthwith, and in a l'ilgrim's weeds,

A narrow glade unfolded, such as Spriog (127) Visit that holy shrine. My vow was heard;

Broiders with flowers, and, when the moon is higli, And therefore am I come.:-- Thou hast done well; The hare delights to race in, scattering round And may those weeds, so reverenced of old,

The silvery dews. Cedar aod cypress threw Guard thee in danger!,

Singly their length of shadow, chequering They are nothing worth. The greensward, and, what grew in frequent tufts, But they are worn in humble confidence;

An underwood of inyrile, that by fits Nor would I for the richest robe resign them,

Sent up a gale of fragrance. Through the midst, Wronght, as they were, bv those I love so well,

Reflecting, as it ran, purple and gold, Lauretta and my sister ; theirs the task,

A rainbow's splendour (somewhere in the cast But none to them, a pleasure, a delight,

Rain-drops were falling fast) a rivulet To ply their utmost skill, and send me forth

Sported as loath to go; and on the bank As best became this service. Their last words,

Stood in the cyes of ore, if not of both, Fare thee well, Carlo. We shall count thic hours!' Worth all the rest and more) a sumpter-mule (128) Will not go from me.»

Well-laden, while two menials as in haste • Health and strength be thine Drew from his ample panniers, ranging round In thy long travel! May no sun-beam strike;

Viands and fruits on many a shining salver, No vapour cling and wither! Mayst thou be,

And plunging in the cool translucent wave Sleepiny, or waking, sacred and secure!

Flasks of delicious wine. And, when again thou comesl, thy labour done,

Anon a horn Joy he among ye! In that happy hour

Blow, through the champaign bidding to the feast, All will

pour
forth to bid thee welcome, Carlo;

Its jocund note to other ears address'd,
And there is one, or I am much deceived,

Not ours; and, slowly coming by a path,
One thou hast named, who will not be the last.»- That, ere it issued from an ilex-grove,
Oh, she is true as Truth itself cau be !

Was seen far inward, though along the glade
But ah, thou know'st her not. Would that thou couldst! Distinguish'd only by a fresher verdure,
My steps I quicken when I think of ber;

Peasants approach'd, one leading in a leash
For, though they take me further from her door, Beagles yet panting, one with various game,
I shall return the sooner.»

In rich confusion slung, before, behind,

Leveret and quail and pheasant. All announced II.

The chase as over; and ere-long appeard,

Their horses full of fire, champing the curb,
AN INTERVIEW.

For the wliite foam was dry upon the flank, PLEASURE, that comes unlook'd-for, is thrice-welcome; Two in close converse, each in each delighting, And, if it stir the heart, if aught be there,

Their plumage waving as instinct with life; That may hereafter in a thoughtful hour

A Lady young and graceful, and a Youth, Wake but a sigh, 't is treasured up among

Yet

younger, bearing on a filconer's glove, The things most precious; and the day it came, As in the golden, the romantic time, Is noted as a white day in our lives.

His falcon hooded. Like some spirit of air,

Or fairy-vision, such as feign'd of old, The sun was wheeling westward, and the cliffs

The Lady, while lier courser paw'd the ground, And nodding woods, that everlastingly

Alighted; and her beauty, as she trod (Such the dominion of thy mighty voice, (125) The enameli'd bank, bruising nor herb nor flower, Thy voice, Velino, utter'd in the mist)

That place illumined. Hear thee and answer thee, were left at length

Ah, who should she be, For others still as noon; and on we stray'd

And with her brother, as when last we met, From wild to wilder, nothing hospitable

(When the first lark liad sung ere half was said, Seen up or down, no bush or green or dry, (126) And as she stood, bidding adieu, her voice, That ancient symbol at the cottage-door,

So sweet it was, recalld me like a spell) Offering refreshment-when Luigi cried,

Who but Angelica ? Well, of a thousand tracts we chose the best!»

That day we gave And, turning round an oak, oracular once,

To Pleasure, and, unconscious of their flight, Now lightning-struck, a cave, a thoroughfare

Another and another; hers a home For all that came, each entrance a broad arch,

Dropt from the sky amid the wild and rude, Whence a deer, rustling his velvet coat,

Loreto-like. The rising moon we hail'd, Had issued, many a gipsy and her brood

Duly, devoutly, from a vestibule Peer'd forth, then housed again-the floor yet grey Of many an arch, o'er-wrought and lavishly With ashes, and the sides, where roughest, hung With many a wildering dream of sylphs and flowers,

many

up.

night, -to turn ate,

oft atine,

nce, found brood

gain'd, cif, ту

walls

other wept

a

ing'd, escend L.

Went and, kneeling as in fervent prayer,

Replied a Soldier of the Pontiff's guard.
Enter'd the Capitol. But what are they,

And innocent as beautiful!, exclaim'd
Who at the foot withdraw, a mournful train

A Matron sitting in her stall, hung round
In fetters? And who, yet incredulous,

With garlands, holy pictures, and what not?
Now gazing wildly round, now on his sons,

Her Alban grapes and Tusculan figs display'd
On those so young, well-pleased with all they see, (138) In richi profusion. From her heart she spoke;
Staggers along, the last !-- They are the fallen,

And I accosted her to hear her story.
Those who were spared to grace the chariot-wheels; « The stab, , she cried, - was given in jealousy;
And there they parted, where the road divides,

But never fled a purer spirit to heaven,
The victor and the vanquish d-there withdrew; As thou wilt say, or much iny

mind misleads,
He to the festal board, and they to die.

When thou hast seen her face. Last night at dusk,

When on her way from vespers—None were near,
Well might the great, the mighty of the world, None save her serving-boy, who knelt and wept,
They who were wont to fare deliciously,

But what could tears avail him, when she fell -
And war but for a kingdom more or less,

Last night at dusk, the clock then striking nine,
Shrink back, nor from their thrones endure to look, Just by the fountain-that before the church,
To think that way! Well miglit they in their state The church she always used, St Isidore's—
Humble themselves, and kneel and supplicate

Alas, I knew her from her carliest youth,
To be delivered from a dream like this!

That excellent lady. Ever would she say,

Good even, as she pass'd, and with a voice
Here Cincinnatus pass'd, his plough the while

Gentle as theirs in heaven!--But now by fits
Left in the furrow, and how many more,

A dull and dismal noise assaild the ear,
Whose laurels fade not, wlio still walk the earth, A wail, a chant, louder and louder yet;
Consuls, Dictators, still in Curule pomp

And now a strange fantastic troop appeard !
Sit and decide; and, as of old in Rome,

Thuronging, they cameras from the shades below;
Name but their names, set every heart on fire!

All of a ghostly white! • Oh say,» I cried,
Do not the living here bury the dead?

What are these,
Here, in his bonds, he whom the phalanx saved not,' Do Spirits come and fetch them?
The last on Philip's throne; and the Nurnidian, ?

That seem not of this World, and mock the Day;
So soon to sav, stript of liis cumbrous robe,

Each with a burning raper in his hand?
Stript to the skin, and in his nakedness

«It is an ancient Brotherhood thou seest.
Thrust under-ground, - How cold this bath of yours!,

Such their apparel. Through the long, long line,
And thy proud queen, Palmyra, through the sands 3 Look where thou wilt, no likeness of a man;
Pursued, o'ertaken on her dromedary;

The living mask'd, the dead alonc uncoverd.
Whose temples, palaces, a wondrous dream

But marks-And, lying on her funeral-couch,
That passes not away,

for
many a league

Like one asleep, her eyelids closed, her hands
Illumine yet the desert. Some invoked

Folded together on her modest breast,
Death, and escaped ; the Egyptian, when her asp As 't were her nightly posture, through the crowd
Caine from his covert under the green leaf; 4

She came at last-and richly, gaily clad,
And Hannibal himself; and she who said,

As for a birth-day feast ! But breathes she not?
Taking the fatal cup between her hands, 5 (139)

A glow is on her cheek—and her lips move!
Tell him I would it liad come yesterday;

And now a smile is there-how heavenly sweet!
For then it had not been bis nuptial gift..

• Oh no!, replied the Dame, wiping her tears,

But with an accent less of grief than anger,
Now all is changed; and here, as in the wild,

No, she will never, never wake again!
The day is silent, dreary as the night;
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd,

Death, when we meet the spectre in our walks,
Savage alike; or they that would explore,

As we did yesterday and shall to-morrow,
Discuss and learnedly; or they that come,

Soon grows familiar-like most other things,
(And there are many who have cross'd the earth ) Scen, not observed; but in a foreign clime,
That they may give the hours to meditation,

Changing his slape to something new and strange,
And wander, often saying to themselves,

( And through the world he changes as in sport,
• This was the Roman Forum !

Affect he greatness or humility)

Knocks at the heart, His form and fashion here
IV.

To me, I do confess, reflect a gloom,

A sadness round; yet one I would not lose;
A FUNERAL.

Being in unison with all things else
• Wuence this delay ?---- · Along the crowded street In this, this land of shadows, where we live
A Funeral comes, and with unusual pomp..

More in past time than present, where the ground,
So I withdrew a little and stood still,

League beyond league, like one great cemetery,
While it went by. She died as she deserved,

Is cover'd o'er with mouldering monuments;
Said an Abalè, gathering up his cloak,

And, let the living wander where they will,
And with a shrug retreating as the tide

They cannot leave the footsteps of the dead.
Flow'd more and more. - But she was beautiful!, Oft, where the burial-rite follows so fast
I Perseus.
? Jugurthu.

» Zenobia.

The agony, oft cominy, nor from far, • Cleopatra.

Sopbonisba. Must a fond father meet his darling child,

come, met

free,

e corse is cloud nife

child, ence spoke Dow hands

e

136) ranged

eak,

?

(llim who at parting climbed his knees and clung) remembering that nations are naturally patient and Clay-cold and wan, and to the bearers cry,

long-suffering, and seldom rise in rebellion till they - Stand, I conjure ye!,

are so degraded by a bad government as to be almost Seen thus destitute,

incapable of a good one. What are the greatest? They must speak beyond « Hate them, perhaps, you may siy, « we should not; A thousand homilies. When Raphael went,

but despise them we must, if enslaved, like the people Bis heavenly face the mirror of his mind,

of Rome, in mind as well as body; if their religion be Vis mind a temple for all lovely things

a gross and barbarous superstition.»-I respect knowTo tlock to and inhabit-when He went,

ledge; but I do not despise ignorance. They think only Wrapt in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore,

as their fathers thought, worship as they worshipped. To sleep beneath the venerable Dome,'

They do no more; and, if ours had not burst their By those attended, who in life had loved,

bondage, braving imprisonment and death, might not Had worshipp'd, following in his steps to Fame, we at this very moment have been exhibiting, in our ('T was on an April-day, when Nature smiles)

streets and our churches, the same processions, cereAll Rome was there. But, ere the march began, monials, and mortifications? Ere to receive their charge the bearers carne,

Nor should we require from those who are in an Who had not sought him? And when all beheld earlier stage of society, what belongs to a later. They Him, where he lay, how changed from yesterday, are only where we once were; and why hold them in Him in that hour cut off, and at his head

derision? It is their business to cultivate the inferior llis last great work;(140) when, entering in, they look'd arts before they think of the more refined; and in Now on the dead, then on that master-piece,

many of the last what are we as a nation, when comNow on his face, lifeless and colourless,

pared to others that have passed away? Unfortunately Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, it is too much the practice of governments to nurse and And would live on for ages—all were moved ;

keep alive in the governed their national prejudices. It And sighs burst forth, and loudest lamentations. withdraws their allen tion from what is passing at home,

and makes them better tools in the hands of Ambition. V. Hence next-door neighbours are held UP

to us from our NATIONAL PREJUDICES.

childhood as natural enemies; and we are urged on

like curs to worry each other.' • ANOTHER Assassination! This venerable City,. I ex- In like manner we should learn to be just to indiviclaimed, « what is it, but as it began, a nest of robbers duals.

Who can say, * In such circumstances I should and murderers? We must away at sun-risc, Luigi.»— have done otherwise?, Who, did he but reflect by what But before sun-rise I had retlected a little, and in the slow gradations, often by how many strange concursoberest prose. My indignation was gone; and, when rences, we are led astray; with how much reluctance, Luigi undrew my curtain, crying, « Up, Signor up! The how much agony, how many cfforts to escape, how horses are at the door.. · Luigi,» I replied, « if thou

many self-accusations, how many sighs, how many Jovest me, draw the curtain., 2

tears-Who, did he but reflect for a moment, would It would lessen very much the severity with which have the heart 10 cast a słone? Fortunately these things men judge of each other, if they would but trace effects are known to Him, from whom no secrets are hidden; to their causes, and observe the progress of things in and let us rest in the assurance that llis judgments are the moral as accurately as in the physical world. When we condemn millions in the mass as vindictive and sanguinary, we should remember that, wherever Justice is

VI. ill administered, the injured will redress themselves.

THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME. Robbery provokes to robbery; murder to assassination. Resentments become hereditary; and what began in lave none appeared as tillers of the ground, (141) disorder, ends as if all Hell had broke loose.

None since they went-as though it still were theirs, Laws create a habit of self-restraint, not only by the and they might come and claim their own again? influence of fear, but by regulating in its exercise the Was the last plough a Roman's ? passion of revenge. If they overawe the bad by the

pro

From this Seat, (142) spect of a punishinent certain and well-defined, they Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings, console the injured by the intliction of that punislı- The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky, ment; and, as the infliction is a public act, it excites Look'd down and saw the armies in array,2 and entails no enmity. The laws are offended; and the community for its own sake pursues and overtakes the Can it be believed that there are many among us, who, from a desire offender; often without the concurrence of the sufferer, to be thought superior to common place sentimenis and vulgar sometimes against his wishes.

feelings, affoc an indifference to their cause: -1f the Greeks, they Now those who were not born, like ourselves, to such verb. And is not falschoed the characteristic of slaves! Man is

say, bad the probity of other nations--but they are false to a proadvantages, we should surely rather pity than hale;' the errature of circumstances. Free, he has the qualities of a freeand, when at length they venture to turn against their man; enslaved, those of a siare. rulers, 3 we should laineni, not wonder at their excesses,

not as ours are.