text:
Sordello/Book the First

BOOK THE FIRST.

Who will, may hear Sordello's story told: His story? Who believes me shall behold The man, pursue his fortunes to the end, Like me: for as the friendless-people's friend Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out Sordello, compassed murkily about With ravage of six long sad hundred years. Only believe me. Ye believe?

Appears Verona... Never,—I should warn you first,— Of my own choice had this, if not the worst Yet not the best expedient, served to tell A story I could body forth so well By making speak, myself kept out of view, The very man as he was wont to do, And leaving you to say the rest for him. Since, though I might be proud to see the dim Abysmal past divide its hateful surge, Letting of all men this one man emerge Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past, I should delight in watching first to last His progress as you watch it, not a whit More in the secret than yourselves who sit Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems Your setters-forth of unexampled themes, Makers of quite new men, producing them, Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem The wearer's quality; or take their stand, Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand, Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends, Summoned together from the world's four ends, Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell, To hear the story I propose to tell. Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick, Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick, And shaming her; 't is not for fate to choose Silence or song because she can refuse Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake: I have experienced something of her spite; But there 's a realm wherein she has no right And I have many lovers. Say; but few Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view The host I muster! Many a lighted face Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace; What else should tempt them back to taste our air Except to see how their successors fare? My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man Striving to look as living as he can, Brother by breathing brother; thou art set, Clear-witted critic, by... but I 'll not fret A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean The living in good earnest—ye elect Chiefly for love—suppose not I reject Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep, Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep, To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear, Verona! stay—thou, spirit, come not near Now—not this time desert thy cloudy place To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face! I need not fear this audience, I make free With them, but then this is no place for thee! The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown Up out of memories of Marathon, Would echo like his own sword's griding screech Braying a Persian shield,—the silver speech Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin, Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in The knights to tilt,—wert thou to hear! What heart Have I to play my puppets, bear my part Before these worthies?

Lo, the past is hurled In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world, Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears Its outline, kindles at the core, appears Verona. 'T is six hundred years and more Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore The purple, and the Third Honorius filled The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled: A last remains of sunset dimly burned O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned By the wind back upon its bearer's hand In one long flare of crimson; as a brand, The woods beneath lay black. A single eye From all Verona cared for the soft sky. But, gathering in its ancient market-place, Talked group with restless group; and not a face But wrath made livid, for among them were Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care To feast him. Fear had long since taken root In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit, The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and grey Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro, Letting the silent luxury trickle slow About the hollows where a heart should be; But the young gulped with a delirious glee Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood At the fierce news: for, be it understood, Envoys apprised Verona that her prince Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust With Ecelin Romano, from his seat Ferrara,—over zealous in the feat And stumbling on a peril unaware, Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare, They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue. Immediate succour from the Lombard League Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope, For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast! Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast. "Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes "Mirth for the devil when he undertakes "To play the Ecelin; as if it cost "Merely your pushing-by to gain a post "Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all, "There be sound reasons that preferment fall "On our beloved"...

"Duke o' the Rood, why not?" Shouted an Estian, "grudge ye such a lot? "The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own, "Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown, "That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts, "And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts."

"Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane "Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain "To fly but forced the earth his couch to make "Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake, "Waits he the Kaiser's coming; and as yet "That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let "Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs "The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs "The sea it means to cross because of him. "Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim; "Creep closer on the creature! Every day "Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say, "Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips "Telling upon his perished finger-tips "How many ancestors are to depose "Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze "Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt "Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt "When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet "Buccio Virtù—God's wafer, and the street "Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm "With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm! "This could not last. Off Salinguerra went "To Padua, Podestà, 'with pure intent,' "Said he, 'my presence, judged the single bar "'To permanent tranquillity, may jar "'No longer'—so! his back is fairly turned? "The pair of goodly palaces are burned, "The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk "A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk "In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way, "Old Salinguerra back again—I say, "Old Salinguerra in the town once more "Uprooting, overturning, flame before, "Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled; "Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead "Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne, "He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone, "Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce "Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce, "On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth "To see troop after troop encamp beneath "I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch "It took so many patient months to snatch "Out of the marsh; while just within their walls "Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls "A parley: 'let the Count wind up the war!' "Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star, "Agrees to enter for the kindest ends "Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends, "No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort "Should fly Ferrara at the bare report. "Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog; "'Ten, twenty, thirty,—curse the catalogue "'Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows "'Not the least sign of life'—whereat arose "A general growl: 'How? With his victors by? "'I and my Veronese? My troops and I? "'Receive us, was your word?' So jogged they on, "Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone "Into the trap!—"

Six hundred years ago! Such the time's aspect and peculiar woe (Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles, Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills His sprawling path through letters anciently Made fine and large to suit some abbot's eye) When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask, Flung John of Brienne's favour from his casque, Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve Losses to Otho and to Barbaross, Or make the Alps less easy to recross; And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear, Was excommunicate that very year. "The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!" Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife, Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin, Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin, Its cry: what cry?

"The Emperor to come!" His crowd of feudatories, all and some, That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields, One fighter on his fellow, to our fields, Scattered anon, took station here and there, And carried it, till now, with little care— Cannot but cry for him; how else rebut Us longer?—cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut In the mid-sea, each domineering crest Which nought save such another throe can wrest From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown Since o'er the waters, twine and tangle thrown Too thick, too fast accumulating round, Too sure to over-riot and confound Ere long each brilliant islet with itself, Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf, Whirling the sea-drift wide: alas, the bruised And sullen wreck! Sunlight to be diffused For that!—sunlight, 'neath which, a scum at first, The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main, And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again, So kindly blazed it—that same blaze to brood O'er every cluster of the multitude Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments, An emulous exchange of pulses, vents Of nature into nature; till some growth Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe A surface solid now, continuous, one: "The Pope, for us the People, who begun "The People, carries on the People thus, "To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!" See you?

Or say, Two Principles that live Each fitly by its Representative. "Hill-cat"—who called him so?—the gracefullest Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur, Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr Soothes jealous neighbours when a Saxon scout —Arpo or Yoland, is it?—one without A country or a name, presumes to couch Beside their noblest; until men avouch That, of all Houses in the Trevisan, Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van, Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled That name at Milan on the page of gold, Godego's lord,—Ramon, Marostica, Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria, And every sheep cote on the Suabian's fief! No laughter when his son, "the Lombard Chief" Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent To Italy along the Vale of Trent, Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now— The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow, The Asolan and Euganean hills, The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay Among and care about them; day by day Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot, A castle building to defend a cot, A cot built for a castle to defend, Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge By sunken gallery and soaring bridge. He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems The griesliest nightmare of the Church's dreams, —A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged From its old interests, and nowise changed By its new neighbourhood: perchance the vaunt Of Otho, "my own Este shall supplant "Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in A son as cruel; and this Ecelin Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall And curling and compliant; but for all Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek Proved 't was some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went To feed: whereas Romano's instrument, Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole Successively, why should not he shed blood To further a design? Men understood Living was pleasant to him as he wore His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er, Propped on his truncheon in the public way, While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray, Lost at Oliero's convent.

Hill-cats, face Our Azzo, our Guelf Lion! Why disgrace A worthiness conspicuous near and far (Atii at Rome while free and consular, Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun) By trumpeting the Church's princely son? —Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine, Ancona's march, Ferrara's... ask, in fine, Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk Found it intolerable to be sunk (Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell) Quite out of summer while alive and well: Ended when by his mat the Prior stood, 'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood, Striving to coax from his decrepit brains The reason Father Porphyry took pains To blot those ten lines out which used to stand First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand.

The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore Was vested in a certain Twenty-four; And while within his palace these debate Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate, Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care For aught that 's seen or heard until we shut The smother in, the lights, all noises but The carroch's booming: safe at last! Why strange Such a recess should lurk behind a range Of banquet-rooms? Your finger—thus—you push A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush Upon the banqueters, select your prey, Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear A preconcerted signal to appear; Or if you simply crouch with beating heart, Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now; Nor any... does that one man sleep whose brow The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er? What woman stood beside him? not the more Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes Because that arras fell between! Her wise And lulling words are yet about the room, Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom Down even to her vesture's creeping stir. And so reclines he, saturate with her, Until an outcry from the square beneath Pierces the charm: he springs up, glad to breathe, Above the cunning element, and shakes The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it, The lean frame like a half-burnt taper, lit Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day, In his wool wedding-robe.

For he—for he, Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy, (If I should falter now)—for he is thine! Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine! A herald-star I know thou didst absorb Relentless into the consummate orb That scared it from its right to roll along A sempiternal path with dance and song Fulfilling its allotted period, Serenest of the progeny of God— Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent Utterly with thee, its shy element Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear. Still, what if I approach the august sphere Named now with only one name, disentwine That under-current soft and argentine From its fierce mate in the majestic mass Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass In John's transcendent vision,—launch once more That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume— Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his chosen lie,— I would do this! If I should falter now!

In Mantua territory half is slough, Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes With sand the summer through: but 't is morass In winter up to Mantua walls. There was, Some thirty years before this evening's coil, One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil, Goito; just a castle built amid A few low mountains; firs and larches hid Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound The rest. Some captured creature in a pound, Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress, Secure beside in its own loveliness, So peered with airy head, below, above, The castle at its toils, the lapwings love To glean among at grape-time. Pass within. A maze of corridors contrived for sin, Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past, You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last A maple-panelled room: that haze which seems Floating about the panel, if there gleams A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold And in light-graven characters unfold The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made, Cut like a company of palms to prop The roof, each kissing top entwined with top, Leaning together; in the carver's mind Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits Across the buttress suffer light by fits Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop— A dullish grey-streaked cumbrous font, a group Round it,—each side of it, where'er one sees,— Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh First pulse of life shot brightening the snow. The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed; Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed, Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale, Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength Goes when the grate above shuts heavily. So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see, Like priestesses because of sin impure Penanced for ever, who resigned endure, Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs. And every eve, Sordello's visit begs Pardon for them: constant as eve he came To sit beside each in her turn, the same As one of them, a certain space: and awe Made a great indistinctness till he saw Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks, Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain Her load were lightened, one shade less the stain Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt From off the rosary whereby the crypt Keeps count of the contritions of its charge? Then with a step more light, a heart more large, He may depart, leave her and every one To linger out the penance in mute stone. Ah, but Sordello? 'T is the tale I mean To tell you.

In this castle may be seen, On the hill tops, or underneath the vines, Or eastward by the mound of firs and pines That shuts out Mantua, still in loneliness, A slender boy in a loose page's dress, Sordello: do but look on him awhile Watching ('t is autumn) with an earnest smile The noisy flock of thievish birds at work Among the yellowing vineyards; see him lurk ('T is winter with its sullenest of storms) Beside that arras-length of broidered forms, On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright —Ecelo, dismal father of the brood, And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed, Auria, and their Child, with all his wives From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives, Lady of the castle, Adelaide. His face —Look, now he turns away! Yourselves shall trace (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine, A sharp and restless lip, so well combine With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive Delight at every sense; you can believe Sordello foremost in the regal class Nature has broadly severed from her mass Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames Some happy lands, that have luxurious names, For loose fertility; a footfall there Suffices to upturn to the warm air Half-germinating spices; mere decay Produces richer life; and day by day New pollen on the lily-petal grows, And still more labyrinthine buds the rose. You recognise at once the finer dress Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness At eye and ear, while round the rest is furled (As though she would not trust them with her world) A veil that shows a sky not near so blue, And lets but half the sun look fervid through. How can such love?—like souls on each full-fraught Discovery brooding, blind at first to aught Beyond its beauty, till exceeding love Becomes an aching weight; and, to remove A curse that haunts such natures—to preclude Their finding out themselves can work no good To what they love nor make it very blest By their endeavour,—they are fain invest The lifeless thing with life from their own soul, Availing it to purpose, to control, To dwell distinct and have peculiar joy And separate interests that may employ That beauty fitly, for its proper sake. Nor rest they here; fresh births of beauty wake Fresh homage, every grade of love is past, With every mode of loveliness: then cast Inferior idols off their borrowed crown Before a coming glory. Up and down Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine To throb the secret forth; a touch divine— And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod; Visibly through his garden walketh God.

So fare they. Now revert. One character Denotes them through the progress and the stir,— A need to blend with each external charm, Bury themselves, the whole heart wide and warm,— In something not themselves; they would belong To what they worship—stronger and more strong Thus prodigally fed—which gathers shape And feature, soon imprisons past escape The votary framed to love and to submit Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it, Whence grew the idol's empery. So runs A legend; light had birth ere moons and suns, Flowing through space a river and alone, Till chaos burst and blank the spheres were strown Hither and thither, foundering and blind: When into each of them rushed light—to find Itself no place, foiled of its radiant chance. Let such forego their just inheritance! For there 's a class that eagerly looks, too, On beauty, but, unlike the gentler crew, Proclaims each new revealment born a twin With a distinctest consciousness within, Referring still the quality, now first Revealed, to their own soul—its instinct nursed In silence, now remembered better, shown More thoroughly, but not the less their own; A dream come true; the special exercise Of any special function that implies The being fair, or good, or wise, or strong, Dormant within their nature all along— Whose fault? So, homage, other souls direct Without, turns inward. "How should this deject "Thee, soul?" they murmur; "wherefore strength be quelled "Because, its trivial accidents withheld, "Organs are missed that clog the world, inert, "Wanting a will, to quicken and exert, "Like thine—existence cannot satiate, "Cannot surprise? Laugh thou at envious fate, "Who, from earth's simplest combination stampt "With individuality—uncrampt "By living its faint elemental life, "Dost soar to heaven's complexest essence, rife "With grandeurs, unaffronted to the last, "Equal to being all!"

In truth? Thou hast Life, then—wilt challenge life for us: our race Is vindicated so, obtains its place In thy ascent, the first of us; whom we May follow, to the meanest, finally, With our more bounded wills?

Ah, but to find A certain mood enervate such a mind, Counsel it slumber in the solitude Thus reached nor, stooping, task for mankind's good Its nature just as life and time accord "—Too narrow an arena to reward "Emprize—the world's occasion worthless since "Not absolutely fitted to evince "Its mastery!" Or if yet worse befall, And a desire possess it to put all That nature forth, forcing our straitened sphere Contain it,—to display completely here The mastery another life should learn, Thrusting in time eternity's concern,— So that Sordello....

Fool, who spied the mark Of leprosy upon him, violet-dark Already as he loiters? Born just now, With the new century, beside the glow And efflorescence out of barbarism; Witness a Greek or two from the abysm That stray through Florence-town with studious air, Calming the chisel of that Pisan pair: If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet! While at Siena is Guidone set, Forehead on hand; a painful birth must be Matured ere Saint Eufemia's sacristy Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze At the moon: look you! The same orange haze,— The same blue stripe round that—and, in the midst, Thy spectral whiteness, Mother-maid, who didst Pursue the dizzy painter!

Woe, then, worth Any officious babble letting forth The leprosy confirmed and ruinous To spirit lodged in a contracted house! Go back to the beginning, rather; blend It gently with Sordello's life; the end Is piteous, you may see, but much between Pleasant enough. Meantime, some pyx to screen The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon The goblin! So they found at Babylon, (Colleagues, mad Lucius and sage Antonine) Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine, In rummaging among the rarities, A certain coffer; he who made the prize Opened it greedily; and out there curled Just such another plague, for half the world Was stung. Crawl in then, hag, and couch asquat, Keeping that blotchy bosom thick in spot Until your time is ripe! The coffer-lid Is fastened, and the coffer safely hid Under the Loxian's choicest gifts of gold.

Who will may hear Sordello's story told, And how he never could remember when He dwelt not at Goito. Calmly, then, About this secret lodge of Adelaide's Glided his youth away; beyond the glades On the fir-forest border, and the rim Of the low range of mountain, was for him No other world: but this appeared his own To wander through at pleasure and alone. The castle too seemed empty; far and wide Might he disport; only the northern side Lay under a mysterious interdict— Slight, just enough remembered to restrict His roaming to the corridors, the vault Where those font-bearers expiate their fault, The maple-chamber, and the little nooks And nests, and breezy parapet that looks Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled. Some foreign women-servants, very old, Tended and crept about him—all his clue To the world's business and embroiled ado Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most. And first a simple sense of life engrossed Sordello in his drowsy Paradise; The day's adventures for the day suffice— Its constant tribute of perceptions strange, With sleep and stir in healthy interchange, Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees, Eats the life out of every luscious plant, And, when September finds them sere or scant, Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite, And hies him after unforeseen delight. So fed Sordello, not a shard dissheathed; As ever, round each new discovery, wreathed Luxuriantly the fancies infantine His admiration, bent on making fine Its novel friend at any risk, would fling In gay profusion forth: a ficklest king, Confessed those minions!—eager to dispense So much from his own stock of thought and sense As might enable each to stand alone And serve him for a fellow; with his own, Joining the qualities that just before Had graced some older favourite. Thus they wore A fluctuating halo, yesterday Set flicker and to-morrow filched away,— Those upland objects each of separate name, Each with an aspect never twice the same, Waxing and waning as the new-born host Of fancies, like a single night's hoar-frost, Gave to familiar things a face grotesque; Only, preserving through the mad burlesque A grave regard. Conceive! the orpine patch Blossoming earliest on the log-house thatch The day those archers wound along the vines— Related to the Chief that left their lines To climb with clinking step the northern stair Up to the solitary chambers where Sordello never came. Thus thrall reached thrall; He o'er-festooning every interval, As the adventurous spider, making light Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height, From barbican to battlement: so flung Fantasies forth and in their centre swung Our architect,—the breezy morning fresh Above, and merry,—all his waving mesh Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged.

This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged To laying such a spangled fabric low Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow. But its abundant will was baulked here: doubt Rose tardily in one so fenced about From most that nurtures judgment,—care and pain: Judgment, that dull expedient we are fain, Less favoured, to adopt betimes and force Stead us, diverted from our natural course Of joys—contrive some yet amid the dearth, Vary and render them, it may be, worth Most we forego. Suppose Sordello hence Selfish enough, without a moral sense However feeble; what informed the boy Others desired a portion in his joy? Or say a ruthful chance broke woof and warp— A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp, A fawn breathless beneath the precipice, A bird with unsoiled breast and unfilmed eyes Warm in the brake—could these undo the trance Lapping Sordello? Not a circumstance That makes for you, friend Naddo! Eat fern-seed And peer beside us and report indeed If (your word) "genius" dawned with throes and stings And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs, Summers, and winters quietly came and went.

Time put at length that period to content, By right the world should have imposed: bereft Of its good offices, Sordello, left To study his companions, managed rip Their fringe off, learn the true relationship, Core with its crust, their nature with his own: Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone. As if the poppy felt with him! Though he Partook the poppy's red effrontery Till Autumn spoiled their fleering quite with rain, And, turbanless, a coarse brown rattling crane Lay bare. That 's gone: yet why renounce, for that, His disenchanted tributaries—flat Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn, Their simple presence might not well be borne Whose parley was a transport once: recall The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all, A poppy:—why distrust the evidence Of each soon satisfied and healthy sense? The new-born judgment answered, "little boots "Beholding other creatures' attributes "And having none!" or, say that it sufficed, "Yet, could one but possess, oneself," (enticed Judgment) "some special office!" Nought beside Serves you? "Well then, be somehow justified "For this ignoble wish to circumscribe "And concentrate, rather than swell, the tribe "Of actual pleasures: what, now, from without "Effects it?—proves, despite a lurking doubt, "Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared? "That, tasting joys by proxy thus, you fared "The better for them?" Thus much craved his soul, Alas, from the beginning love is whole And true; if sure of nought beside, most sure Of its own truth at least; nor may endure A crowd to see its face, that cannot know How hot the pulses throb its heart below. While its own helplessness and utter want Of means to worthily be ministrant To what it worships, do but fan the more Its flame, exalt the idol far before Itself as it would have it ever be. Souls like Sordello, on the contrary, Coerced and put to shame, retaining will, Care little, take mysterious comfort still, But look forth tremblingly to ascertain If others judge their claims not urged in vain, And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud. So, they must ever live before a crowd: —"Vanity," Naddo tells you.

Whence contrive A crowd, now? From these women just alive, That archer-troop? Forth glided—not alone Each painted warrior, every girl of stone, Nor Adelaide (bent double o'er a scroll, One maiden at her knees, that eve, his soul Shook as he stumbled through the arras'd glooms On them, for, 'mid quaint robes and weird perfumes, Started the meagre Tuscan up,—her eyes, The maiden's, also, bluer with surprise) —But the entire out-world: whatever, scraps And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps, Conceited the world's offices, and he Had hitherto transferred to flower or tree, Not counted a befitting heritage Each, of its own right, singly to engage Some man, no other,—such now dared to stand Alone. Strength, wisdom, grace on every hand Soon disengaged themselves, and he discerned A sort of human life: at least, was turned A stream of lifelike figures through his brain. Lord, liegeman, valvassor and suzerain, Ere he could choose, surrounded him; a stuff To work his pleasure on; there, sure enough: But as for gazing, what shall fix that gaze? Are they to simply testify the ways He who convoked them sends his soul along With the cloud's thunder or a dove's brood-song? —While they live each his life, boast each his own Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone In some one point where something dearest loved Is easiest gained—far worthier to be proved Than aught he envies in the forest-wights! No simple and self-evident delights, But mixed desires of unimagined range, Contrasts or combinations, new and strange, Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized By this, the sudden company—loves prized By those who are to prize his own amount Of loves. Once care because such make account, Allow that foreign recognitions stamp The current value, and his crowd shall vamp Him counterfeits enough; and so their print Be on the piece, 't is gold, attests the mint, And "good," pronounce they whom his new appeal Is made to: if their casual print conceal— This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss What he has lived without, nor felt the loss— Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome, —What matter? So must speech expand the dumb Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate, Betakes himself to study hungrily Just what the puppets his crude phantasy Supposes notablest,—popes, kings, priests, knights,— May please to promulgate for appetites; Accepting all their artificial joys Not as he views them, but as he employs Each shape to estimate the other's stock Of attributes, whereon—a marshalled flock Of authorized enjoyments—he may spend Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend With tree and flower—nay more entirely, else 'T were mockery: for instance, "How excels "My life that chieftain's?" (who apprised the youth Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth, Imperial Vicar?) "Turns he in his tent "Remissly? Be it so—my head is bent "Deliciously amid my girls to sleep. "What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep "I climbed an hour ago with little toil: "We are alike there. But can I, too, foil "The Guelf's paid stabber, carelessly afford "Saint Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword "Baffling the treason in a moment?" Here No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand, Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand With Ecelin's success—try, now! He soon Was satisfied, returned as to the moon From earth; left each abortive boy's-attempt For feats, from failure happily exempt, In fancy at his beck. "One day I will "Accomplish it! Are they not older still "—Not grown-up men and women? 'T is beside "Only a dream; and though I must abide "With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent "For all myself, acquire an instrument "For acting what these people act; my soul "Hunting a body out may gain its whole "Desire some day!" How else express chagrin And resignation, show the hope steal in With which he let sink from an aching wrist The rough-hewn ash-bow? Straight, a gold shaft hissed Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down Superbly! "Crosses to the breach! God's Town "Is gained him back!" Why bend rough ash-bows more?

Thus lives he: if not careless as before, Comforted: for one may anticipate, Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names Startle, real places of enormous fames, Este abroad and Ecelin at home To worship him,—Mantua, Verona, Rome To witness it. Who grudges time so spent? Rather test qualities to heart's content— Summon them, thrice selected, near and far— Compress the starriest into one star, And grasp the whole at once!

The pageant thinned Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind His spirit passed to winnow and divide; Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side The strong clave to the wise; with either classed The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced Themselves eventually,—graces loosed, Strengths lavished,—all to heighten up One Shape Whose potency no creature should escape. Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen's talk? Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk, Is some grey scorching Saracenic wine The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline— Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped, Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped, Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent To keep in mind his sluggish armament Of Canaan:—Friedrich's, all the pomp and fierce Demeanour! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells On the obdurate! That right arm indeed Has thunder for its slave; but where 's the need Of thunder if the stricken multitude Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood, While songs go up exulting, then dispread, Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead Like an escape of angels? 'T is the tune, Nor much unlike the words his women croon Smilingly, colourless and faint-designed Each, as a worn-out queen's face some remind Of her extreme youth's love-tales. "Eglamor "Made that!" Half minstrel and half emperor, What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew. The kinder sort were easy to subdue By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones; And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this, Striving to name afresh the antique bliss, Instead of saying, neither less nor more, He had discovered, as our world before, Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid The youth—what thefts of every clime and day Contributed to purfle the array He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen, Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock— Though really on the stubs of living rock Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof, Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof, Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly, Born of the simmering quiet, there to die. Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied Mighty descents of forest; multiplied Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees, There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease. And, proud of its observer, straight the wood Tried old surprises on him; black it stood A sudden barrier ('twas a cloud passed o'er) So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched) Each clump, behold, was glistering detached A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems! Yet could not he denounce the stratagems He saw thro', till, hours thence, aloft would hang White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang To measure, that whole palpitating breast Of heaven, 't was Apollo, nature prest At eve to worship.

Time stole: by degrees The Pythons perish off; his votaries Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem Emphatic; only girls are very slow To disappear—his Delians! Some that glow O' the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench; Alike in one material circumstance— All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice, His Daphne! "We secure Count Richard's voice "In Este's counsels, good for Este's ends "As our Taurello," say his faded friends, "By granting him our Palma!"—the sole child, They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled Ecelin, years before this Adelaide Wedded and turned him wicked: "but the maid "Rejects his suit," those sleepy women boast. She, scorning all beside, deserves the most Sordello: so, conspicuous in his world Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound About her like a glory! even the ground Was bright as with spilt sunbeams; breathe not, breathe Not!—poised, see, one leg doubled underneath, Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow, Rests, but the other, listlessly below, O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air, The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where The languid blood lies heavily; yet calm On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm, As but suspended in the act to rise By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms.

Time fleets: That 's worst! Because the pre-appointed age Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage And crowd she promised. Lean he grows and pale, Though restlessly at rest. Hardly avail Fancies to soothe him. Time steals, yet alone He tarries here! The earnest smile is gone. How long this might continue matters not; —For ever, possibly; since to the spot None come: our lingering Taurello quits Mantua at last, and light our lady flits Back to her place disburthened of a care. Strange—to be constant here if he is there! Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb And Richard wavering: let but Friedrich come, Find matter for the minstrelsy's report —Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court To sing us a Messina morning up, And, double rillet of a drinking cup, Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth, Northward to Provence that, and thus far south The other! What a method to apprise Neighbours of births, espousals, obsequies, Which in their very tongue the Troubadour Records! and his performance makes a tour, For Trouveres bear the miracle about, Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout, Until the Formidable House is famed Over the country—as Taurello aimed, Who introduced, although the rest adopt, The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped, Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse No longer, in the light of day pursues Her plans at Mantua: whence an accident Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content Opened, like any flash that cures the blind, The veritable business of mankind.

title: Sordello/Book the First


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/302

240 the connexion had been one of mere concubinage, yet, nevertheless, the son was to be regarded as legitimate. "Which is the humour of it," as Corporal Nym would say. It further ordered that the re-marriage of either party must take place where the State did not require civil marriage, as civil courts considered the first marriage as valid. "Which," again as Nym would say, "is the humour of it."

Eleven months after this decree Lady Mary Hamilton married Count Tassilo Festitics, at Pesth; and the Prince married, October 3Oth, 1889, Alice, dowager duchess of Richelieu, a Heine of New Orleans. The name is Jewish.

The Pope seems to have felt that his proceeding in this matter had made the sensitive consciences of Roman Catholics wince, for he shortly after issued an Encyclical on Marriage, and pointed out what were the pleas on which the Papal Court was justified in dissolving existing marriages. The Tablet also, on March 31st, 1894, published an apologetic article, in which it assured the world that the official fees paid to the Propaganda for annulling a marriage were trifling, that, in a word, a marriage could be dissolved at Rome, dirt-cheap, for £120. More shame to it, if true. But "Credat Judæus Apelles non ego." This Court, as we know, will allow, for a handsome consideration, an uncle to marry his niece, whereas formally it forbids an union within the seven degrees. High aloft, towering above Monaco, 1,270 feet from the sea-level, accessible by a cog-railway, is La Turbie, the point where the old Roman Via Aurelia and the modern Corniche Road cross a neck that is the natural division between France and Italy; the point where, in

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/302


text:
Sordello/Book the Second

BOOK THE SECOND.

The woods were long austere with snow: at last Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, Brightened, "as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods "Our buried year, a witch, grew young again "To placid incantations, and that stain "About were from her cauldron, green smoke blent "With those black pines"—so Eglamor gave vent To a chance fancy. Whence a just rebuke From his companion; brother Naddo shook The solemnest of brows: "Beware," he said, "Of setting up conceits in nature's stead!" Forth wandered our Sordello. Nought so sure As that to-day's adventure will secure Palma, the visioned lady—only pass O'er you damp mound and its exhausted grass, Under that brake where sundawn feeds the stalks Of withered fern with gold, into those walks Of pine and take her! Buoyantly he went. Again his stooping forehead was besprent With dew-drops from the skirting ferns. Then wide Opened the great morass, shot every side With flashing water through and through; a-shine, Thick-steaming, all-alive. Whose shape divine, Quivered i' the farthest rainbow-vapour, glanced Athwart the flying herons? He advanced, But warily; though Mincio leaped no more, Each foot-fall burst up in the marish-floor A diamond jet: and if he stopped to pick Rose-lichen, or molest the leeches quick, And circling blood-worms, minnow, newt or loach, A sudden pond would silently encroach This way and that. On Palma passed. The verge Of a new wood was gained. She will emerge Flushed, now, and panting,—crowds to see,—will own She loves him—Boniface to hear, to groan, To leave his suit! One screen of pine-trees still Opposes: but—the startling spectacle— Mantua, this time! Under the walls—a crowd Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud Round a pavilion. How he stood!

In truth No prophecy had come to pass: his youth In its prime now—and where was homage poured Upon Sordello?—born to be adored, And suddenly discovered weak, scarce made To cope with any, cast into the shade By this and this. Yet something seemed to prick And tingle in his blood; a sleight—a trick— And much would be explained. It went for nought— The best of their endowments were ill bought With his identity: nay, the conceit, That this day's roving led to Palma's feet Was not so vain—list! The word, "Palma!" Steal Aside, and die, Sordello; this is real, And this—abjure!

What next? The curtains see Dividing! She is there; and presently He will be there—the proper You, at length— In your own cherished dress of grace and strength: Most like, the very Boniface!

Not so. It was a showy man advanced; but though A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around, —"This is not he," Sordello felt; while, "Place "For the best Troubadour of Boniface!" Hollaed the Jongleurs,—"Eglamor, whose lay "Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day!" Obsequious Naddo strung the master's lute With the new lute-string, "Elys," named to suit The song: he stealthily at watch, the while, Biting his lip to keep down a great smile Of pride: then up he struck. Sordello's brain Swam; for he knew a sometime deed again; So, could supply each foolish gap and chasm The minstrel left in his enthusiasm, Mistaking its true version—was the tale Not of Apollo? Only, what avail Luring her down, that Elys an he pleased, If the man dared no further? Has he ceased And, lo, the people's frank applause half done, Sordello was beside him, had begun (Spite of indignant twitchings from his friend The Trouvere) the true lay with the true end, Taking the other's names and time and place For his. On flew the song, a giddy race, After the flying story; word made leap Out word, rhyme—rhyme; the lay could barely keep Pace with the action visibly rushing past: Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull That wheeled abrupt and, bellowing, fronted full His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue, And found 't was Apis' flank his hasty prong Insulted. But the people—but the cries, The crowding round, and proffering the prize! —For he had gained some prize. He seemed to shrink Into a sleepy cloud, just at whose brink One sight withheld him. There sat Adelaide, Silent; but at her knees the very maid Of the North Chamber, her red lips as rich, The same pure fleecy hair; one weft of which, Golden and great, quite touched his cheek as o'er She leant, speaking some six words and no more. He answered something, anything; and she Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily Upon him, her neck's warmth and all. Again Moved the arrested magic; in his brain Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare, And greater glare, until the intense flare Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense. And when he woke 't was many a furlong thence, At home; the sun shining his ruddy wont; The customary birds'-chirp; but his front Was crowned—was crowned! Her scented scarf around His neck! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground? A prize? He turned, and peeringly on him Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim, Ready to talk—"The Jongleurs in a troop "Had brought him back, Naddo and Squarcialupe "And Tagliafer; how strange! a childhood spent "In taking, well for him, so brave a bent! "Since Eglamor," they heard, "was dead with spite, "And Palma chose him for her minstrel."

Light Sordello rose—to think, now; hitherto He had perceived. Sure, a discovery grew Out of it all! Best live from first to last The transport o'er again. A week he passed, Sucking the sweet out of each circumstance, From the bard's outbreak to the luscious trance Bounding his own achievement. Strange! A man Recounted an adventure, but began Imperfectly; his own task was to fill The frame-work up, sing well what he sung ill, Supply the necessary points, set loose As many incidents of little use —More imbecile the other, not to see Their relative importance clear as he! But, for a special pleasure in the act Of singing—had he ever turned, in fact, From Elys, to sing Elys?—from each fit Of rapture to contrive a song of it? True, this snatch or the other seemed to wind Into a treasure, helped himself to find A beauty in himself; for, see, he soared By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard Of fancies; as some falling cone bears soft The eye along the fir-tree-spire, aloft To a dove's nest. Then, how divine the cause Why such performance should exact applause From men, if they had fancies too? Did fate Decree they found a beauty separate In the poor snatch itself?—"Take Elys, there, "—'Her head that 's sharp and perfect like a pear, "'So close and smooth are laid the few fine locks "'Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks "'Sun-blanched the livelong summer'—if they heard "Just those two rhymes, assented at my word, "And loved them as I love them who have run "These fingers through those pale locks, let the sun "Into the white cool skin—who first could clutch, "Then praise—I needs must be a god to such. "Or what if some, above themselves, and yet "Beneath me, like their Eglamor, have set "An impress on our gift? So, men believe "And worship what they know not, nor receive "Delight from. Have they fancies—slow, perchance, "Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance "Until, by song, each floating part be linked "To each, and all grow palpable, distinct?" He pondered this.

Meanwhile, sounds low and drear Stole on him, and a noise of footsteps, near And nearer, while the underwood was pushed Aside, the larches grazed, the dead leaves crushed At the approach of men. The wind seemed laid; Only, the trees shrunk slightly and a shade Came o'er the sky although 't was midday yet: You saw each half-shut downcast floweret Flutter—"a Roman bride, when they 'd dispart "Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart, "Holding that famous rape in memory still, "Felt creep into her curls the iron chill, "And looked thus," Eglamor would say—indeed 'T is Eglamor, no other, these precede Home hither in the woods. "'T were surely sweet "Far from the scene of one's forlorn defeat "To sleep!" judged Naddo, who in person led Jongleurs and Trouveres, chanting at their head, A scanty company; for, sooth to say, Our beaten Troubadour had seen his day. Old worshippers were something shamed, old friends Nigh weary; still the death proposed amends. "Let us but get them safely through my song "And home again!" quoth Naddo.

All along, This man (they rest the bier upon the sand) —This calm corpse with the loose flowers in his hand, Eglamor, lived Sordello's opposite. For him indeed was Naddo's notion right, And verse a temple-worship vague and vast, A ceremony that withdrew the last Opposing bolt, looped back the lingering veil Which hid the holy place: should one so frail Stand there without such effort? or repine If much was blank, uncertain at the shrine He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite, The power responded, and some sound or sight Grew up, his own forever, to be fixed, In rhyme, the beautiful, forever!—mixed With his own life, unloosed when he should please, Having it safe at hand, ready to ease All pain, remove all trouble; every time He loosed that fancy from its bonds of rhyme, (Like Perseus when he loosed his naked love) Faltering; so distinct and far above Himself, these fancies! He, no genius rare, Transfiguring in fire or wave or air At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up In some rock-chamber with his agate cup, His topaz rod, his seed-pearl, in these few And their arrangement finds enough to do For his best art. Then, how he loved that art! The calling marking him a man apart From men—one not to care, take counsel for Cold hearts, comfortless faces—(Eglamor Was neediest of his tribe)—since verse, the gift, Was his, and men, the whole of them, must shift Without it, e'en content themselves with wealth And pomp and power, snatching a life by stealth. So, Eglamor was not without his pride! The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide While other birds are jocund, has one time When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime Of earth is his to claim, nor find a peer; And Eglamor was noblest poet here— He well knew, 'mid those April woods he cast Conceits upon in plenty as he passed, That Naddo might suppose him not to think Entirely on the coming triumph: wink At the one weakness! 'T was a fervid child, That song of his; no brother of the guild Had e'er conceived its like. The rest you know, The exaltation and the overthrow: Our poet lost his purpose, lost his rank, His life—to that it came. Yet envy sank Within him, as he heard Sordello out, And, for the first time, shouted—tried to shout Like others, not from any zeal to show Pleasure that way: the common sort did so, What else was Eglamor? who, bending down As they, placed his beneath Sordello's crown, Printed a kiss on his successor's hand, Left one great tear on it, then joined his band —In time; for some were watching at the door: Who knows what envy may effect? "Give o'er, "Nor charm his lips, nor craze him!" (here one spied And disengaged the withered crown)—"Beside "His crown? How prompt and clear those verses rang "To answer yours! nay, sing them!" And he sang Them calmly. Home he went; friends used to wait His coming, zealous to congratulate; But, to a man—so quickly runs report— Could do no less than leave him, and escort His rival. That eve, then, bred many a thought: What must his future life be? was he brought So low, who stood so lofty this Spring morn? At length he said, "Best sleep now with my scorn, "And by to-morrow I devise some plain "Expedient!" So, he slept, nor woke again. They found as much, those friends, when they returned O'erflowing with the marvels they had learned About Sordello's paradise, his roves Among the hills and vales and plains and groves, Wherein, no doubt, this lay was roughly cast, Polished by slow degrees, completed last To Eglamor's discomfiture and death.

Such form the chanters now, and, out of breath, They lay the beaten man in his abode, Naddo reciting that same luckless ode, Doleful to hear. Sordello could explore By means of it, however, one step more In joy; and, mastering the round at length, Learnt how to live in weakness as in strength, When from his covert forth he stood, addressed Eglamor, bade the tender ferns invest, Primæval pines o'ercanopy his couch, And, most of all, his fame—(shall I avouch Eglamor heard it, dead though he might look, And laughed as from his brow Sordello took The crown, and laid on the bard's breast, and said It was a crown, now, fit for poet's head?) —Continue. Nor the prayer quite fruitless fell. A plant they have, yielding a three-leaved bell Which whitens at the heart ere noon, and ails Till evening; evening gives it to her gales To clear away with such forgotten things As are an eyesore to the morn: this brings Him to their mind, and bears his very name.

So much for Eglamor. My own month came; 'T was a sunrise of blossoming and May. Beneath a flowering laurel thicket lay Sordello; each new sprinkle of white stars That smell fainter of wine than Massic jars Dug up at Baiæ, when the south wind shed The ripest, made him happier; filleted And robed the same, only a lute beside Lay on the turf. Before him far and wide The country stretched: Goito slept behind —The castle and its covert, which confined Him with his hopes and fears; so fain of old To leave the story of his birth untold. At intervals, 'spite the fantastic glow Of his Apollo-life, a certain low And wretched whisper, winding through the bliss, Admonished, no such fortune could be his, All was quite false and sure to fade one day: The closelier drew he round him his array Of brilliance to expel the truth. But when A reason for his difference from men Surprised him at the grave, he took no rest While aught of that old life, superbly dressed Down to its meanest incident, remained A mystery: alas, they soon explained Away Apollo! and the tale amounts To this: when at Vicenza both her counts Banished the Vivaresi kith and kin, Those Maltraversi hung on Ecelin, Reviled him as he followed; he for spite Must fire their quarter, though that self-same night Among the flames young Ecelin was born Of Adelaide, there too, and barely torn From the roused populace hard on the rear, By a poor archer when his chieftain's fear Grew high; into the thick Elcorte leapt, Saved her, and died; no creature left except His child to thank. And when the full escape Was known—how men impaled from chine to nape Unlucky Prata, all to pieces spurned Bishop Pistore's concubines, and burned Taurello's entire household, flesh and fell, Missing the sweeter prey—such courage well Might claim reward. The orphan, ever since, Sordello, had been nurtured by his prince Within a blind retreat where Adelaide— (For, once this notable discovery made, The past at every point was understood) —Might harbour easily when times were rude, When Azzo schemed for Palma, to retrieve That pledge of Agnes Este—loth to leave Mantua unguarded with a vigilant eye, While there Taurello bode ambiguously— He who could have no motive now to moil For his own fortunes since their utter spoil— As it were worth while yet (went the report) To disengage himself from her. In short, Apollo vanished; a mean youth, just named His lady's minstrel, was to be proclaimed —How shall I phrase it?—Monarch of the World! For, on the day when that array was furled Forever, and in place of one a slave To longings, wild indeed, but longings save In dreams as wild, suppressed—one daring not Assume the mastery such dreams allot, Until a magical equipment, strength, Grace, wisdom, decked him too,—he chose at length, Content with unproved wits and failing frame, In virtue of his simple will, to claim That mastery, no less—to do his best With means so limited, and let the rest Go by,—the seal was set: never again Sordello could in his own sight remain One of the many, one with hopes and cares And interests nowise distinct from theirs, Only peculiar in a thriveless store Of fancies, which were fancies and no more; Never again for him and for the crowd A common law was challenged and allowed If calmly reasoned of, howe'er denied By a mad impulse nothing justified Short of Apollo's presence. The divorce Is clear: why needs Sordello square his course By any known example? Men no more Compete with him than tree and flower before. Himself, inactive, yet is greater far Than such as act, each stooping to his star, Acquiring thence his function; he has gained The same result with meaner mortals trained To strength or beauty, moulded to express Each the idea that rules him; since no less He comprehends that function, but can still Embrace the others, take of might his fill With Richard as of grace with Palma, mix Their qualities, or for a moment fix On one; abiding free meantime, uncramped By any partial organ, never stamped Strong, and to strength turning all energies— Wise, and restricted to becoming wise— That is, he loves not, nor possesses One Idea that, star-like over, lures him on To its exclusive purpose. "Fortunate! "This flesh of mine ne'er strove to emulate "A soul so various—took no casual mould "Of the first fancy and, contracted, cold, "Clogged her forever—soul averse to change "As flesh: whereas flesh leaves soul free to range, "Remains itself a blank, cast into shade, "Encumbers little, if it cannot aid. "So, range, free soul!—who, by self-consciousness, "The last drop of all beauty dost express— "The grace of seeing grace, a quintessence "For thee: while for the world, that can dispense "Wonder on men who, themselves, wonder—make "A shift to love at second-hand, and take "For idols those who do but idolize, "Themselves,—the world that counts men strong or wise, "Who, themselves, court strength, wisdom,—it shall bow "Surely in unexampled worship now, "Discerning me!"—

(Dear monarch, I beseech, Notice how lamentably wide a breach Is here: discovering this, discover too What our poor world has possibly to do With it! As pigmy natures as you please— So much the better for you; take your ease, Look on, and laugh; style yourself God alone; Strangle some day with a cross olive-stone! All that is right enough: but why want us To know that you yourself know thus and thus?) "The world shall bow to me conceiving all "Man's life, who see its blisses, great and small, "Afar—not tasting any; no machine "To exercise my utmost will is mine: "Be mine mere consciousness! Let men perceive "What I could do, a mastery believe, "Asserted and established to the throng "By their selected evidence of song "Which now shall prove, whate'er they are, or seek "To be, I am—whose words, not actions speak, "Who change no standards of perfection, vex "With no strange forms created to perplex, "But just perform their bidding and no more, "At their own satiating-point give o'er, "While each shall love in me the love that leads "His soul to power's perfection." Song, not deeds, (For we get tired) was chosen. Fate would brook Mankind no other organ; he would look For not another channel to dispense His own volition by, receive men's sense Of its supremacy—would live content, Obstructed else, with merely verse for vent. Nor should, for instance, strength an outlet seek And, striving, be admired: nor grace bespeak Wonder, displayed in gracious attitudes: Nor wisdom, poured forth, change unseemly moods; But he would give and take on song's one point. Like some huge throbbing stone that, poised a-joint, Sounds, to affect on its basaltic bed, Must sue in just one accent; tempests shed Thunder, and raves the windstorm: only let That key by any little noise be set— The far benighted hunter's halloo pitch On that, the hungry curlew chance to scritch Or serpent hiss it, rustling through the rift, However loud, however low—all lift The groaning monster, stricken to the heart.

Lo ye, the world's concernment, for its part, And this, for his, will hardly interfere! Its businesses in blood and blaze this year But wile the hour away—a pastime slight Till he shall step upon the platform: right! And, now thus much is settled, cast in rough, Proved feasible, be counselled! thought enough,— Slumber, Sordello! any day will serve: Were it a less digested plan! how swerve To-morrow? Meanwhile eat these sun-dried grapes, And watch the soaring hawk there! Life escapes Merrily thus.

He thoroughly read o'er His truchman Naddo's missive six times more, Praying him visit Mantua and supply A famished world.

The evening star was high When he reached Mantua, but his fame arrived Before him: friends applauded, foes connived, And Naddo looked an angel, and the rest Angels, and all these angels would be blest Supremely by a song—the thrice-renowned Goito-manufacture. Then he found (Casting about to satisfy the crowd) That happy vehicle, so late allowed, A sore annoyance; 't was the song's effect He cared for, scarce the song itself: reflect! In the past life, what might be singing's use? Just to delight his Delians, whose profuse Praise, not the toilsome process which procured That praise, enticed Apollo: dreams abjured, No overleaping means for ends—take both For granted or take neither! I am loth To say the rhymes at last were Eglamor's; But Naddo, chuckling, bade competitors Go pine; "the master certes meant to waste "No effort, cautiously had probed the taste "He 'd please anon: true bard, in short,—disturb "His title if they could; nor spur nor curb, "Fancy nor reason, wanting in him; whence "The staple of his verses, common sense: "He built on man's broad nature—gift of gifts, "That power to build! The world contented shifts "With counterfeits enough, a dreary sort "Of warriors, statesmen, ere it can extort "Its poet-soul—that 's, after all, a freak "(The having eyes to see and tongue to speak) "With our herd's stupid sterling happiness "So plainly incompatible that—yes— "Yes—should a son of his improve the breed "And turn out poet, he were cursed indeed!" "Well, there 's Goito and its woods anon, "If the worst happen; best go stoutly on "Now!" thought Sordello.

Ay, and goes on yet! You pother with your glossaries to get A notion of the Troubadour's intent In rondel, tenzon, virlai or sirvent— Much as you study arras how to twirl His angelot, plaything of page and girl Once; but you surely reach, at last,—or, no! Never quite reach what struck the people so, As from the welter of their time he drew Its elements successively to view, Followed all actions backward on their course, And catching up, unmingled at the source, Such a strength, such a weakness, added then A touch or two, and turned them into men. Virtue took form, nor vice refused a shape; Here heaven opened, there was hell agape, As Saint this simpered past in sanctity, Sinner the other flared portentous by A greedy people. Then why stop, surprised At his success? The scheme was realized Too suddenly in one respect: a crowd Praising, eyes quick to see, and lips as loud To speak, delicious homage to receive, The woman's breath to feel upon his sleeve, Who said, "But Anafest—why asks he less "Than Lucio, in your verses? how confess, "It seemed too much but yestereve!"—the youth, Who bade him earnestly, "Avow the truth! "You love Bianca, surely, from your song; "I knew I was unworthy!"—soft or strong, In poured such tributes ere he had arranged Ethereal ways to take them, sorted, changed, Digested. Courted thus at unawares, In spite of his pretensions and his cares, He caught himself shamefully hankering After the obvious petty joys that spring From true life, fain relinquish pedestal And condescend with pleasures—one and all To be renounced, no doubt; for, thus to chain Himself to single joys and so refrain From tasting their quintessence, frustrates, sure, His prime design; each joy must he abjure Even for love of it.

He laughed: what sage But perishes if from his magic page He look because, at the first line, a proof 'T was heard salutes him from the cavern roof? "On! Give yourself, excluding aught beside, "To the day's task; compel your slave provide "Its utmost at the soonest; turn the leaf "Thoroughly conned. These lays of yours, in brief— "Cannot men bear, now, something better?—fly "A pitch beyond this unreal pageantry "Of essences? the period sure has ceased "For such: present us with ourselves, at least, "Not portions of ourselves, mere loves and hates "Made flesh: wait not!"

Awhile the poet waits However. The first trial was enough: He left imagining, to try the stuff That held the imaged thing, and, let it writhe Never so fiercely, scarce allowed a tithe To reach the light—his Language. How he sought The cause, conceived a cure, and slow re-wrought That Language,—welding words into the crude Mass from the new speech round him, till a rude Armour was hammered out, in time to be Approved beyond the Roman panoply Melted to make it,—boots not. This obtained With some ado, no obstacle remained To using it; accordingly he took An action with its actors, quite forsook Himself to live in each, returned anon With the result—a creature, and, by one And one, proceeded leisurely to equip Its limbs in harness of his workmanship. "Accomplished! Listen, Mantuans!" Fond essay! Piece after piece that armour broke away, Because perceptions whole, like that he sought To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought As language: thought may take perception's place But hardly co-exist in any case, Being its mere presentment—of the whole By parts, the simultaneous and the sole By the successive and the many. Lacks The crowd perception? painfully it tacks Thought to thought, which Sordello, needing such, Has rent perception into: it's to clutch And reconstruct—his office to diffuse, Destroy: as hard, then, to obtain a Muse As to become Apollo. "For the rest, "E'en if some wondrous vehicle expressed "The whole dream, what impertinence in me "So to express it, who myself can be "The dream! nor, on the other hand, are those "I sing to, over-likely to suppose "A higher than the highest I present "Now, which they praise already: be content "Both parties, rather—they with the old verse, "And I with the old praise—far go, fare worse!" A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings The angel, sparkles off his mail, which rings Whirled from each delicatest limb it warps; So might Apollo from the sudden corpse Of Hyacinth have cast his luckless quoits. He set to celebrating the exploits Of Montfort o'er the Mountaineers.

Then came The world's revenge: their pleasure, now his aim Merely,—what was it? "Not to play the fool "So much as learn our lesson in your school!" Replied the world. He found that, every time He gained applause by any ballad-rhyme, His auditory recognized no jot As he intended, and, mistaking not Him for his meanest hero, ne'er was dunce Sufficient to believe him—all, at once. His will... conceive it caring for his will! —Mantuans, the main of them, admiring still How a mere singer, ugly, stunted, weak, Had Montfort at completely (so to speak) His fingers' ends; while past the praise-tide swept To Montfort, either's share distinctly kept: The true meed for true merit!—his abates Into a sort he most repudiates, And on them angrily he turns. Who were The Mantuans, after all, that he should care About their recognition, ay or no? In spite of the convention months ago, (Why blink the truth?) was not he forced to help This same ungrateful audience, every whelp Of Naddo's litter, make them pass for peers With the bright band of old Goito years, As erst he toiled for flower or tree? Why, there Sat Palma! Adelaide's funereal hair Ennobled the next corner. Ay, he strewed A fairy dust upon that multitude, Although he feigned to take them by themselves; His giants dignified those puny elves, Sublimed their faint applause. In short, he found Himself still footing a delusive round, Remote as ever from the self-display He meant to compass, hampered every way By what he hoped assistance. Wherefore then Continue, make believe to find in men A use he found not?

Weeks, months, years went by And lo, Sordello vanished utterly, Sundered in twain; each spectral part at strife With each; one jarred against another life; The Poet thwarting hopelessly the Man— Who, fooled no longer, free in fancy ran Here, there: let slip no opportunities As pitiful, forsooth, beside the prize To drop on him some no-time and acquit His constant faith (the Poet-half's to wit— That waiving any compromise between No joy and all joy kept the hunger keen Beyond most methods)—of incurring scoff From the Man-portion—not to be put off With self-reflectings by the Poet's scheme, Though ne'er so bright. Who sauntered forth in dream, Dressed any how, nor waited mystic frames, Immeasurable gifts, astounding claims, But just his sorry self?—who yet might be Sorrier for aught he in reality Achieved, so pinioned Man's the Poet-part, Fondling, in turn of fancy, verse; the Art Developing his soul a thousand ways— Potent, by its assistance, to amaze The multitude with majesties, convince Each sort of nature that the nature's prince Accosted it. Language, the makeshift, grew Into a bravest of expedients, too; Apollo, seemed it now, perverse had thrown Quiver and bow away, the lyre alone Sufficed. While, out of dream, his day's work went To tune a crazy tenzon or sirvent— So hampered him the Man-part, thrust to judge Between the bard and the bard's audience, grudge A minute's toil that missed its due reward! But the complete Sordello, Man and Bard, John's cloud-girt angel, this foot on the land, That on the sea, with, open in his hand, A bitter-sweetling of a book—was gone.

Then, if internal struggles to be one, Which frittered him incessantly piecemeal, Referred, ne'er so obliquely, to the real Intruding Mantuans! ever with some call To action while he pondered, once for all, Which looked the easier effort—to pursue This course, still leap o'er paltry joys, yearn through The present ill-appreciated stage Of self-revealment, and compel the age Know him—or else, forswearing bard-craft, wake From out his lethargy and nobly shake Off timid habits of denial, mix With men, enjoy like men. Ere he could fix On aught, in rushed the Mantuans; much they cared For his perplexity! Thus unprepared, The obvious if not only shelter lay In deeds, the dull conventions of his day Prescribed the like of him: why not be glad 'T is settled Palma's minstrel, good or bad, Submits to this and that established rule? Let Vidal change, or any other fool, His murrey-coloured robe for filamot, And crop his hair; too skin-deep, is it not, Such vigour? Then, a sorrow to the heart, His talk! Whatever topics they might start Had to be groped for in his consciousness Straight, and as straight delivered them by guess. Only obliged to ask himself, "What was," A speedy answer followed; but, alas, One of God's large ones, tardy to condense Itself into a period; answers whence A tangle of conclusions must be stripped At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipped, They matched rare specimens the Mantuan flock Regaled him with, each talker from his stock Of sorted-o'er opinions, every stage, Juicy in youth or desiccate with age, Fruits like the fig-tree's, rathe-ripe, rotten-rich, Sweet-sour, all tastes to take: a practice which He too had not impossibly attained, Once either of those fancy-flights restrained; (For, at conjecture how might words appear To others, playing there what happened here, And occupied abroad by what he spurned At home, 't was slipped, the occasion he returned To seize he 'd strike that lyre adroitly—speech, Would but a twenty-cubit plectre reach; A clever hand, consummate instrument, Were both brought close; each excellency went For nothing, else. The question Naddo asked, Had just a lifetime moderately tasked To answer, Naddo's fashion. More disgust And more: why move his soul, since move it must At minute's notice or as good it failed To move at all? The end was, he retailed Some ready-made opinion, put to use This quip, that maxim, ventured reproduce Gestures and tones—at any folly caught Serving to finish with, nor too much sought If false or true 't was spoken; praise and blame Of what he said grew pretty nigh the same —Meantime awards to meantime acts: his soul, Unequal to the compassing a whole, Saw, in a tenth part, less and less to strive About. And as for men in turn... contrive Who could to take eternal interest In them, so hate the worst, so love the best, Though, in pursuance of his passive plan, He hailed, decried, the proper way.

As Man So figured he; and how as Poet? Verse Came only not to a stand-still. The worse, That his poor piece of daily work to do Was—not sink under any rivals; who Loudly and long enough, without these qualms, Turned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, "As knops that stud some almug to the pith "Prickèd for gum, wry thence, and crinklèd worse "Than pursèd eyelids of a river-horse "Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breese"— Gad-fly, that is. He might compete with these! But—but—

"Observe a pompion-twine afloat; "Pluck me one cup from off the castle-moat! "Along with cup you raise leaf, stalk and root, "The entire surface of the pool to boot. "So could I pluck a cup, put in one song "A single sight, did not my hand, too strong, "Twitch in the least the root-strings of the whole. "How should externals satisfy my soul?" "Why that's precise the error Squarcialupe" (Hazarded Naddo) "finds; 'the man can't stoop "'To sing us out,' quoth he, 'a mere romance; "'He'd fain do better than the best, enhance "'The subjects' rarity, work problems out "'Therewith.' Now, you 're a bard, a bard past doubt, "And no philosopher; why introduce "Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use "In poetry—which still must be, to strike, "Based upon common sense; there's nothing like "Appealing to our nature! what beside "Was your first poetry? No tricks were tried "In that, no hollow thrills, affected throes! "'The man,' said we, 'tells his own joys and woes: "'We'll trust him.' Would you have your songs endure? "Build on the human heart!—why, to be sure "Yours is one sort of heart—but I mean theirs, "Ours, every one's, the healthy heart one cares "To build on! Central peace, mother of strength, "That's father of... nay, go yourself that length, "Ask those calm-hearted doers what they do "When they have got their calm! And is it true, "Fire rankles at the heart of every globe? "Perhaps. But these are matters one may probe "Too deeply for poetic purposes: "Rather select a theory that... yes, "Laugh! what does that prove?—stations you midway "And saves some little o'er-refining. Nay, "That's rank injustice done me! I restrict "The poet? Don't I hold the poet picked "Out of a host of warriors, statesmen... did "I tell you? Very like! As well you hid "That sense of power, you have! True bards believe "All able to achieve what they achieve— "That is, just nothing—in one point abide "Profounder simpletons than all beside. "Oh, ay! The knowledge that you are a bard "Must constitute your prime, nay sole, reward!" So prattled Naddo, busiest of the tribe Of genius-haunters—how shall I describe What grubs or nips or rubs or rips—your louse For love, your flea for hate, magnanimous, Malignant, Pappacoda, Tagliafer, Picking a sustenance from wear and tear By implements it sedulous employs To undertake, lay down, mete out, o'er-toise Sordello? Fifty creepers to elude At once! They settled staunchly; shame ensued: Behold the monarch of mankind succumb To the last fool who turned him round his thumb, As Naddo styled it! 'T was not worth oppose The matter of a moment, gainsay those He aimed at getting rid of; better think Their thoughts and speak their speech, secure to slink Back expeditiously to his safe place, And chew the cud—what he and what his race Were really, each of them. Yet even this Conformity was partial. He would miss Some point, brought into contact with them ere Assured in what small segment of the sphere Of his existence they attended him; Whence blunders, falsehoods rectified—a grim List—slur it over! How? If dreams were tried, His will swayed sicklily from side to side, Nor merely neutralized his waking act But tended e'en in fancy to distract The intermediate will, the choice of means. He lost the art of dreaming: Mantuan scenes Supplied a baron, say, he sang before, Handsomely reckless, full to running-o'er Of gallantries; "abjure the soul, content "With body, therefore!" Scarcely had he bent Himself in dream thus low, when matter fast Cried out, he found, for spirit to contrast And task it duly; by advances slight, The simple stuff becoming composite, Count Lori grew Apollo: best recall His fancy! Then would some rough peasant-Paul, Like those old Ecelin confers with, glance His gay apparel o'er; that countenance Gathered his shattered fancies into one, And, body clean abolished, soul alone Sufficed the grey Paulician: by and by, To balance the ethereality, Passions were needed; foiled he sank again.

Meanwhile the world rejoiced ('t is time explain) Because a sudden sickness set it free From Adelaide. Missing the mother-bee, Her mountain-hive Romano swarmed; at once A rustle-forth of daughters and of sons Blackened the valley. "I am sick too, old, "Half-crazed I think; what good's the Kaiser's gold "To such an one? God help me! for I catch "My children's greedy sparkling eyes at watch— "'He bears that double breastplate on,' they say, "'So many minutes less than yesterday!' "Beside, Monk Hilary is on his knees "Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please "Exact a punishment for many things "You know, and some you never knew; which brings "To memory, Azzo's sister Beatrix "And Richard's Giglia are my Alberic's "And Ecelin's betrothed; the Count himself "Must get my Palma: Ghibellin and Guelf "Mean to embrace each other." So began Romano's missive to his fighting man Taurello—on the Tuscan's death, away With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay Next month for Syria. Never thunder-clap Out of Vesuvius' throat, like this mishap Startled him. "That accursed Vicenza! I "Absent, and she selects this time to die! "Ho, fellows, for Vicenza!" Half a score Of horses ridden dead, he stood before Romano in his reeking spurs: too late— "Boniface urged me, Este could not wait," The chieftain stammered; "let me die in peace— "Forget me! Was it I who craved increase "Of rule? Do you and Friedrich plot your worst "Against the Father: as you found me first "So leave me now. Forgive me! Palma, sure, "Is at Goito still. Retain that lure— "Only be pacified!"

The country rung With such a piece of news: on every tongue, How Ecelin's great servant, congeed off, Had done a long day's service, so, might doff The green and yellow, and recover breath At Mantua, whither,—since Retrude's death, (The girlish slip of a Sicilian bride From Otho's house, he carried to reside At Mantua till the Ferrarese should pile A structure worthy her imperial style, The gardens raise, the statues there enshrine, She never lived to see)—although his line Was ancient in her archives and she took A pride in him, that city, nor forsook Her child when he forsook himself and spent A prowess on Romano surely meant For his own growth—whither he ne'er resorts If wholly satisfied (to trust reports) With Ecelin. So, forward in a trice Were shows to greet him. "Take a friend's advice," Quoth Naddo to Sordello, "nor be rash "Because your rivals (nothing can abash "Some folks) demur that we pronounced you best "To sound the great man's welcome; 't is a test, "Remember! Strojavacca looks asquint, "The rough fat sloven; and there 's plenty hint "Your pinions have received of late a shock— "Outsoar them, cobswan of the silver flock! "Sing well!" A signal wonder, song 's no whit Facilitated.

Fast the minutes flit; Another day, Sordello finds, will bring The soldier, and he cannot choose but sing; So, a last shift, quits Mantua—slow, alone: Out of that aching brain, a very stone, Song must be struck. What occupies that front? Just how he was more awkward than his wont The night before, when Naddo, who had seen Taurello on his progress, praised the mien For dignity no crosses could affect— Such was a joy, and might not he detect A satisfaction if established joys Were proved imposture? Poetry annoys Its utmost: wherefore fret? Verses may come Or keep away! And thus he wandered, dumb Till evening, when he paused, thoroughly spent, On a blind hill-top: down the gorge he went, Yielding himself up as to an embrace. The moon came out; like features of a face, A querulous fraternity of pines, Sad blackthorn clumps, leafless and grovelling vines Also came out, made gradually up The picture; 't was Goito's mountain-cup And castle. He had dropped through one defile He never dared explore, the Chief erewhile Had vanished by. Back rushed the dream, enwrapped Him wholly. 'T was Apollo now they lapped, Those mountains, not a pettish minstrel meant To wear his soul away in discontent, Brooding on fortune's malice. Heart and brain Swelled; he expanded to himself again, As some thin seedling spice-tree starved and frail, Pushing between cat's head and ibis' tail Crusted into the porphyry pavement smooth, —Suffered remain just as it sprung, to soothe The Soldan's pining daughter, never yet Well in her chilly green-glazed minaret,— When rooted up, the sunny day she died, And flung into the common court beside Its parent tree. Come home, Sordello! Soon Was he low muttering, beneath the moon, Of sorrow saved, of quiet evermore,— Since from the purpose, he maintained before, Only resulted wailing and hot tears. Ah, the slim castle! dwindled of late years, But more mysterious; gone to ruin—trails Of vine through every loop-hole. Nought avails The night as, torch in hand, he must explore The maple chamber: did I say, its floor Was made of intersecting cedar beams? Worn now with gaps so large, there blew cold streams Of air quite from the dungeon; lay your ear Close and 't is like, one after one, you hear In the blind darkness water drop. The nests And nooks retain their long ranged vesture-chests Empty and smelling of the iris root The Tuscan grated o'er them to recruit Her wasted wits. Palma was gone that day, Said the remaining women. Last, he lay Beside the Carian group reserved and still.

The Body, the Machine for Acting Will, Had been at the commencement proved unfit; That for Demonstrating, Reflecting it, Mankind—no fitter: was the Will Itself In fault?

His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf Beside the youngest marble maid awhile; Then, raising it, he thought, with a long smile, "I shall be king again!" as he withdrew The envied scarf; into the font he threw His crown

Next day, no poet! "Wherefore?" asked Taurello, when the dance of Jongleurs, masked As devils, ended; "don't a song come next?" The master of the pageant looked perplexed Till Naddo's whisper came to his relief. "His Highness knew what poets were: in brief, "Had not the tetchy race prescriptive right "To peevishness, caprice? or, call it spite, "One must receive their nature in its length "And breadth, expect the weakness with the strength!" —So phrasing, till, his stock of phrases spent, The easy-natured soldier smiled assent, Settled his portly person, smoothed his chin, And nodded that the bull-bait might begin.

title: Sordello/Book the Second


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/303

Rh Roman times before the Empire, Gaul ended, and Italy began. La Turbie is a corruption of Tropaïa—the Trophy, for here stood the monument erected by Augustus about the year B.C. 13, commemorative of his victories over the Ligurian natives of the coast. For some seventeen years the empire had existed. All exterior marks of flattery and submission had been accorded to him. To him had already been given an official worship, as if he were a god. Even that "white soul" Virgil thus speaks of the living emperor:—"A god has vouchsafed us this tranquillity; for to me he (Augustus) shall always be a god. A tender lamb from our folds shall often dye his altar with its blood."

Ancient writers have left us no description of the monument. Pliny records the inscription it bore in seventy-eight words, of which thirty-three were devoted to the official dedication to the divine Augustus and to record his dignities, and forty-five to the enumeration of the conquered peoples. The monument has gone through a period of sad wreckage. The Genoese pillaged it of marbles wherewith to decorate the palaces of the citizen nobles; and in the period of the furious struggles between Guelfs and Ghibellines it was converted into a fortress. It now presents a substructure of the period of Augustus, above which rises the shattered fragment of a mediæval tower. Before the year 1869 only fourteen letters of the inscription had been recovered. Since then five more have been found, which had been built into a wall surrounding the village. From a description of the monument as it existed in the sixteenth century, before it was such a complete wreck as it is at present, written by a

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/303