PIPPA PASSES

The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought,At the close of a day or a life,And yet a false one, was, "Man shrinks to naughtIf matched with symbols of immensity;Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet skyOr sea, too little for their quietude:"And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's moodConfirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sankDown the near terrace to the farther bank,And only one spot left from out the nightGlimmered, upon the river opposite—A breadth of watery heaven like a bay,A sky-like space of water, ray for ray,And star for star, one richness where they mixedAs this and that wing of an angel, fixed,Tumultuary splendors folded inTo die. Nor turned he till Ferrara's din(Say, the monotonous speech from a man's lipWho lets some first and eager purpose slipIn a new fancy's birth; the speech keeps onThough elsewhere its informing soul be gone)—Aroused him, surely offered succor. FatePaused with this eve; ere she precipitateHerself,—best put off new strange thoughts awhile,That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile,—What help to pierce the future as the past,Lay in the plaining city?And at lastThe main discovery and prime concern,All that just now imported him to learn,Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to completeHeaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet,Lighted his old life's every shift and change,Past procedure is fitliest reviewed,Effort with counter-effort; nor the rangeOf each looked wrong except wherein it checkedSome other—which of these could he suspect,Prying into them by the sudden blaze?The real way seemed made up of all the ways—Mood after mood of the one mind in him;Tokens of the existence, bright or dim,Of a transcendent all-embracing senseDemanding only outward influence,A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul,Power to uplift his power,—such moon's controlOver such sea-depths,—and their mass had sweptOnward from the beginning and still keptIts course: but years and years the sky aboveHeld none, and so, untasked of any love,His sensitiveness idled, now amort,Alive now, and, to sullenness or sportGiven wholly up, disposed itself anewAt every passing instigation, grewAnd dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt,Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a giltShield in the sunshine, now a blinding raceOf whitest ripples o'er the reef—found placeFor much display; not gathered up and, hurledRight from its heart, encompassing the world.So had Sordello been, by consequence,Without a function: others made pretenceTo strength not half his own, yet had some coreWithin, submitted to some moon, beforeThem still, superior still whate'er their force,—Were able therefore to fulfil a course,Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute.To each who lives must be a certain fruitOf having lived in his degree,—a stage,Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage,To stop at; and to this the spirits tendWho, still discovering beauty without end,Amass the scintillations, make one star—Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar,—And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blestBy winning it to notice and investTheir souls with alien glory, some one dayAs more appreciable in its entirety.Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway,Round to the perfect circle—soon or late;According as themselves are formed to wait;Whether mere human beauty will suffice—The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes,Or human intellect seem best, or eachCombine in some ideal form past reachOn earth, or else some shade of these, some aim,Some love, hate even, take their place, the same,So to be served—all this they do not lose,Waiting for death to live, nor idly chooseWhat must be Hell—a progress thus pursuedThrough all existence, still above the foodThat 's offered them; still fain to reach beyondThe widened range, in virtue of their bondOf sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love,A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal proveTo swaying all Sordello: but why doubtStrong, he needed external strength:Some love meet for such strength, some moon withoutWould match his sea?—or fear, Good manifest,Only the Best breaks faith?—Ah, but the BestSomehow eludes us ever, still might beAnd is not! Crave we gems? No penuryOf their material round us! Pliant earthAnd plastic flame—what balks the mage his birth—Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block?Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock;Naught more! Seek creatures? Life 's i' the tempest, thoughtClothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraughtWith fervors: human forms are well enough!But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuffProfuse at nature's pleasure, men beyondThese actual men!—and thus are over-fondIn arguing, from Good—the Best, from forceDivided—force combined, an ocean's courseFrom this our sea whose mere intestine pantsMight seem at times sufficient to our wants.External power? If none be adequate,And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate)Himself a law to his own sphere?—removeAll incompleteness, for that law, that love?Nay, if all other laws be feints,—truth veiledHelpfully to weak vision that had failedTo grasp aught but its special want,—for lure,Embodied? Stronger vision could endureThe unbodied want: no part—the whole of truth!The People were himself; nor, by the ruthAt their condition, was he less impelledEven now, where can he perceive such?To alter the discrepancy beheld,Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly partSubtracted were transformed, decked out with art,Then palmed on him as alien woe—the GuelfTo succor, proud that he forsook himself.Internal strength must suffice then,All is himself; all service, therefore, ratesAlike, nor serving one part, immolatesThe rest: but all in time! "That lance of yoursMakes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors,That buckler's lined with many a giant's beard,Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared,The buckler wielded handsomely as now!But view your escort, bear in mind your vow,Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that,And, if you hope we struggle through the flat,Put lance and buckler by! Next half-month lacksMere sturdy exercise of mace and axeTo cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pearWhich bristling holds Cydippe by the hair,Lames barefoot Agathon: this felled, we'll tryThe picturesque achievements by and by—Next life!"Ay, rally, mock, O People, urgeYour claims!—for thus he ventured, to the verge,Push a vain mummery which perchance distrustOf his fast-slipping resolution thrustLikewise: accordingly the Crowd—(as yetHe had unconsciously contrived forget,I' the whole, to dwell o' the points ... one might assuageThe signal horrors easier than engageWith a dim vulgar vast unobvious griefNot to be fancied off, nor gained reliefIn brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk,But by dim vulgar vast unobvious workTo corrrespond ...)—this Crowd then, forth they stood."And now content thy stronger vision, broodOn thy bare want; uncovered, turf by turf,Study the corpse-face through the taint-worms' scurf!"Down sank the People's Then; up-rose their NowThese sad ones render service to! And howHis sympathy with the people, to wit;Piteously little must that service prove—Had surely proved in any case! for, moveEach other obstacle away, let youthBecome aware it had surprised a truth'T were service to impart—can truth be seized,Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased,Its captor find fresh prey, since this alitSo happily, no gesture luring it,The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain,Most vain! a life to spend ere this he chainTo the poor crowd's complacence: ere the crowdPronounce it captured, he descries a cloudIts kin of twice the plume; which he, in turn,If he shall live as many lives, may learnHow to secure: not else. Then Mantua calledBack to his mind how certain bards were thralled—Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfumeThan Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom;Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets,A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets;Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine,Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine.Yet to surmount this obstacle, commenceWith the commencement, merits crowning! HenceMust truth be casual truth, elicitedIn sparks so mean, at intervals dispreadSo rarely, that 'tis like at no one timeOf the world's story has not truth, the primeOf truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurledThe world's course right, been really in the world—Content the while with some mean spark by dintOf some chance-blow, the solitary hintOf buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would streamSky-ward!Sordello's miserable gleamWas looked for at the moment: he would dashThis badge, and all it brought, to earth,—abashTaurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrestThe Kaiser from his purpose,—would attestHis own belief, in any case. BeforeOf which, try now the inherent force!He dashes it however, think once more!For, were that little, truly service? "Ay,I' the end, no doubt; but meantime? Plain you spyIts ultimate effect, but many flawsOf vision blur each intervening cause.Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sumOf service, Now as filled as teems To-comeWith evidence of good—nor too minuteA share to vie with evil! No dispute,'Twere fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule:That makes your life's work: but you have to schoolYour day's work on these natures circumstancedThus variously, which yet, as each advancedOr might impede the Guelf rule, must be movedNow, for the Then's sake,—hating what you loved,Loving old hatreds! Nor if one man boreBrand upon temples while his fellow woreThe aureole, would it task you to decide:But, portioned duly out, the future viedNever with the unparcelled present! SmiteOr spare so much on warrant all so slight?The present's complete sympathies to break,Aversions bear with, for a future's sakeSo feeble? Tito ruined through one speck.The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck?This were work, true, but work performed at costOf other work; aught gained here, elsewhere lost.For a new segment spoil an orb half-done?Rise with the People one step, and sink—one?Were it but one step, less than the whole faceOf things, your novel duty bids erase!Harms to abolish! What, the prophet saith,The minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith,Old courage, only born because of harms,Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms?Flame may persist; but is not glare as stanch?Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch;Blood dries to crimson; Evil's beautifiedIn every shape. Thrust Beauty then asideAnd banish Evil! Wherefore? After all,Is Evil a result less naturalThan Good? For overlook the seasons' strifeWith tree and flower,—the hideous animal life,(Of which who seeks shall find a grinning tauntHow much of man's ill may be removed?For his solution, and endure the vauntOf nature's angel, as a child that knowsHimself befooled, unable to proposeAught better than the fooling)—and but careFor men, for the mere People then and there,—In these, could you but see that Good and IllClaimed you alike! Whence rose their claim but stillFrom Ill, as fruit of Ill? What else could knitYou theirs but Sorrow? Any free from itWere also free from you! Whose happinessCould be distinguished in this morning's pressOf miseries?—the fool's who passed a gibe'On thee,' jeered he, so wedded to thy tribe,Thou carriest green and yellow tokens inThy very face that thou art Ghibellin!'Much hold on you that fool obtained! Nay mountYet higher—and upon men's own accountHow much of ill ought to be removed?Must evil stay: for, what is joy?—to heaveUp one obstruction more, and common leaveWhat was peculiar, by such act destroyItself; a partial death is every joy;The sensible escape, enfranchisementOf a sphere's essence: once the vexed—content,The cramped—at large, the growing circle—round,All's to begin again—some novel boundTo break, some new enlargement to entreat;The sphere though larger is not more complete.Now for Mankind's experience: who aloneMight style the unobstructed world his own?Whom palled Goito with its perfect things?Sordello's self: whereas for Mankind springsSalvation by each hindrance interposed.They climb; life's view is not at once disclosedTo creatures caught up, on the summit left,Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft:But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot.So, range on range, the girdling forests shootTwixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scaleHeight after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil,Heartened with each discovery; in their soul,The Whole they seek by Parts—but, found that Whole,Could they revert, enjoy past gains? The spaceOf time you judge so meagre to embraceThe Parts were more than plenty, once attainedThe Whole, to quite exhaust it: naught were gainedBut leave to look—not leave to do: BeneathSoon sates the looker—look above, and DeathTempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. LiveFirst, and die soon enough, Sordello! GiveIf removed, at what cost to Sordello?Body and spirit the first right they claim,And pasture soul on a voluptuous shameThat you, a pageant-city's denizen,Are neither vilely lodged 'midst Lombard men—Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truckBright attributes away for sordid muck,Yet manage from that very muck educeGold; then subject nor scruple, to your cruceThe world's discardings! Though real ingots payYour pains, the clods that yielded them are clayTo all beside,—would clay remain, though quenchedYour purging-fire; who's robbed then? Had you wrenchedAn ampler treasure forth!—As 't is, they craveA share that ruins you and will not saveThem. Why should sympathy command you quitThe course that makes your joy, nor will remitTheir woe? Would all arrive at joy? ReverseMen win little thereby; he loses all:The order (time instructs you) nor coerceEach unit till, some predetermined mode,The total be emancipate; men's roadIs one, men's times of travel many; thwartNo enterprising soul's precocious startBefore the general march! If slow or fastAll straggle up to the same point at last,Why grudge your having gained, a month ago,The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow,While they were landlocked? Speed their Then, but howThis badge would suffer you improve your Now!"His time of action for, against, or withOur world (I labor to extract the pithOf this his problem) grew, that even-tide,Gigantic with its power of joy, besideThe world's eternity of impotenceTo profit though at his whole joy's expense.For he can infinitely enjoy himself,"Make nothing of my day because so brief?Rather make more: instead of joy, use griefBefore its novelty have time subside!Wait not for the late savor, leave untriedVirtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeezeVice like a biting spirit from the leesOf life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust,All tyrannies in every shape, be thrustUpon this Now, which time may reason outAs mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt;But long ere then Sordello will have slippedAway; you teach him at Goito's crypt,There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill.Stirring, the few cope with the many, still:So much of sand as, quiet, makes a massUnable to produce three tufts of grass,Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render voidThe whole calm glebe's endeavor: he employed!And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this,Contribute each his pang to make your bliss,'T is but one pang—one blood-drop to the bowlWhich brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowlAt last, stains ruddily the dull red cape,And, kindling orbs gray as the unripe grapeBefore, avails forthwith to disentranceThe portent, soon to lead a mystic danceAmong you! For, who sits alone in Rome?Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home,And set me there to live? Oh life, life-breath,Life-blood,—ere sleep, come travail, life ere death!This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique,But always streaming! Hindrances? They pique:Helps? such ... but why repeat, my soul o'er-topsEach height, then every depth profoundlier drops?Enough that I can live, and would live! WaitFor some transcendent life reserved by FateTo follow this? Oh, never! Fate, I trustThe same, my soul to; for, as who flings dust,Perchance (so facile was the deed) she checkedThe void with these materials to affectMy soul diversely: these consigned anewTo naught by death, what marvel if she threwA second and superber spectacleBefore me? What may serve for sun, what stillWander a moon above me? What else windAbout me like the pleasures left behind,And how shall some new flesh that is not fleshCling to me? What 's new laughter? Soothes the freshSleep like sleep? Fate 's exhaustless for my sakeIn brave resource: but whether bids she slakeMy thirst at this first rivulet, or countNo draught worth lip save from some rocky fountAbove i' the clouds, while here she 's providentOf pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tentGuards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor failThe silver globules and gold-sparkling grailAt bottom? Oh, 't were too absurd to slightFor the hereafter the to-day's delight!Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: wearHome-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair!Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heartOffer to serve, contented for my partFreed from a problematic obligation,To give life up in service,—only grantThat I do serve; if otherwise, why wantAught further of me? If men cannot chooseBut set aside life, why should I refuseThe gift? I take it—I, for one, engageNever to falter through my pilgrimage—Nor end it howling that the stock or stoneWere enviable, truly: I, for one,Will praise the world, you style mere anteroomTo palace—be it so! shall I assume—My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope,My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly opeOne moment? What? with guarders row on row,Gay swarms of varletry that come and go,Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlaceThe plackets of, pert claimants help displace,Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for,—laughAt yon sleek parasite, break his own staff'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder,—why,Admitted to the presence by and by,Should thought of having lost these make me grieveAmong new joys I reach, for joys I leave?Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone,Are floor-work there! But do I let aloneThat black-eyed peasant in the vestibuleOnce and forever?—Floor-work? No such fool!Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I'd sayI, is it, must be blessed? Then, my own wayAnd accepting life on its own terms,Bless me! Give firmer arm and fleeter foot,I 'll thank you: but to no mad wings transmuteThese limbs of mine—our greensward was so soft!Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft:We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thusEngines subservient, not mixed up with us.Better move palpably through heaven: nor, freedOf flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed'Mid flying synods of worlds! No: in heaven's margeShow Titan still, recumbent o'er his targeSolid with stars—the Centaur at his game,Made tremulously out in hoary flame!"Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dullDregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full,Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealedSo oft a better life this life concealed,And which sage, champion, martyr, through each pathWhich, yet, others have renounced: how?Have hunted fearlessly—the horrid bath,The crippling-irons and the fiery chair.'T was well for them; let me become awareAs they, and I relinquish life, too! LetWhat masters life disclose itself! ForgetVain ordinances, I have one appeal—I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel;So much is truth to me. What Is, then? SinceOne object, viewed diversely, may evinceBeauty and ugliness—this way attract,That way repel,—why gloze upon the fact?Why must a single of the sides be right?What bids choose this and leave the opposite?Where's abstract Right for me?—in youth enduedWith Right still present, still to be pursued,Through all the interchange of circles, rifeEach with its proper law and mode of life,Each to be dwelt at ease in: where, to swayAbsolute with the Kaiser, or obeyImplicit with his serf of fluttering heart,Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to startUp, Brutus in the presence, then go shoutThat some should pick the unstrung jewels out—Each, well!"And, as in moments when the pastGave partially enfranchisement, he castHimself quite through mere secondary statesOf his soul's essence, little loves and hates,Because there is a life beyond life,Into the mid deep yearnings overlaidBy these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade,And on into the very nucleus probeThat first determined there exist a globe.As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved,So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolvedBy his flesh-half's break up; the sudden swellOf his expanding soul showed Ill and Well,Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness,Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less,All qualities, in fine, recorded here,Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere,Urgent on these, but not of force to bindEternity, as Time—as Matter—Mind,If Mind, Eternity, should choose assertTheir attributes within a Life: thus girtWith circumstance, next change beholds them cinctQuite otherwise—with Good and Ill distinct,Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result—Contrived to render easy, difficult,This or the other course of ... what new bondIn place of flesh may stop their flight beyondIts new sphere, as that course does harm or goodTo its arrangements. Once this understood,As suddenly he felt himself alone,Quite out of Time and this world: all was known.What made the secret of his past despair?—Most imminent when he seemed most awareOf his own self-sufficiency; made madBy craving to expand the power he had,And not new power to be expanded?—justThis made it; Soul on Matter being thrust,Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in TimeOn Matter,—let the Soul's attempt sublimeMatter beyond the scheme and so preventBy more or less that deed's accomplishment,And Sorrow follows: Sorrow how avoid?Let the employer match the thing employed,Fit to the finite his infinity.And thus proceed forever, in degreeAnd with new conditions of success,Changed but in kind the same, still limitedTo the appointed circumstance and deadTo all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere;Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here;Since to the spirit's absoluteness allAre like. Now, of the present sphere we callLife, are conditions; take but this amongMany; the body was to be so longYouthful, no longer: but, since no controlTied to that body's purposes his soul,She chose to understand the body's tradeMore than the body's self—had fain conveyedHer boundless, to the body's bounded lot.Hence, the soul permanent, the body not,—Scarcely its minute for enjoying here,—The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer,Run o'er its capabilities and wringA joy thence, she held worth experiencing:Which, far from half discovered even,—lo,The minute gone, the body's power let goApportioned to that joy's acquirement! BrokeNor such as, in this, produce failure.Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke—From the volcano's vapor-flag, winds hoistBlack o'er the spread of sea,—down to the moistDale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain,Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again—The Small, a sphere as perfect as the GreatTo the soul's absoluteness. MeditateToo long on such a morning's cluster-chordAnd the whole music it was framed afford,—The chord's might half discovered, what should pluckOne string, his finger, was found palsy-struck.And then no marvel if the spirit, shownA saddest sight—the body lost aloneThrough her officious proffered help, deprivedOf this and that enjoyment Fate contrived,—Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,—Vaingloriously were fain, for recompense,To stem the ruin even yet, protractThe body's term, supply the power it lackedFrom her infinity, compel it learnThese qualities were only Time's concern,And body may, with spirit helping, barred—Advance the same, vanquished—obtain reward,Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow,Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below.And the result is, the poor body soonSinks under what was meant a wondrous boon,Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast.So much was plain then, proper in the past;To be complete for, satisfy the wholeSeries of spheres—Eternity, his soulNeeds must exceed, prove incomplete for, eachSingle sphere—Time. But does our knowledge reachNo farther? Is the cloud of hindrance brokeBut, even here, is failure inevitable?But by the failing of the fleshly yoke,Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soarSordello, self-sufficient as before,Though during the mere space that shall elapse'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds, perhaps?Must life be ever just escaped, which shouldHave been enjoyed?—nay, might have been and would,Each purpose ordered right—the soul's no whitBeyond the body's purpose under it—Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay,And that sky-space of water, ray for rayAnd star for star, one richness where they mixedAs this and that wing of an angel, fixed,Tumultuary splendors folded inTo die—would soul, proportioned thus, beginExciting discontent, or surelier quellThe body if, aspiring, it rebel?But how so order life? Still brutalizeThe soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyesTo all that was before, all that shall beAfter this sphere—all and each qualitySave some sole and immutable Great-GoodAnd Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hoodOr may failure here be success alsoTo follow? Never may some soul see All—The Great Before and After, and the SmallNow, yet be saved by this the simplest lore,And take the single course prescribed before,As the king-bird with ages on his plumesTravels to die in his ancestral glooms?But where descry the Love that shall selectThat course? Here is a soul whom, to affect,Nature has plied with all her means, from treesAnd flowers e'en to the Multitude!—and these,Decides he save or no? One word to end!Ah, my Sordello, I this once befriendAnd speak for you. Of a Power above you stillWhich, utterly incomprehensible,Is out of rivalry, which thus you canWhen induced by love?Love, though unloving all conceived by man—What need! And of—none the minutest ductTo that out-nature, naught that would instructAnd so let rivalry begin to live—But of a Power its representativeWho, being for authority the same,Communication different, should claimA course, the first chose but this last revealed—This Human clear, as that Divine concealed—What utter need!What has Sordello found?Or can his spirit go the mighty round,End where poor Eglamor begun? So, saysOld fable, the two eagles went two waysAbout the world: where, in the midst, they met,Though on a shifting waste of sand, men setJove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found?Sordello knows:For they approach—approach—that foot's reboundPalma? No, Salinguerra though in mail;They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veilAside—and you divine who sat there dead,Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said,A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spiesHelp from above in his extreme despair,And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns thereWith short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressedIn one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,It beat.By this, the hermit-bee has stoppedHis day's toil at Goito: the new-croppedDead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit,Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion's fit,God counselled for. As easy guess the wordThat passed betwixt them, and become the thirdTo the soft small unfrighted bee, as taxHim with one fault—so, no remembrance racksBut too late: an insect knows sooner.Of the stone maidens and the font of stoneHe, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone.Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whomAnon they laid within that old font-tomb,And, yet again, alas!And now is 't worthOur while bring back to mind, much less set forthHow Salinguerra extricates himselfWithout Sordello? Ghibellin and GuelfMay fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulkedIn durance or the Marquis paid his mulct,Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure,On his disappearance from the stage,Was peace; our chief made some frank overtureThat prospered; compliment fell thick and fastOn its disposer, and Taurello passedWith foe and friend for an outstripping soul,Nine days at least. Then,—fairly reached the goal,—He, by one effort, blotted the great hopeOut of his mind, nor further tried to copeWith Este, that mad evening's style, but sentAway the Legate and the League, contentNo blame at least the brothers had incurred,—Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heardPatiently first to last, scarce shivered at,Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin matAnd ne'er spoke more,—informed the FerrareseHe but retained their rule so long as theseLingered in pupilage,—and last, no modeApparent else of keeping safe the roadFrom Germany direct to LombardyFor Friedrich,—none, that is, to guaranteeThe faith and promptitude of who should nextObtain Sofia's dowry,—sore perplexed—(Sofia being youngest of the tribeThe next aspirant can press forward;Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribeThe envious magnates with—nor, since he sentHenry of Egna this fair child, had TrentOnce failed the Kaiser's purposes—"we lostEgna last year, and who takes Egna's post—Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?")Himself espoused the Lady of the RockIn pure necessity, and, so destroyedHis slender last of chances, quite made voidOld prophecy, and spite of all the schemesOvert and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams,Was sucked into Romano. And so hushedHe up this evening's work, that, when 't was brushedSomehow against by a blind chronicleWhich, chronicling whatever woe befellFerrara, noted this the obscure woeOf "Salinguerra's sole son GiacomoDeceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,"The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admireWhich of Sofia's five was meant.The chapsOf earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse,Obliterated not the beautifulDistinctive features at a crash: but dullAnd duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrewEach to his stronghold. Then (securely tooEcelin at Campese slept; close by,Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,With cushioned head and gloved hand to denoteThe cavalier he was)—then his heart smoteYoung Ecelin at last; long since adult.And, save Vicenza's business, what resultIn blood and blaze? (So hard to interceptSordello till his plain withdrawal!) SteppedSalinguerra's part lapsing to Ecelin,Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nickOf time when Ecelin and AlbericClosed with Taurello, come precisely newsThat in Verona half the souls refuseAllegiance to the Marquis and the Count—Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount,Their Podestà, through his ancestral worth.Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforthWas wholly his—Taurello sinking backFrom temporary station to a trackThat suited. News received of this acquist,Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missedTaurello then? Another year: they tookVicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nookFor refuge, and, when hundreds two or threeOf Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free,"Opposing Alberic,—vile Bassanese,—(Without Sordello!)—Ecelin at easeSlaughtered them so observably, that oftA little Salinguerra looked with softBlue eyes up, asked his sire the proper ageTo get appointed his proud uncle's page.More years passed, and that sire had dwindled downTo a mere showy turbulent soldier, grownBetter through age, his parts still in repute,Subtle—how else?—but hardly so astuteAs his contemporaneous friends professed;Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,Known by each neighbor, and allowed for, letKeep his incorrigible ways, nor fretMen who would miss their boyhood's bugbear: "trapThe ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flapA battered pinion!"—was the word. In fine,One flap too much and Venice's marineWas meddled with; no overlooking that!She captured him in his Ferrara, fatAnd florid at a banquet, more by fraudThan force, to speak the truth; there 's slander laudAscribed you for assisting eighty yearsTo pull his death on such a man; fate shearsThe life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threadYou fritter: so, presiding his board-head,The old smile, your assurance all went wellWith Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!)In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,Made some pretence at fighting, some amendsFor the shame done his eighty years—(apartThe principle, none found it in his heartTo be much angry with Taurello)—gainedTheir galleys with the prize, and what remainedBut carry him to Venice for a show?—Set him, as 't were, down gently—free to goHis gait, inspect our square, pretend observeThe swallows soaring their eternal curve'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizensGathered importunately, fives and tens,To point their children the Magnifico,Who, with his brother, played it out,All but a monarch once in firm-land, goHis gait among them now—"it took, indeed,Fully this Ecelin to supersedeThat man," remarked the seniors. Singular!Sordello's inability to barRivals the stage, that evening, mainly broughtAbout by his strange disbelief that aughtWas ever to be done,—this thrust the TwainUnder Taurello's tutelage,—whom, brainAnd heart and hand, he forthwith in one rodIndissolubly bound to baffle GodWho loves the world—and thus allowed the thinGray wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin,And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic(Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quickTo demonstration—prove wherever 's willTo do, there 's plenty to be done, or illOr good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip—Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip,They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand(So far from obsolete!) made Lombards bandTogether, cross their coats as for Christ's cause,And saving Milan win the world's applause.Ecelin perished: and I think grass grewNever so pleasant as in Valley RùAnd went home duly to their reward.By San Zenon where Alberic in turnSaw his exasperated captors burnSeven children and their mother; then, regaledSo far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailedTo death through raunce and bramble-bush. I takeGod's part and testify that 'mid the brakeWild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll,You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll—The earthquake spared it last year, laying flatThe modern church beneath,—no harm in that!Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper,Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirreAbove the ravage: there, at deep of dayA week since, heard I the old Canon sayHe saw with his own eyes a barrow burstAnd Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsedOnly five years ago. He added, "June 'sThe month for carding off our first cocoonsThe silkworms fabricate"—a double news,Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose!And Naddo gone, all 's gone; not Eglamor!Believe, I knew the face I waited for,A guest my spirit of the golden courts!Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports,Disuse, some wear of years, that face retainedIts joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned,And still my spirit held an upward flight,Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and lightMore and more gorgeous—ever that face thereThe last admitted! crossed, too, with some careAs perfect triumph were not sure for all,Good will—ill luck, get second prize:But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,—A transient struggle, haply a painful senseOf the inferior nature's clinging—whenceSlight starting tears easily wiped away.Fine jealousies soon stifled in the playOf irrepressible admiration—notAspiring, all considered, to their lotWho ever, just as they prepare ascendSpiral on spiral, wish thee well, impendThy frank delight at their exclusive track,That upturned fervid face and hair put back!Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes—Many a tale, of this retreat betimes,Was born: Sordello die at once for men?The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their penTelling howSordello Prince ViscontisavedMantua, and elsewhere notably behaved—Who thus, by fortune ordering events,Passed with posterity, to all intents,For just the god he never could become.As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumbIn praise of him: while what he should have been,Could be, and was not—the one step too meanFor him to take,—we suffer at this dayBecause of: Ecelin had pushed awayIts chance ere Dante could arrive and takeWhat least one may I award Sordello?That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake:He did much—but Sordello's chance was gone.Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,Apollo had been compassed—'t was a fitHe wished should go to him, not he to it—As one content to merely be supposedSinging or fighting elsewhere, while he dozedReally at home—one who was chiefly gladTo have achieved the few real deeds he had,Because that way assured they were not worthDoing, so spared from doing them henceforth—A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastesNever itself, itself. Had he embracedTheir cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruitAnd, praising that, just thrown him in to bootAll he was anxious to appear, but scarceSolicitous to be. A sorry farceSuch life is, after all! Cannot I sayThis—that must perforce content him,He lived for some one better thing? this way.—Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hillBy sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,Morning just up, higher and higher runsA child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun 'sOn the square castle's inner-court's low wallLike the chine of some extinct animalHalf turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze(Save where some slender patches of gray maizeAre to be overleaped) that boy has crossedThe whole hill-side of dew and powder-frostMatting the balm and mountain camomile.Up and up goes he, singing all the whileSome unintelligible words to beatThe lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,So worsted is he at "the few fine locksStained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocksSun-blanched the livelong summer,"—all that 's leftOf the Goito lay! And thus bereft,Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effectHe sleeps, the feverish poet—I suspectAs no prize at all, has contented me.Not utterly companionless; but, friends,Wake up! The ghost 's gone, and the story endsI 'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,Evil or good, judicious authors think,According as they vanish in a stinkOr in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuffCivet, I warrant. Really? Like enough!Merely the savor's rareness; any noseMay ravage with impunity a rose:Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours!I 'd tell you that same pungency ensuresAn after-gust, but that were overbold.Who would has heard Sordello's story told.

The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought,

At the close of a day or a life,

And yet a false one, was, "Man shrinks to naught

If matched with symbols of immensity;

Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky

Or sea, too little for their quietude:"

And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood

Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sank

Down the near terrace to the farther bank,

And only one spot left from out the night

Glimmered, upon the river opposite—

A breadth of watery heaven like a bay,

A sky-like space of water, ray for ray,

And star for star, one richness where they mixed

As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,

Tumultuary splendors folded in

To die. Nor turned he till Ferrara's din

(Say, the monotonous speech from a man's lip

Who lets some first and eager purpose slip

In a new fancy's birth; the speech keeps on

Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone)

—Aroused him, surely offered succor. Fate

Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate

Herself,—best put off new strange thoughts awhile,

That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile,—

What help to pierce the future as the past,

Lay in the plaining city?

And at last

The main discovery and prime concern,

All that just now imported him to learn,

Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to complete

Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet,

Lighted his old life's every shift and change,

Past procedure is fitliest reviewed,

Effort with counter-effort; nor the range

Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked

Some other—which of these could he suspect,

Prying into them by the sudden blaze?

The real way seemed made up of all the ways—

Mood after mood of the one mind in him;

Tokens of the existence, bright or dim,

Of a transcendent all-embracing sense

Demanding only outward influence,

A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul,

Power to uplift his power,—such moon's control

Over such sea-depths,—and their mass had swept

Onward from the beginning and still kept

Its course: but years and years the sky above

Held none, and so, untasked of any love,

His sensitiveness idled, now amort,

Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport

Given wholly up, disposed itself anew

At every passing instigation, grew

And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt,

Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt

Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race

Of whitest ripples o'er the reef—found place

For much display; not gathered up and, hurled

Right from its heart, encompassing the world.

So had Sordello been, by consequence,

Without a function: others made pretence

To strength not half his own, yet had some core

Within, submitted to some moon, before

Them still, superior still whate'er their force,—

Were able therefore to fulfil a course,

Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute.

To each who lives must be a certain fruit

Of having lived in his degree,—a stage,

Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage,

To stop at; and to this the spirits tend

Who, still discovering beauty without end,

Amass the scintillations, make one star

—Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar,—

And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest

By winning it to notice and invest

Their souls with alien glory, some one day

As more appreciable in its entirety.

Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway,

Round to the perfect circle—soon or late;

According as themselves are formed to wait;

Whether mere human beauty will suffice

—The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes,

Or human intellect seem best, or each

Combine in some ideal form past reach

On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim,

Some love, hate even, take their place, the same,

So to be served—all this they do not lose,

Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose

What must be Hell—a progress thus pursued

Through all existence, still above the food

That 's offered them; still fain to reach beyond

The widened range, in virtue of their bond

Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love,

A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal prove

To swaying all Sordello: but why doubt

Strong, he needed external strength:

Some love meet for such strength, some moon without

Would match his sea?—or fear, Good manifest,

Only the Best breaks faith?—Ah, but the Best

Somehow eludes us ever, still might be

And is not! Crave we gems? No penury

Of their material round us! Pliant earth

And plastic flame—what balks the mage his birth

—Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block?

Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock;

Naught more! Seek creatures? Life 's i' the tempest, thought

Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught

With fervors: human forms are well enough!

But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff

Profuse at nature's pleasure, men beyond

These actual men!—and thus are over-fond

In arguing, from Good—the Best, from force

Divided—force combined, an ocean's course

From this our sea whose mere intestine pants

Might seem at times sufficient to our wants.

External power? If none be adequate,

And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate)

Himself a law to his own sphere?—remove

All incompleteness, for that law, that love?

Nay, if all other laws be feints,—truth veiled

Helpfully to weak vision that had failed

To grasp aught but its special want,—for lure,

Embodied? Stronger vision could endure

The unbodied want: no part—the whole of truth!

The People were himself; nor, by the ruth

At their condition, was he less impelled

Even now, where can he perceive such?

To alter the discrepancy beheld,

Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly part

Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art,

Then palmed on him as alien woe—the Guelf

To succor, proud that he forsook himself.

Internal strength must suffice then,

All is himself; all service, therefore, rates

Alike, nor serving one part, immolates

The rest: but all in time! "That lance of yours

Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors,

That buckler's lined with many a giant's beard,

Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared,

The buckler wielded handsomely as now!

But view your escort, bear in mind your vow,

Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that,

And, if you hope we struggle through the flat,

Put lance and buckler by! Next half-month lacks

Mere sturdy exercise of mace and axe

To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear

Which bristling holds Cydippe by the hair,

Lames barefoot Agathon: this felled, we'll try

The picturesque achievements by and by—

Next life!"

Ay, rally, mock, O People, urge

Your claims!—for thus he ventured, to the verge,

Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust

Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust

Likewise: accordingly the Crowd—(as yet

He had unconsciously contrived forget,

I' the whole, to dwell o' the points ... one might assuage

The signal horrors easier than engage

With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief

Not to be fancied off, nor gained relief

In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk,

But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work

To corrrespond ...)—this Crowd then, forth they stood.

"And now content thy stronger vision, brood

On thy bare want; uncovered, turf by turf,

Study the corpse-face through the taint-worms' scurf!"

Down sank the People's Then; up-rose their Now

These sad ones render service to! And how

His sympathy with the people, to wit;

Piteously little must that service prove

—Had surely proved in any case! for, move

Each other obstacle away, let youth

Become aware it had surprised a truth

'T were service to impart—can truth be seized,

Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased,

Its captor find fresh prey, since this alit

So happily, no gesture luring it,

The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain,

Most vain! a life to spend ere this he chain

To the poor crowd's complacence: ere the crowd

Pronounce it captured, he descries a cloud

Its kin of twice the plume; which he, in turn,

If he shall live as many lives, may learn

How to secure: not else. Then Mantua called

Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled

—Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfume

Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom;

Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets,

A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets;

Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine,

Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine.

Yet to surmount this obstacle, commence

With the commencement, merits crowning! Hence

Must truth be casual truth, elicited

In sparks so mean, at intervals dispread

So rarely, that 'tis like at no one time

Of the world's story has not truth, the prime

Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurled

The world's course right, been really in the world

—Content the while with some mean spark by dint

Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint

Of buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would stream

Sky-ward!

Sordello's miserable gleam

Was looked for at the moment: he would dash

This badge, and all it brought, to earth,—abash

Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest

The Kaiser from his purpose,—would attest

His own belief, in any case. Before

Of which, try now the inherent force!

He dashes it however, think once more!

For, were that little, truly service? "Ay,

I' the end, no doubt; but meantime? Plain you spy

Its ultimate effect, but many flaws

Of vision blur each intervening cause.

Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sum

Of service, Now as filled as teems To-come

With evidence of good—nor too minute

A share to vie with evil! No dispute,

'Twere fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule:

That makes your life's work: but you have to school

Your day's work on these natures circumstanced

Thus variously, which yet, as each advanced

Or might impede the Guelf rule, must be moved

Now, for the Then's sake,—hating what you loved,

Loving old hatreds! Nor if one man bore

Brand upon temples while his fellow wore

The aureole, would it task you to decide:

But, portioned duly out, the future vied

Never with the unparcelled present! Smite

Or spare so much on warrant all so slight?

The present's complete sympathies to break,

Aversions bear with, for a future's sake

So feeble? Tito ruined through one speck.

The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck?

This were work, true, but work performed at cost

Of other work; aught gained here, elsewhere lost.

For a new segment spoil an orb half-done?

Rise with the People one step, and sink—one?

Were it but one step, less than the whole face

Of things, your novel duty bids erase!

Harms to abolish! What, the prophet saith,

The minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith,

Old courage, only born because of harms,

Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms?

Flame may persist; but is not glare as stanch?

Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch;

Blood dries to crimson; Evil's beautified

In every shape. Thrust Beauty then aside

And banish Evil! Wherefore? After all,

Is Evil a result less natural

Than Good? For overlook the seasons' strife

With tree and flower,—the hideous animal life,

(Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt

How much of man's ill may be removed?

For his solution, and endure the vaunt

Of nature's angel, as a child that knows

Himself befooled, unable to propose

Aught better than the fooling)—and but care

For men, for the mere People then and there,—

In these, could you but see that Good and Ill

Claimed you alike! Whence rose their claim but still

From Ill, as fruit of Ill? What else could knit

You theirs but Sorrow? Any free from it

Were also free from you! Whose happiness

Could be distinguished in this morning's press

Of miseries?—the fool's who passed a gibe

'On thee,' jeered he, so wedded to thy tribe,

Thou carriest green and yellow tokens in

Thy very face that thou art Ghibellin!'

Much hold on you that fool obtained! Nay mount

Yet higher—and upon men's own account

How much of ill ought to be removed?

Must evil stay: for, what is joy?—to heave

Up one obstruction more, and common leave

What was peculiar, by such act destroy

Itself; a partial death is every joy;

The sensible escape, enfranchisement

Of a sphere's essence: once the vexed—content,

The cramped—at large, the growing circle—round,

All's to begin again—some novel bound

To break, some new enlargement to entreat;

The sphere though larger is not more complete.

Now for Mankind's experience: who alone

Might style the unobstructed world his own?

Whom palled Goito with its perfect things?

Sordello's self: whereas for Mankind springs

Salvation by each hindrance interposed.

They climb; life's view is not at once disclosed

To creatures caught up, on the summit left,

Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft:

But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot.

So, range on range, the girdling forests shoot

Twixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scale

Height after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil,

Heartened with each discovery; in their soul,

The Whole they seek by Parts—but, found that Whole,

Could they revert, enjoy past gains? The space

Of time you judge so meagre to embrace

The Parts were more than plenty, once attained

The Whole, to quite exhaust it: naught were gained

But leave to look—not leave to do: Beneath

Soon sates the looker—look above, and Death

Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live

First, and die soon enough, Sordello! Give

If removed, at what cost to Sordello?

Body and spirit the first right they claim,

And pasture soul on a voluptuous shame

That you, a pageant-city's denizen,

Are neither vilely lodged 'midst Lombard men—

Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck

Bright attributes away for sordid muck,

Yet manage from that very muck educe

Gold; then subject nor scruple, to your cruce

The world's discardings! Though real ingots pay

Your pains, the clods that yielded them are clay

To all beside,—would clay remain, though quenched

Your purging-fire; who's robbed then? Had you wrenched

An ampler treasure forth!—As 't is, they crave

A share that ruins you and will not save

Them. Why should sympathy command you quit

The course that makes your joy, nor will remit

Their woe? Would all arrive at joy? Reverse

Men win little thereby; he loses all:

The order (time instructs you) nor coerce

Each unit till, some predetermined mode,

The total be emancipate; men's road

Is one, men's times of travel many; thwart

No enterprising soul's precocious start

Before the general march! If slow or fast

All straggle up to the same point at last,

Why grudge your having gained, a month ago,

The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow,

While they were landlocked? Speed their Then, but how

This badge would suffer you improve your Now!"

His time of action for, against, or with

Our world (I labor to extract the pith

Of this his problem) grew, that even-tide,

Gigantic with its power of joy, beside

The world's eternity of impotence

To profit though at his whole joy's expense.

For he can infinitely enjoy himself,

"Make nothing of my day because so brief?

Rather make more: instead of joy, use grief

Before its novelty have time subside!

Wait not for the late savor, leave untried

Virtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeeze

Vice like a biting spirit from the lees

Of life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust,

All tyrannies in every shape, be thrust

Upon this Now, which time may reason out

As mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt;

But long ere then Sordello will have slipped

Away; you teach him at Goito's crypt,

There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill.

Stirring, the few cope with the many, still:

So much of sand as, quiet, makes a mass

Unable to produce three tufts of grass,

Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void

The whole calm glebe's endeavor: he employed!

And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this,

Contribute each his pang to make your bliss,

'T is but one pang—one blood-drop to the bowl

Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl

At last, stains ruddily the dull red cape,

And, kindling orbs gray as the unripe grape

Before, avails forthwith to disentrance

The portent, soon to lead a mystic dance

Among you! For, who sits alone in Rome?

Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home,

And set me there to live? Oh life, life-breath,

Life-blood,—ere sleep, come travail, life ere death!

This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique,

But always streaming! Hindrances? They pique:

Helps? such ... but why repeat, my soul o'er-tops

Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops?

Enough that I can live, and would live! Wait

For some transcendent life reserved by Fate

To follow this? Oh, never! Fate, I trust

The same, my soul to; for, as who flings dust,

Perchance (so facile was the deed) she checked

The void with these materials to affect

My soul diversely: these consigned anew

To naught by death, what marvel if she threw

A second and superber spectacle

Before me? What may serve for sun, what still

Wander a moon above me? What else wind

About me like the pleasures left behind,

And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh

Cling to me? What 's new laughter? Soothes the fresh

Sleep like sleep? Fate 's exhaustless for my sake

In brave resource: but whether bids she slake

My thirst at this first rivulet, or count

No draught worth lip save from some rocky fount

Above i' the clouds, while here she 's provident

Of pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tent

Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail

The silver globules and gold-sparkling grail

At bottom? Oh, 't were too absurd to slight

For the hereafter the to-day's delight!

Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: wear

Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair!

Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart

Offer to serve, contented for my part

Freed from a problematic obligation,

To give life up in service,—only grant

That I do serve; if otherwise, why want

Aught further of me? If men cannot choose

But set aside life, why should I refuse

The gift? I take it—I, for one, engage

Never to falter through my pilgrimage—

Nor end it howling that the stock or stone

Were enviable, truly: I, for one,

Will praise the world, you style mere anteroom

To palace—be it so! shall I assume

—My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope,

My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly ope

One moment? What? with guarders row on row,

Gay swarms of varletry that come and go,

Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlace

The plackets of, pert claimants help displace,

Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for,—laugh

At yon sleek parasite, break his own staff

'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder,—why,

Admitted to the presence by and by,

Should thought of having lost these make me grieve

Among new joys I reach, for joys I leave?

Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone,

Are floor-work there! But do I let alone

That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule

Once and forever?—Floor-work? No such fool!

Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I'd say

I, is it, must be blessed? Then, my own way

And accepting life on its own terms,

Bless me! Give firmer arm and fleeter foot,

I 'll thank you: but to no mad wings transmute

These limbs of mine—our greensward was so soft!

Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft:

We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thus

Engines subservient, not mixed up with us.

Better move palpably through heaven: nor, freed

Of flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed

'Mid flying synods of worlds! No: in heaven's marge

Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe

Solid with stars—the Centaur at his game,

Made tremulously out in hoary flame!

"Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull

Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full,

Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealed

So oft a better life this life concealed,

And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path

Which, yet, others have renounced: how?

Have hunted fearlessly—the horrid bath,

The crippling-irons and the fiery chair.

'T was well for them; let me become aware

As they, and I relinquish life, too! Let

What masters life disclose itself! Forget

Vain ordinances, I have one appeal—

I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel;

So much is truth to me. What Is, then? Since

One object, viewed diversely, may evince

Beauty and ugliness—this way attract,

That way repel,—why gloze upon the fact?

Why must a single of the sides be right?

What bids choose this and leave the opposite?

Where's abstract Right for me?—in youth endued

With Right still present, still to be pursued,

Through all the interchange of circles, rife

Each with its proper law and mode of life,

Each to be dwelt at ease in: where, to sway

Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey

Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart,

Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start

Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout

That some should pick the unstrung jewels out—

Each, well!"

And, as in moments when the past

Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast

Himself quite through mere secondary states

Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates,

Because there is a life beyond life,

Into the mid deep yearnings overlaid

By these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade,

And on into the very nucleus probe

That first determined there exist a globe.

As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved,

So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved

By his flesh-half's break up; the sudden swell

Of his expanding soul showed Ill and Well,

Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness,

Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less,

All qualities, in fine, recorded here,

Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere,

Urgent on these, but not of force to bind

Eternity, as Time—as Matter—Mind,

If Mind, Eternity, should choose assert

Their attributes within a Life: thus girt

With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct

Quite otherwise—with Good and Ill distinct,

Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result—

Contrived to render easy, difficult,

This or the other course of ... what new bond

In place of flesh may stop their flight beyond

Its new sphere, as that course does harm or good

To its arrangements. Once this understood,

As suddenly he felt himself alone,

Quite out of Time and this world: all was known.

What made the secret of his past despair?

—Most imminent when he seemed most aware

Of his own self-sufficiency; made mad

By craving to expand the power he had,

And not new power to be expanded?—just

This made it; Soul on Matter being thrust,

Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in Time

On Matter,—let the Soul's attempt sublime

Matter beyond the scheme and so prevent

By more or less that deed's accomplishment,

And Sorrow follows: Sorrow how avoid?

Let the employer match the thing employed,

Fit to the finite his infinity.

And thus proceed forever, in degree

And with new conditions of success,

Changed but in kind the same, still limited

To the appointed circumstance and dead

To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere;

Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here;

Since to the spirit's absoluteness all

Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call

Life, are conditions; take but this among

Many; the body was to be so long

Youthful, no longer: but, since no control

Tied to that body's purposes his soul,

She chose to understand the body's trade

More than the body's self—had fain conveyed

Her boundless, to the body's bounded lot.

Hence, the soul permanent, the body not,—

Scarcely its minute for enjoying here,—

The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer,

Run o'er its capabilities and wring

A joy thence, she held worth experiencing:

Which, far from half discovered even,—lo,

The minute gone, the body's power let go

Apportioned to that joy's acquirement! Broke

Nor such as, in this, produce failure.

Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke—

From the volcano's vapor-flag, winds hoist

Black o'er the spread of sea,—down to the moist

Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain,

Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again—

The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great

To the soul's absoluteness. Meditate

Too long on such a morning's cluster-chord

And the whole music it was framed afford,—

The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck

One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck.

And then no marvel if the spirit, shown

A saddest sight—the body lost alone

Through her officious proffered help, deprived

Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived,—

Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,—

Vaingloriously were fain, for recompense,

To stem the ruin even yet, protract

The body's term, supply the power it lacked

From her infinity, compel it learn

These qualities were only Time's concern,

And body may, with spirit helping, barred—

Advance the same, vanquished—obtain reward,

Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow,

Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below.

And the result is, the poor body soon

Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon,

Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast.

So much was plain then, proper in the past;

To be complete for, satisfy the whole

Series of spheres—Eternity, his soul

Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each

Single sphere—Time. But does our knowledge reach

No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke

But, even here, is failure inevitable?

But by the failing of the fleshly yoke,

Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar

Sordello, self-sufficient as before,

Though during the mere space that shall elapse

'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds, perhaps?

Must life be ever just escaped, which should

Have been enjoyed?—nay, might have been and would,

Each purpose ordered right—the soul's no whit

Beyond the body's purpose under it—

Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay,

And that sky-space of water, ray for ray

And star for star, one richness where they mixed

As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,

Tumultuary splendors folded in

To die—would soul, proportioned thus, begin

Exciting discontent, or surelier quell

The body if, aspiring, it rebel?

But how so order life? Still brutalize

The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes

To all that was before, all that shall be

After this sphere—all and each quality

Save some sole and immutable Great-Good

And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood

Or may failure here be success also

To follow? Never may some soul see All

—The Great Before and After, and the Small

Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore,

And take the single course prescribed before,

As the king-bird with ages on his plumes

Travels to die in his ancestral glooms?

But where descry the Love that shall select

That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect,

Nature has plied with all her means, from trees

And flowers e'en to the Multitude!—and these,

Decides he save or no? One word to end!

Ah, my Sordello, I this once befriend

And speak for you. Of a Power above you still

Which, utterly incomprehensible,

Is out of rivalry, which thus you can

When induced by love?

Love, though unloving all conceived by man—

What need! And of—none the minutest duct

To that out-nature, naught that would instruct

And so let rivalry begin to live—

But of a Power its representative

Who, being for authority the same,

Communication different, should claim

A course, the first chose but this last revealed—

This Human clear, as that Divine concealed—

What utter need!

What has Sordello found?

Or can his spirit go the mighty round,

End where poor Eglamor begun? So, says

Old fable, the two eagles went two ways

About the world: where, in the midst, they met,

Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set

Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found?

Sordello knows:

For they approach—approach—that foot's rebound

Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail;

They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil

Aside—and you divine who sat there dead,

Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said,

A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,

Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies

Help from above in his extreme despair,

And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there

With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed

In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,

It beat.

By this, the hermit-bee has stopped

His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped

Dead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit,

Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion's fit,

God counselled for. As easy guess the word

That passed betwixt them, and become the third

To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax

Him with one fault—so, no remembrance racks

But too late: an insect knows sooner.

Of the stone maidens and the font of stone

He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone.

Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom

Anon they laid within that old font-tomb,

And, yet again, alas!

And now is 't worth

Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth

How Salinguerra extricates himself

Without Sordello? Ghibellin and Guelf

May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked

In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct,

Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure,

On his disappearance from the stage,

Was peace; our chief made some frank overture

That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast

On its disposer, and Taurello passed

With foe and friend for an outstripping soul,

Nine days at least. Then,—fairly reached the goal,—

He, by one effort, blotted the great hope

Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope

With Este, that mad evening's style, but sent

Away the Legate and the League, content

No blame at least the brothers had incurred,

—Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard

Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at,

Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat

And ne'er spoke more,—informed the Ferrarese

He but retained their rule so long as these

Lingered in pupilage,—and last, no mode

Apparent else of keeping safe the road

From Germany direct to Lombardy

For Friedrich,—none, that is, to guarantee

The faith and promptitude of who should next

Obtain Sofia's dowry,—sore perplexed—

(Sofia being youngest of the tribe

The next aspirant can press forward;

Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe

The envious magnates with—nor, since he sent

Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent

Once failed the Kaiser's purposes—"we lost

Egna last year, and who takes Egna's post—

Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?")

Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock

In pure necessity, and, so destroyed

His slender last of chances, quite made void

Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes

Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams,

Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed

He up this evening's work, that, when 't was brushed

Somehow against by a blind chronicle

Which, chronicling whatever woe befell

Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe

Of "Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo

Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,"

The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire

Which of Sofia's five was meant.

The chaps

Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse,

Obliterated not the beautiful

Distinctive features at a crash: but dull

And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew

Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too

Ecelin at Campese slept; close by,

Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,

With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote

The cavalier he was)—then his heart smote

Young Ecelin at last; long since adult.

And, save Vicenza's business, what result

In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept

Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped

Salinguerra's part lapsing to Ecelin,

Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nick

Of time when Ecelin and Alberic

Closed with Taurello, come precisely news

That in Verona half the souls refuse

Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count—

Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount,

Their Podestà, through his ancestral worth.

Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth

Was wholly his—Taurello sinking back

From temporary station to a track

That suited. News received of this acquist,

Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missed

Taurello then? Another year: they took

Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook

For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three

Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free,"

Opposing Alberic,—vile Bassanese,—

(Without Sordello!)—Ecelin at ease

Slaughtered them so observably, that oft

A little Salinguerra looked with soft

Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age

To get appointed his proud uncle's page.

More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down

To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown

Better through age, his parts still in repute,

Subtle—how else?—but hardly so astute

As his contemporaneous friends professed;

Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,

Known by each neighbor, and allowed for, let

Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret

Men who would miss their boyhood's bugbear: "trap

The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap

A battered pinion!"—was the word. In fine,

One flap too much and Venice's marine

Was meddled with; no overlooking that!

She captured him in his Ferrara, fat

And florid at a banquet, more by fraud

Than force, to speak the truth; there 's slander laud

Ascribed you for assisting eighty years

To pull his death on such a man; fate shears

The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine thread

You fritter: so, presiding his board-head,

The old smile, your assurance all went well

With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!)

In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,

Made some pretence at fighting, some amends

For the shame done his eighty years—(apart

The principle, none found it in his heart

To be much angry with Taurello)—gained

Their galleys with the prize, and what remained

But carry him to Venice for a show?

—Set him, as 't were, down gently—free to go

His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe

The swallows soaring their eternal curve

'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens

Gathered importunately, fives and tens,

To point their children the Magnifico,

Who, with his brother, played it out,

All but a monarch once in firm-land, go

His gait among them now—"it took, indeed,

Fully this Ecelin to supersede

That man," remarked the seniors. Singular!

Sordello's inability to bar

Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought

About by his strange disbelief that aught

Was ever to be done,—this thrust the Twain

Under Taurello's tutelage,—whom, brain

And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod

Indissolubly bound to baffle God

Who loves the world—and thus allowed the thin

Gray wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin,

And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic

(Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quick

To demonstration—prove wherever 's will

To do, there 's plenty to be done, or ill

Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip—

Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip,

They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand

(So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band

Together, cross their coats as for Christ's cause,

And saving Milan win the world's applause.

Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew

Never so pleasant as in Valley Rù

And went home duly to their reward.

By San Zenon where Alberic in turn

Saw his exasperated captors burn

Seven children and their mother; then, regaled

So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed

To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take

God's part and testify that 'mid the brake

Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll,

You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll—

The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat

The modern church beneath,—no harm in that!

Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper,

Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre

Above the ravage: there, at deep of day

A week since, heard I the old Canon say

He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst

And Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsed

Only five years ago. He added, "June 's

The month for carding off our first cocoons

The silkworms fabricate"—a double news,

Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose!

And Naddo gone, all 's gone; not Eglamor!

Believe, I knew the face I waited for,

A guest my spirit of the golden courts!

Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports,

Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained

Its joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned,

And still my spirit held an upward flight,

Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light

More and more gorgeous—ever that face there

The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care

As perfect triumph were not sure for all,

Good will—ill luck, get second prize:

But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,

—A transient struggle, haply a painful sense

Of the inferior nature's clinging—whence

Slight starting tears easily wiped away.

Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play

Of irrepressible admiration—not

Aspiring, all considered, to their lot

Who ever, just as they prepare ascend

Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend

Thy frank delight at their exclusive track,

That upturned fervid face and hair put back!

Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes—

Many a tale, of this retreat betimes,

Was born: Sordello die at once for men?

The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen

Telling howSordello Prince Viscontisaved

Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved—

Who thus, by fortune ordering events,

Passed with posterity, to all intents,

For just the god he never could become.

As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb

In praise of him: while what he should have been,

Could be, and was not—the one step too mean

For him to take,—we suffer at this day

Because of: Ecelin had pushed away

Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take

What least one may I award Sordello?

That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake:

He did much—but Sordello's chance was gone.

Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,

Apollo had been compassed—'t was a fit

He wished should go to him, not he to it

—As one content to merely be supposed

Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed

Really at home—one who was chiefly glad

To have achieved the few real deeds he had,

Because that way assured they were not worth

Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth—

A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes

Never itself, itself. Had he embraced

Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit

And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot

All he was anxious to appear, but scarce

Solicitous to be. A sorry farce

Such life is, after all! Cannot I say

This—that must perforce content him,

He lived for some one better thing? this way.—

Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill

By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,

Morning just up, higher and higher runs

A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun 's

On the square castle's inner-court's low wall

Like the chine of some extinct animal

Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze

(Save where some slender patches of gray maize

Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed

The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost

Matting the balm and mountain camomile.

Up and up goes he, singing all the while

Some unintelligible words to beat

The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,

So worsted is he at "the few fine locks

Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks

Sun-blanched the livelong summer,"—all that 's left

Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,

Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect

He sleeps, the feverish poet—I suspect

As no prize at all, has contented me.

Not utterly companionless; but, friends,

Wake up! The ghost 's gone, and the story ends

I 'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,

That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,

Evil or good, judicious authors think,

According as they vanish in a stink

Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff

Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough!

Merely the savor's rareness; any nose

May ravage with impunity a rose:

Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours!

I 'd tell you that same pungency ensures

An after-gust, but that were overbold.

Who would has heard Sordello's story told.

A DRAMA

Sordellodid not prove commercially successful, and Browning was reluctant to go on publishing his poetry at his father's expense. "One day," Mr. Gosse says, "as the poet was discussing the matter with Mr. Edward Moxon, the publisher, the latter remarked that at that time he was bringing out some editions of the old Elizabethan dramatists in a comparatively cheap form, and that if Mr. Browning would consent to print his poems as pamphlets, using this cheap type, the expense would be very inconsiderable." Browning accepted the suggestion at once and began the issue of a cheap series of pamphlets, each sixteen octavo pages in double column, printed on poor paper and sold first for a sixpence each, the price afterward being raised to a shilling and then to half a crown. The series consisted of eight numbers under the general fanciful titleBells and Pomegranates. Apparently the passage in Exodus xxviii. 33, "And beneath upon the hem of it [the priest's robe] thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about," suggested the title, but as all sorts of speculations sprang up about its significance, Browning appended the following note to the eighth and final number of the series:—

"Here ends my first series ofBells and Pomegranates, and I take the opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that title to indicate an endeavor towards something like an alteration, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought; which looks too ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose, that such is actually one of the most familiar of the many Rabbinical (and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that, letting authority alone, I suppose the bare words, in such juxtaposition, would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. 'Faith and good works' is another fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive at; yet Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raffaello crowned his Theology (in theCamera della Segnatura) with blossoms of the same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come after, and explain that it was merely 'simbolo delle buone opere—il qual Pomogranato fu però usato nelle veste del Pontefice appresso gli Ebrei.'

"R. B."

The first number ofBells and PomegranatescontainedPippa Passes. It was published in 1841 and was introduced by the following dedicatory preface:—

Two or three years ago I wrote a Play, about which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a Pitfull of good-natured people applauded it: ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows, I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at intervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which they appear, will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again. Of course such a work must go on no longer than it is liked; and to provide against a too certain and but too possible contingency, let me hasten to say now—what, if I were sure of success, I would try to say circumstantially enough at the close—that I dedicate my best intentions most admiringly to the Author ofIon—most affectionately to Sergeant Talfourd.

Robert Browning.

The phrases in the closing sentence were afterward used by Browning as a dedication when he discarded the advertisement in the collective editions of his poems.

PERSONS

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