SORDELLO 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 5 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? 10 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 15 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, 20 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 25 Fresh-chapleted to listen: but it seems Your setters-forth of unexampled themes, Makers of quite new men, producing them Had best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem The wearer's quality, or take his stand 30 Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand Beside them; 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. 35 Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick, Catching the dead if Fate denies the quick And shaming her; 'tis not for Fate to choose Silence or song because she can refuse Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache 40 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 45 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 50 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 55 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, 60 Verona! stay--thou, spirit, come not near Now--nor 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! 65 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, 70 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: upthrust, out-staggering on the world, 75 Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears Its outline, kindles at the core, appears Verona. 'Tis six hundred years and more Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore The purple, and the Third Honorius filled 80 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 85 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 90 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 95 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 100 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 105 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:" 110 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: 115 Prone is the purple pavice; 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, 120 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 125 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 130 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 135 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 at Oliero, with dry lips 140 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 145 When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet Buccio Virt—; 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 150 To Padua, Podest…, 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, 155 The gardens ravaged, and your Guelf is drunk A week with joy; the next, his laughter sunk In sobs of blood, for he found, some strange way, Old Salinguerra back again; I say Old Salinguerra in the town once more 160 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, 165 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 170 It took so many patient months to snatch Out of the marsh; while just within their walls Men fed on men. Astute Taurello calls A parley: let the Count wind up the war! Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star, 175 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; 180 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? 185 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, 190 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 favor from his casque, 195 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, 200 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? 205 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, 210 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, Nothing save such another throe can wrest 215 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 220 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 225 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, 230 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 235 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, our gracefullest 240 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 245 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 250 That name at Milan on the page of gold For Godego, Ramon, Marostica, Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria, And every sheep-cote on the Suabian's fief! No laughter when his son, the Lombard Chief 255 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, 260 The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills Them all that 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, 265 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 270 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 275 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 style him) thrives, that neck 280 Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek Prove 'tis some fiend, not him, men's flesh is meant To feed: whereas Romano's instrument, Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole I' the world, a tree whose boughs are slipt the bole 285 Successively, why shall 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. 290 Ecelin lifts two writhen hands to pray At Oliero's convent now: so, place For Azzo, Lion of the ... why disgrace A worthiness conspicuous near and far (Atii at Rome while free and consular, 295 Este at Padua to repulse the Hun) By trumpeting the Church's princely son Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine, Ancona's March, Ferrara's ... ask, in fine, Your chronicles, commenced when some old monk 300 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, 305 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 310 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 315 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 fingerÄÄthusÄÄyou push 320 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; 325 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? 330 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 335 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 340 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, 345 In his wool wedding-robe; for heÄÄfor heÄÄ "Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy" (If I should falter now)ÄÄfor he is Thine! Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine! A herald-star I know thou didst absorb 350 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 355 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: 360 Still, what if I approach the august sphere Named now with only one name, disentwine That undercurrent soft and argentine From its fierce mate in the majestic mass Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass 365 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-spumeÄÄ Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope 370 Into a darkness quieted by hopeÄÄ Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his Chosen lie, I would do this! if I should falter nowÄÄ In Mantua-territory half is slough, 375 Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet-oaks Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes With sand the summer through; but 'tis morass In winter up to Mantua walls. There was (Some thirty years before this evening's coil) 380 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, 385 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: 390 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 395 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 400 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 405 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, stoopÄÄ 410 A dullish grey-streaked cumbrous font, a group Round it, each side of it, where'er one sees, Upholds itÄÄshrinking Caryatides Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh Beneath her Maker's finger when the fresh 415 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 420 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, 425 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 430 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 435 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? 440 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? 'Tis the tale I mean To tell you. In this castle may be seen, 445 On the hilltops, or underneath the vines, Or southward 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 450 Watching ('tis autumn) with an earnest smile The noisy flock of thievish birds at work Among the yellowing vineyards; see him lurk ('Tis winter with its sullenest of storms) Beside that arras-length of broidered forms 455 On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright ÄÄEcelo, dismal father of the brood, And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed ÄÄAuria, and their Child, with all his wives 460 From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives, Lady of the castle, Adelaide: his face ÄÄLook, now he turns away! Yourselves shall trace (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine, A sharp and restless lip, so well combine 465 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 470 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 475 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 480 (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 485 Beyond its beauty; till exceeding love Becomes an aching weight, and to remove A curse that haunts such naturesÄÄto preclude Their finding out themselves can work no good To what they love nor make it very blest 490 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 495 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 500 Before a coming glory: up and down Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine To throb the secret forth; a touch divineÄÄ And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod: Visibly through his garden walketh God. 505 So fare theyÄÄNow 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 510 To what they worshipÄÄstronger and more strong Thus prodigally fedÄÄthat gathers shape And feature, soon imprisons past escape The votary framed to love and to submit Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it, 515 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, 520 When into each of them rushed LightÄÄto 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, 525 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 530 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 alongÄÄ 535 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, 540 Wanting a will, to quicken and exert, Like thineÄÄexistence cannot satiate, Cannot surprise: laugh thou at envious fate, Who from earth's simplest combination stampt With individualityÄÄuncrampt 545 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, thenÄÄwilt challenge life for us: thy race 550 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, 555 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 EmprizeÄÄthe world's occasion worthless since 560 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 565 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 nowÄÄ 570 With the new centuryÄÄbeside 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 ... 575 If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet! While at Sienna is Guidone set, Forehead on hand; a painful birth must be Matured ere San Eufemio's sacristy Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze 580 At the noon-sun: look you! An orange hazeÄÄ The same blue stripe round thatÄÄand, i' the midst, Thy spectral whiteness, mother-maid, who didst Pursue the dizzy painter! Woe then worth Any officious babble letting forth 585 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 shall see, but much between 590 Pleasant enough; meantime some pyx to screen The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon The goblin! As they found at Babylon, (Colleagues mad Lucius and sage Antonine) Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine 595 Its pride, in rummaging the rarities, A cabinet; be sure, 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 crouch asquat, 600 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, 605 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's border, and the rim 610 Of the low range of mountain, was for him No other world: but that appeared his own To wander through at pleasure and alone. The castle too seemed empty; far and wide Might he disport unless the northern side 615 Lay under a mysterious interdictÄÄ 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 620 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 himÄÄall his clue To the world's business and embroiled ado 625 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 sufficeÄÄ Its constant tribute of perceptions strange 630 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 635 Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite, And hies him after unforeseen delight; So fed Sordello, not a shard disheathed; As ever round each new discovery wreathed Luxuriantly the fancies infantine 640 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 645 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: so they wore A fluctuating halo, yesterday 650 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, 655 Gave to familiar things a face grotesque; Only, preserving through the mad burlesque A grave regard: conceive; the orpine patch Blossoming earliest on our log-house-thatch The day those archers wound along the vinesÄÄ 660 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 665 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 670 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: 675 But its abundant will was balked 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 680 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 685 However feeble; what informed the boy Others desired a portion in his joy? Or say a ruthful chance broke woof and warpÄÄ A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp, A fawn breathless beneath the precipice, 690 A bird with unsoiled breast and filmless eyes Warm in the brakeÄÄcould 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 695 If (your word) Genius dawned with throes and stings And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs, Summers and winters quietly came and went, Putting at length that period to content By right the world should have imposed: bereft 700 Of its good offices, Sordello, left To study his companions, managed rip Their fringe off, learn the true relationship, Core with its crust, their natures with his own; Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone: 705 As if the poppy felt with him! Though he Partook the poppy's red effrontery Till Autumn spoils their fleering quite with rain, And, turbanless, a coarse brown rattling crane Protrudes: that's gone! yet why renounce, for that, 710 His disenchanted tributariesÄÄflat Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn Their simple presence may not well be borne Whose parley was a transport once: recall The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all, 715 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, 720 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 725 Of actual pleasures: what now from without Effects it?ÄÄproves, despite a lurking doubt, Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared; ÄÄHe tasted joys by proxy, clearly fared The better for them; thus much craved his soul. 730 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; 735 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 ever have it be; 740 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 745 ÄÄWill say for them their stifled thoughts aloud; So they must ever live before a crowd: Vanity, Naddo tells you. Whence contrive A crowd, now? These brave women just alive, That archer-troop? Forth glidedÄÄnot alone 750 Each painted warrior, every girl of stone, ÄÄNor 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, 755 Started the meagre Tuscan up (her eyes, The maiden's also, bluer with surprise) ÄÄBut the entire out-world: whatever scraps And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps, Conceited the world's offices, and he 760 Transferred to the first comer, flower or tree, Nor counted a befitting heritage Each, of its own right, singly to engage Some Man, no other; such availed to stand Alone: strength, wisdom, grace on every hand 765 Soon disengaged themselves; and he discerned A sort of human life: at least, was turned A stream of life-like figures through his brain ÄÄLord, Liegeman, Valvassor and Suzerain, Ere he could choose, surrounded him; a stuff 770 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? 775 While they live each its life, boast each its own Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone In some one point where something dearest loved Is easiest gainedÄÄfar worthier to be proved Than aught he envies in the forest-wights! 780 No simple and self-evident delights, But mixed desires of unimagined range, Contrasts or combinations, new and strange, Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognised By this, the sudden companyÄÄloves prized 785 By those who are to prize his own amount Of loves. Once care because such make account, Allow a foreign recognition stamp The current value, and your crowd shall vamp You counterfeits enough; and so their print 790 Be on the piece, 'tis gold, attests the mint And good, pronounce they whom my new appeal Is made to: if their casual print concealÄÄ This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss What I have lived without, nor felt my lossÄÄ 795 Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome, ÄÄWhat matter? so must speech expand the dumb Part sigh, part smile with which Sordello, late No foolish woodland-sights could satiate, Betakes himself to study hungrily 800 Just what the puppets his crude fantasy 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 805 Each shape to estimate the other's stock Of attributes, that on a marshalled flock Of authorised enjoyments he may spend Himself, be Men, now, as he used to blend With tree and flowerÄÄnay more entirely, else 810 'Twere 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 soÄÄmy head is bent 815 Deliciously amid my girls to sleep: What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep I climbed an hour ago with little toilÄÄ We are alike there: but can I, too, foil The Guelfs' paid stabber, carelessly afford 820 St. Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword Baffling their project in a moment? Here No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand, Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand 825 With Ecelin's successÄÄtry, 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 830 Accomplish it! Are they not older still ÄÄNot grown up men and women? 'Tis beside Only a dream; and though I must abide With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent For all myself, acquire an instrument 835 For acting what these people act; my soul Hunting a body out, obtain 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 840 The rough-hewn ash bow, and a gold shaft hiss'd Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down Superbly! Crosses to the breach! God's Town Was gained Him back! Why bend rough ash-bows more? So lives he: if not careless as before, 845 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, Estes abroad and Ecelins at home 850 To worship him, Mantuas, Veronas, Rome To witness it. Who grudges time so spent? Rather test qualities to heart's contentÄÄ Summon them, thrice selected, near and farÄÄ Compress the starriest into one star, 855 So grasp the whole at once! The pageant's 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 860 The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced Themselves eventually, graces loosed, And lavished strengths, to heighten up One Shape Whose potency no creature should escape: 865 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 MiramolineÄÄ Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped, 870 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 875 So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells Upon the obdurate; that arm indeed Has thunder for its slave; but where's the need Of thunder if the stricken multitude 880 Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood, While songs go up exulting, then dispread, Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead Like an escape of angels? 'Tis the tune, Nor much unlike the words the women croon 885 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, Who but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew. 890 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, 895 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 manÄÄwhat thefts of every clime and day 900 Contributed to purfle the array He climbs with (June's at deep) some close ravine 'Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen, Over which singing soft the runnel slipt Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipt 905 He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sockÄÄ Though really on the stubs of living rock Ages ago it crenneled; vines for roof, Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof, Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly, 910 Child 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; 915 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 despatched) 920 Each clump, forsooth, 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 925 In measure, that whole palpitating breast Of Heaven, 'twas Apollo nature prest At eve to worship. Time stole: by degrees The Pythons perished off; his votaries Sunk to respectful distance; songs redeem 930 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; 935 Alike in one material circumstanceÄÄ All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice, A Daphne! We secure Count Richard's voice In Este's counsels, one for Este's ends 940 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 945 Rejects his suit, those sleepy women boast. She, scorning all beside, deserves the most Sordello; so conspicuous in his world Of dreams sate Palma. How the tresses curled Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound 950 About her like a glory, even the ground Was bright as with shed sunbeams; (breathe not, breathe Not)ÄÄpoised, see, one leg doubled underneath, Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow, Rests, but the other, listlessly below, 955 O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air, The vein-streaks swoln a richer violet where The languid blood lies heavily; and calm On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm, As but suspended in the act to rise 960 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 965 She all but 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: 970 For ever, possibly; since to the spot None come: for lingering Taurello quits Mantua at last, and light our lady flits Back to her place disburthened of a care. StrangeÄÄto be constant here if he is there! 975 Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both Goad Ecelin alikeÄÄRomano's growth So daily manifest that Azzo's dumb And Richard wavers ... let but Friedrich come! ÄÄFind matter for the minstrelsy's report 980 Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court To sing us a Messina morning up; Who, double rillets of a drinking-cup, Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth, Northward to Provence that, and thus far south 985 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, 990 Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout, Until the Formidable House is famed Over the countryÄÄas Taurello aimed Who introduced, although the rest adopt, The novelty. Their games her absence stopped 995 Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse No longer, in the light of day pursues Her plans at MantuaÄÄwhence an accident That breaking on Sordello's mixed content Opened, like any flash that cures the blind, 1000 The veritable business of mankind. 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 5 Our buried year, a witch, grew young again To placid incantations, and that stain About were from her caldron, green smoke blent With those black pines"ÄÄso Eglamor gave vent To a chance fancy: whence a just rebuke 10 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 15 Palma, the forest-ladyÄÄonly pass O'er yon 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. 20 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 25 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 you stopped to pick 30 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 35 Flushed, now, and panting; crowds to see; will own She loves himÄÄBoniface to hear, to groan, To leave his suit! One screen of pine trees still Opposes: butÄÄthe startling spectacleÄÄ Mantua, this time! Under the wallsÄÄa crowd 40 IndeedÄÄreal men and womenÄÄgay and loud Round a pavilion. How he stood! In truth No prophecy had come to pass: his youth In its prime nowÄÄand where was homage poured Upon Sordello?ÄÄborn to be adored, 45 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 sleightÄÄa trickÄÄ And much would be explained. It went for naughtÄÄ 50 The best of their endowments were ill bought With his identity: nay, the conceit This present roving leads to Palma's feet Was not so vain ... list! The word, Palma? Steal Aside, and die, Sordello; this is real, And thisÄÄabjure! 55 What next? The curtains, see, Dividing! She is there; and presently He will be thereÄÄthe proper You, at lengthÄÄ In your own cherished dress of grace and strength: Most like the very Boniface ... Not so. 60 It was a showy man advanced; but though A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around, ÄÄThis is not he, Sordello felt; while "Place For the best Troubadour of Boniface," 65 Hollaed the Jongleurs, "Eglamor whose lay Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day." Obsequious Naddo strung his master's lute With the new lute-string, Elys, named to suit The song: he stealthily at watch, the while, 70 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, 75 Mistaking its true versionÄÄwas the tale Not of Apollo? Only, what avail Luring her down, that Elys an he pleased, If the man dares no further? Has he ceased? And, lo, the people's frank applause half done, 80 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, 85 After the flying story; word made leap Out word; rhymeÄÄrhyme; the lay could barely keep Pace with the action visibly rushing past: Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast Than your Egyptian from the harassed bull 90 That wheels abrupt and, bellowing, fronts full His plague, who spies a scarab 'neath his tongue, And finds 'twas Apis' flank his hasty prong Insulted. But the peopleÄÄbut the cries, And crowding round, and proffering the prize! 95 (For he had gained some prize)ÄÄHe 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, 100 The same pure fleecy hair; one curl 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 105 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, 110 And when he woke 'twas many a furlong thence, At home: the sun shining his ruddy wont; The customary birds'-chirp; but his front Was crownedÄÄwas crowned! Her scented scarf around His neck! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground? 115 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 120 Assuming, well for him, so brave a bent! Since Eglamor, they heard, was dead with spite, And Palma chose him for her minstrel. Light Sordello roseÄÄto think, now; hitherto He had perceived. Sure a discovery grew 125 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 130 Recounted that adventure, and began Imperfectly; his own task was to fill The frame-work up, sing well what he sang ill, Supply the necessary points, set loose As many incidents of little use 135 ÄÄMore imbecile the other, not to see Their relative importance clear as he! But for a special pleasure in the act Of singingÄÄhad he ever turned, in fact, From Elys, to sing Elys?ÄÄfrom each fit 140 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 145 Of fancies; as some falling cone bears oft The eye, along the fir-tree-spire, aloft To a dove's nest. Then how divine the cause Such a performance should exact applause From men if they have fancies too? Can Fate 150 Decree they find a beauty separate In the poor snatch itself ... our 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 155 Sun-blanched the livelong summer")ÄÄif they heard Just those two rhymes, assented at my word, And loved them as I love them who have run These fingers through those fine locks, let the sun Into the white cool skin ... nay, thus I clutch 160 Those locks!ÄÄI needs must be a God to such. Or if some few, 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 165 Delight from. Have they fanciesÄÄslow, 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 170 Stole on him, and a noise of footsteps, near And nearer, and 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 175 Came o'er the sky although 'twas midday yet: You saw each half-shut downcast violet FlutterÄÄa Roman bride, when they dispart Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart, Holding that famous rape in memory still, 180 Felt creep into her curls the iron chill, And looked thus, Eglamor would sayÄÄindeed 'Tis Eglamor, no other, these precede Home hither in the woods. 'Twere surely sweet Far from the scene of one's forlorn defeat 185 To sleep! thought 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 190 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) ÄÄThis calm corpse with the loose flowers in its hand, 195 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 200 Which hid the holy placeÄÄshould one so frail Stand there without such effort? or repine That much was blank, uncertain at the shrine He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite, The Power responded, and some sound or sight 205 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 210 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 215 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! 220 The calling marking him a man apart From menÄÄone 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 225 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 through noontide While other birds are jocund, has one time 230 When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime Of earth is its to claim, nor find a peer; And Eglamor was noblest poet here, He knew, among the April woods he cast Conceits upon in plenty as he past, 235 That Naddo might suppose him not to think Entirely on the coming triumph; wink At the one weakness! 'Twas a fervid child, That song of hisÄÄno brother of the guild Had e'er conceived its like. The rest you know: 240 The exaltation and the overthrow; Our poet lost his purpose, lost his rank, His lifeÄÄto that it came. Yet envy sank Within him, as he heard Sordello out, And, for the first time, shoutedÄÄtried to shout 245 Like others, not from any zeal to show Pleasure that way: the common sort did so, And what was Eglamor? who, bending down The same, placed his beneath Sordello's crown, Printed a kiss on his successor's hand, 250 Left one great tear on it, then joined his band ÄÄIn time; for some were watching at the doorÄÄ Who knows what envy may effect? Give o'er, Nor charm his lips, nor craze him! (here one spied And disengaged the withered crown)ÄÄBeside 255 His crown! How prompt and clear those verses rung To answer yours! nay sing them! And he sung Them calmly. Home he went; friends used to wait His coming, anxious to congratulate, But, to a man, so quickly runs report, 260 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 was so lofty this spring morn? At length he said, Best sleep now with my scorn, 265 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 270 Among the hills and valleys, 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, 275 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, 280 Learnt how to live in weakness as in strength, When from his covert forth he stood, addressed Eglamor, bade the tender ferns invest, Primeval pines o'ercanopy his couch, And, most of all, his fameÄÄ(shall I avouch 285 Eglamor heard it, dead though he might look, And laughed as from his brow Sordello took The crown, and laid it on his breast, and said, It was a crown, now, fit for poet's head?) ÄÄContinue. Nor the prayer quite fruitless fell; 290 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 295 Him to their mind, and bears his very name. So much for Eglamor. My own month came; 'Twas a sunrise of blossoming and May. Beneath a flowering laurel thicket lay Sordello; each new sprinkle of white stars 300 That smell fainter of wine than Massic jars Dug up at Baiae, 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 305 The country stretched: Goito slept behind ÄÄThe 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 310 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 315 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 drest Down to its meanest incident, remained 320 A mysteryÄÄalas, 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, 325 Reviling 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 330 By a poor archer when his chieftain's fear Was high; into the thick Elcorte leapt, Saved her, and died; no creature left except His child to thank. And when the full escape Was knownÄÄhow men impaled from chine to nape 335 Unlucky Prata, all to pieces spurned Bishop Pistore's concubines, and burned Taurello's entire household, flesh and fell, Missing the sweeter preyÄÄsuch courage well Might claim reward. The orphan, ever since, 340 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) Can harbour easily when times are rude, 345 When Este schemes for PalmaÄÄwould retrieve That pledge, when Mantua is not fit to leave Longer unguarded with a vigilant eye, Taurello bides there so ambiguously (He who can have no motive now to moil 350 For his own fortunes since their utter spoil) As it were worth while yet (goes the report) To disengage himself from us. In short, Apollo vanished; a mean youth, just named His lady's minstrel, was to be proclaimed 355 ÄÄHow shall I phrase it? Monarch of the World. But on the morning that array was furled For ever, and in place of one a slave To longings, wild, indeed, but longings save In dreams as wild, suppressedÄÄone daring not 360 Assume the mastery such dreams allot, Until a magical equipment, strength, Grace, wisdom, decked him too,ÄÄhe chose at length (Content with unproved wits and failing frame) In virtue of his simple Will, to claim 365 That mastery, no lessÄÄto do his best With means so limited, and let the rest Go by,ÄÄthe seal was set: never again Sordello could in his own sight remain One of the many, one with hopes and cares 370 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 375 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 380 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 385 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 390 Their qualities, or for a moment fix On one, abiding free meantime, uncramped By any partial organ, never stamped Strong, so to Strength turning all energiesÄÄ Wise, and restricted to becoming WiseÄÄ 395 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 variousÄÄtook no casual mould 400 Of the first fancy and, contracted, cold Lay clogged forever thence, averse to change As that. Whereas it left her free to range, Remains itself a blank, cast into shade, Encumbers little, if it cannot aid. 405 So, range, my soul! Who by self-consciousness The last drop of all beauty dost expressÄÄ The grace of seeing grace, a quintessence For thee: but for the world, that can dispense Wonder on men, themselves that wonderÄÄmake 410 A shift to love at second hand and take These for its idols who but idolize, Themselves,ÄÄthat loves the soul as strong, as wise, Whose love is Strength, is Wisdom,ÄÄsuch shall bow Surely in unexampled worship now, Discerning me!ÄÄ 415 (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 pleaseÄÄ 420 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? Nay finishÄÄ) 425 ÄÄBow to me conceiving all Man's life, who see its blisses, great and small, AfarÄÄnot tasting any: no machine To exercise my utmost will is mine, Therefore mere consciousness for me!ÄÄPerceive 430 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 amÄÄwho take no pains to speak, 435 Change no old standards of perfection, vex With no strange forms created to perplex, But mean perform their bidding and no more, At their own satiating-point give o'er, And each shall love in me the love that leads 440 His soul to its 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 and receive their sense 445 Of its existing, but would be content, Obstructed else, with merely verse for ventÄÄ Nor should, for instance, Strength an outlet seek And striving be admired, nor Grace bespeak Wonder, displayed in gracious attitudes, 450 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 455 Thunder, and raves the landstorm: only let That key by any little noise be setÄÄ The far benighted hunter's halloo pitch On that, the hungry curlew chance to scritch Or serpent hiss it, rustling through the rift, 460 However loud, however lowÄÄall 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 465 ÄÄBut wile the hour awayÄÄa 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: 470 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, 475 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 480 Angels, and all these angels would be blest Supremely by a songÄÄthe thrice-renowned Goito manufacture. Then he found (Casting about to satisfy the crowd) That happy vehicle, so late allowed, 485 A sore annoyance; 'twas 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 490 That praise, enticed Apollo: dreams abjured, No over-leaping means for endsÄÄtake both For granted or take neither! I am loth To say the rhymes at last were Eglamor's; But Naddo, chuckling, bade competitors 495 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 500 The staple of his verses, common sense: He built on Man's broad natureÄÄgift of gifts That power to build! The world contented shifts With counterfeits enough, a dreary sort Of warriors, statesmen, ere it can extort 505 Its poet-soulÄÄthat's, after all, a freak (The having eyes to see and tongue to speak) With our herd's stupid sterling happiness So plainly incompatible thatÄÄyesÄÄ YesÄÄshould a son of his improve the breed 510 And turn out poet he were cursed indeed. Well, there's Goito to retire upon If the worst happen; best go stoutly on Now! thought Sordello. Ay, and goes on yet! You pother with your glossaries to get 515 A notion of the Troubadour's intentÄÄ His Rondels, Tenzons, Virlai or SirventÄÄ Much as you study arras how to twirl His Angelot, plaything of page and girl, Once; but you surely reach, at last,ÄÄor, no! 520 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, 525 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, 530 Sinner the other flared portentous by A greedy People: then why stop, surprised At his success? The scheme was realised Too suddenly in one respect: a crowd Praising, eyes quick to see, and lips as loud 535 To speak, delicious homage to receive, Bianca's breath to feel upon his sleeve Who said, "But AnafestÄÄwhy asks he less Than Lucio, in your verses? how confess It seemed too much but yestereve!" The youth 540 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 Etherial ways to take them, sorted, changed, 545 Digested: courted thus at unawares, In spite of his pretensions and his cares He caught himself shamefully hankering After your obvious petty joys that spring From real life, fain relinquish pedestal 550 And condescend with pleasuresÄÄone 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. 555 He laughed: what sage But perishes if from his magic page He look because, at the first line, a proof 'Twas heard salutes him from the cavern-roof? On! Give thyself, excluding aught beside, 560 To the day's task; compel thy slave provide Its utmost at the soonest; turn the leaf Thoroughly conned; these lays of thine, in briefÄÄ Cannot men bear, now, somewhat better?ÄÄfly A pitch beyond this unreal pageantry 565 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: 570 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 lightÄÄhis Language. How he sought The cause, conceived a cure, and slow re-wrought 575 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 580 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 resultÄÄa creature, and by one 585 And one proceeded leisurely 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 590 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 presentmentÄÄof the Whole By Parts, the Simultaneous and the Sole 595 By the Successive and the Many. Lacks The crowd perceptions? painfully it tacks Together thoughts Sordello, needing such, Has rent perception into: its to clutch And reconstructÄÄhis office to diffuse, 600 Destroy: as difficult obtain a Muse In short, as be Apollo. For the rest, E'en if some wondrous vehicle exprest The whole dream, what impertinence in me So to express it, who myself can be 605 The dream! nor, on the other hand, are those I sing to over-likely to suppose A higher than the highest I present Now, and they praise already: be content Both parties, rather; they with the old verse, 610 And I with the old praiseÄÄfar go, fare worse! A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings The angel, sparkles off his mail, and rings Whirled from each delicatest limb it warps, As might Apollo from the sudden corpse 615 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 MerelyÄÄwhat was it? Not to play the fool 620 So much as learn our lesson in your school, Replied the world: he found that every time He gained applause by any given rhyme His auditory recognised no jot As he intended, and, mistaking not 625 Him for his meanest hero, ne'er was dunce Sufficient to believe himÄÄAll at once. His Will ... conceive it caring for his Will! ÄÄMantuans, the main of them, admiring still How a mere singer, ugly, stunted, weak, 630 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 meritÄÄHis abates Into a sort he most repudiates, 635 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 640 This same ungrateful audience, every whelp Of Naddo's litter, make them pass for peers With the bright band of those Goito years, As erst he toiled for flower or tree? Why there Sate Palma! Adelaide's funereal hair 645 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 650 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? 655 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 660 Who, fooled no longer, free in fancy ran Here, there; let slip no opportunities Forsooth, as pitiful beside the prize To drop on him some no-time and acquit His constant faith (the Poet-half's to wit) 665 That waiving any compromise between No joy and all joy kept the hunger keen Beyond most methodsÄÄof incurring scoff From the Man-portion not to be put off With self-reflectings by the Poet's scheme 670 Though ne'er so bright; which sauntered forth in dream, Dress'd 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 675 Achieved, so pinioned that 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 680 Each sort of nature that same 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 685 Sufficed: while, out of dream, his day's work went To tune a crazy tenzon or sirventÄÄ 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! 690 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 bookÄÄwas gone. And if internal struggles to be one 695 That frittered him incessantly piece-meal, Referred, ne'er so obliquely, to the real Mantuans! intruding ever with some call To action while he pondered, once for all, Which looked the easier effortÄÄto pursue 700 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 705 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 710 In deeds the dull conventions of his day Prescribed the like of him: why not be glad 'Tis settled Palma's minstrel, good or bad, Submits to this and that established rule? Let Vidal change or any other fool 715 His murrey-coloured robe for philamot And crop his hair; so 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 720 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 725 A tangle of conclusions must be stripp'd At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipp'd, They matched rare specimens the Mantua flock Regaled him with, each talker from his stock Of sorted o'er opinions, every stage, 730 Juicy in youth or dessicate 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 obtained, Once either of those fancy-flights restrained; 735 For, at conjecture how the words appear To others, playing there what passes here, And occupied abroad by what he spurned At home, 'twas slipt the occasion he returned To seize: he'd strike that lyre adroitlyÄÄspeech, 740 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 life-time moderately tasked 745 To answer, Naddo's fashion; more disgust And more; why move his soul, since move it must At minutes' notice or as good it failed To move at all? The end was, he retailed Some ready-made opinion, put to use 750 This quip, that maxim, ventured reproduce Gestures and tonesÄÄat any folly caught Serving to finish with, nor too much sought If false or true 'twas spoken; praise and blame Of what he said grew pretty well the same 755 ÄÄMeantime 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 760 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, 765 That his poor piece of daily work to do Was not sink under any rivals; who Loudly and long enough, without these qualms, Tuned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, 770 "As knops that stud some almug to the pith PrickŠd for gum, wry thence, and crinklŠd worse Than pursed-up eyelids of a river-horse Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breese" Ha, ha! Of course he might compete with these! ButÄÄbutÄÄ 775 Observe a pompion-twine afloat; Pluck me one cup from off the castle-moatÄÄ 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 780 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 785 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 790 Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use In poetryÄÄwhich 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 795 In that, no hollow thrills, affected throes! The man, said we, tells his own joys and woesÄÄ We'll trust him. Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart!ÄÄWhy to be sure Yours is one sort of heartÄÄbut I mean theirs, 800 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! Nay, is it true 805 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 810 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, statesmenÄÄdid I tell you? Very like! as well you hid 815 That sense of power you have! True bards believe Us able to achieve what they achieveÄÄ That is, just nothingÄÄin one point abide Profounder simpletons than all beside: Oh ay! The knowledge that you are a bard 820 Must constitute your prime, nay sole, reward! So prattled Naddo, busiest of the tribe Of genius-hauntersÄÄhow shall I describe What grubs or nips, or rubs, or ripsÄÄyour louse For love, your flea for hate, magnanimous, 825 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 830 At once! They settled stanchly; shame ensued: Behold the monarch of mankind succumb To the last fool who turned him round his thumb, As Naddo styled it! 'Twas not worth oppose The matter of a moment, gainsay those 835 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 cudÄÄwhat he and what his race Were really, each of them. Yet even this 840 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 blundersÄÄfalsehoods rectifyÄÄa grim 845 ListÄÄslur 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: 850 He lost the art of dreaming: Mantua scenes Supplied a baron, say, he sung before, Handsomely reckless, full to running o'er Of gallantries; abjure the soul, content With body, therefore! Scarcely had he bent 855 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 ApolloÄÄbest recall 860 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 fancy into one, And, body clean abolished, soul alone 865 Sufficed the grey Paulician: by and by To balance the ethereality Passions were needed; foiled he sunk again. Meanwhile the world rejoiced ('tis time explain) Because a sudden sickness set it free 870 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 875 To such an one? God help me! for I catch My children's greedy sparkling eyes at watchÄÄ He bears that double breastplate on, they say, So many minutes less than yesterday! Beside Monk Hilary is on his knees 880 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 885 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 890 With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay Next month for Syria. Never thunder-clap Out of Vesuvius' mount like this mishap Startled him. That accursed Vicenza! I Absent, and she selects this time to die! 895 Ho, fellows, for Vicenza! Half a score Of horses ridden dead he stood before Romano in his reeking spurs: too lateÄÄ Boniface urged me, Este could not wait, The chieftain stammered; let me die in peaceÄÄ 900 Forget me! Was it I e'er 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 lureÄÄ Only be pacified! 905 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 to recover breath 910 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, 915 The gardens raise, their tenantry 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 though he forsook himself and spent 920 A prowess on Romano surely meant For his own purposesÄÄhe 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, 925 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; 'tis a test Remember; Strojavacca looks asquint, 930 The rough fat sloven; and there's plenty hint Your pinions have received of late a shockÄÄ Out-soar them, cobswan of the silver flock! Sing well! A signal wonder song's no whit Facilitated. Fast the minutes flit; 935 Another day, Sordello finds, will bring The soldier, and he cannot choose but sing; So quits, a last shift, MantuaÄÄslow, alone: Out of that aching brain, a very stone, Song must be struck. What occupies that front? 940 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 affectÄÄ Such was a joy, and might not he detect 945 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, 950 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 955 Also came out, made gradually up The picture; 'twas 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, enwrapt 960 Him wholly. 'Twas 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 965 As that thin seedling spice-tree starved and frail Pushing between cat's head or ibis' tail Crusted into the porphyry pavement smooth ÄÄSuffered remain just as it sprung to soothe The Soldan's pining daughter, never yet 970 Well in the chilly green-glazed minaretÄÄ 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 975 Of sorrow saved, of quiet evermore, How from his purposes maintained before Only resulted wailing and hot tears. Ah, the slim castle! dwindled of late years, But more mysterious; gone to ruinÄÄtrails 980 Of vine thro' every loop-hole. Nought avails The night as, torch in hand, he must explore The maple chamberÄÄdid I say its floor Was made of intersecting cedar beams? Worn now with gaps so large there blew cold streams 985 Of air quite from the dungeon; lay your ear Close and 'tis like, one after one, you hear In the blind darkness water-drops. The nests And nooks retained their long-ranged vesture-chests Empty and smelling of the iris-root 990 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 995 Had been at the commencement proved unfit; That for Reflecting, Demonstrating it, MankindÄÄno fitter: was the Will Itself In fault? His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf Beside the youngest marble maid awhile; 1000 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 1005 As devils ended; don't a song come next? The master of the pageant looked perplext Till Naddo's whisper came to his relief; His Highness knew what poets were: in brief, Had not the tetchy race prescriptive right 1010 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, 1015 Settled his portly person, smoothed his chin, And nodded that the bull-chase might begin. Book the Third And the font took them: let our laurels lie! Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly Because once more Goito gets, once more, Sordello to itself! A dream is o'er 5 And the suspended life begins anew; Quiet those throbbing temples, then, subdue That cheek's distortion! Nature's strict embrace, Putting aside the past, shall soon efface Its print as wellÄÄfactitious humours grown 10 Over the trueÄÄloves, hatreds not his ownÄÄ And turn him pure as some forgotten vest Woven of painted byssus, silkiest Tufting the Tyrrhene whelk's pearl-sheeted lip, Left welter where a trireme let it slip 15 I' the sea and vexed a Satrap; so the stain O' the world forsakes Sordello with its pain, Its pleasure: how the tinct loosening escapes Cloud after cloud! Mantua's familiar shapes Die, fair and foul die, fading as they flit, 20 Men, women, and the pathos and the wit, Wise speech and foolish, deeds to smile or sigh For, good, bad, seemly or ignoble, die: The last face glances through the eglantines, The last voice murmurs 'twixt the blossomed vines 25 This May of the Machine supplied by Thought To compass Self-perception idly sought By forcing half himselfÄÄan insane pulse Of a God's blood on clay it could convulse, Never transmuteÄÄon human sights and sounds 30 To watch the other half with; irksome bounds It ebbs from to its source, a fountain sealed Forever. Better sure be unrevealed Than part-revealed: Sordello well or ill Is finished with: what further use of Will? 35 ÄÄPoint in the prime idea not realized, An oversight, inordinately prized No less, and pampered with enough of each Delight to prove the whole above its reach. To need become all natures yet retain 40 The law of one's own natureÄÄto remain Oneself, yet yearn ... aha, that chestnut, think, To yearn for this first larch-bloom crisp and pink, With those pale fragrant tears where zephyrs staunch March wounds along the fretted pine-tree branch! 45 Will and the means to show it, great and small, Material, spiritual, abjure them all Save any so distinct as to be left Amuse, not tempt become: and, thus bereft, Say, just as I am fashioned would I be! 50 Nor, Moon, is it Apollo now but me Thou visitest to comfort and befriend; Swim thou into my heart and there an end Since I possess thee! nay thus shut mine eyes And know, quite know, by that heart's fall and rise 55 If thou dost bury thee in clouds and when Out-standest: wherefore practise upon Men To make that plainer to myself? Slide here Over a sweet and solitary year Wasted: or simply notice change in himÄÄ 60 How eyes, bright with exploring once, grew dim As satiate with receiving. Some distress Occasioned, too, a sort of consciousness Under the imbecility; nought kept That down: he slept, but was aware he slept 65 And frustrate so: as who brainsick made pact Erst with the overhanging cataract To deafen him, yet may distinguish now His own blood's measured clicking at his brow. To finish. One declining Autumn dayÄÄ 70 Few birds about the heaven chill and grey, No wind that cared trouble the tacit woodsÄÄ He sauntered home complacently, their moods According, his and Nature's. Every spark Of Mantua life was trodden out; so dark 75 The embers that the Troubadour who sung Hundreds of songs forgot, its trick the tongue, Its craft the brain, how either brought to pass Singing so e'er; that faculty might class With any of Apollo's now. The year 80 Began to find its early promise sere As well. Thus beauty vanishes! Your stone Outlasts your flesh. Nature's and his youth gone, They left the world to you and wished you joy. When stopping his benevolent employ 85 A presage shuddered through the welkin; harsh The earth's remonstrance followed. 'Twas the marsh Gone of a sudden. Mincio in its place Laughed a broad water in next morning's face And, where the mists broke up immense and white 90 I' the steady wind, burnt like a spilth of light Out of the crashing of a myriad stars. And here was Nature, bound by the same bars Of fate with him! No: youth once gone is gone: Deeds let escape are never to be done: 95 Leaf-fall and grass-spring for the year, but usÄÄ Oh forfeit I unalterably thus My chance? nor two lives wait me, this to spend Learning save that? Nature has leisure mend Mistake, occasion, knows she, will recurÄÄ 100 Landslip or seabreach how affects it her With her magnificent resources? I Must perish once and perish utterly! Not any strollings now at even-close Down the field-path, Sordello, by thorn-rows 105 Alive with lamp-flies, swimming spots of fire And dew, outlining the black cypress' spire She waits you at, Elys, who heard you first Woo her the snow-monthÄÄah, but ere she durst Answer 'twas April! Linden-flower-time-long 110 Her eyes were on the ground; 'tis July, strong Now; and because white dust-clouds overwhelm The woodside, here or by the village elm That holds the moon she meets you, somewhat pale, But letting you lift up her coarse flax veil 115 And whisper (the damp little hand in yours) Of loveÄÄheart's loveÄÄyour heart's love that endures Till death. Tush! No mad mixing with the rout Of haggard ribalds wandering about The hot torchlit wine-scented island-house 120 Where Friedrich holds his wickedest carouse Parading to the gay Palermitans, Soft Messinese, dusk Saracenic clans From Nuocera, those tall grave dazzling Norse, Clear-cheeked, lank-haired, toothed whiter than the morse, 125 Queens of the caves of jet stalactites He sent his barks to fetch through icy seas, The blind night seas without a saving-star, And here in snowy birdskin robes they are, Sordello, here, mollitious alcoves gilt 130 Superb as Byzant-domes the devils built ÄÄAh, Byzant, there again! no chance to go Ever like august pleasant Dandolo, Worshipping hearts about him for a wall, Conducted, blind eyes, hundred years and all, 135 Through vanquished Byzant to have noted him What pillar, marble massive, sardius slim, 'Twere fittest we transport to Venice' SquareÄÄ Flattered and promised life to touch them there Soon, by his fervid sons of senators! 140 No more lifes, deaths, loves, hatreds, peaces, warsÄÄ Ah, fragments of a Whole ordained to be! Points in the life I waited! what are ye But roundels of a ladder which appeared Awhile the very platform it was reared 145 To lift me onÄÄthat Happiness I find Proofs of my faith in, even in the blind Instinct which bade forego you all unless Ye led me past yourselves? Ay, Happiness Awaited me; the way life should be used 150 Was to acquire, and deeds like you conduced To teach it by a self-revealment (deemed That very use too long). Whatever seemed Progress to that was Pleasure; aught that stayed Me reaching itÄÄNo Pleasure. I have laid 155 The roundels down; I climb not; still aloft The platform stretches! Blisses strong and soft I dared not entertain elude me; yet Never of what they promised could I get A glimpse till now! The common sort, the crowd, 160 Exist, perceive; with Being are endowed, However slight, distinct from what they See, However bounded: Happiness must be To feed the first by gleanings from the last, Attain its qualities, and slow or fast 165 Become what one beholds; such peace-in-strife By transmutation is the Use of Life, The Alien turning Native to the soul Or bodyÄÄwhich instructs me; I am whole There and demand a Palma; had the world 170 Been from my soul to a like distance hurled 'Twere Happiness to make it one with meÄÄ Whereas I must, ere I begin to Be, Include a world, in flesh, I comprehend In spirit now; and this done, what's to blend 175 With? Nought is Alien hereÄÄmy Will Owns it already; yet can turn it still Less Native, since my Means to correspond With Will are so unworthy 'twas my bond To tread the very ones that tantalize 180 Me now into a grave, never to riseÄÄ I die then! Will the rest agree to die? Next Age or no? Shall its Sordello try Clue after clue and catch at last the clue I miss, that's underneath my finger too, 185 Twice, thrice a day, perhaps,ÄÄsome yearning traced Deeper, some petty consequence embraced Closer! Why fled I Mantua then? Complained So much my Will was fettered, yet remained Content within a tether half the range 190 I could assign it?ÄÄable to exchange My ignorance, I felt, for knowledge, and Idle because I could thus understandÄÄ Could e'en have penetrated to its core Our mortal mystery, and yet forbore, 195 Preferred elaborating in the dark My casual stuff, by any wretched spark Born of my predecessors, tho' one stroke Of mine had brought the flame forth! Mantua's yoke, My minstrel's-trade, was to behold mankind, 200 And my own matterÄÄjust to bring my mind Behold, just extricate, for my acquist, Each object suffered stifle in the mist Convention, hazard, blindness could impose In their relation to myself. He rose. 205 The level wind carried above the firs Clouds, the irrevocable travellers, Onward. Pushed thus into a drowsy copse, Arms twine about my neck, each eyelid drops Under a humid finger; while there fleets 210 Outside the screen a pageant time repeats Never again! To be deposedÄÄimmured ClandestinelyÄÄstill petted, still assured To govern were fatiguing workÄÄthe Sight Fleeting meanwhile! 'Tis noontideÄÄwreak ere night 215 Somehow one's will upon it rather! Slake This thirst somehow, the poorest impress take That serves! A blasted bud displays you, torn, Faint rudiments of the full flower unborn; But who divines what petal coats o'erclasp 220 Of the bulb dormant in the Mummy's grasp Taurello sent ... Taurello? Palma sent Your Trouvere (Naddo interposing leant Over the lost bard's shoulder) and believe You cannot more reluctantly conceive 225 Than I pronounce her message: we depart Together: what avail a poet's heart Verona and her gauds? five blades of grass Suffice him. News? Why, where your marish was, On its mud-banks smoke rises after smoke 230 I' the valley like a spout of hell new-broke. Oh, the world's tidings! little thanks, I guess, For them. The father of our Patroness Playing Taurello an astounding trick Parts between Ecelin and Alberic 235 His wealth and goes into a convent: both Wed Guelfs: the Count and Palma plighted troth A week since at Verona: and she wants You doubtless to contrive the marriage-chants Ere Richard storms Ferrara. Your response 240 To Palma? Wherefore jest? Depart at once? A good resolve! In truth I hardly hoped So prompt an acquiescence. Have you groped Out wisdom in the wilds here?ÄÄThoughts may be Over-poetical for poetry? 245 Pearl-white you minstrels liken Palma's neck, And yet what spoils an orient like some speck Of genuine white turning its own white grey? You take me? Curse the cicales! One more dayÄÄ One eveÄÄappears Verona! Many a group, 250 (You mind) instructed of the osprey's swoop On lynx and ounce, was gatheringÄÄChristendom Sure to receive, whate'er it might be, from The evening's purpose cheer or detriment Since Friedrich only waited some event 255 Like this of Ghibellins establishing Themselves within Ferrara, ere, as King Of Lombardy, he'd glad descend there, wage Old warfare with the Pontiff, disengage His barons from the burghers, and restore 260 The rule of Charlemagne broken of yore By Hildebrand. That eve-long each by each Sordello sate and Palma: little speech At first in that dim closet, face with face Despite the tumult in the market place 265 Exchanging quick low laughters: now would gush Word upon word to meet a sudden flush, A look left off, a shifting lips' surmiseÄÄ But for the most part their two histories Ran best thro' the locked fingers and linked arms. 270 And so the night flew on with its alarms Till in burst one of Palma's retinue; Now Lady, gasped he. Then arose the two And leaned into Verona's air dead still. A balcony lay black beneath until 275 Out 'mid a gush of torchfire grey-haired men Came on it and harangued the people: then Sea-like that people surging to and fro Shouted, Hale forth the CarrochÄÄtrumpets, ho, A flourish! run it in the ancient groovesÄÄ 280 Back from the bell! Hammer! that whom behooves May hear the League is up! Peal! learn who list Verona means not be the first break tryst To-morrow with the League. Enough. Now turnÄÄ Over the Eastern cypresses: discern You any beacon set a-glimmer? 285 Rang The air with shouts that overpowered the clang Of the incessant carroch even. HasteÄÄ The Candle's at the gate-way! ere it waste Each soldier stands beside, armed fit to march 290 With Tiso Sampier thro' that Eastern arch! Ferrara's succoured, Palma! Once again They sate together; some strange thing in train To say, so difficult was Palma's place In taking, with a coy fastidious grace 295 Like the bird's flutter ere it fix and feed; But when she felt she held her friend indeed Safe, she threw back her curls, began implant Her lessons; telling of another want Goito's quiet nourished than his own; 300 PalmaÄÄto serve, as himÄÄbe served, alone Importing; Agnes' milk so neutralised The blood of Ecelin. Nor be surprised If, while Sordello nature captive led, In dream was Palma wholly subjected 305 To some out-soul which dawned not though she pined Delaying still (pursued she) heart and mind To live: how dared I let expand the force Within me till some out-soul whose resource It grew for should direct it? Every law 310 Of life, its fitnesses and every flaw, Must that determine whose corporeal shape Would be no other than the prime escape And revelation to me of a Will Orb-like o'ershrouded and inscrutable 315 Above except the point I was to know Shone that myself, my powers, might overflow So far, so much; as now it signified Which earthly shape it henceforth chose to guide Me by, whose lip selected to declare 320 Its oracles, what fleshly garb would wear: ÄÄThe first of intimations, whom to love; The next, how love him. And that orb above The castle-covert and the mountain-close Slow in appearing, if beneath arose 325 Cravings, aversions, and our green precinct Took pride in me at unawares distinct With this or that endowment, how represt, At once such jetting power shrunk to the rest! Was I to have a chance touch spoil me, leave 330 My spirit thence unfitted to receive The consummating spell?ÄÄthat spell so near Moreover: waits he not the waking year? His almond-blossoms must be honey-ripe By this; to welcome him fresh runnels stripe 335 The thawed ravines; because of him the wind Walks like a herald. I shall surely find Him now! And chief that earnest April morn Of Richard's Love-court was it time, so worn And white her cheek, so idly her blood beat, 340 Sitting that morn beside the Lady's feet And saying as she prompted; till outburst One face from all the facesÄÄnot then first She knew it; where in maple-chamber glooms, Crowned with what sanguine-heart pomegranate blooms 345 Advanced it ever? Men's acknowledgment Sanctioned her own: 'twas taken, Palma's bent, She said. And day by day the Tuscan dumb Sat scheming, scheming; Ecelin would come Gaunt, scared, Cesano baffles me, he'd say: 350 Better I fought it out my father's way! Strangle Ferrara in its drowning flats, And you and your Taurello yonderÄÄwhat's Romano's business there? An hour's concern To cure the froward Chief! induced return 355 Much heartened from those overmeaning eyes, Wound up to persevere, his enterprise Marked out anew, its exigent of wit Apportioned, she at liberty to sit And scheme against the next emergence, IÄÄ 360 To covet what I deemed their sprite, made fly Or fold the wingÄÄto con your horoscope For leave command those steely shafts shoot ope Or straight assuage their blinding eagerness To blank smooth snow: what semblance of success 365 To any of my plans for making you Romano's lord? That ChiefÄÄher children tooÄÄ There Salinguerra would obstruct me sheer, And the insuperable Tuscan here Stayed me! But one wild eve that Lady died 370 In her lone chamber: only I beside: Taurello far at Naples, and my sire At Padua, Ecelin away in ire With Alberic: she held me thusÄÄa clutch To make our spirits as our bodies touchÄÄ 375 And so began flinging the past up, heaps Of uncouth treasure from their sunless sleeps Within her soul; deeds rose along with dreams, Fragments of many miserable schemes, Secrets, more secrets, thenÄÄno, not the lastÄÄ 380 'Mongst others, like a casual trick o' the past, How ... ay, she told me, gathering her face ÄÄThat face of hers into one arch-grimace To die with ... Friend, 'tis gone! but not the fear Of that fell laughing, heard as now I hear. 385 Nor faltered voice, nor seemed herself grow weak, When i' the midst abrupt she ceased to speak ÄÄDead, as to serve a purpose, mark, for in Rushed o'the very instant Ecelin (How summoned who divines?) looking as if 390 Part understood he why his mate lay stiff Already in my arms for, Girl, how must I manage Este in the matter thrust Upon me, how unravel their bad coil? Since (he declared) 'tis on your browÄÄa soil 395 Like hers there! then said in a breath he lacked No counsel after all, had signed no pact With devils, nor was treason here or there, Goito or Vicenza, his affair: He'd bury it in Adelaide's deep grave 400 And begin life afresh, nor, either, slave For any Friedrich's or Taurello's sake! What booted him to meddle or to make In Lombardy? 'Twas afterward I knew The meaning of his promise to undo 405 All she had doneÄÄwhy marriages were made, New friendships entered on, old followers paid In curses for their pains, people's amaze At height, when passing out by Gate St. Blaise He stopped short in Vicenza, bent his head 410 Over a friar's neck, had vowed, he said, Long since, nigh thirty years, because his wife And child were saved there, to bestow his life On God, his gettings on the Church. Exiled Within Goito, still that dream beguiled 415 Her days and nights; 'twas found the orb she sought To serve, those glimpses came of Fomalhaut, No other: how then serve it?ÄÄauthorise Him and Romano mingle destinies? And straight Romano's angel stood beside 420 Her who had else been Boniface's bride, For Salinguerra 'twas, the neck low bent, The voice lightened to music as he meant To learn not teach me how Romano waxed, Wherefore it waned, and why if I relaxed 425 My grasp (think, I!) would drop a thing effete, Frayed by itself, unequal to complete The course and counting every step astray A gain so much. Romano every way Stable, a House nowÄÄwhy this starting back 430 Into the very outset of its track? This recent patching-principle allied Our House with other HousesÄÄwhat beside Concerned the apparition, yon grim Knight Who followed Conrad hither in such plight 435 His utmost wealth was reckoned in his steed? For Ecelo, that prowler, was decreed A task in the beginning hazardous To him as ever task can be to us, But did the weather-beaten thief despair 440 When first our crystal cincture of warm air, That binds the Trevisan as its spice-belt (Crusaders say) the tract where Jesus dwelt, Furtive he pierced and Este was to faceÄÄ Despaired Saponian Strength of Lombard Grace? 445 Said he for making surer aught made sure, Maturing what already was mature? No; his heart prompted Ecelo, Confront Este, inspect yourself. What's nature? Wont. Discard three-parts your nature and adopt 450 The rest as an advantage! Old Strength propped The earliest of Podestas among The Vicentines, no less than, while there sprung His Palace up in Padua like a threat, Their noblest spied a Grace unnoticed yet 455 In Conrad's crew. Thus far the object gained, Romano was established; has remainedÄÄ For are you not Italian, truly peer With Este? Azzo better soothes it ear Than Alberic? or is this lion's-crine 460 From over-mount (this yellow hair of mine) So weak a graft on Agnes Este's stock? (Thus went he on with something of a mock) Wherefore recoil then from the very fate Conceded you, refuse to imitate 465 Your model farther? Este long since left Being mere Este: as a blade its heft, Este requires the Pope to further him: And you, the Kaiser: whom your father's whim Foregoes or, better, never shall forego 470 If Palma dares pursue what Ecelo Commenced but Ecelin desists from: just As Adelaide of Susa could intrust Her donative (that's Piedmont to the Pope, The Alpine-pass for him to shut or ope 475 'Twixt France and Italy) to the superb Matilda's perfecting,ÄÄlest aught disturb Our Adelaide's great counter-project for Giving her Trentine to the Emperor And passage here from Germany, shall you 480 Take it, my slender plodding talent, tooÄÄ Urged me Taurello with his half-smile. He As Patron of the scattered family Conveyed her to his Mantua, kept in bruit Azzo's alliances and Richard's suit 485 Until, the Kaiser excommunicate, Nothing remains, Taurello said, but wait Some rash procedure: Palma was the link, As Agnes' child, between us, and they shrink From losing Palma: judge if we advance 490 Your father's method your inheritance! That day she was betrothed to Boniface At Padua by Taurello's self, took place The outrage of the Ferrarese: again, That day she sought Verona with the train 495 Agreed for, by Taurello's policy Convicting Richard of the fault, since she Was present to annul or to confirm, Richard, whose patience had outstayed its term, Quitted Verona for the siege. And now 500 What glory may engird Sordello's brow For this? A month since Oliero sunk All Ecelin that was into a Monk; But how could Salinguerra so forget His liege of thirty summers as grudge yet 505 One effort to recover him? He sent Forthwith the tidings of the Town's event To Oliero, adding, he, despite The recent folly, recognised his right To order such proceedings: should he wring 510 Its uttermost advantage out, or fling This chance away? If not him, who was Head Now of the House? Through me that missive sped; My father's answer will by me return. Behold! For him, he writes, no more concern 515 With strife than for his children with the plots Of Friedrich. Old engagements out he blots For aye: Taurello shall no more subserve Nor Ecelin impose. Lest this unnerve Him therefore at this juncture, slack his grip 520 Of Richard, suffer the occasion slip, I, in his sons' default (who, mating with Este, forsake Romano as the frith Its mainsea for the firmland that makes head Against) I stand, Romano; in their stead 525 Assume the station they desert, and give Still, as the Kaiser's Representative, Taurello licence he demands. MidnightÄÄ MorningÄÄby noon to-morrow, making light Of the League's issue, we, in some gay weed 530 Like yours disguised together, may precede The arbitrators to Ferrara; reach Him, let Taurello's noble accents teach The rest! then say if I have misconceived Your destiny, too readily believed The Kaiser's cause your own. 535 And Palma's fled. Though no affirmative disturbs the head A dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er Like the alighted planet Pollux wore, Until, morn breaking, he resolves to be 540 Gate-vein of this heart's blood of Lombardy, Soul to their bodyÄÄhave their aggregate Of souls and bodies, and so conquer fate Though he should live, a centre of disgust Even, apart, core of the outward crust 545 He vivifies, assimilates. For thus Bring I Sordello to the rapturous Exclaim at the crowd's cry, because one round Of life was quite accomplished and he found Not only that a soul, howe'er its might, 550 Is insufficient to its own delight Both in corporeal organs and in skill By means of such to body forth its WillÄÄ And, after, insufficient to apprise Men of that Will, oblige them recognise 555 The Hid by the RevealedÄÄbut that, the last Nor lightest of the struggles overpast, His Will, bade abdicate, which would not void The throne, might sit there, suffer be enjoyed The same a varied and divine array 560 Incapable of homage the first way Nor fit to render incidentally Tribute connived at, taken by the by, In joys: and if, thus warranted rescind The ignominious exile of mankind 565 Whose proper service, ascertained intact As yet (by Him to be themselves made act, Not watch Sordello acting each of them) Was to secureÄÄif the true diadem Seemed imminent while our Sordello drank 570 The wisdom of that golden Palma, thank Verona's Lady in her Citadel Founded by Gaulish Brennus, legends tellÄÄ And truly when she left him the sun reared A head like the first clamberer's that peered 575 A-top the Capitol, his face on flame With triumph, triumphing till Manlius came. Nor slight too much my rhymesÄÄ"that spring, dispread, Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead Like an escape of angels?" Rather say 580 My transcendental platan! mounting gay (An archimage so courts a novice-queen) With tremulous silvered trunk, whence branches sheen Laugh out, thick foliaged next, a-shiver soon With coloured buds, then glowing like the moon 585 One mild flame, last a pause, a burst, and all Her ivory limbs are smothered by a fall, Bloom-flinders and fruit-sparkles and leaf-dust, Ending the weird work prosecuted just For her amusement; he decrepit, stark, 590 Dozes; her uncontrolled delight may mark ApartÄÄ Yet not so, surely never so! Only as good my soul were suffered go O'er the lagune: forth fare thee, put asideÄÄ Entrance thy synod, as a God may glide 595 Out of the world he fills and leave it mute A myriad ages as we men compute, Returning into it without a break I' the consciousness! They sleep, and I awake O'er the lagune. Sordello said once, note 600 In just such songs as Eglamor, say, wrote With heart and soul and strength, for he believed Himself achieving all to be achieved By singerÄÄin such songs you find alone Completeness, judge the song and singer One 605 And either's purpose answered, his in it Or its in him: while from true works (to wit Sordello's dream-performances that will Be never more than dream) escapes there still Some proof the singer's proper life's beneath 610 The life his song exhibits, this a sheath To that; a passion and a knowledge far Transcending these, majestic as they are, Smoulder; his lay was but an episode In the bard's life. Which evidence you owed 615 To some slight weariness, a looking-off Or start-away, the childish skit or scoff In "Charlemagne," for instance, dreamed divine In every point except one restive line (Those daughters!)ÄÄwhat significance may lurk 620 In that? My life commenced before that work, Continues after it, as on I fare With no more stopping possibly, no care To jot down (says the bard) the why and how And where and when of life as I do now: 625 But shall I cease to live for that? Alas For you! who sigh, when shall it come to pass We read that story, when will he compress The future years, his whole life's business, Into another lay which that one flout, 630 Howe'er inopportune it be, lets out Engrosses him already while professed To meditate with us eternal rest? Strike sail, slip cable! here the galley's moored For once, the awning's stretched, the poles assured; 635 Noontide above; except the wave's crisp dash, Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash, The margin's silent; out with every spoil Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil, This serpent of a river to his head 640 I' the midst! Admire each treasure as we spread The turf to help us tell our history Aright: give ear then, gentles, and descry The groves of giant rushes how they grew Like demons' endlong tresses we sailed through, 645 How mountains yawned, forests to give us vent Opened, each doleful side, yet on we went Till ... may that beetle (shake your cap) attest The springing of a land-wind from the West! Wherefore? Ah yes, we frolic it to-day: 650 To-morrow, and the pageant's moved away Down to the poorest tent-pole: we and you Part company: no other may pursue Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate Intends, if triumph or decline await 655 The tempter of the everlasting steppe. I sung this on an empty palace-step At Venice: why should I break off, nor sit Longer upon my step, exhaust the fit England gave birth to? Who's adorable 660 Enough reclaim aÄÄno Sordello's Will Alack!ÄÄbe queen to me? That Bassanese Busied among her smoking fruit-boats? These Perhaps from our delicious Asolo Who twinkle, pigeons o'er the portico 665 Not prettier, bind late lilies into sheaves To deck the bridge-side chapel, dropping leaves Soiled by their own loose gold-meal? Ah, beneath The cool arch stoops she, brownest-cheek! Her wreath Endures a monthÄÄa half monthÄÄif I make 670 A queen of her, continue for her sake Sordello's story? Nay, that Paduan girl Splashes with barer legs where a live whirl In the dead black Giudecca proves sea-weed Drifting has sucked down three, four, all indeed 675 Save one pale-red striped, pale-blue turbaned post For gondolas. You sad disheveled ghost That pluck at me and point, are you advised I breathe? Let stay those girls (e'en her disguised ÄÄJewels in the locks that love no crownet like 680 Their native field-buds and the green wheat spike, So fair!ÄÄwho left this end of June's turmoil, Shook off, as might a lily its gold soil, Pomp, save a foolish gem or two, and free Came join the peasants o'er the kissing sea). 685 Look they too happy, too tricked out? Confess You have so niggard stock of happiness To share that, do one's uttermost, dear wretch, One labours ineffectually stretch It o'er you so that mother, children, both 690 May equitably flaunt the sumpter-cloth! No: tear the robe yet farther: be content With seeing some few score pre-eminent Through shreds of it, acknowledged happy wights, Engrossing what should furnish all, by rightsÄÄ 695 (At home we dizen scholars, chiefs and kings, But in this magic weather hardly clings The old garb gracefully: Venice, a type Of Life, 'twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe, As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought: 700 'Tis Venice, and 'tis LifeÄÄas good you sought To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone, Or stay me thrid her cross canals alone, As hinder Life what seems the single good Sole purpose, one thing to be understood 705 Of Life)ÄÄbest, be they Peasants, be they Queens, Take them, I say, made happy any means, Parade them for the common credit, vouch A luckless residue we send to crouch In corners out of sight was just as framed 710 For happiness, its portion might have claimed And so, could we concede that portion, stalked Fastuous as anyÄÄsuch my project, baulked Already; hardly venture I adjust A lappet when I find you! To mistrust 715 Me! nor unreasonably. You, no doubt, Have the true knack of tiring suitors out With those thin lips on tremble, lashless eyes Inveterately tear-shotÄÄthere, be wise Mistress of mine, there, there, as if I meant 720 You insult! Shall your friend (not slave) be shent For speaking home? Beside care-bit erased Broken-up beauties ever took my taste Supremely, and I love you more, far more Than she I looked should foot Life's temple-floorÄÄ 725 Years ago, leagues at distance, when and where A whisper came, Seek others, since thy care Is found, a life's provision; if a race Should be thy mistress, and into one face The many faces crowd? Ah, had I, judge, 730 Or no, your secret? Rough apparelÄÄgrudge All ornaments save tag or tassel worn To hint we are not thoroughly forlornÄÄ Slouch bonnet, unloop mantle, careless go Alone (that's saddest but it must be so) 735 Through Venice, sing now and now glance aside, Aught desultory or undignified, And, ravishingest lady, will you pass Or not each formidable group, the mass Before the Basilike (that feast gone by, 740 God's day, the great June Corpus Domini) And wistfully foregoing proper men Come timid up to me for alms? And then The luxury to hesitate, feign do Some unexampled grace, when whom but you 745 Dare I bestow your own upon? And hear Me out before you say it is to sneer I call you ravishing, for I regret Little that she, whose early foot was set Forth as she'd plant it on a pedestal, 750 Now i' the silent city, seems to fall Towards meÄÄno wreath, only a lip's unrest To quiet, surcharged eyelids to be pressed Dry of their tears upon my bosom: strange Such sad chance should produce in thee such change, 755 My love! warped men, souls, bodies! yet God spoke Of right-hand foot and eyeÄÄselects our yoke Sordello! as your poetship may find: So sleep upon my shoulder, child, nor mind Their foolish talk; we'll manage reinstate 760 The matter; ask moreover, when they prate Of evil men past hope, don't each contrive Despite the evil you abuse to live? Keeping, each losel, thro' a maze of lies, His own conceit of truth? to which he hies 765 By obscure tortuous windings, if you will, But to himself not inaccessible; He sees it, and his lies are for the crowd Who cannot see; some fancied right allowed His vilest wrong, empowered the fellow clutch 770 One pleasure from the multitude of such Denied him: then assert, all men appear To think all better than themselves, by here Trusting a crowd they wrong; but really, say, All men think all men stupider than they 775 Since save themselves no other comprehends The complicated scheme to make amends ÄÄEvil, the scheme by which, thro' Ignorance Good labours to exist. A slight advance Merely to find the sickness you die through 780 And nought beside: but if one can't eschew One's portion in the common lot, at least One can avoid an ignorance increased Tenfold by dealing out hint after hint How nought is like dispensing without stint 785 The water of lifeÄÄso easy to dispense Beside, when one has probed the centre whence Commotion's bornÄÄcould tell you of it all ÄÄMeantime, just meditate my madrigal O' the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe! 790 What, dullard? we and you in smothery chafe, Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin The Horrid, getting neither out nor in, A hungry sun above us, sands among Our throats, each dromedary lolls a tongue, 795 Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap, And you, 'twixt tales of Potiphar's mishap And sonnets on the earliest ass that spoke, Remark you wonder any one needs choak With founts about! Potsherd him, Gibeonites, 800 While awkwardly enough your Moses smites The rock though he forego his Promised Land Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and Dance, forsooth, Metaphysic Poet ... ah Mark ye the dim first oozings? Meribah! 805 And quaffing at the fount my courage gained RecallÄÄnot that I prompt yeÄÄwho explained ... Presumptuous! interrupts one. You not I 'Tis, Brother, marvel at and magnify Mine office: office, quotha? can we get 810 To the beginning of the office yet? What do we here? simply experiment Each on the other's power and its intent When elsewhere tasked, if this of mine were trucked For thine to either's profit,ÄÄwatch construct, 815 In short, an engine: with a finished one What it can do is all, nought how 'tis done; But this of ours yet in probation, dusk A kernel of strange wheelwork thro' its husk Grows into shape by quarters and by halves; 820 Remark this tooth's spring, wonder what that valve's Fall bodes, presume each faculty's device, Make out each other more or less preciseÄÄ The scope of the whole engine's to be provedÄÄ We die: which means to say the whole's removed, 825 Dismounted wheel by wheel that complex gin, To be set up anew elsewhere, begin A task indeed but with a clearer clime Than the murk lodgment of our building-time: And then, I grant you, it behoves forget 830 How 'tis doneÄÄall that must amuse us yet So long: and while thou turnest on thy heel Pray that I be not busy slitting steel Or shredding brass upon a virgin shore Under a cluster of fresh stars, before 835 I name a tithe the wheels I trust to do! So occupied, then, are we: hitherto, At present, and a weary while to come, The office of ourselves nor blind nor dumb And seeing somewhat of man's state, has been, 840 The worst of us, to say they so have seen; The better, what it was they saw; the best, Impart the gift of seeing to the rest: So that I glance, says such an one, around, And there's no face but I can read profound 845 Disclosures in; this stands for hope, thatÄÄfear, And for a speech, a deed in proof, look here! Stoop, else the strings of blossom, where the nuts O'erarch, will blind thee! said I not? she shuts Both eyes this time, so close the hazels meet! 850 Thus, prisoned in the Piombi, I repeat Events one rove occasioned, o'er and o'er, Putting 'twixt me and madness evermore Thy sweet shape, Elys! therefore stoopÄÄ That's truth! (Applaud you) the incarcerated youth Would say that! 855 Youth? Plara the bard? set down That Plara spent his youth in a grim town Whose cramp ill-featured streets huddled about The minster for protection, never out Of its black belfry's shadow or bells' roar: 860 Brighter the sun illumed the suburbs, more Ugly and absolute that shade's reproof For any chance escape of joy some roof Taller than they allowed the rest detect Before the sole permitted laugh (suspect 865 Who could, 'twas meant for laughter, that ploughed cheek's Repulsive gleam!) when the sun stopped both peaks Of the cleft belfry like a fiery wedge, Then sunk, a huge flame on its socket's edge, Whose leavings on the grey glass oriel-pane 870 Were ghastly some few minutes more: no rainÄÄ The Minster minded that! in heaps the dust Lay every where: that town, the Minster's trust, Held Plara; who, its denizen, bade hail In twice twelve sonnets, Naddo, Tempe's vale. 875 Exact the town, the minster and the street! As all mirth triumphs, sadness means defeat: Lust triumphs and is gay, Love's triumphed o'er And sad: but Lucio's sad: I said before Love's sad, not Lucio; one who loves may be 880 As gay his love has leave to hope, as he Downcast his lust's desire escapes the springe: 'Tis of the mood itself I speak, what tinge Determines it, else colourless, or mirth, Or melancholy, as from Heaven or Earth. 885 Ay, that's the variation's gist! Indeed? Thus far advanced in safety then, proceed! And having seen too what I saw, be bold Enough encounter what I do behold (That's sure) but you must take on trust! Attack 890 The use and purpose of such sights! Alack, Not so unwisely hastes the crowd dispense On Salinguerras praise in preference To the Sordellos: men of action these! Who seeing just as little as you please 895 Yet turn that little to account; engage With, do not gaze at; carry on a stage The work o' the world, not merely make report The work existed ere their timeÄÄIn short, When at some future no-time a brave band 900 Sees, using what it sees, then shake my hand In heaven, my brother! Meanwhile where's the hurt To keep the Makers-see on the alert At whose defection mortals stare aghast As though Heaven's bounteous windows were slammed fast 905 Incontinent? whereas all you beneath Should scowl at, curse them, bruise lips, break their teeth Who ply the pullies, for neglecting you: And therefore have I moulded, made anew A Man, delivered to be turned and tried, 910 Be angry with or pleased at. On your side Have ye times, places, actors of your own? Try them upon Sordello once full-grown, And thenÄÄah then! If Hercules first parched His foot in Egypt only to be marched 915 A sacrifice for Jove with pomp to suit, What chance have I? The demigod was mute Till at the altar, where time out of mind Such guests became oblations, chaplets twined His forehead long enough, and he began 920 Slaying the slayers, nor escaped a manÄÄ Take not affront, my gentle audience! whom No Hercules shall make his hecatomb, Believe, nor from his brows your chaplet rendÄÄ That's your kind suffrage, yours, nay, yours, my friend 925 Whose great verse blares unintermittent on Like any trumpeter at Marathon, He'll testify who when Plataeas grew scant Put up with Aetna for a stimulant! And well too, I acknowledged, as it loomed 930 Over the Midland sea that morn, presumed All day, demolished by the blazing West At eve, while towards it tilting cloudlets prest Like Persian ships for Salamis. Friend, wear A crest proud as desert while I declare 935 Had I a flawless ruby fit to wring A tear its colour from that painted king To lose, I would, for that one smile which went To my heart, fling it in the sea content Wearing your verse in place, an amulet 940 Sovereign against low-thoughtedness and fret! My English Eyebright, if you are not glad That, as I stopped my task awhile, the sad Disheveled form wherein I put mankind To come at times and keep my pact in mind 945 Renewed me,ÄÄhear no crickets in the hedge Nor let a glowworm spot the river's edge At home, and may the summer showers gush Without a warning from the missel thrush! For, Eyebright, what I sing's the fate of such 950 As find our common nature (overmuch Despised because restricted and unfit To bear the burthen they impose on it) Cling when they would discard it; craving strength To leap from the allotted world, at length 955 'Tis leftÄÄthey floundering without a term, Each a God's germ, but doomed remain a germ In unexpanded infancy, assure Yourself, nor misconceive my portraiture Nor undervalue its adornments quaint! 960 What seems a fiend perchance may prove a saint: Ponder a story ancient pens transmit, Then say if you condemn me or acquit. John the Beloved, banished Antioch For Patmos, bade collectively his flock 965 Farewell but set apart the closing eve To comfort some his exile most would grieve He knew: a touching spectacle, that house In motion to receive him! Xanthus' spouse You missed, made panther's meat a month since; but 970 Xanthus himself (for 'twas his nephew shut 'Twixt boards and sawn asunder), Polycarp, Soft Charicle next year no wheel could warp To swear by Caesar's fortune, with the rest Were ranged; thro' whom the grey disciple prest 975 Busily blessing right and left, just stopt To pat one infant's curls the hangman cropt Soon after, reached the portal; on its hinge The door turns and he entersÄÄwhat deep twinge Ruins the smiling mouth, those wide eyes fix 980 Whereon? How like some spectral candlestick's Branch the disciple's arms! Dead swooned he, woke Anon, heaved sigh, made shift to gasp heart-broke Get thee behind me Satan! have I toiled To no more purpose? is the gospel foiled 985 Here too, and o'er my son's, my Xanthus' hearth, Pourtrayed with sooty garb and features swarthÄÄ Ah Xanthus, am I to thy roof beguiled To see theÄÄtheÄÄthe Devil domiciled? Whereto sobbed Xanthus, Father, 'tis yourself 990 Installed, a limning which our utmost pelf Went to procure against to-morrow's loss, And that's no twy-prong but a pastoral cross You're painted with! The puckered brows unfoldÄÄ And you shall hear Sordello's story told. Book the Fourth. Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case; The lady-city, for whose sole embrace Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms A brawny mischief to the fragile charms 5 Each tugged forÄÄone discovering to twist Her tresses twice or thrice about his wrist Secured a point of vantageÄÄone, how best He'd parry that by planting in her breast His elbow-spikeÄÄboth parties too intent 10 For noticing, howe'er the battle went, Its conqueror would have a corpse to kiss. May Boniface be duly damned for this! Howled some old Ghibellin as up he turned, From the wet heap of rubbish where they burned 15 His house, a little scull with dazzling teeth: A boon, sweet ChristÄÄlet Salinguerra seethe In hell for ever, Christ, and let myself Be there to laugh at him! moaned some young Guelf Stumbling upon a shrivelled hand nailed fast 20 To the charred lintel of the doorway last His father stood within to bid him speed. The thoroughfares looked overrun with weed ÄÄDocks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants. The stranger none of its inhabitants 25 Crept out of doors to taste fresh air again, Or ask the purpose of a sumptuous train Admitted on a morning; every town Of the East League was come by envoy down To treat for Richard's ransom: here you saw 30 The Vicentine, here snowy oxen draw The Paduan carroch, its vermilion cross On its white field: a-tiptoe o'er the fosse Looked Legate Montelungo wistfully After the flock of steeples he might spy 35 In Este's time, gone (doubts he) long ago To mend the rampartsÄÄsure the laggards know The Pope's as good as here! They paced the streets More soberly. At last, Taurello greets The League, announced a pursuivant,ÄÄwill match 40 Its courtesy, and labours to despatch At earliest Tito, Friedrich's Pretor, sent On pressing matters from his post at Trent With Mainard Count of Tyrol,ÄÄsimply waits Their going to receive the delegates. 45 Tito! Our delegates exchanged a glance, And, keeping the main way, admired askance The lazy engines of outlandish birth Couched like a king each on its bank of earthÄÄ Arbalist, manganel, and catapult; 50 While stationed by, as waiting a result, Lean silent gangs of mercenaries ceased Working to watch the strangersÄÄthis, at least, Were better spared; he scarce presumes gainsay The League's decision! Get our friend away 55 And profit for the future: how else teach Azzo 'tis not so safe within claw's reach Till Salinguerra's final gasp be blown? Those mere convulsive scratches find the bone ÄÄWho bade him bloody the spent osprey's nare? 60 The carrochs halted in the public square. Pennons of every blazon once a-flaunt, Men prattled, freelier that the crested gaunt White ostrich with a horse-shoe in her beak Was missing; whosoever chose might speak 65 Ecelin boldly out: so, Ecelin Needed his wife to swallow half the sin And sickens by himself: the devil's whelp He styles his son dwindles away, no help From conserves, your fine triple-curded froth 70 Of virgin's blood, your Venice viper-brothÄÄ Eh? Jubilate! Tush! no little word You utter here that's not distinctly heard At Oliero: he was absent sick When we besieged BassanoÄÄwho i' the thick 75 O' the work perceived the progress Azzo made Like Ecelin? through his witch Adelaide Who managed it so well that night by night At their bed-foot stood up a soldier-sprite First fresh, pale by-and-by without a wound, 80 And when he came with eyes filmed as in swound They knew the place was takenÄÄOminous Your Ghibellin should get what cautelous Old Redbeard sought from Azzo's sire to wrench Vainly; St. George contrived his town a trench 85 O' the marshes, an impermeable bar: Young Ecelin is meant the tutelar Of Padua rather; veins embrace upon His hand like Brenta and Bacchiglion ... What now? The founts! God's bread, touch not a plank! 90 A crawling hell of carrionÄÄevery tank Choke full! found out just now to Cino's costÄÄ The same who gave Taurello's side for lost, And, making no account of fortune's freaks, Refused to budge from Padua then, but sneaks 95 Back now with ConcorezziÄÄ'faith! they drag Their carroch to San Vital, plant the flag On his own Palace so adroitly razed He knew it not; a sort of Guelf folk gazed And laughed apart; Cino disliked their airÄÄ 100 Must pluck up spirit, show he does not careÄÄ Seats himself on the tank's edgeÄÄwill begin To hum, za za, Cavaler EcelinÄÄ A silence; he gets warmer, clinks to chime, Now both feet plough the ground, deeper each time, 105 At last, za za, and up with a fierce kick Comes his own mother's face caught by the thick Grey hair about the spur! Which means, they lift The covering Taurello made a shift To stretch upon the truth; as well avoid 110 Further disclosures; leave them thus employed. Our dropping Autumn morning clears apace, And poor Ferrara puts a softened face On her misfortunes, save one spotÄÄthis tall Huge foursquare line of red brick garden-wall 115 Bastioned within by trees of every sort On three sides, slender, spreading, long and short, (Each grew as it contrived, the poplar ramped, The fig-tree reared itself,) but stark and cramped, Made fools of; whence upon the very edge, 120 Running 'twixt trunk and trunk to smooth one ledge Of shade, are shrubs inserted, warp and woof, Which smother up that variance. Scale the roof Of solid tops and o'er the slope you slide Down to a grassy space level and wide, 125 Here and there dotted with a tree, but trees Of rarer leaf, each foreigner at ease, Set by itself; and in the centre spreads, Borne upon three uneasy leopards' heads, A laver, broad and shallow, one bright spirt 130 Of water bubbles in: the walls begirt With trees leave off on either hand: pursue Your path along a wondrous avenue The walls abut on, heaped of gleamy stone, With aloes leering everywhere, grey-grown 135 From many a Moorish summer; how they wind Out of the fissures! likelier to bind The building than those rusted cramps which drop Already in the eating sunshine. Stop Yon fleeting shapes above there! Ah, the pride 140 Or else despair of the whole country-sideÄÄ A range of statues, swarming o'er with wasps, God, goddess, woman, man, your Greek rough-rasps In crumbling Naples marble! meant to look Like those Messina marbles Constance took 145 Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, A certain font with caryatides Since cloistered at Goito; only, these Are up and doing, not abashed, a troop 150 Able to right themselvesÄÄwho see you, stoop O' the instant after you their arms! unplucked By this or that you pass, for they conduct To terrace raised on terrace, and, between, Creatures of brighter mould and braver mien 155 Than any yet, the choicest of the Isle No doubt; here, left a sullen breathing-while, Up-gathered on himself the Fighter stood For his last fight, and, wiping treacherous blood Out of the eyelids just held ope beneath 160 Those shading fingers in their iron sheath, Steadied his strengths amid the buzz and stir Of a dusk hideous ampitheatre At the announcement of his over-match To wind the day's diversion up, despatch 165 Their pertinacious friend: while, limbs one heap, The Slave, no breath in her round mouth, watched leap Dart after dart forth as her hero's car Clove dizzily the solid of the war ÄÄLet coil about his knees for pride in him. 170 We reach the farthest terrace and the grim San Pietro Palace stops us. Such the state Of Salinguerra's plan to emulate Sicilian marvels that his girlish wife Retrude still might lead her ancient life 175 In her new homeÄÄwhereat enlarged so much Neighbours upon the novel princely touch He took who here imprisons Boniface. Here must the Envoys come to sue for grace; And here, emerging from the labyrinth 180 Below, two minstrels pause beside the plinth Of the door-pillar. One had really left Verona for the cornfields (a poor theft From the morass) where Este's camp was made, The Envoys' march, the Legate's cavalcadeÄÄ 185 Looked cursorily o'er, but scarce as when, Eager for cause to stand aloof from men At every point save the fantastic tie Acknowledged in his boyish sophistry, He made account of such. A crowd; he meant 190 To task the whole of it; each part's intent Concerned him therefore, and the more he pried The less became Sordello satisfied With his own figure at the moment. Sought He respite from his task? descried he aught 195 Novel in the anticipated sight Of all those livers upon all delight? A phalanx as of myriad points combined Whereby he still had imaged that mankind His youth was passed in dreams of rivalling, 200 His ageÄÄin plans to show at least the thing So dreamed, but now he hastened to impress With his own will, effect a happiness From theirs, supply a body to his soul Thence, and become eventually whole 205 With them as he had hoped to be withoutÄÄ Made these the mankind he was mad about? Because a few of them were notable Must all be figured worthy note? As well Expect to find Taurello's triple line 210 Of trees a single and prodigious pine. Real pines rose here and there, but, close among, Thrust into and mixed up with pines, a throng Of shrubs you saw, a nameless common sort O'erpast in dreams, left out of the report, 215 Fast hurried into corners, or at best Admitted to be fancied like the rest. Reckon that morning's proper chiefs; how few! And yet the people grew, the people grew, Grew ever, as with many there indeed, 220 More left behind and most who should succeed, Simply in virtue of their faces, eyes, Petty enjoyments and huge miseries, Were veritably mingled with, made great Those chiefs: no overlooking Mainard's state 225 Nor Concorezzi's station, but instead Of stopping there, each dwindled to be head Of infinite and absent Tyrolese Or Paduans; startling too the more that these Seemed passive and disposed of, uncared for, 230 Yet doubtless on the whole (quoth Eglamor) SmilingÄÄfor if a wealthy man decays And out of store of such must wear all days One tattered suit alike in sun and shade, 'Tis commonly some tarnished fine brocade 235 Fit for a feast-night's flourish and no more; Nor otherwise poor Misery from her store Of looks is fain upgather, keep unfurled For common wear as she goes through the world The faint remainder of some worn-out smile 240 Meant for a feast-night's service merely. While Crowd upon crowd rose on Sordello thus,ÄÄ Crowds no way interfering to discuss Much less dispute life's joys with one employed In envying them, or, if they enjoyed, 245 There lingered somewhat indefinable In every look and tone, the mirth as well As woe, that fixed at once his estimate Of the result, their good or bad estate,ÄÄ Old memories flocked but with a new effect: 250 And the new body, ere he could suspect, Cohered, mankind and he were really fused, The new self seemed impatient to be used By him, but utterly another way To that anticipated: strange to say, 255 They were too much below him, more in thrall Than he, the adjunct than the principal. What booted scattered brilliances? the mind Of any number he might hope to bind And stamp with his own thought, howe'er august, 260 If all the rest should grovel in the dust? No: first a mighty equilibrium sure To be established, privilege procure For them himself had long possessed! he felt An error, an exceeding error meltÄÄ 265 While he was occupied with Mantuan chants Behoved him think of men and of their wants Such as he now distinguished every side, As his own want that might be satisfied, And, after that, of wondrous qualities 270 Of his own soul demanding exercise, And like demand it longer: nor a claim On their part, nor was virtue in the aim At serving them on his, but, past retrieve, He in their toils felt with them, nor could leave 275 Wonder that in the eagerness to rule, Impress his will upon them, he the fool Had never entertained the obvious thought This last of his arrangements would be fraught With good to them as well, and he should be 280 Rejoiced thereat; and if, as formerly, He sighed the merry time of life must fleet, 'Twas deeplier now, for could the crowds repeat Their poor experiences? His hand that shook Was twice to be deplored. The Legate, look! 285 With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread, Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head, Large tongue, moist open mouth; and this long while That owner of the idiotic smile Serves them! He fortunately saw in time 290 His fault however, and the office prime Includes the secondaryÄÄbest accept Both offices; Taurello its adept Could teach him the preparatory one, And how to do what he had fancied done 295 Long previously, ere take the greater task. How render then these people happy? ask The people's friends: for there must be one good, One way to itÄÄthe Cause! he understood The meaning now of Palma; else why are 300 The great ado, the trouble wide and far, These Guelfs and Ghibellins, the Lombard's hope Or its despair! 'twixt Emperor or Pope The confused shifting sort of Eden taleÄÄ Of hardihood recurring still to failÄÄ 305 That foreign interloping fiend, this free And native overbrooding DeityÄÄ Yet a dire fascination o'er the palms His presence ruined troubling thorough calms Of ParadiseÄÄor, on the other hand, 310 The Pontiff, as your Kaisers understand, That, snake-like cursed of God to love the ground, With lulling eye breaks in the noon profound Some saving treeÄÄwho but the Kaiser drest As the dislodging angel of the pest 315 Then? yet that pest bedropt, flat head, full fold, With coruscating dower of dyes; behold The secret, so to speak, and master-spring Of the whole contest! which of them shall bring Men goodÄÄperchance the most goodÄÄay, it may 320 Be that; the question is which knows the way. And hereupon Count Mainard strutted past Out of San Pietro; never looked the last Of archers, slingers; and our friend began To recollect strange modes of serving manÄÄ 325 Arbalist, catapult, brake, manganel, And more: this way of theirs may, who can tell, Need perfecting, said he: all's better solved At once: Taurello 'twas the task devolved On lateÄÄconfront Taurello! And at last 330 They did confront him. Scarcely an hour past When forth Sordello came, older by years Than at his entry. Unexampled fears Oppressed him, and he staggered off, blind, mute And deaf, like some fresh-mutilated brute, 335 Into FerraraÄÄnot the empty town That morning witnessed: he went up and down Streets whence the veil was stripped shred after shred, So that in place of huddling with their dead Indoors to answer Salinguerra's ends, 340 Its folk made shift to crawl and sit like friends With any one. A woman gave him choice Of her two daughters, the infantile voice Or dimpled knee, for half a chain his throat Was clasped with; but an archer knew the coatÄÄ 345 Its blue cross and eight lilies, bade beware One dogging him in concert with the pair Though thrumming on the sleeve that hid his knife. Night set in early, autumn dews fell rife, And fires were kindled while the Leaguer's mass 350 Began at every carrochÄÄhe must pass Between that kneeling people: presently The carroch of Verona caught his eye With purple trappings; silently he bent Over its fire, when voices violent 355 Began, Affirm not whom the youth was like That, striking from the porch, I did not strike Again; I too have chestnut hair; my kin Hate Azzo and stand up for Ecelin; Here, minstrel, drive bad thoughts away; sing; take 360 My glove for guerdon! and for that man's sake He turned: A song of Eglamor's! scarce named, When, Our Sordello's, rather! all exclaimed; Is not Sordello famousest for rhyme? He had been happy to deny, this time; 365 Profess as heretofore the aching head, The failing heart; suspect that in his stead Some true Apollo had the charge of them, Was champion to reward or to condemn So his intolerable risk might shift 370 Or share itself; but Naddo's precious gift Of gifts returned, be certain! at the closeÄÄ I made that, said he to a youth who rose As if to hear: 'twas Palma through the band Conducted him in silence by the hand. 375 Back now for Salinguerra. Tito of Trent Gave place, remember, to the pair; who went In turn at Montelungo's visitÄÄone After the other are they come and gone. A drear vast presence-chamber roughly set 380 In order for this morning's use; you met The grim black twy-necked eagle, coarsely blacked With ochre on the naked walls, nor lacked There green and yellow tokens either side; But the new symbol Tito brought had tried 385 The Legate's patienceÄÄnay, if Palma knew What Salinguerra almost meant to do Until the sight of her restored his lip A certain half-smile three months' chieftainship Had banished? Afterward the Legate found 390 No change in him, nor asked what badge he wound And unwound carelessly! Now sate the Chief Silent as when our couple left whose brief Encounter wrought so opportune effect In thoughts he summoned not, nor would rejectÄÄ 395 Though time, if ever, 'twas to pause nowÄÄfix On any sort of ending: wiles and tricks Exhausted, judge! his charge, the crazy town, Just managed to be hindered crashing downÄÄ His last sound troops rangedÄÄcare observed to post 400 His last of the maimed soldiers innermostÄÄ So much was plain enough, but somehow struck Him not before: and now with this strange luck Of Tito's news, rewarding his address So well, what thought he of? How the success 405 With Friedrich's rescript there would either hush Ecelin's fiercest scruple up, or flush Young Ecelin's white cheek, or, last, exempt Himself from telling what there was to tempt? No: that this minstrel was Romano's last 410 ServantÄÄhimself the first! Could he contrast The whole! that minstrel's thirty autumns spent In doing nought, his notablest event This morning's journey hither, as we toldÄÄ Who yet was lean, outworn and really old, 415 A stammering awkward youth (scarce dared he raise His eye before that magisterial gaze) ÄÄAnd Salinguerra with his fears and hopes Of sixty years, his Emperors and Popes, Cares and contrivances, yet you would say 420 A youth 'twas nonchalantly looked away Through the embrasure northward o'er the sick Expostulating treesÄÄso agile quick And graceful turned the head on the broad chest Encased in pliant steel, his constant vest, 425 Whence split the sun off in a spray of fire Across the room; and, loosened of its tire Of steel, that head let see the comely brown Large massive locks discoloured as a crown Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where 430 A sharp white line divided clean the hair; Glossy above, glossy below, it swept Curling and fine about a brow thus kept Calm, laid coat upon coat, marble and sound: This was the mystic mark the Tuscan found, 435 Mused of, turned over books about. Square-faced, No lion more; two vivid eyes, enchased In hollows filled with many a shade and streak Settling from the bold nose and bearded cheek; Nor might the half-smile reach them that deformed 440 A lip supremely perfect elseÄÄunwarmed, Unwidened, less or more; indifferent Whether on trees or men his thoughts were bentÄÄ Thoughts rarely, after all, in trim and train As now: a period was fulfilled again; 445 Such in a series made his life, compressed In each, one story serving for the restÄÄ Therefore he smiled. Beyond stretched garden-grounds Where late the adversary, breaking bounds, Procured him an occasion That above, 450 That eagle, testified he could improve Effectually; the Kaiser's symbol lay Beside his rescript, a new badge by way Of baldric; while another thing that marred Alike emprize, achievement and reward, 455 Ecelin's missive was conspicuous too. What a past life those flying thoughts pursue! As his no name in Mantua half so old; But at Ferrara, where his sires enrolled It latterly, the Adelardi spared 460 Few means to rival them: both factions shared Ferrara, so that, counted out, 't would yield A product very like the city's shield, Half black and white, or Ghibellin and Guelf, As after Salinguerra styled himself 465 And Este who, till Marchesalla died ÄÄLast of the Adelardi, never tried His fortune there; but Marchesalla's child Transmits (can Blacks and Whites be reconciled And young Taurello wed Linguetta) wealth 470 And sway to a sole grasp: each treats by stealth Already: when the Guelfs, the Ravennese Arrive, assault the Pietro quarter, seize Linguetta, and are gone! Our first dismay Abated somewhat, hurries down to lay 475 The after indignation Boniface, No meaner spokesman: Learn the full disgrace Averted ere you blame usÄÄwont to rate Your Salinguerra, and sole potentate That might have been, 'mongst Este's valvassorsÄÄ 480 Ay, Azzo'sÄÄwho, not privy to, abhors Our stepÄÄbut we were zealous. Azzo's then To do with! Straight a meeting of old men: The Lombard Eagle of the azure sphere With Italy to build in, builds he here? 485 This deemedÄÄthe other owned upon adviceÄÄ A third reflected on the matter twiceÄÄ In fine, young Salinguerra's staunchest friends Talked of the townsmen making him amends, Gave him a goshawk, and affirmed there was 490 Rare sport, one morning, over the morass A mile or so. He sauntered through the plain, Was restless, fell to thinking, turned again In time for Azzo's entry with the bride; Count Boniface rode smirking at his side; 495 There's half Ferrara with her, whispers flew, And all Ancona! If the stripling knew! Anon the stripling was in Sicily Where Heinrich ruled in right of Constance; he Was gracious nor his guest incapable; 500 Each understood the other. So it fell, One Spring, when Azzo, thoroughly at ease, Had near forgotten what precise degrees He crept by into such a downy seat, Over the Count trudged in a special heat 505 To bid him of God's love dislodge from each Of Salinguerra's Palaces; a breach Might yawn else not so readily to shut, For who was just arrived at Mantua but The youngster, sword to thigh, tuft upon chin, 510 With tokens for Celano, Ecelin, Pistore and the like! Next news: no whit Do any of Ferrara's domes befit His wife of Heinrich's very blood: a band Of foreigners assemble, understand 515 Garden-constructing, level and surround, Build up and bury in. A last news crowned The consternation: since his infant's birth He only waits they end his wondrous girth Of trees that link San Pietro with Tom… 520 To visit us. When, as its Podest… Regaled him at Vicenza, Este, there With Boniface beforehand, each aware Of plots in progress, gave alarm, expelled A party which abetted him, but yelled 525 Too hastily. The burning and the flight, And how Taurello, occupied that night With Ecelin, lost wife and son, were told: ÄÄNot how he bore the blow, retained his hold, Got friends safe through, left enemies the worst 530 O' the fray, and hardly seemed to care at firstÄÄ But afterward you heard not constantly Of Salinguerra's House so sure to be! Though Azzo simply gained by the event A shifting of his plaguesÄÄthis one content 535 To fall behind the other and estrange, You will not say, his nature, but so change That in Romano sought he wife and child, And for Romano's sake was reconciled To losing individual life, deep sunk, 540 A very pollard mortised in a trunk Which Arabs out of wantonness contrive Shall dwindle that the alien stock may thrive Till forth that vine-palm feathers to the root And red drops moisten them its arid fruit. 545 Once set on Adelaide, the subtle mate And wholly at his beck, to emulate The Church's valiant women deed for deed, To paragon her namesake, win the meed Of its Matilda,ÄÄand they overbore 550 The rest of LombardyÄÄnot as before By an instinctive truculence, but patched The Kaiser's strategy until it matched The Pontiff's, sought old ends by novel means: Only, Romano Salinguerra screens. 555 Heinrich was somewhat of the tardiest To comprehend, nor Philip acquiesced At once in the arrangement; reasoned, plied His friend with offers of another bride, A statelier functionÄÄfruitlessly: 'tis plain 560 Taurello's somehow one to let remain Obscure; and Otho, free to judge of both, ÄÄEcelin the unready, harsh and loth, And this more plausible and facile wight With every point a-sparkleÄÄchose the right, 565 Admiring how his predecessors harped On the wrong man: thus, quoth he, wits are warped By outsides! Carelessly, withal, his life Suffered its many turns of peace and strife In many landsÄÄyou hardly could surprise 570 A man who shamed Sordello (recognise) In this as much beside, that, unconcerned What qualities are natural or earned, With no ideal of graces, as they came He took them, singularly well the sameÄÄ 575 Speaking a dozen languages because Your Greek eludes you, leave the least of flaws In contracts, while, through Arab lore, deter Who may the Tuscan, once Jove trined for her, From Friedrich's path! Friedrich, whose pilgrimage 580 The same man puts aside, whom he'll engage To leave next year John Brienne in the lurch, And see Bassano for Saint Francis' church ÄÄProfound on Guido the Bolognian's piece That, if you lend him credit, rivals GreeceÄÄ 585 Angels, with aureoles like golden quoits Pitched home, applauding Ecelin's exploits In Painimrie. He strung the angelot; Made rhymes thereto; for prowess, clove he not Tiso, last siege, from crest to crupper? why 590 Detail you thus a varied mastery But that Taurello, ever on the watch For men, to read their hearts and thereby catch Their capabilities and purposes, Displayed himself so far as displayed these: 595 While our Sordello only cared to know About men as a means for him to show Himself, and men were much or little worth According as they kept in or drew forth That self; the other's choicest instruments 600 Surmised him shallow. Meantime malecontents Dropped off, town after town grew wiser; how Change the world's face? said people; as 'tis now It has been, will be ever: very fine Subjecting things profane to things divine 605 In talk: this contumacy will fatigue The vigilance of Este and the League, Observe! accordingly, their basement sapped, Azzo and Boniface were soon entrapped By Ponte Alto, and in one month's space 610 Slept at Verona: either left a brace Of sonsÄÄso three years after, either's pair Lost Guglielm and Aldobrand its heir: Azzo remained and RichardÄÄall the stay Of Este and St. Boniface, at bay 615 As 'twere; when either Ecelin grew old Or his brain alteredÄÄnot the proper mould For new appliancesÄÄhis old palm stock Endured no influx of strange strengths: he'd rock As in a drunkenness, or chuckle low 620 As proud of the completeness of his woe, Then weepÄÄreal tears! Now make some mad onslaught On Este, heedless of the lesson taught So painfullyÄÄnow cringe, sue peace, but peace At price of all advantage; therefore cease 625 The fortunes of Romano! Up at last Rose Este and Romano sank as fast. And men remarked this sort of peace and war Commenced while Salinguerra was afar: And every friend besought him, but in vain, 630 To wait his old adherent, call again Taurello: not heÄÄwho had daughters, sons, Could plot himself, nor needed any one's Advice. 'Twas Adelaide's remaining staunch Prevented his destruction root and branch 635 Forthwith; Goito green above her, gay He made alliances, gave lands away To whom it pleased accept them, and withdrew For ever from the world. Taurello, who Was summoned to the convent, then refused 640 A word,ÄÄhowever patient, thus abused, At Este's mercy through his imbecile Ally, was fain dismiss the foolish smile, And a few movements of the happier sort Changed matters, put himself in men's report 645 As heretofore; he had to fight, beside, And that became him ever. So in pride And flushing of this kind of second youth He dealt a good-will blow: Este in truth Was proneÄÄand you remembered, somewhat late, 650 A laughing old outrageous stifled hate He bore that EsteÄÄhow it would outbreak At times spite of disguise, like an earthquake In sunny weatherÄÄas that noted day When with his hundred friends he offered slay 655 Azzo before the Kaiser's face: and how On Azzo's calm refusal to allow A liegeman's challenge straight he too was calmed: His hate, no doubt, would bear to lie embalmed, Bricked up, the moody Pharaoh, to survive 660 All intermediate crumblings, be alive At earth's catastropheÄÄ'twas Este's crash Not Azzo's he demanded, so no rash Procedure! Este's true antagonist Rose out of Ecelin: all voices whist, 665 Each glance was sharpened, wit predicted. He 'Twas leaned in the embrasure presently, Amused with his own efforts, now, to trace With his steel-sheathed forefinger Friedrich's face I' the dust: and as the trees waved sere, his smile 670 Deepened, and words expressed its thought erewhile. Ay, fairly housed at last, my old compeer? That we should stick together all the year I kept Verona!ÄÄHow old Boniface, Old Azzo caught us in its market-place, 675 He by that pillar, I this pillar, each In mid swing, more than fury of his speech, Egging our rabble on to disavow Allegiance to the MarquisÄÄBacchus, how They caught us! Ecelin must turn their drudge; 680 Nor, if released, will Salinguerra grudge Paying arrears of tribute due long sinceÄÄ Bacchus! My man could promise then, nor wince, The bones-and-muscles! sound of wind and limb, Spoke he the set excuse I framed for him; 685 And now he sits me, slavering and mute, Intent on chafing each starved purple foot Benumbed past aching with the altar slabÄÄ Will no vein throb there when some monk shall blab Spitefully to the circle of bald scalps 690 "Friedrich's affirmed to be our side the Alps" ÄÄEh, brother Lactance, brother Anaclet? Sworn to abjure the world and the world's fret, God's own now? drop the dormitory bar, Enfold the scanty grey serge scapular 695 Twice o'er the cowl to muffle memories outÄÄ So! but the midnight whisper turns a shout, Eyes wink, mouths open, pulses circulate In the stone walls: the past, the world you hate Is with you, ambush, open fieldÄÄor see 700 The surging flameÄÄthey fire VicenzaÄÄglee! Follow, let Pilio and Bernardi chafeÄÄ Bring up the MantuansÄÄthrough San BiagioÄÄsafe! Ah, the mad people waken? Ah, they writhe And reach you? if they block the gateÄÄno tithe 705 Can passÄÄkeep back you Bassanese! the edge, Use the edgeÄÄshear, thrust, hew, melt down the wedge, Let out the black of those black upturned eyes! HellÄÄare they sprinkling fire too? the blood fries And hisses on your brass gloves as they tear 710 Those upturned faces choaking with despair. Brave! Slidder through the reeking gateÄÄhow now! You six had charge of her? And then the vow Comes, and the foam spirts, hair's plucked, till one shriek (I hear it) and you flingÄÄyou cannot speakÄÄ 715 Your gold-flowered basnet to a man who haled The Adelaide he dared scarce view unveiled This morn, naked across the fire: how crown The archer that exhausted lays you down Your infant, smiling at the flame, and dies? While one, while mine ... 720 Bacchus! I think there lies More than one corpse there (and he paced the room) ÄÄAnother cinder somewhereÄÄ'twas my doom Beside, my doom: if Adelaide is dead I am the same, this Azzo lives instead 725 Of that to me, and we pull any how Este into a heapÄÄthe matter's now At the true juncture slipping us so oft; Ay, Heinrich died and Otho, please you, doffed His crown at such a juncture: let but hold 730 Our Friedrich's purpose, let this chain enfold The neck of ... who but this same Ecelin? That must recoil when the best days beginÄÄ Recoil? that's nought; so the recoiler leaves His name for me to fight with, no one grieves! 735 But he must interfere, forsooth, unlock His cloister to become my stumbling-block Just as of old! Ay, ay, there 'tis againÄÄ The land's inevitable HeadÄÄexplain The reverences that subject us! Count 740 These Ecelins now! not to say as fount, Originating power of thought, from twelve That drop i' the trenches they joined hands to delve Six shall surpass him, but ... why, men must twine Somehow with something! Ecelin's a fine 745 Clear name! 'Twere simpler, doubtless, twine with me At once: our cloistered friend's capacity Was of a sort! I had to share myself In fifty portions, like an o'ertasked elf That's forced illume in fifty points the vast 750 Rare vapour he's environed by: at last My strengths, though sorely frittered, e'en converge And crownÄÄno, Bacchus, they have yet to urge The man be crowned! That aloe, an he durst, Would climb! just such a bloated sprawler first 755 I noted in Messina's castle court The day I came, and Heinrich asked in sport If I would pledge my faith to win him back His right in Lombardy; for, once bid pack Marauders, he continued, in my stead 760 You rule, Taurello! and upon this head Laid the silk glove of ConstanceÄÄI see her Too, mantled head to foot in miniver, Retrude following! I am absolved From further toil: the empery devolved 765 On me, 'twas Tito's word: and think, to lay For once my plan, pursue my plan my way, Prompt nobody, and render an account Taurello to Taurello! nay, I mount To FriedrichÄÄhe conceives the post I kept, 770 Who did true service, able or inept, Who's worthy guerdon, Ecelin or I: Me guerdoned, counsel follows; would he vie With the Pope really? Azzo, Boniface Compose a right-arm Hohenstauffen's race 775 Must break ere govern Lombardy; I point How easy 'twere to twist, once out of joint, The socket from the bone; my Azzo's stare Meanwhile! for I, this idle strap to wear, ShallÄÄfret myself abundantly, what end 780 To serve? There's left me twenty years to spend ÄÄHow better than my old way? Had I one Who laboured overthrow my workÄÄa son Hatching with Azzo superb treachery, To root my pines up and then poison me, 785 SupposeÄÄ'twere worth while frustrate that! Beside Another life's ordained me: the world's tide Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press Of waves, a single wave through weariness That's gently led aside, laid upon shore? 790 My life must be lived out in foam and roar, No question. Fifty years the province held Taurello; troubles raised, and troubles quelled, He in the midstÄÄwho leaves this quaint stone place, Those trees a year or two, then, not a trace 795 Of him! How obtain hold, fetter men's tongues Like that Sordello with his foolish songsÄÄ To which, despite our bustle, he is linked? ÄÄFlowers one may teaze, that never seem extinct; Ay, that patch, surely, green as ever, where 800 I set Her Moorish lentisk, by the stair, To overawe the aloesÄÄand we trod Those flowers, how call you such? into the sod; A stately foreignerÄÄand worlds of pain To make it thrive, arrest rough windsÄÄall vain! 805 It would declineÄÄthese would not be destroyedÄÄ And now, where is itÄÄwhere can you avoid The flowers? I frighten children twenty years Longer!ÄÄwhich way, too, Ecelin appears To thwart me, for his son's besotted youth 810 Gives promise of the proper tiger-tooth, They prattle, at Vicenza! Fate, fate, fate, My fine Taurello! go you, promulgate Friedrich's decree, and here's shall aggrandise Young EcelinÄÄour Prefect's badge! a prize Too precious, certainly. 815 How now? Compete With my old comrade? shuffle from their seat His children? Paltry dealing! don't I know Ecelin? now, I think, and years ago! What's changedÄÄthe weakness? did not I compound 820 For that, and undertake preserve him sound Despite it? Say Taurello's hankering After the boy's prefermentÄÄthis play-thing To carry, Bacchus! And he laughed. Remark Why schemes wherein cold-blooded men embark 825 Prosper, when your enthusiastic sort Fails: for these last are ever stopping shortÄÄ (Much to be doneÄÄso little they can do!) The careless tribe see nothing to pursue Should they desist; meantime their scheme succeeds. 830 Thoughts were caprices in the course of deeds Methodic with Taurello; so he turned, Enough amused by fancies fairly earned Of Este's horror-struck submitted neck, And Boniface completely at his beck, 835 To his own petty but immediate doubt If he could pacify the League without Conceding Richard; just to this was brought That interval of vain discursive thought! As, shall I say, some Ethiop, past pursuit 840 Of all enslavers, dips a shackled foot, Burnt to the blood, into the drowsy black Enormous water current, his sole track To his own tribe again, where he is King; And laughs because he guesses, numbering 845 The yellower poison-wattles on the pouch Of the first lizard wrested from its couch Under the slime (whose skin, the while, he strips To cure his nostril with, and festered lips, And eyeballs bloodshot through the desert blast) 850 That he has reached its boundary, at last May breathe;ÄÄthinks o'er enchantments of the South Sovereign to plague his enemies, their mouth And nails, and hair; but, these enchantments tried In fancy, puts them soberly aside 855 For truth, cool projects, a return with friends, The likelihood of winning wild amends Ere long; thinks that, takes comfort silently, And from the river's brink his wrongs and he, Hugging revenge close to their hearts, are soon 860 Off-striding for the Mountains of the Moon. Midnight: the watcher nodded on his spear, Since clouds dispersing left a passage clear, If any meagre and discoloured moon Should venture forth; and such was peering soon 865 Above the harassed cityÄÄher close lanes Closer, not half so tapering her fanes, As though she shrunk into herself to keep What little life was saved more safely. Heap By heap the watch-fires mouldered, and beside 870 The blackest spoke Sordello and replied Palma with none to listen. 'Tis your CauseÄÄ What makes a Ghibellin? There should be lawsÄÄ (Remember how my youth escaped! I trust To you for manhood, Palma; tell me just 875 As any child)ÄÄlaws secretly at work Explaining this. Assure me good may lurk Under the bad; my multitude has part In your designs, their welfare is at heart With Salinguerra, to their interest 880 Refer the deeds he dwelt onÄÄso divest Our conference of much that scared me: why Affect that heartless tone to Tito? I Esteemed myself, yes, in my inmost mind This morn, a recreant to that wide mankind 885 O'erlooked till now: why boast my spirit's force, ÄÄThat force denied its object? why divorce These, then admire my spirit's flight the same, As though it bore a burden, which could tame No pinion, from dead void to living space? 890 ÄÄThat orb consigned to chaos and disgrace, Why vaunt complacently my frantic dance, Making a feat's facilities enhance The marvel? But I front Taurello, one Of happier fate, and what I should have done 895 He does; the multitude aye paramount With him, its making progress may account For his abiding still: when ... but you heard His talk with TitoÄÄthe excuse preferred For burning those five hostagesÄÄand broached 900 By way of blind, as you and I approached, I do believe. She spoke: then he, My thought Plainer expressed! All Friedrich's profitÄÄnought Of these meantime, of conquests to achieve For them, of wretchednesses to relieve 905 While profiting that Friedrich. Azzo, too, Supports a cause: what is it? Guelfs pursue Their ends by means like yours, or better? When The Guelfs were shown alike, men ranged with men, And deed with deed, blaze, blood, with blood and blaze, 910 Morn broke: once more, Sordello, meet its gaze ProudlyÄÄthe people's charge against thee fails In every point, while either party quails! These are the busy onesÄÄbe silent thou! Two parties take the world up, and allow 915 No third, yet have one principle, subsist By the same method; whoso shall enlist With either, ranks with man's inveterate foes. So there is one less quarrel to compose 'Twixt us: the Guelf's, the Ghibellin's to curseÄÄ 920 I have done nothing, but both sides do worse Than nothing; nay to me, forgotten, reft Of insight, lapped by trees and flowers, was left The notion of a serviceÄÄha? What lured Me here, what mighty aim was I assured 925 Moved Salinguerra? If a Cause remained Intact, distinct from these, and fate ordained, For all the past, that Cause for me? One pressed Before them here, a watcher, to suggest The subject for a ballad: he must know 930 The tale of the dead worthy, long ago Consul of RomeÄÄthat's long ago for us, Minstrels and bowmen, idly squabbling thus In the world's cornersÄÄbut too late, no doubt, For the brave time he sought to bring about 935 ÄÄNot know Crescentius Nomentanus? Then He cast about for terms to tell him, when Sordello disavowed it, how they used Whenever their Superior introduced A novice to the Brotherhood (for I 940 Was just a brown-sleeve brother, merrily Appointed too, quoth he, till Innocent Bade me relinquish, to my small content, My wife or my brown sleeves) out some one spoke Ere nocturns of Crescentius, to revoke 945 The edict issued after his demise That blotted memory, and effigies, All out except a floating power, a name Including, tending to produce the same Great act. Rome, dead, forgotten, lived at least 950 Within that man, though to a vulgar priest And a vile stranger, fit to be a slave Of Rome's, Pope John, King Otho, fortune gave The rule there: but Crescentius, haply drest In white, called Roman Consul for a jest, 955 Taking the people at their word, forth stept As upon Brutus' heel, nor ever kept Us waiting; stept he forth and from his brain Gave Rome out on its ancient place again, Ay, bade proceed with Brutus' Rome kings styled 960 Themselves the citizens of, and, beguiled Thereby, were fain select the lustrous gem Out of a lapfull, spoil their diadem ÄÄThe Senate's cypher was so hard to scratch! He flashes like a phanal, men too catch 965 The flame, and Rome's accomplished; when returned Otho and John the Consul's step had spurned, With Hugo Lord of Este, to redress The wrongs of each. Crescentius in the stress Of adverse fortune bent. They crucified 970 Their Consul in the Forum and abide Such slaves at Rome e'er since, that IÄÄ(for I Was once a brown-sleeve brother, merrily Appointed)ÄÄI had option to keep wife Or keep brown sleeves, and managed in the strife Lose both. A song of Rome! 975 And Rome, indeed, Robed at Goito in fantastic weed, The Mother-City of those Mantuan days, Looked an established point of light whence rays Traversed the world; and all the clustered homes 980 Beside of men were bent on being Romes In their degree; the question was how each Should most resemble Rome, clean out of reach Herself; nor struggled either principle To change what it aspired possessÄÄRome, still For Friedrich or Honorius. 985 Rome's the Cause! The Rome of the old Pandects, our new lawsÄÄ The Capitol turned Castle Angelo And structures that inordinately glow Corrected by the Theatre forlorn 990 As a black mundane shell, its world late born ÄÄVerona, that's beside it. These combined, We typify the scheme to put mankind Once more in full possession of their rights By his sole agency. On me it lights 995 To build up Rome againÄÄme, first and last: For such a Future was endured the Past! And thus in the grey twilight forth he sprung To give his thought consistency among The People's self, and let their truth avail 1000 Finish the dream grown from the archer's tale. Book the Fifth. Is it the same Sordello in the dusk As at the dawn? merely a perished husk Now, that arose a power like to build Up Rome again? The proud conception chilled 5 So soon? Ay, watch that latest dream of thine ÄÄA Rome indebted to no Palatine, Drop arch by arch, Sordello! Art possest Of thy wish nowÄÄrewarded for thy quest To-day among Ferrara's squalid sonsÄÄ 10 Are this and this and this the shining ones Meet for the Shining City? Sooth to say Our favoured tenantry pursue their way After a fashion! This companion slips On the smooth causey, t'other blinkard trips 15 At his mooned sandal. Leave to lead the brawls Here i' the atria? No, friend. He that sprawls On aught but a stibadium suffers ... goose, Puttest our lustral vase to such an use? Oh, huddle up the day's disastersÄÄmarch 20 Ye runagates, and drop thou, arch by arch, Rome! Yet before they quite disbandÄÄa whimÄÄ Study a shelter, now, for him, and him, Nay, even him, to house them! any cave SufficesÄÄthrow out earth. A loophole? Brave! 25 They ask to feel the sun shine, see the grass Grow, hear the larks sing? Dead art thou, alas, And I am dead! But here's our son excels At hurdle-weaving any Scythian, fells Oak and devises rafters, dreams and shapes 30 That dream into a door-post, just escapes The mystery of hinges. Lie we both Perdue another age. The goodly growth Of brick and stone! Our building-pelt was rough, But that descendant's garb suits well enough 35 A portico-contriver. Speed the yearsÄÄ What's time to us? and lo, a city rears Itself! nay, enterÄÄwhat's the grave to us? So our forlorn acquaintance carry thus A head! successively sewer, forum, cirqueÄÄ 40 Last age that acqueduct was counted work, And now they tire the artificer upon Blank alabaster, black obsidian, ÄÄCareful Jove's face be duly fulgurant, And mother Venus' kiss-creased nipples pant 45 Back into pristine pulpiness, ere fixed Above the baths. What difference betwixt This Rome and ours? Resemblance what between The scurvy dumb-show and the pageant sheenÄÄ These Romans and our rabble? Rest thy wit 50 And listen: step by step,ÄÄa workman fit With each, nor too fit,ÄÄto one's task, one's time,ÄÄ No leaping o'er the petty to the prime, When just the substituting osier lithe For bulrushes, and after, wood for withe 55 To further loam and roughcast work a stage, Exacts an architect, exacts an age,ÄÄ Nor tables of the Mauritanian tree For men whose maple-log's their luxury,ÄÄ And Rome's accomplished! Better (say you) merge 60 At once all workmen in the demiurge, All epochs in a life-time, and all tasks In one: undoubtedly the city basks I' the dayÄÄwhile those you'd feast there want the knack Of keeping fresh-chalked gowns from speck and brack, 65 Distinguish not your peacock from your swan, Or Mareotic juice from Coecuban, Nay sneer ... enough! 'twas happy to conceive Rome on a sudden, nor shall fate bereave Us of that credit: for the rest, her spite 70 Is an old storyÄÄserves us very right For adding yet another to the dull List of devicesÄÄthings proved beautiful Could they be done, Sordello cannot do. He sate upon the terrace, plucked and threw 75 The powdery aloe-cusps away, saw shift Rome's walls, and drop arch after arch, and drift Mist-like afar those pillars of all stripe, Mounds of all majesty. Thou archetype, Last of my dreams and loveliest, depart! 80 And then a low voice wound into his heart: Sordello (lower than a Pythoness Conceding to a Lydian King's distress The cause of his long errorÄÄone mistake Of her past oracle) Sordello, wake! 85 Where is the vanity? Why count you, one The first step with the last step? What is gone Except that aery magnificenceÄÄ That last step you took first? an evidence You were ... no matter. Let those glances fall! 90 This basis, this beginning step of all, Which proves you one of us, is this gone too? Pity to disconcert one versed as you In fate's ill-nature, but its full extent Eludes Sordello, even: the veil's rent, 95 Read the black writingÄÄthat collective man Outstrips the individual! Who began The greatnesses you know?ÄÄay, your own art Shall serve us: put the poet's mimes apartÄÄ Close with the poetÄÄcloserÄÄwhat? a dim 100 Too plain form separates itself from him? Alcama's song enmeshes the lulled Isle, Woven into the echoes left erewhile Of Nina's, one soft web of song: no more Turning his name, now, flower-like o'er and o'er! 105 An elder poet's in the younger's placeÄÄ Take Nina's strengthÄÄbut lose Alcama's grace? Each neutralizes each then! gaze your fill; Search further and the past presents you still New Ninas, new Alcamas, time's mid-night 110 Concluding,ÄÄbetter say its evenlight Of yesterday. You, now, in this respect Of benefitting people (to reject The favour of your fearful ignorance, A thousand phantasms eager to advance 115 Refer you but to those within your reach) Were you the first who got, to use plain speech, The Multitude to be materialized? That loose eternal unrestÄÄwho devised An apparition i' the midst? the rout 120 Who checked, the breathless ring who formed about That sudden flower? Get round at any risk The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk O' the lily! Swords across it! Reign thy reign And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne! 125 ÄÄThe very child of over-joyousness, Unfeeling thence, strong therefore: Strength by stress Of Strength comes of a forehead confident, Two widened eyes expecting heart's content, A calm as out of just-quelled noise, nor swerves 130 The ample cheek for doubt, in gracious curves Abutting on the upthrust nether lipÄÄ He wills, how should he doubt then? Ages slipÄÄ Was it Sordello pried into the work So far accomplished, and discovering lurk 135 A company amid the other clans, Only distinct in priests for castellans And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed Its rule, their interest its interest, Living for sake of livingÄÄthere an end, 140 Wrapt in itself, no energy to spend In making adversaries or allies); Dived he into its capabilities And dared create out of that sect a soul Should turn the multitude, already whole, 145 To some account? Speak plainer! Is't so sure God's church lives by a King's investiture? Look to last step: a staggeringÄÄa shockÄÄ What's sand shall be demolished, but the rock EnduresÄÄa column of black fiery dust 150 Blots heavenÄÄwoe, woe, 'tis prematurely thrust Aside, that step!ÄÄthe air clearsÄÄnought's erased Of the true outline? Thus much is firm basedÄÄ The other was a scaffold: see you stand Buttressed upon his mattock Hildebrand 155 Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o'er ply As in a forge; it buries either eye White and extinct, that stupid brow; teeth clenched, The neck's tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched, As if a cloud enveloped him while fought 160 Under it all, grim prizers, thought with thought At dead-lock, agonizing he, until The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will, The slave with folded arms and drooping lids They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids 165 ÄÄA root, the crippled mandrake of the earth, Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth, Be certain; fruit of suffering's excess, Whence feeling, therefore stronger: still by stress Of Strength, work Knowledge! Full three hundred years 170 For men to wear away in smiles and tears Between the two that nearly seem to touch, Observe you: quit one workman and we clutch Another, letting both their trains go byÄÄ The actors-out of either's policy, 175 Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross, May carry the Imperial crowns across, Aix' Iron, Milan's Silver, and Rome's GoldÄÄ As Alexander, Innocent uphold On that the Papal keysÄÄbut, link on link, 180 Why is it neither chain betrays a chink? How coalesce the small and great? Alack, For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back! The couple there alone help Gregory? HarkÄÄfrom the hermit Peter's thin sad cry 185 At Claremont, yonder to the serf that says Friedrich's no liege of his while he delays Getting the Pope's curse off him! The CrusadeÄÄ Or trick of breeding strength by other aid Than strength, is safe: harkÄÄfrom the wild harangue 190 Of Vimmercato, to the carroch's clang Yonder! The LeagueÄÄor trick of turning strength Against pernicious strength, is safe at length: Yet harkÄÄfrom Mantuan Albert's making cease The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace 195 Yonder! God's TruceÄÄor trick to supersede The use of strength at all, is safe. Indeed We trench upon the future! Who shall found Next step, next ageÄÄtrail plenteous o'er the ground Vine-like, produced by joy and sorrow, whence 200 Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence: Knowledge by stress of Knowledge is it? NoÄÄ E'en were Sordello ready to forego His work for this, 'twere overleaping work Some one must do before, howe'er it irk: 205 No end's in sight yet of that second road: Who means to help must still support the load Hildebrand liftedÄÄwhy hast Thou, he groaned, Imposed, my God, a thing thy Paul had moaned, Thy Moses failed beneath, on me? and yet 210 The grandest of the tasks God ever set On man left much to do: a mighty wrenchÄÄ The scaffold fallsÄÄbut half the pillars blench Merely, start back againÄÄperchance have been Taken for buttresses: crash every screen, 215 Hammer the tenons better, and engage A gang about your work, for the next age Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part By Knowledge! thenÄÄAy, then perchance may start Sordello on his raceÄÄbut who'll divulge 220 Time's secrets? lo, a step's awry, a bulge To be corrected by a step we thought Got over long agoÄÄtill that is wrought, No progress! and that scaffold in its turn Becomes, its service o'er, a thing to spurn. 225 Meanwhile, your some half-dozen years of life Longer, dispose you to forego the strifeÄÄ Who takes exception? 'Tis Ferrara, mind, Before us, and Goito's left behind: As you then were, as half yourself, desist! 230 ÄÄThe warrior-part of you may, an it list, Finding real faulchions difficult to poise, Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys By wielding one in fancy,ÄÄwhat is bard Of you, may spurn the vehicle that marred 235 Elys so much, and in mere fancy glut His sense on her free beautiesÄÄwe have but To please ourselves for law, and you could please What then appeared yourself by dreaming these Rather than doing these: nowÄÄfancy's trade 240 Is ended, mind, nor one half may evade The other half: our friends are half of you: Out of a thousand helps, just one or two Can be accomplished presentlyÄÄbut flinch From these (as from the faulchion raised an inch, 245 Elys described a couplet) and make proof Of fancy,ÄÄand, while one half lolls aloof O' the grass completing Rome to the tip-topÄÄ See if, for that, the other half will stop A tear, begin a smile: that rabble's woes, 250 Ludicrous in their patience as they chose To sit about their town and quietly Be slaughtered,ÄÄthe poor reckless soldiery, With their ignoble rhymes on Richard, how Polt-foot, sang they, was in a pitfall now, 255 Cheering each other from the engine-mounts,ÄÄ That crippled spawling idiot who recounts How, lopt of limbs, he lay, stupid as stone, Till the pains crept from out him one by one, And wriggles round the archers on his head 260 To earn a morsel of their chesnut bread,ÄÄ And Cino, always in the self-same place Weeping; beside that other wretch's case Eyepits to ear one gangrene since he plied The engine in his coat of raw sheep's hide 265 A double watch in the noon sun; and see Lucchino, beauty, with the favors free, Trim hacqueton and sprucely scented hair, Campaigning it for the first timeÄÄcut there In two already, boy enough to crawl 270 For latter orpine round the Southern wall, Tom…, where Richard's kept, because that whore Marfisa the fool never saw before Sickened for flowers this wearisomest siege: Then Tiso's wifeÄÄmen liked their pretty liege, 275 Cared for her least of whims once, Berta, wed A twelvemonth gone, and, now poor Tiso's dead, Delivering herself of his first child On that chance heap of wet filth, reconciled To fifty gazers. (Here a wind below 280 Made moody music augural of woe From the pine barrier)ÄÄWhat if, now the scene Draws to a shutting, if yourself have been ÄÄYou, plucking purples in Goito's moss Like edges of a trabea (not to cross 285 Your consul-feeling) or dry aloe-shafts Here at FerraraÄÄHe whom fortune wafts This very age her best inheritance Of opportunities? Yet we advance Upon the last! Since talking is your trade, 290 There's Salinguerra left you to persuade, And thenÄÄ NoÄÄnoÄÄwhich latest chance secure! Leapt up and cried Sordello: this made sure, The Past is yet redeemable whose work WasÄÄhelp the Guelfs, and I, howe'er it irk, 295 Thus help! He shook the foolish aloe-haulm Out of his doublet, paused, proceeded calm To the appointed presence. The large head Turned on its socket; And your spokesman, said The large voice, is Elcorte's happy sprout? 300 Few such (so finishing a speech no doubt Addressed to Palma, silent at his side) Our sober councils have diversified: Elcorte's son!ÄÄbut forward as you may, Our lady's minstrel with so much to say! 305 The hesitating sunset floated back, Rosily traversed in a single track The chamber, from the lattice o'er the girth Of pines to the huge eagle blacked in earth Opposite, outlined sudden, spur to crest, 310 That solid Salinguerra, and caressed Palma's contour; 'twas Day looped back Night's pall; Sordello had a chance left spite of all. And much he made of the convincing speech He meant should compensate the Past and reach 315 Through his youth's daybreak of unprofit, quite To his noon's labour, so proceed till night At leisure! The contrivances to bind Taurello body with the Cause and mind, ÄÄWas the consummate rhetoric just that? 320 Yet most Sordello's argument dropped flat Through his accustomed fault of breaking yoke, Disjoining him who felt from him who spoke: Was't not a touching incidentÄÄso prompt A rendering the world its just accompt 325 Once proved its debtor? Who'd suppose before This proof that he, Goito's God of yore, At duty's instance could demean himself So memorably, dwindle to a Guelf? Be sure, in such delicious flattery steeped, 330 His inmost self at the out-portion peeped Thus occupied; then stole a glance at those Appealed to, curious if her colour rose Or his lip moved, while he discreetly urged The need of Lombardy's becoming purged 335 At soonest of her barons; the poor part Abandoned thus missing the blood at heart, Spirit in brain, unseasonably off Elsewhere! But, though his speech was worthy scoff, Good-humoured Salinguerra, famed for tact 340 That way, who, careless of his phrase, ne'er lacked The right phrase, and harangued Honorius dumb At his accession, looked as all fell plumb To purpose and himself took interest In every point his new instructor pressed 345 ÄÄLeft playing with the rescript's white wax seal To scrutinize Sordello head to heel: Then means he ... yes, assent sure? Well? Alas, He said no more than, So it comes to pass That poesy, sooner than politics, 350 Makes fade young hair: to think his speech could fix Taurello! Then a flash; he knew the truth: So fantasies shall break and fritter youth That he has long ago lost earnestness, Lost will to work, lost power to express 355 Even the need of working! Ere the grave No more occasions now, though he should crave One such in right of superhuman toil To do what was undone, repair his spoil, Alter the PastÄÄnought brings again the chance! 360 Not that he was to die: he saw askance Protract the ignominious years beyond To dream inÄÄtime to hope and time despond, Remember and forget, be sad, rejoice As saved a trouble, suited to his choice, 365 ÄÄOne way or other idle life out, drop No few smooth verses by the wayÄÄfor prop A thyrsus these sad people should, the same, Pick up, set store by, and, so far from blame, Plant o'er his hearse convinced his better part 370 Survived him. Rather tear men out the heart Of the truth! Sordello muttered, and renewed His propositions for the Multitude. But Salinguerra who, the last attack, Threw himself in his ruffling corslet back 375 To hear the better, smilingly resumed Some task; beneath the carroch's warning boomed; He must decide with Tito; courteously He turned then, even seeming to agree With his admonisherÄÄ"Assist the Pope, 380 Extend his domination, fill the scope Of the Church based on All, by All, for AllÄÄ Change Secular to Evangelical"ÄÄ Echoing his very sentence: all seemed lost, When sudden he looked, laughingly almost, 385 To Palma: This opinion of your friend's For instance, would it answer Palma's ends? Best, were it not, turn Guelf, submit our Strength (Here he drew out his baldric to its length) To the Pope's KnowledgeÄÄletting Richard slip, 390 Wide to the walls throw ope your gates, equip Azzo with ... but no matter! Who'll subscribe To a trite censure of the minstrel tribe Henceforward? or pronounce, as Heinrich used, "Spear-heads for battle, burr-heads for the joust" 395 ÄÄWhen Constance, for his couplets, would promote Alcama from a parti-coloured coat To holding her lord's stirrup in the wars. Not that I see where couplet-making jars With common sense: at Mantua we had borne 400 This chanted, easier than their most forlorn Of bull-fights, that's indisputable! Brave! Whom vanity nigh slew, contempt shall save! All's at an end: a Troubadour suppose Mankind's to class him with their friends or foes? 405 A puny uncouth ailing vassal think The world and him in some especial link? Abrupt the visionary tether's burstÄÄ What's to reward or what to be amerced If a poor drudge, solicitous to dream 410 Deservingly, gets tangled by his theme So far as to conceit his knack or gift Or whatsoe'er it be of verse might lift The globe, a lever like the hand and head OfÄÄMen of Action, as the Jongleurs said, 415 ÄÄThe Great Men, in the people's dialect? And not a moment did this scorn affect Sordello: scorn the poet? They, for once, Asking "what was," obtained a full response. Bid Naddo think at Mantua, he had but 420 To look into his promptuary, put His hand on a set thought in a set speech: And was Sordello fitted thus for each Conjuncture? No wise; since within his soul Perception brooded unexpressed and whole: 425 A healthy spirit like a healthy frame Craves aliment in plenty and, the same, Changes, assimilates its aliment: Perceived Sordello, on a truth intent? Next day no formularies more you saw 430 Than figs or olives in a sated maw ÄÄ'Tis Knowledge whither such perceptions tend, They lose themselves in that, means to an end, The Many Old producing some One New, A Last unlike the First. If lies are true, 435 The Caliph Haroun's man of brass receives A meal, ay, millet grains and lettuce leaves Together in his stomach rattle looseÄÄ You find them perfect next day to produce But ne'er expect the man, on strength of that, 440 Can roll an iron camel-collar flat Like Haroun's self! I tell you, what was stored Parcel by parcel through his life, outpoured That eve, was, for that age, a novel thing: And round those three the People formed a ring, 445 Suspended their own vengeance, chose await The issue of this strife to reinstate Them in the right of taking itÄÄin fact He must be proved their lord ere they exact Amends for that lord's defalcation. Last, 450 A reason why the phrases flowed so fast Was in his quite forgetting for the time Himself in his amazement that his rhyme Disguised the royalty so much: he thereÄÄ They full face to himÄÄand yet unaware 455 Who was the King and who ... But if I lay On thine my spirit and compel obey His lordÄÄTaurello? Impotent to build Another Rome, but hardly so unskilled In what such builder should have been as brook 460 One shame beyond the charge that he forsook His function! Set me free that shame I bend A brow before, suppose new years to spend, Allow each chance, nor fruitlessly, recurÄÄ Measure thee with the Minstrel, then, demur 465 At any crown he claims! That I must cede As 'tis, my right to my especial meedÄÄ Confess you fitter help the world than I Ordained its champion from eternity, Is much: but to behold you scorn the post 470 I quit in your behalfÄÄas aught's to boast Unless you help the world! And while he rung The changes on this theme, the roof up-sprung, The sad walls of the presence-chamber died Into the distance, or, embowering vied 475 With far-away Goito's vine-frontier; And crowds of faces (only keeping clear The rose-light in the midst, his vantage-ground To fight their battle from) deep clustered round Sordello, with good wishes no mere breath, 480 Kind prayers for him no vapour, since, come death, Come life, he was fresh-sinewed every joint, Each bone new-marrowed as whom Gods anoint Though mortal to their rescue: now let sprawl The snaky volumes hither, Typhon's all 485 For Hercules to trampleÄÄgood report From Salinguerra's only to extort? So was I (closed he his inculcating A poet must be earth's essential king) So was I, royal so, and if I fail 490 'Tis not the royalty ye witness quail But one deposed who, caring not exert Its proper essence, trifled malapert With accidents insteadÄÄgood things assigned The herald of a better thing behindÄÄ 495 And, worthy through display of these, put forth Never the inmost all-surpassing worth That constitutes him King precisely since As yet no other creature may evince Its like: the power he took most pride to test, 500 Whereby all forms of life had been professed At pleasure, forms already on the earth, Was but a means to power whose novel birth Should, in its novelty, be kingship's proofÄÄ Now, whether he came near or kept aloof, 505 Those forms unalterable first to last Proved him her copy, not the protoplast Of Nature: what could come of being free By action to exhibit tree for tree, Bird, beast for beast and bird, or prove earth bore 510 A veritable man or woman more? Means to an end, such proofs; and what the end? Your essence, whatsoe'er it be, extendÄÄ Never contract! Already you include The multitude; now let the multitude 515 Include yourself, and the result is new; Themselves before, the multitude turn you; This were to live and move and have (in them) Your being, and secure a diadem That's to transmit (because no cycle yearns 520 Beyond itself, but on itself returns) When the full sphere in wane, the world o'erlaid Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still More potent than the last, of human Will, 525 And some new King depose the old. Of such Am IÄÄwhom pride of this elates too much? Safe, rather say, mid troops of peers again; I, with my words, hailed brother of the train Once deeds sufficed: for, let the world roll back, 530 Who fails, through deeds diverse so e'er, re-track My purpose still, my task? A teeming crustÄÄ Air, flame, earth, wave at conflictÄÄsee! Needs must Emerge some Calm embodied these refer (SaturnÄÄno yellow-bearded Jupiter!) 535 The brawl to; some existence like a pact And protest against Chaos, some first fact I' the faint of Time ... my deep of life, I know, Is unavailing e'en to poorly show (For here the Chief immeasurably yawned) 540 Deeds in their due gradation till Song dawnedÄÄ The fullest effluence of the finest mind All in degree, no way diverse in kind From those about us, minds which, more or less, Lofty or low, in moving seek impress 545 Themselves on somewhat; but one mind has climbed Step after step, by just ascent sublimed: Thought is the soul of act, and stage by stage, Is soul from body still to disengage As tending to a freedom which rejects 550 Such help and incorporeally affects The world, producing deeds but not by deeds, Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds, Assigning them the simpler tasks it used As patiently perform till Song produced 555 Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind: divest Mind of e'en Thought, and, lo, God's unexpressed Will dawns above us. But so much to win Ere that! A lesser round of steps within The last. About me, faces! and they flock, 560 The earnest faces! What shall I unlock By song? behold me prompt, whate'er it be, To minister: how much can mortals see Of Life? No more? I covet the first task And marshal you Life's elemental Masque 565 Of Men, on evil or on good lay stress, This light, this shade make prominent, suppress All ordinary hues that softening blend Such natures with the level: apprehend Which evil is, which good, if I allot 570 Your Hell, the Purgatory, Heaven ye wot, To those you doubt concerning: I enwomb Some wretched Friedrich with his red-hot tomb, Some dubious spirit, Lombard Agilulph With the black chastening river I engulph; 575 Some unapproached Matilda I enshrine With languors of the planet of declineÄÄ These fail to recognise, to arbitrate Between henceforth, to rightly estimate Thus marshalled in the Masque! Myself, the while, 580 As one of you, am witness, shrink or smile At my own showing! Next ageÄÄwhat's to do? The men and women stationed hitherto Will I unstation, good and bad, conduct Each nature to its farthest or obstruct 585 At soonest in the world: Light, thwarted, breaks A limpid purity to rainbow flakes, Or Shadow, helped, freezes to gloom: behold How such, with fit assistance to unfold, Or obstacles to crush them, disengage 590 Their forms, love, hate, hope, fear, peace make, war wage, In presence of you all! Myself implied Superior now, as, by the platform's side, Bidding them do and suffer to content The world ... noÄÄthat I wait notÄÄcircumvent 595 A few it has contented, and to these Offer unveil the last of mysteries I boast! Man's life shall have yet freer play: Once more I cast external things away And Natures, varied now, so decompose 600 That ... but enough! Why fancy how I rose, Or rather you advanced since evermore Yourselves effect what I was fain before Effect, what I supplied yourselves suggest, What I leave bare yourselves can now invest? 605 How we attained to talk as brothers talk, In half-words, call things by half-names, no balk From discontinuing old aidsÄÄTo-day Takes in account the work of YesterdayÄÄ Has not the world a Past now, its adept 610 Consults ere he dispense with or accept New aids? a single touch more may enhance, A touch less turn to insignificance Those structures' symmetry the Past has strewed Your world with, once so bare: leave the mere rude 615 Explicit details, 'tis but brother's speech We need, speech where an accent's change gives each The other's soulÄÄno speech to understand By former audienceÄÄneed was then expand, ExpatiateÄÄhardly were they brothers! trueÄÄ 620 Nor I lament my less remove from you, Nor reconstruct what stands already: ends Accomplished turn to means: my art intends New structure from the ancient: as they changed The spoils of every clime at Venice, ranged 625 The horned and snouted Libyan God, upright As in his desert, by some simple bright Clay cinerary pitcherÄÄThebes as Rome, Athens as Byzant rifled, till their Dome From Earth's reputed consummations razed 630 A seal the all-transmuting Triad blazed Above. Ah, whose that fortune? ne'ertheless E'en he must stoop contented to express No tithe of what's to sayÄÄthe vehicle Never sufficientÄÄbut his work is still 635 For faces like the faces that select A single service I am bound effect Nor murmur, bid me, still as poet, bow Taurello to the Guelf cause, disallow The Kaiser's comingÄÄwhich with heart, soul, strength, 640 I labour for, this eve, who feel at length My past career's outrageous vanity And would (as vain amends) die, even die Now I first estimate the boon of life, So death might bow TaurelloÄÄsure this strife 645 Is the last strifeÄÄthe People my support. My poor Sordello! what may we extort By this, I wonder? Palma's lighted eyes Turned to Taurello who, as past surprise, Began, You love himÄÄwhat you'd say at large 650 If I say briefly? First your father's charge To me, his friend, peruse: I guessed indeed You were no stranger to the course decreed Us both: I leave his children to the saints: As for a certain project, he acquaints 655 The Pope with that, and offers him the best Of your possessions to permit the rest Go peaceablyÄÄto Ecelin, a stripe Of soil the cursed Vicentines will gripe, ÄÄTo Alberic, a patch the Trevisan 660 Clutches already; extricate who can Treville, Villarazzi, Puissolo, Cartiglione, LoriaÄÄall go, And with them go my hopes! 'Tis lost, then! Lost This eve, our crisis, and some pains it cost 665 Procuring; thirty yearsÄÄas good I'd spent Like our admonisher! But each his bent PursuesÄÄno question, one might live absurd Oneself this while, by deed as he by word, Persisting to obtrude an influence where 670 'Tis made account of much as ... nay, you fare With twice the fortune, youngsterÄÄI submit, Happy to parallel my waste of wit With the renowned Sordello'sÄÄyou decide A course for meÄÄRomano may abide 675 Romano,ÄÄBacchus! Who'd suppose the dearth Of Ecelins and Alberics on earth? Say there's a thing in prospect, must disgrace Betide competitors? An obscure place Suits meÄÄthere wants youth, bustle, one to stalk 680 And attitudinizeÄÄsome fight, more talk, Most flaunting badgesÄÄ'twere not hard make clear Since Friedrich's very purposes lie here ÄÄHereÄÄpity they are like to lie! For me, Whose station's fixed unceremoniously 685 Long since, small use contesting; I am but The liegeman, you are born the liegesÄÄshut That gentle mouth now!ÄÄor resume your kin In your sweet self; Palma were Ecelin For me and welcome! Could that neck endure 690 This bauble for a cumbrous garniture You should ... or might one bear it for you? StayÄÄ I have not been so flattered many a day As by your pale friendÄÄBacchus! The least help Would lick the hind's fawn to a lion's whelpÄÄ 695 His neck is broad enoughÄÄa ready tongue BesideÄÄtoo writhledÄÄbut, the main thing, youngÄÄ I could ... why look ye! And the badge was thrown Across Sordello's neck: this badge alone Makes you Romano's HeadÄÄthe Lombard's Curb 700 Turns on your neck which would, on mine, disturb My pauldron, said Taurello. A mad act, Nor dreamed about a moment sinceÄÄin fact Not when his sportive arm rose for the nonceÄÄ But he had dallied overmuch, this once, 705 With power: the thing was done, and he, aware The thing was done, proceeded to declare (So like a nature made to serve, excel In serving, only feel by service well) That he should make him all he said and more: 710 As good a scheme as any: what's to pore At in my face? he askedÄÄponder instead This piece of news; you are Romano's HeadÄÄ One cannot slacken pace so near the goal, Suffer my Azzo to escape heart-whole 715 This time! For you there's Palma to espouseÄÄ For me, one crowning trouble ere I house Like my compeer. On which ensued a strange And solemn visitationÄÄmighty change O'er every one of themÄÄeach looked on eachÄÄ 720 Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech, And when the giddiness sank and the haze Subsided, they were sitting, no amaze, Sordello with the baldric on, his sire Silent though his proportions seemed aspire 725 Momently; and, interpreting the thrill Nigh at its ebb, Palma you found was still Relating somewhat Adelaide confessed A year ago, while dying on her breast, Of a contrivance that Vicenza night, 730 Her Ecelin had birth: their convoy's flight Cut off a moment, coiled inside the flame That wallowed like a dragon at his game The toppling city throughÄÄSan Biagio rocks! And wounded lies in her delicious locks 735 Retrude, the frail mother, on her face, None of her wasted, just in one embrace Covering her child: when, as they lifted her, Cleaving the tumult, mighty, mightier And mightiest Taurello's cry outbroke, 740 Leapt like a tongue of fire that cleaves the smoke, Midmost to cheer his Mantuans onwardÄÄdrown His colleague's clamour, Ecelin's, up, down The disarray: failed Adelaide see then Who was the natural Chief, the Man of Men? 745 Outstripping time her Ecelin burst swathe, Stood up with haggard eyes beyond the scathe From wandering after his heritage Lost once and lost for ayeÄÄwhat could engage That deprecating glance? A new Shape leant 750 On a familiar ShapeÄÄgloatingly bent O'er his discomfiture; 'mid wreaths it wore, Still one outflamed the restÄÄher child's before 'Twas Salinguerra's for his child: scorn, hate, Rage, startled her from EcelinÄÄtoo late! 755 A moment's work, and rival's foot had spurned Never that brow to earth! Ere sense returnedÄÄ The act conceived, adventured, and complete, They stole away towards an obscure retreat Mother and childÄÄRetrude's self not slain 760 (Nor even here Taurello moved) though pain Was fled; and what assured them most 'twas fled, All pain, was, if you raised the pale hushed head 'Twould turn this way and that, waver awhile, And only settle into its old smile 765 (Graceful as the disquieted water-flag Steadying itself, remarked they, in the quag On either side their path) when suffered look Downward: they marched: no sign of life once shook The company's close litter of crossed spears 770 Till, as they reached Goito, a few tears Slipt in the sunset from her long black lash, And she was gone. So far the action rashÄÄ No crime. They laid Retrude in the font, Taurello's very gift, her child was wont 775 To sit beneathÄÄconstant as eve he came To sit by its attendant girls the same As one of them. For Palma, she would blend With this magnific spirit to the end That ruled her firstÄÄbut scarcely had she dared 780 To disobey the Adelaide who scared Her into vowing never to disclose A secret to her husband which so froze His blood at half recital she contrived To hide from him Taurello's infant lived 785 Lest, by revealing that, himself should mar Romano's fortunes: and, a crime so far, Palma received that action: she was told Of Salinguerra's nature, and his cold Calm acquiescence in his lot! But free 790 Impart the secret to Romano, she Engaged to repossess Sordello of His heritage, and hers, and that way doff The mask, but after years, long years!ÄÄwhile now Was not Romano's sign-mark on that brow? 795 Across Taurello's heart his arms were locked: And 'twas, when speak he did, as if he mocked The minstrel, who had not to move, he said, Not stirÄÄshould Fate defraud him of a shred Of this son's infancy? much less of youth 800 (Laughingly all this) which to aid, in truth, Himself, reserved on purpose, had not grown Old, not too oldÄÄ'twas better keep alone Till now, and never idly meet till now: ÄÄThen, in the same breath, told Sordello how 805 The intimations of this eve's event Were futileÄÄFriedrich means advance to Trent, Thence to Verona, then to RomeÄÄthere stopÄÄ Tumble the Church down, institute a-top The Alps a Prefecture of Lombardy: 810 ÄÄThat's nowÄÄno prophesying what may be Anon, beneath a monarch of the clime, Native of Gesi, passing his youth's prime At Naples. Tito bids my choice decide On whom ... Embrace him, madman! Palma cried 815 Who through the laugh saw sweatdrops burst apace And his lips' blanching: he did not embrace Sordello, but he laid Sordello's hand On his own eyes, mouth, forehead. Understand, This while Sordello was becoming flushed 820 Out of his whiteness; thoughts rushed, fancies rushed; He pressed his hand upon his head and signed Both should forebear him. Nay, the best's behind! Taurello laughedÄÄnot quite with the same laugh: The truth is, thus you scatter, ay, like chaff 825 The Guelfs a despicable monk recoils FromÄÄnor expect a fickle Kaiser spoils Our triumph!ÄÄFriedrich? Think you I intend Friedrich shall reap the fruits of blood I spend And brain I waste? Think you the people clap 830 Their hands at my out-hewing this wild gap For any Friedrich to fill up? 'Tis mineÄÄ That's yours: I tell you towards some such design Have I worked blindly, yes, and idly, yes, And for another, yesÄÄbut worked no less 835 With instinct at my heart; I else had swerved, While nowÄÄlook round! My cunning has preserved SamminiatoÄÄthat's a central place Secures us Florence, boy, in Pisa's case By land as she by sea; with Pisa ours, 840 And Florence, and Pistoia, one devours The land at leisure! Gloriously dispersedÄÄ Brescia, observe, Milan, Piacenza first That flanked us (ah, you know not!) in the March; On these we pile, as keystone of our arch, 845 Romagna and Bologna, whose first span Covered the Trentine and the Valsugan; Sofia's Egna by Bolgiano's sure ... So he proceeded. Half of all this pure Delusion, doubtless, nor the rest too true, 850 But what was undone he felt sure to do As ring by ring he wrung off, flung away The pauldron-rings to give his sword-arm playÄÄ Need of the sword now! That would soon adjust Aught wrong at present; to the sword intrust 855 Sordello's whiteness, undersize; 'twas plain He hardly rendered right to his own brainÄÄ Like a brave hound men educate to pride Himself on speed or scent nor aught beside, As though he could not, gift by gift, match men! 860 Palma had listened patiently: but when 'Twas time expostulate, attempt withdraw Taurello from his child, she, without awe Took off his iron arms from, one by one, Sordello's shrinking shoulders, and, that done, 865 Made him avert his visage and relieve Sordello (you might see his corslet heave The while) who, loose, roseÄÄtried to speakÄÄthen sank: They left him in the chamberÄÄall was blank. And even reeling down the castle-stair 870 Taurello kept up, as though unaware Palma was guide to him, the old device ÄÄSomething of MilanÄÄhow we muster thrice The Torriani's strength thereÄÄall along Our own Visconti cowed themÄÄthus the song 875 Continued even while she bade him stoop, Thrid somehow, by some glimpse of arrow-loop, The turnings to the gallery below, Where he stopped short as Palma let him go. When he had sate in silence long enough 880 Splintering the stone bench, braving a rebuff She stopt the truncheon; only to commence One of Sordello's poems, a pretence For speaking, some poor rhyme of Elys' hair And head that's sharp and perfect like a pear, 885 So smooth and close are laid the few fine locks Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks Sun-blanched the livelong SummerÄÄfrom his worst Performance, the Goito, as his first: And that at end, conceiving from the brow 890 And open mouth no silence would serve now, Went on to say the whole world loved that man And, for that matter, thought his face, tho' wan, Eclipsed the Count'sÄÄhe sucking in each phrase As if an angel spoke: the foolish praise 895 Ended, he drew her on his mailed knees, made Her face a frame-work with his hands, a shade, A crown, an aureoleÄÄthere must she remain (Her little mouth compressed with smiling pain As in his gloves she felt her tresses twitch) 900 To get the best look at, in fittest niche Dispose his saint; that done, he kissed her browÄÄ Lauded her father for his treason now, He told her, only how could one suspect The wit in him? whose clansman, recollect, 905 Was ever SalinguerraÄÄshe, the same, Romano and his ladyÄÄso might claim To know all, as she shouldÄÄand thus begun Schemes with a vengeance, schemes on schemes, not one Fit to be told that foolish boy, he said, 910 But only let Sordello Palma wed, ÄÄThen! 'Twas a dim long narrow place at best: Midway a sole grate showed the fiery West As shows its corpse the world's end some split tombÄÄ A gloom, a rift of fire, another gloom 915 Faced PalmaÄÄbut at length Taurello set Her free; the grating held one ragged jet Of fierce gold fire: he lifted her within The hollow underneathÄÄhow else begin Fate's second marvellous cycle, else renew 920 The ages than with Palma plain in view? Then paced the passage, hands clenched, head erect, Pursuing his discourse; a grand unchecked Monotony made out from his quick talk And the recurring noises of his walk; 925 ÄÄSomewhat too much like the o'ercharged assent Of two resolved friends in one danger blent, Who hearten each the other against heartÄÄ Boasting there's nought to care for, when, apart The boaster, all's to care for: he, beside 930 Some shape not visible, in power and pride Approached, out of the dark, ginglingly near, Nearer, passed close in the broad light, his ear Crimson, eyeballs suffused, temples full-fraught, Just a snatch of the rapid speech you caught, 935 And on he strode into the opposite dark Till presently the harsh heel's turn, a spark I' the stone, and whirl of some loose embossed thong That crashed against the angle aye so long After the last, punctual to an amount 940 Of mailed great paces you could not but count, Prepared you for the pacing back again: And by the snatches might you ascertain That, Friedrich's Prefecture surmounted, left By this alone in Italy, they cleft 945 Asunder, crushed together, at command Of none, were free to break up Hildebrand, Rebuild, he and Sordello, CharlemagneÄÄ But garnished, Strength with Knowledge, if we deign Accept that compromise and stoop to give 950 Rome law, the Caesars' Representative. ÄÄEnough that the illimitable flood Of triumphs after triumphs, understood In its faint reflux (you shall hear) sufficed Young Ecelin for appanage, enticed 955 Him till, these long since quiet in their graves, He found 'twas looked for that a long life's braves Should somehow be made goodÄÄso, weak and worn, Must stagger up at Milan, one grey morn Of the To-Come, to fight his latest fight. 960 And Salinguerra's prophecy at heightÄÄ He voluble with a raised arm and stiff, A blaring voice, a blazing eye, as if He had our very Italy to keep Or cast away, or gather in a heap 965 To garrison the betterÄÄay, his word Was, "run the cucumber into a gourd, Drive Trent upon Apulia"ÄÄat their pitch Who spied the continents and islands which Grew sickles, mulberry leaflets in the mapÄÄ 970 (Strange that three such confessions so should hap To Palma Dante spoke with in the clear Amorous silence of the Swooning-sphere,ÄÄ Cunizza, as he called her! Never ask Of Palma more! She sate, knowing her task 975 Was done, the labour of itÄÄfor success Concerned not Palma, passion's votaress) Triumph at height, I say, Sordello crownedÄÄ Above the passage suddenly a sound Stops speech, stops walk: back shrinks Taurello, bids 980 With large involuntary asking lids Palma interpret. 'Tis his own foot-stampÄÄ Your hand! His summons! Nay, this idle damp Befits not. Out they two reeled dizzily: "Visconti's strong at Milan," resumed he 985 In the old somewhat insignificant way (Was Palma wont years afterward to say) As though the spirit's flight sustained thus far Dropped at that very instant. Gone they areÄÄ Palma, Taurello; Eglamor anon, 990 Ecelin, Alberic ... ah, Naddo's gone! ÄÄLabours this moonrise what the Master meant: "Is Squarcialupo speckled?ÄÄpurulent I'd say, but when was Providence put out? He carries somehow handily about 995 His spite nor fouls himself!" Goito's vines Stand like a cheat detectedÄÄstark rough lines The moon breaks through, a grey mean scale against The vault where, this eve's Maiden, thou remain'st Like some fresh martyr, eyes fixedÄÄwho can tell? 1000 As Heaven, now all's at end, did not so well Spite of the faith and victory, to leave Its virgin quite to death in the lone eve: While the persisting hermit-bee ... ha! wait No longerÄÄthese in compass, forward fate!  Book the Sixth. The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought, And yet a false one, was, Man shrinks to nought If matched with symbols of immensityÄÄ Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky 5 Or sea, too little for their quietude: And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood Confirmed its speciousness while evening sank Down the near terrace to the further bank, And only one spot left out of the night 10 Glimmered upon the river oppositeÄÄ 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, 15 Tumultuary splendours 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 20 Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone) Aroused him,ÄÄsurely offered succour; fate Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate Herself ... put off strange after-thoughts awhile, That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile ... 25 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, His truth, like yonder slow moon to complete 30 Heaven, rose again, and naked at his feet Lighted his old life's every shift and change, Effort with counter-effort; nor the range Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked Some otherÄÄwhich of these could he suspect 35 Prying into them by the sudden blaze? The real way seemed made up of all the waysÄÄ Mood after mood of the one mind in him; Tokens of the existence, bright or dim, Of a transcendent all-embracing sense 40 Demanding only outward influence, A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul, Power to uplift his power, this moon's control Over the sea-depths, and their mass had swept Onward from the beginning and still kept 45 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 50 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 reefÄÄfound place 55 For myriad charms; 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 strengths not half his own, yet had some core 60 Within, submitted to some moon, before It still, superior still whate'er its force, Were able therefore to fulfil a course Nor missed Life's crown, authentic attributeÄÄ To each who lives must be a certain fruit 65 Of having lived in his degree, a stage Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage, To stop at; and to which those spirits tend Who, still discovering beauty without end, Amass the scintillations for one star 70 ÄÄSomething 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 Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway, 75 Round to the perfect circleÄÄsoon or late According as themselves are formed to wait; Whether 'tis human beauty will suffice ÄÄThe yellow hair and the luxurious eyes, Or human intellect seem best, or each 80 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, That may be servedÄÄall this they do not lose, Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose 85 What Hell shall beÄÄa progress thus pursued Through all existence, still above the food That's offered them, still towering beyond The widened range in virtue of their bond Of sovereignty: not that a Palma's Love, 90 A Salinguerra's Hate would equal prove To swaying all Sordello: wherefore doubt Love meet for such a Strength, some Moon's without To match his Sea?ÄÄfear, Good so manifest, Only the Best breaks faith?ÄÄbut that the Best 95 Somehow eludes us ever, still might be And is not: crave you gems? where's penury Of their material round us? pliant earth, The plastic flameÄÄwhat balks the Mage his birth ÄÄJacynth in balls, or lodestone by the block? 100 Flinders enrich the strand and veins the rockÄÄ No more! Ask creatures? Life in tempest, Thought Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught With fervors ... ah, these forms are well enoughÄÄ But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff 105 Profuse at Nature's pleasure, Men beyond These Men! and thus, perchance, are over-fond In arguing, from Good the Best, from force DividedÄÄforce combined, an ocean's course From this our sea whose mere intestine pants 110 Had seemed at times sufficient to our wants. ÄÄExternal Power? If none be adequate And he have been ordained (a prouder fate) A law to his own sphere? the need remove All incompleteness be that law, that love? 115 Nay, really such be other's laws, though veiled In mercy to each vision that had failed If unassisted by its Want, for lure, Embodied? stronger vision could endure The simple wantÄÄno bauble for a truth! 120 The People were himself; and by the ruth At their condition was he less impelled Alter the discrepancy he beheld Than if, from the sound Whole, a sickly Part Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art, 125 Then palmed on him as alien woeÄÄthe Guelf To succour, proud that he forsook himself? No: All's himselfÄÄall service, therefore, rates Alike, nor serving one part, immolates The rest: but all in time! That lance of yours 130 Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors, That buckler's lined with many a Giant's beard Ere long, Porphyrio, be the lance but reared, The buckler wielded handsomely as now; But view your escort, bear in mind your vow, 135 Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that, And, if you hope we struggle through this flat, Put lance and buckler upÄÄnext half-month lacks A sturdy exercise of mace or axe To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear 140 That bristling holds Cydippe by the hair, Lames barefoot Agathon. Oh, People, urge Your claims!ÄÄfor thus he ventured to the verge Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust 145 No less: accordingly the CrowdÄÄas yet He had inconsciously contrived forget To dwell upon the points ... one might assuage The signal horrors sooner than engage With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief 150 Not to be fancied off, obtain relief In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk, But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work To correspondÄÄhowever, forth they stood: And now content thy stronger vision, brood 155 On thy bare want; the grave stript turf by turf, Study the corpse-face thro' the taint-worms' scurf! Down sank the People's Then; uprose their Now. These sad ones render service to! And how Piteously little must that service prove 160 ÄÄHad surely proved in any case! for move Each other obstacle away, let youth Have been aware it had surprised a Truth 'Twere service to impartÄÄcan Truth be seized, Settled forthwith, and of the captive eased 165 Its captor look around, since this alit So happily, no gesture luring it, The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain, Most vain! a life's to spend ere this he chain, To the poor crowd's complacence; ere the crowd 170 Pronounce it captured he descries a cloud Its kin of twice the plumageÄÄhe, in turn, If he shall live as many lives, may learn SecureÄÄnot otherwise. Then Mantua called Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled 175 ÄÄBuds blasted, but of breaths more like perfumes Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion blooms Could boastÄÄsome rose that burnt heart out in sweets, A spendthrift in the Spring, no Summer greetsÄÄ Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine, 180 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 185 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 Its course aright, been really in the world Content the while with some mean spark by dint 190 Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint Of buried fire, which, rip its breast, would stream Sky-ward! Sordello's miserable gleam Was looked for at the moment: he would dash This badge to earth and all it brought, abash 195 Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest The Kaiser from his purpose; would attest His constancy in any case. Before He dashes it, however, think once more! For, was that little truly service? AyÄÄ 200 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 the To-come 205 With evidence of goodÄÄnor too minute A share to vie with evil! How dispute The Guelfs were fitliest maintained in rule? That made the life's work: not so easy school Your day's workÄÄsay, on natures circumstanced 210 So variously, which yet, as each advanced Or might impede that Guelf rule, it behoved You, for the Then's sake, hate what Now you loved, Love what you hated; nor if one man bore Brand upon temples while his fellow wore 215 The aureole, would it task us to decideÄÄ 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, 220 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, trueÄÄbut work performed at cost Of other workÄÄaught gained here, elsewhere lostÄÄ 225 For a new segment spoil an orb half-doneÄÄ Rise with the People one step, and sink ... one? Would it were one stepÄÄless than the whole face Of things our novel duty bids erase! Harms are to vanquish; what? the Prophet saith, 230 The Minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith, Old courage, born of the surrounding harms, Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms? Oh, flame persists but is not glare as stanch? Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branchÄÄ 235 Blood dries to crimsonÄÄEvil's beautified In every shape! But Beauty thrust aside You banish Evil: wherefore? After all Is Evil our result less natural Than Good? For overlook the Seasons' strife 240 With tree and flowerÄÄthe hideous animal life, Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt For his solution, must endure the vaunt Of Nature's angel, as a child that knows Himself befooled, unable to propose 245 Aught better than the foolingÄÄand but care For Men, the varied People then and there, Of which 'tis easy saying Good and Ill Claim him alike! Whence rose the claim but still From Ill, the fruit of IllÄÄwhat else could knit 250 Him theirs but Sorrow? Any free from it Were also free from him! A happiness Could be distinguished in this morning's press Of miseriesÄÄthe fool's who passed a gibe On one, said he, so wedded to his tribe 255 He carries green and yellow tokens in His very face that he's a GhibellinÄÄ Much hold on him that fool obtained! Nay mount Yet higher; and upon Men's own account Must Evil stay: for what is Joy? To heave 260 Up one obstruction more, and common leave What was peculiarÄÄby this act destroy Itself; a partial death is every joy; The sensible escape, enfranchisement Of a sphere's essence: once the vexedÄÄcontent, 265 The crampedÄÄat large, the growing circleÄÄround, All's to begin againÄÄsome novel bound To break, some new enlargement's to entreat, The sphere though larger is not more complete. Now for Mankind's experience: who alone 270 Might style the unobstructed world his own? Whom palled Goito with its perfect things? Sordello's self; whereas for Mankind springs SalvationÄÄhindrances are interposed For them, not all Life's view at once disclosed 275 To creatures sudden on its summit left With Heaven above and yet of wings bereftÄÄ But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot Where, range on range, the girdling forests shoot Between the prospect and the throngs who scale 280 Earnestly ever, piercing veil by veil, Confirmed with each discovery; in their soul The Whole they seek by PartsÄÄbut, found that Whole, Could they revert? Oh, testify! The space Of time we judge so meagre to embrace 285 The Parts, were more than plenty, once attained The Whole, to quite exhaust it: for nought's gained But leave to lookÄÄno leave to do: Beneath Soon sates the lookerÄÄlook Above, then! Death Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live 290 First, and die soon enough, Sordello! Give Body and spirit the bare right they claim To pasture thee on a voluptuous shame That thou, a pageant-city's denizen, Art neither vilely lodged midst Lombard menÄÄ 295 Canst force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck Thine attributes away for sordid muck, Yet manage from that very muck educe Gold; then subject, nor scruple, to thy cruce The world's discardings; think, if ingots pay 300 Such pains, the clods that yielded them are clay To all save thee, and clay remain though quenched Thy purging-fire; who's robbed then? Would I wrenched An ample treasure forth!ÄÄAs 'tis, why crave A share that ruins me and will not save 305 Yourselves?ÄÄimperiously command I quit The course that makes my joy nor will remit Your woe? Would all arrive at joy? Reverse The order (time instructs you) nor coerce Each unit till, some predetermined mode, 310 The total be emancipate; our road Is one, our 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, 315 Why grudge my having gained a month ago The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow, While you were landlocked? Speed your Then, but how This badge would suffer me improve my Now! His time of action for, against, or with 320 Our world (I labour to extract the pith Of this and more) grew up, that even-tide, Gigantic with its power of joy beside The world's eternity of impotence To profit though at all his joy's expense. 325 Make nothing of that time because so brief? Rather make moreÄÄinstead of joy take grief Before its novelty have time subside; No time for the late savourÄÄleave untried Virtue, the creaming honey wine, quick squeeze 330 Vice like a biting spirit from the lees Of lifeÄÄtogether 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 doubtÄÄ 335 But long ere then Sordello will have slipt AwayÄÄyou 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 dust as, quiet, makes a mass 340 Unable to produce three tufts of grass, Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void The whole calm glebe's endeavour: be employed! And e'en though somewhat smarts the Crowd for this, Contributes each his pang to make up bliss, 345 'Tis but one pangÄÄone blood-drop to the bowl Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl So quick, stains ruddily the dull red cape, And, kindling orbs dull as the unripe grape Before, avails forthwith to disentrance 350 The mischiefÄÄsoon to lead a mystic dance Among you! Nay, who sits alone in Rome? Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home For meÄÄcompelled to live? Oh Life, life-breath, Life-blood,ÄÄere sleep be travail, life ere death! 355 This life to feed my soul, direct, oblique, But alway feeding! Hindrances? They piqueÄÄ Helps? such ... but wherefore say my soul o'ertops All heightÄÄthan every depth profounder drops? Enough that I can live, and would live! Wait 360 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 PerchanceÄÄso facile was the deed, she chequed The void with these materials to affect 365 That soul diverselyÄÄthese consigned anew To nought by death, why marvel if she threw A second and superber spectacle Before it? What may serve for sunÄÄwhat still Wander a moon above meÄÄwhat else wind 370 About me like the pleasures left behind? And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh Cling to me? what's new laughterÄÄsoothes the fresh Sleep like sleep? Fate's exhaustless for my sake In brave resource, but whether bids she slake 375 My thirst at this first rivulet or count No draught worth lip save from the rocky fount Above i' the clouds, while here she's provident Of (taste) loquacious pearl the soft tree-tent Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail 380 The silver globules and gold-sparkling grail At bottomÄÄOh, 'twere too absurd to slight For the hereafter the to-day's delight! Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-springÄÄwear Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair! 385 Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart Offer to serve, contented for my part To give this life up once for all, but grant I really serve; if otherwise, why want Aught further of me? Life they cannot chuse 390 But set asideÄÄwherefore should I refuse The gift? I take itÄÄI, for one, engage Never to falter through the pilgrimageÄÄ Or end it howling that the stock or stone Were enviable, truly: I, for one, 395 Will praise the world you style mere anteroom To the true palaceÄÄbut shall I assume ÄÄMy foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope, My eye the glance, before the doors fly ope One moment? WhatÄÄwith guarders row on row, 400 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 405 'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder; whyÄÄ Admitted to the presence by and by, Should thought of these recurring make me grieve Among new sights I reach, old sights I leave? ÄÄCool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stoneÄÄ 410 Bare floor-work too!ÄÄBut did I let alone That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule Once and for ever?ÄÄFloor-work? No such fool! Rather, were Heaven to forestal Earth, I'd say Must I be blessed or you? Then my own way 415 Bless meÄÄa firmer arm, a fleeter foot, I'll thank you, but to no mad wings transmute These limbs of mineÄÄour greensward is too soft; Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloftÄÄ We feel the bliss distinctlier having thus 420 Engines subservient, not mixed up with usÄÄ Better move palpably through HeavenÄÄnor, freed Of flesh forsooth, from space to space proceed 'Mid flying synods of worldsÄÄbut in Heaven's marge Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe 425 Solid with starsÄÄthe 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 430 So oft a better life this life concealed And which sage, champion, martyr, thro' each path Have hunted fearlesslyÄÄthe horrid bath, The crippling-irons and the fiery chair: ÄÄ'Twas well for them; let me become aware 435 As they, and I relinquish Life, too! Let Life's secret but disclose itself! Forget Vain ordinances, I have one appealÄÄ I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel ÄÄSo much is Truth to meÄÄWhat Is then? Since 440 One object viewed diversely may evince Beauty and uglinessÄÄthis way attract, That way repel, why gloze upon the fact? Why must a single of the sides be right? Who bids choose this and leave its opposite? 445 No abstract Right for meÄÄin youth endued With Right still present, still to be pursued, Thro' all the interchange of circles, rife Each with its proper law and mode of life, Each to be dwelt at ease in: thus to sway 450 Regally with the Kaiser, or obey Implicit with his Serf of fluttering heart, Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start Up in the presence, then go forth and shout That some should pick the unstrung jewels outÄÄ Were well! 455 And, as in moments when the Past Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast Himself quite thro' mere secondary states Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates, Into the mid vague yearnings overlaid 460 By these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade, And so into the very nucleus probe That first determined there exist a Globe: And as that's easiest half the globe dissolved, So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved 465 In his flesh-half's break upÄÄthe 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, 470 Might be but Modes of Time and this one Sphere, Urgent on these but not of force to bind As TimeÄÄEternity, as MatterÄÄMind, If Mind, Eternity shall choose assert Their attributes within a Life: thus girt 475 With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct Quite otherwiseÄÄwith Good and Ill distinct, Joys, sorrows, tending to a like resultÄÄ Contrived to render easy, difficult, This or the other course of ... what new bond 480 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. 485 What made the secret of the past despair? (Most imminent when he seemed most aware Of greatness in the PastÄÄnought turned him mad Like craving to expand the power he had, Not a new power to be expanded)ÄÄjust 490 This made it; Soul on Matter being thrust, 'Tis Joy when so much Soul is wreaked in Time On Matter,ÄÄlet the Soul attempt sublime Matter beyond its scheme and so prevent Or more or less that deed's accomplishment, 495 And Sorrow follows: Sorrow to avoidÄÄ Let the Employer match the thing Employed, Fit to the finite his infinity, And thus proceed for ever, in degree Changed but in kind the same, still limited 500 To the appointed circumstance and dead To all beyond: a sphere is but a sphereÄÄ Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy hereÄÄ Since to the spirit's absoluteness all Are like: now of the present sphere we call 505 Life, are conditionsÄÄtake but this among Many; the Body was to be so long Youthful, no longerÄÄbut, since no control Tied to that Body's purposes his soul, It chose to understand the Body's trade 510 More than the Body's selfÄÄhad fain conveyed Its boundless, to the body's bounded lotÄÄ So, the soul permanent, the body not,ÄÄ Scarce the one minute for enjoying here, The soul must needs instruct its weak compeer, 515 Run o'er its capabilities and wring A joy thence it holds worth experiencingÄÄ Which, far from half discovered even,ÄÄlo, The minute's gone, the body's power's let go Apportioned to that joy's acquirement! Broke, 520 Say, morning o'er the earth and all it wokeÄÄ From the volcano's vapour-flag to hoist Black o'er the spread of sea, to the low moist Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain, Swayed earthwards, heavily to raise againÄÄ 525 (The Small a sphere as perfect as the Great To the soul's absoluteness)ÄÄmeditate On such an Autumn-morning's cluster-chord And the whole music it was framed afford, And, the chord's might discovered, what should pluck 530 One string, the finger, was found palsy-struck. And then what marvel if the Spirit, shown A saddest sightÄÄthe Body lost alone Thro' its officious proffered help, deprived Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived, 535 Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,ÄÄ Vain gloriously were fain, for recompense, To stem the ruin even yet, protract The Body's term, supply the power it lacked From its infinity, compel it learn 540 These qualities were only Time's concern, That Body may, with its assistance, barredÄÄ Advance the same, vanquishedÄÄobtain reward, Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow, Of Wrong make Right and turn Ill Good belowÄÄ 545 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 550 Series of spheresÄÄEternity, his soul Exceeded, so was incomplete for, each One sphereÄÄour Time. But does our knowledge reach No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke But by the failing of the fleshly yoke, 555 Its loves and hates, as now when they let soar The spirit, self-sufficient as before, Tho' but the single space that shall elapse 'Twixt its enthralment in new bonds perhaps? Must Life be ever but escaped, which should 560 Have been enjoyed? nay, might have been and would, Once ordered rightly, and a Soul's no whit More than the Body's purpose under it (A breadth of watery heaven like a bay, A sky-like space of water, ray for ray 565 And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary splendours folded in To die) and which thus, far from first begin Exciting discontent, had surest quelled 570 The Body if aspiring it rebelled. But how so order Life? Still brutalize The soul, the sad world's methodÄÄmuffled eyes To all that was before, shall after be This sphereÄÄand every other quality 575 Save some sole and immutable Great and Good And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood To follow? Never may some soul see All ÄÄThe Great before and after and the Small Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore, 580 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 585 Nature has plied with all her meansÄÄfrom trees And flowersÄÄe'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. A Power above him still 590 Which, utterly incomprehensible, Is out of rivalry, which thus he can Love, tho' unloving all conceived by ManÄÄ What need! And ofÄÄnone the minutest duct To that out-Nature, nought that would instruct 595 And so let rivalry begin to liveÄÄ But of a Power its representative Who, being for authority the same, Communication different, should claim A course the first chose and this last revealedÄÄ 600 This Human clear, as that Divine concealedÄÄ The utter need! What has Sordello found? Or can his spirit go the mighty round At length, end where our souls begun? as says Old fable, the two doves were sent two ways 605 About the worldÄÄwhere in the midst they met Tho' on a shifting waste of sand, men set Jove's temple? Quick, what has Sordello found? For they approachÄÄapproachÄÄthat foot's rebound .. Palma? No, Salinguerra tho' in mail; 610 They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil AsideÄÄand 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 615 Help from above in his extreme despair And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there With short and passionate cry; as Palma prest In one great kiss her lips upon his breast It beat. By this the hermit-bee has stopped 620 His day's toil at GoitoÄÄthe new-cropped Dead vine-leaf answers, now 'tis eve, he bit, Twirled so, and filed all dayÄÄthe mansion's fit God counselled for; as easy guess the word That passed betwixt them and become the third 625 To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax Him with one faultÄÄso no remembrance racks Of the stone maidens and the font of stone He, creeping thro' the crevice, leaves aloneÄÄ Alas, my friendÄÄAlas Sordello! whom 630 Anon we laid within that cold font-tombÄÄ 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 635 May fight their fiercest? If Count Richard sulked In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct, Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure, Was peace; our chief made some frank overture That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast 640 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, no further tried to cope 645 With Este that mad evening's style, but sent Away the Legate and the League, content No blame at least the brothers had incurred, ÄÄDespatched a message to the Monk he heard Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at, 650 Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat And ne'er spoke more,ÄÄinformed the Ferrarese He but retained their rule so long as these Lingered in pupilageÄÄand last, no mode Apparent else of keeping safe the road 655 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 perplexedÄÄ (Sofia being youngest of the tribe 660 Of daughters Ecelin was wont to bribe The envious magnates withÄÄnor since he sent Enrico Egna this fair child had Trent Once failed the Kaiser's purposesÄÄwe lost Egna last year, and who takes Egna's postÄÄ 665 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 670 Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams, Was sucked into Romano: and so hushed He up this evening's work, that when 'twas brushed Somehow against by a blind chronicle Which, chronicling whatever woe befell 675 Ferrara, scented this the obscure woe And "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 he meant. The chaps 680 Of his dead hope were tardy to collapse, Obliterated not the beautiful Distinctive features at a crashÄÄscarce dull Next year, as Azzo, Boniface withdrew Each to his stronghold; then (securely too 685 Ecelin at Campese sleptÄÄclose by Who likes may see him in Solagna lie With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote The Cavalier he was)ÄÄthen his heart smote Young Ecelin, conceive! Long since adult, 690 And, save Vicenza's business, what result In blood and blaze? so hard 'twas intercept Sordello till Sordello's option! Stept Its lord on LombardyÄÄfor in the nick Of time when he at last and Alberic 695 Closed with Taurello, came precisely news That in Verona half the souls refuse Allegiance to the Marquis and the CountÄÄ Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount, Their Podesta, thro' his ancestral worth: 700 Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth Was wholly hisÄÄTaurello sinking back From temporary station to a track That suited: news received of this acquist, Friedrich did come to LombardyÄÄwho missed 705 Taurello? Yet another yearÄÄthey took Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three After conspired to call themselves "the Free," Opposing Alberic, these Bassanese, 710 (Without Sordello!)ÄÄEcelin 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: 715 More years passed, and that sire was dwindled down To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown Better through age, his parts still in repute, SubtleÄÄhow else?ÄÄbut hardly so astute As his contemporaneous friends professedÄÄ 720 Undoubtedly a brawlerÄÄfor the rest, Known by each neighbour, so allowed for, let Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret Men who had missed their boyhood's bugbearÄÄtrap The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap 725 A battered pinionÄÄwas the word. In fine, One flap too much and Venice's marine Was meddled with; no overlooking that! We captured him in his Ferrara, fat And florid at a banquet, more by fraud 730 Than force, to speak the truthÄÄthere's slender laud Ascribed you for assisting eighty years To pull his death on such a manÄÄfate shears The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads You fritter: so, presiding his board-head, 735 A great 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, just amends For the shame done his eighty yearsÄÄapart 740 The principle, none found it in his heart To be much angry with TaurelloÄÄgained Our galleys with the prize, and what remained But carry him to Venice for a show? ÄÄSet him, as 'twere, down gentlyÄÄfree to go 745 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, 750 All but a monarch once in firm-land, go His gait among us nowÄÄit took, indeed, Fully this Ecelin to supersede That man, remarked the seniors. Singular Sordello's inability to bar 755 Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought About by his strange disbelief that aught Was to be done, should fairly thrust the Twain Under Taurello's tutelage, that, brain And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod 760 Indissolubly bound to baffle God Who loves the worldÄÄshould thus allow the thin Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin, And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic (Mere man, alas) to put his problem quick 765 To demonstrationÄÄprove wherever's will To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill Or good: anointed, then, to rend and ripÄÄ Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip, They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand 770 (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 Ru 775 By San Zenon where Alberic in turn Saw his exasperated captors burn Seven children with their mother, and, regaled So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed To death through raunce and bramble-bush: I take 780 God's part and testify that mid the brake Wild o'er his castle on Zenone's knoll You hear its one tower left, a belfry, tollÄÄ Cherups the contumacious grasshopper, Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre 785 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 Five years ago, no more: he added, June's 790 A month for carding off our first cocoons The silkworms fabricateÄÄa 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, 795 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, 800 Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light More and more gorgeousÄÄever that face there The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care As perfect triumph were not sure for all, But on a few enduring damp must fall, 805 A transient struggle, haply a painful sense Of the inferior nature's clingingÄÄwhence Slight starting tears easily wiped away, Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play Of irrepressible admirationÄÄnot 810 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! 815 Is there no more to say? He of the rhymesÄÄ Many a tale of this retreat betimes Was born: Sordello die at once for men? The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen Relating how a Prince Visconti saved 820 Mantua and elsewhere notably behavedÄÄ Who thus by fortune's ordering events Passed with posterity to all intents For just the God he never could become: As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb 825 In praise of him: while what he should have been, Could be, and was notÄÄthe 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 to take 830 That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake: He did muchÄÄbut Sordello's step was gone. Thus had Sordello ta'en that step alone, Apollo had been compassedÄÄ'twas a fit He wished should go to him, not he to it 835 ÄÄAs one content to merely be supposed Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed Really at homeÄÄand who was chiefly glad To have achieved the few real deeds he had Because that way assured they were not worth 840 Doing, so spared from doing them henceforthÄÄ A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes Never itself, itselfÄÄhad he embraced Our cause then, Men had plucked Hesperian fruit And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot 845 All he was anxious to appear but scarce Solicitous to be: a sorry farce Such life is after allÄÄcannot I say He lived for some one better thing? this wayÄÄ Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill 850 By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill, Morning just up, higher and higher runs A child barefoot and rosyÄÄSee! the sun's On the square castle's inner-court's green wall ÄÄLike the chine of some fossil animal 855 Half turned to earth and flowers; and thro' the haze (Save where some slender patches of grey maize Are to be overleaped) that boy has crost The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost Matting the balm and mountain camomile: 860 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 865 Sunblanched the livelong summer.ÄÄAll that's left Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft, Sleep and forget, Sordello ... in effect He sleeps, the feverish poetÄÄI suspect Not utterly companionless; but, friends, 870 Wake up; the ghost's gone, and the story ends I'd fain hope, sweetlyÄÄseeing, peri or ghoul, That spirits are conjectured fair or foul, Evil or good, judicious authors think, According as they vanish in a stink 875 Or in a perfume: friends be frank: ye snuff Civet, I warrant: really? Like enoughÄÄ Merely the savour's rarenessÄÄany nose May ravage with impunity a roseÄÄ Rifle a musk-pod and 'twill ache like yours: 880 I'd tell you that same pungency ensures An after-gustÄÄbut that were overbold: Who would has heard Sordello's story told. THE END.