Sordello/Book the Sixth

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 immensity; "Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky "Or sea, too little for their quietude:" And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sank Down the near terrace to the farther bank, And only one spot left from out the night Glimmered upon the river opposite— A breadth of watery heaven like a bay, A sky-like space of water, ray for ray, And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary 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 Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone) —Aroused him, surely offered succour. Fate Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate Herself,—best put off new strange thoughts awhile, That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile,— What help to pierce the future as the past Lay in the plaining city?

And at last The main discovery and prime concern, All that just now imported him to learn, Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to complete Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet, Lighted his old life's every shift and change, Effort with counter-effort; nor the range Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked, Some other—which of these could he suspect, Prying into them by the sudden blaze? The real way seemed made up of all the ways— Mood after mood of the one mind in him; Tokens of the existence, bright or dim, Of a transcendent all-embracing sense Demanding only outward influence, A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul, Power to uplift his power,—such moon's control Over such sea-depths,—and their mass had swept Onward from the beginning and still kept Its course: but years and years the sky above Held none, and so, untasked of any love, His sensitiveness idled, now amort, Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport Given wholly up, disposed itself anew At every passing instigation, grew And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt, Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race Of whitest ripples o'er the reef—found place For much display; not gathered up and, hurled Right from its heart, encompassing the world. So had Sordello been, by consequence, Without a function: others made pretence To strength not half his own, yet had some core Within, submitted to some moon, before Them still, superior still whate'er their force,— Were able therefore to fulfil a course, Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute. To each who lives must be a certain fruit Of having lived in his degree,—a stage, Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage, To stop at; and to this the spirits tend Who, still discovering beauty without end, Amass the scintillations, make one star —Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar,— And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest By winning it to notice and invest Their souls with alien glory, some one day Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway, Round to the perfect circle—soon or late, According as themselves are formed to wait; Whether mere human beauty will suffice —The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes, Or human intellect seem best, or each Combine in some ideal form past reach On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim, Some love, hate even, take their place, the same, So to be served—all this they do not lose, Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose What must be Hell—a progress thus pursued Through all existence, still above the food That 's offered them, still fain to reach beyond The widened range, in virtue of their bond Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love, A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal prove To swaying all Sordello: but why doubt Some love meet for such strength, some moon without Would match his sea?—or fear, Good manifest, Only the Best breaks faith?—Ah but the Best Somehow eludes us ever, still might be And is not! Crave we gems? No penury Of their material round us! Pliant earth And plastic flame—what balks the mage his birth —Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block? Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock; Nought more! Seek creatures? Life 's i' the tempest, thought Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught With fervours: human forms are well enough! But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff Profuse at nature's pleasure, men beyond These actual men!—and thus are over-fond In arguing, from Good—the Best, from force Divided—force combined, an ocean's course From this our sea whose mere intestine pants Might seem at times sufficient to our wants.

External power! If none be adequate, And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate) Himself a law to his own sphere? "Remove "All incompleteness!" for that law, that love? Nay, if all other laws be feints,—truth veiled Helpfully to weak vision that had failed To grasp aught but its special want,—for lure, Embodied? Stronger vision could endure The unbodied want: no part—the whole of truth! The People were himself; nor, by the ruth At their condition, was he less impelled To alter the discrepancy beheld, Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly part Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art, Then palmed on him as alien woe—the Guelf To succour, proud that he forsook himself. All is himself; all service, therefore, rates Alike, nor serving one part, immolates The rest: but all in time! "That lance of yours "Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors, "That buckler 's lined with many a giant's beard "Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared, "The buckler wielded handsomely as now! "But view your escort, bear in mind your vow, "Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that, "And, if you hope we struggle through the flat, "Put lance and buckler by! Next half-month lacks "Mere sturdy exercise of mace and axe "To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear "Which bristling holds Cydippe by the hair, "Lames barefoot Agathon: this felled, we 'll try "The picturesque achievements by and by— "Next life!"

Ay, rally, mock, O People, urge Your claims!—for thus he ventured, to the verge, Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust Likewise: accordingly the Crowd—(as yet He had unconsciously contrived forget I' the whole, to dwell o' the points... one might assuage The signal horrors easier than engage With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief Not to be fancied off, nor gained relief In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk, But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work To correspond...) this Crowd then, forth they stood. "And now content thy stronger vision, brood "On thy bare want; uncovered, turf by turf, "Study the corpse-face 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 —Had surely proved in any case! for, move Each other obstacle away, let youth Become aware it had surprised a truth 'T were service to impart—can truth be seized, Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased, Its captor find fresh prey, since this alit So happily, no gesture luring it, The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain, Most vain! a life to spend ere this he chain To the poor crowd's complacence: ere the crowd Pronounce it captured, he descries a cloud Its kin of twice the plume; which he, in turn, If he shall live as many lives, may learn How to secure: not else. Then Mantua called Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled —Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfume Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom; Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets, A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets; Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine, Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine. Yet to surmount this obstacle, commence With the commencement, merits crowning! Hence Must truth be casual truth, elicited In sparks so mean, at intervals dispread So rarely, that 't is like at no one time Of the world's story has not truth, the prime Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurled The world's course right, been really in the world —Content the while with some mean spark by dint Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint Of buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would stream Sky-ward!

Sordello's miserable gleam Was looked for at the moment: he would dash This badge. and all it brought, to earth,—abash Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest The Kaiser from his purpose,—would attest His own belief, in any case. Before He dashes it however, think once more! For, were that little, truly service? "Ay, "I' the end, no doubt; but meantime? Plain you spy "Its ultimate effect, but many flaws "Of vision blur each intervening cause. "Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sum "Of service, Now as filled as teems To-come "With evidence of good—nor too minute "A share to vie with evil! No dispute, "'T were fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule: "That makes your life's work: but you have to school "Your day's work on these natures circumstanced "Thus variously, which yet, as each advanced "Or might impede the Guelf rule, must be moved "Now, for the Then's sake,—hating what you loved, "Loving old hatreds! Nor if one man bore "Brand upon temples while his fellow wore "The aureole, would it task you to decide: "But, portioned duly out, the future vied "Never with the unparcelled present! Smite "Or spare so much on warrant all so slight? "The present's complete sympathies to break, "Aversions bear with, for a future's sake "So feeble? Tito ruined through one speck, "The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck? "This were work, true, but work performed at cost "Of other work; aught gained here, elsewhere lost. "For a new segment spoil an orb half-done? "Rise with the People one step, and sink—one? "Were it but one step, less than the whole face "Of things, your novel duty bids erase! "Harms to abolish! What, the prophet saith, "The minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith, "Old courage, only born because of harms, "Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms? "Flame may persist; but is not glare as staunch? "Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch; "Blood dries to crimson; Evil 's beautified "In every shape. Thrust Beauty then aside "And banish Evil! Wherefore? After all, "Is Evil a result less natural "Than Good? For overlook the seasons' strife "With tree and flower,—the hideous animal life, "(Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt "For his solution, and endure the vaunt "Of nature's angel, as a child that knows "Himself befooled, unable to propose "Aught better than the fooling)—and but care "For men, for the mere People then and there,— "In these, could you but see that Good and Ill "Claimed you alike! Whence rose their claim but still "From Ill, as fruit of Ill? What else could knit "You theirs but Sorrow? Any free from it "Were also free from you! Whose happiness "Could be distinguished in this morning's press "Of miseries?—the fool's who passed a gibe "'On thee,' jeered he, `so wedded to thy tribe, "`Thou carriest green and yellow tokens in "'Thy very face that thou art Ghibellin!' "Much hold on you that fool obtained! Nay mount "Yet higher—and upon men's own account "Must Evil stay: for, what is joy?—to heave "Up one obstruction more, and common leave "What was peculiar, by such act destroy "Itself; a partial death is every joy; "The sensible escape, enfranchisement "Of a sphere's essence: once the vexed—content, "The cramped—at large, the growing circle—round, "All 's to begin again—some novel bound "To break, some new enlargement to entreat; "The sphere though larger is not more complete. "Now for Mankind's experience: who alone "Might style the unobstructed world his own? "Whom palled Goito with its perfect things? "Sordello's self: whereas for Mankind springs "Salvation by each hindrance interposed. "They climb; life's view is not at once disclosed "To creatures caught up, on the summit left, "Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft: "But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot. "So, range on range, the girdling forests shoot "'Twixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scale "Height after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil, "Heartened with each discovery; in their soul, "The Whole they seek by Parts—but, found that Whole, "Could they revert, enjoy past gains? The space "Of time you judge so meagre to embrace "The Parts were more than plenty, once attained "The Whole, to quite exhaust it: nought were gained "But leave to look—not leave to do: Beneath "Soon sates the looker—look Above, and Death "Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live "First, and die soon enough, Sordello! Give "Body and spirit the first right they claim, "And pasture soul on a voluptuous shame "That you, a pageant-city's denizen, "Are neither vilely lodged midst Lombard men— "Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck "Bright attributes away for sordid muck, "Yet manage from that very muck educe "Gold; then subject nor scruple, to your cruce "The world's discardings! Though real ingots pay "Your pains, the clods that yielded them are clay "To all beside,—would clay remain, though quenched "Your purging-fire; who 's robbed then? Had you wrenched "An ampler treasure forth!—As 't is, they crave "A share that ruins you and will not save "Them. Why should sympathy command you quit "The course that makes your joy, nor will remit "Their woe? Would all arrive at joy? Reverse "The order (time instructs you) nor coerce "Each unit till, some predetermined mode, "The total be emancipate; men's road "Is one, men's times of travel many; thwart "No enterprising soul's precocious start "Before the general march! If slow or fast "All straggle up to the same point at last, "Why grudge your having gained, a month ago, "The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow, "While they were landlocked? Speed their Then, but how "This badge would suffer you improve your Now!"

His time of action for, against, or with Our world (I labour to extract the pith Of this his problem) grew, that even-tide, Gigantic with its power of joy, beside The world's eternity of impotence To profit though at his whole joy's expense. "Make nothing of my day because so brief? "Rather make more: instead of joy, use grief "Before its novelty have time subside! "Wait not for the late savour, leave untried "Virtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeeze "Vice like a biting spirit from the lees "Of life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust, "All tyrannies in every shape, be thrust "Upon this Now, which time may reason out "As mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt; "But long ere then Sordello will have slipt "Away; you teach him at Goito's crypt, "There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill. "Stirring, the few cope with the many, still: "So much of sand as, quiet, makes a mass "Unable to produce three tufts of grass, "Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void "The whole calm glebe's endeavour: be employed! "And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this, "Contribute each his pang to make your bliss, "'T is but one pang—one blood-drop to the bowl "Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl "At last, stains ruddily the dull red cape, "And, kindling orbs grey as the unripe grape "Before, avails forthwith to disentrance "The portent, soon to lead a mystic dance "Among you! For, who sits alone in Rome? "Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home, "And set me there to live? Oh life, life-breath, "Life-blood,—ere sleep, come travail, life ere death! "This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique, "But always streaming! Hindrances? They pique: "Helps? such... but why repeat, my soul o'ertops "Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops? "Enough that I can live, and would live! Wait "For some transcendent life reserved by Fate "To follow this? Oh, never! Fate, I trust "The same, my soul to; for, as who flings dust, "Perchance (so facile was the deed) she chequed "The void with these materials to affect "My soul diversely: these consigned anew "To nought by death, what marvel if she threw "A second and superber spectacle "Before me? What may serve for sun, what still "Wander a moon above me? What else wind "About me like the pleasures left behind, "And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh "Cling to me? What 's new laughter? Soothes the fresh "Sleep like sleep? Fate 's exhaustless for my sake "In brave resource: but whether bids she slake "My thirst at this first rivulet, or count "No draught worth lip save from some rocky fount "Above i' the clouds, while here she 's provident "Of pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tent "Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail "The silver globules and gold-sparkling grail "At bottom? Oh, 't were too absurd to slight "For the hereafter the to-day's delight! "Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: wear "Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair! "Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart "Offer to serve, contented for my part "To give life up in service,—only grant "That I do serve; if otherwise, why want "Aught further of me? If men cannot choose "But set aside life, why should I refuse "The gift? I take it—I, for one, engage "Never to falter through my pilgrimage— "Nor end it howling that the stock or stone "Were enviable, truly: I, for one, "Will praise the world, you style mere anteroom "To palace—be it so! shall I assume "—My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope, "My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly ope "One moment? What? with guarders row on row, "Gay swarms of varletry that come and go, "Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlace "The plackets of, pert claimants help displace, "Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for,—laugh "At yon sleek parasite, break his own staff "'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder,—why "Admitted to the presence by and by, "Should thought of having lost these make me grieve "Among new joys I reach, for joys I leave? "Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone, "Are floor-work there! But do I let alone "That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule "Once and for ever?—Floor-work? No such fool! "Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I 'd say "I, is it, must be blest? Then, my own way "Bless me! Giver firmer arm and fleeter foot, "I 'll thank you: but to no mad wings transmute "These limbs of mine—our greensward was so soft! "Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft: "We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thus "Engines subservient, not mixed up with us. "Better move palpably through heaven: nor, freed "Of flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed "'Mid flying synods of worlds! No: in heaven's marge "Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe "Solid with stars—the Centaur at his game, "Made tremulously out in hoary flame!

"Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull "Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full, "Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealed "So oft a better life this life concealed, "And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path "Have hunted fearlessly—the horrid bath, "The crippling-irons and the fiery chair. "'T was well for them; let me become aware "As they, and I relinquish life, too! Let "What masters life disclose itself! Forget "Vain ordinances, I have one appeal— "I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel; "So much is truth to me. What Is, then? Since "One object, viewed diversely, may evince "Beauty and ugliness—this way attract, "That way repel,—why gloze upon the fact? "Why must a single of the sides be right? "What bids choose this and leave the opposite? "Where 's abstract Right for me?—in youth endued "With Right still present, still to be pursued, "Thro' all the interchange of circles, rife "Each with its proper law and mode of life, "Each to be dwelt at ease in: where, to sway "Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey "Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart, "Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start "Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout "That some should pick the unstrung jewels out— "Each, well!"

And, as in moments when the past Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast Himself quite through mere secondary states Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates, Into the mid deep yearnings overlaid By these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade, And on into the very nucleus probe That first determined there exist a globe. As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved, So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved By his flesh-half's break-up; the sudden swell Of his expanding soul showed Ill and Well, Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness, Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less, All qualities, in fine, recorded here, Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere, Urgent on these, but not of force to bind Eternity, as Time—as Matter—Mind, If Mind, Eternity, should choose assert Their attributes within a Life: thus girt With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct Quite otherwise—with Good and Ill distinct, Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result— Contrived to render easy, difficult, This or the other course of... what new bond In place of flesh may stop their flight beyond Its new sphere, as that course does harm or good To its arrangements. Once this understood, As suddenly he felt himself alone, Quite out of Time and this world: all was known. What made the secret of his past despair? —Most imminent when he seemed most aware Of his own self-sufficiency: made mad By craving to expand the power he had, And not new power to be expanded?—just This made it; Soul on Matter being thrust, Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in Time On Matter: let the Soul's attempt sublime Matter beyond the scheme and so prevent By more or less that deed's accomplishment, And Sorrow follows: Sorrow how avoid? Let the employer match the thing employed, Fit to the finite his infinity, And thus proceed for ever, in degree Changed but in kind the same, still limited To the appointed circumstance and dead To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere; Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here; Since to the spirit's absoluteness all Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call Life, are conditions; take but this among Many; the body was to be so long Youthful, no longer: but, since no control Tied to that body's purposes his soul, She chose to understand the body's trade More than the body's self—had fain conveyed Her boundless to the body's bounded lot. Hence, the soul permanent, the body not,— Scarcely its minute for enjoying here,— The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer, Run o'er its capabilities and wring A joy thence, she held worth experiencing: Which, far from half discovered even,—lo, The minute gone, the body's power let go Apportioned to that joy's acquirement! Broke Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke— From the volcano's vapour-flag, winds hoist Black o'er the spread of sea,—down to the moist Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain, Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again— The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great To the soul's absoluteness. Meditate Too long on such a morning's cluster-chord And the whole music it was framed afford,— The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck. And then no marvel if the spirit, shown A saddest sight—the body lost alone Through her officious proffered help, deprived Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived,— Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,— Vain-gloriously were fain, for recompense, To stem the ruin even yet, protract The body's term, supply the power it lacked From her infinity, compel it learn These qualities were only Time's concern, And body may, with spirit helping, barred— Advance the same, vanquished—obtain reward, Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow, Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below. And the result is, the poor body soon Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon, Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast.

So much was plain then, proper in the past; To be complete for, satisfy the whole Series of spheres—Eternity, his soul Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each Single sphere—Time. But does our knowledge reach No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke But by the failing of the fleshly yoke, Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar Sordello, self-sufficient as before, Though during the mere space that shall elapse 'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds perhaps? Must life be ever just escaped, which should Have been enjoyed?—nay, might have been and would, Each purpose ordered right—the soul 's no whit Beyond the body's purpose under it. Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay, And that sky-space of water, ray for ray And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary splendours folded in To die—would soul, proportioned thus, begin Exciting discontent, or surelier quell The body if, aspiring, it rebel? But how so order life? Still brutalize The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes To all that was before, all that shall be After this sphere—all and each quality Save some sole and immutable Great, Good And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood To follow? Never may some soul see All —The Great Before and After, and the Small Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore, And take the single course prescribed before, As the king-bird with ages on his plumes Travels to die in his ancestral glooms? But where descry the Love that shall select That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect, Nature has plied with all her means, from trees And flowers e'en to the Multitude!—and these, Decides he save or no? One word to end!

Ah my Sordello, I this once befriend And speak for you. Of a Power above you still Which, utterly incomprehensible, Is out of rivalry, which thus you can Love, tho' unloving all conceived by man— What need! And of—none the minutest duct To that out-nature, nought that would instruct And so let rivalry begin to live— But of a Power its representative Who, being for authority the same, Communication different, should claim A course, the first chose but this last revealed— This Human clear, as that Divine concealed— What utter need!

What has Sordello found? Or can his spirit go the mighty round, End where poor Eglamor begun? So, says Old fable, the two eagles went two ways About the world: where, in the midst, they met, Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found? For they approach—approach—that foot's rebound Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail; They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil Aside—and you divine who sat there dead, Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said, A triumph lingering in the wide eyes, Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies Help from above in his extreme despair, And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast, It beat.

By this, the hermit-bee has stopped His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped Dead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit, Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion 's fit, God counselled for. As easy guess the word That passed betwixt them, and become the third To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax Him with one fault—so, no remembrance racks Of the stone maidens and the font of stone He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone. Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom Anon they laid within that old font-tomb, And, yet again, alas!

And now is 't worth Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth How Salinguerra extricates himself Without Sordello? Ghibellin and Guelf May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct, Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure, Was peace; our chief made some frank overture That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast On its disposer, and Taurello passed With foe and friend for an outstripping soul, Nine days at least. Then,—fairly reached the goal,— He, by one effort, blotted the great hope Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope With Este, that mad evening's style, but sent Away the Legate and the League, content No blame at least the brothers had incurred, —Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at, Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat And ne'er spoke more,—informed the Ferrarese He but retained their rule so long as these Lingered in pupilage,—and last, no mode Apparent else of keeping safe the road From Germany direct to Lombardy For Friedrich,—none, that is, to guarantee The faith and promptitude of who should next Obtain Sofia's dowry,—sore perplexed— (Sofia being youngest of the tribe Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe The envious magnates with—nor, since he sent Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent Once failed the Kaiser's purposes—"we lost "Egna last year, and who takes Egna's post— "Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?") Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock In pure necessity, and, so destroyed His slender last of chances, quite made void Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams, Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed He up this evening's work that, when 't was brushed Somehow against by a blind chronicle Which, chronicling whatever woe befell Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe Of "Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo "Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire," The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire Which of Sofia's five was meant.

The chaps Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse, Obliterated not the beautiful Distinctive features at a crash: but dull And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too Ecelin at Campese slept; close by, Who likes may see him in Solagna lie, With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote The cavalier he was)—then his heart smote Young Ecelin at last; long since adult. And, save Vicenza's business, what result In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nick Of time when Ecelin and Alberic Closed with Taurello, come precisely news That in Verona half the souls refuse Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count— Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount, Their Podestà, thro' his ancestral worth. Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth Was wholly his—Taurello sinking back From temporary station to a track That suited. News received of this acquist, Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missed Taurello then? Another year: they took Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free," Opposing Alberic,—vile Bassanese,— (Without Sordello!)—Ecelin at ease Slaughtered them so observably, that oft A little Salinguerra looked with soft Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age To get appointed his proud uncle's page. More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown Better through age, his parts still in repute, Subtle—how else?—but hardly so astute As his contemporaneous friends professed; Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest, Known by each neighbour, and allowed for, let Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret Men who would miss their boyhood's bugbear: "trap "The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap "A battered pinion!"—was the word. In fine, One flap too much and Venice's marine Was meddled with; no overlooking that! She captured him in his Ferrara, fat And florid at a banquet, more by fraud Than force, to speak the truth; there 's slender laud Ascribed you for assisting eighty years To pull his death on such a man; fate shears The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads You fritter: so, presiding his board-head, The old smile, your assurance all went well With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!) In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends, Made some pretence at fighting, some amends For the shame done his eighty years—(apart The principle, none found it in his heart To be much angry with Taurello)—gained Their galleys with the prize, and what remained But carry him to Venice for a show? —Set him, as 't were, down gently—free to go His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe The swallows soaring their eternal curve 'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens Gathered importunately, fives and tens, To point their children the Magnifico, All but a monarch once in firm-land, go His gait among them now—"it took, indeed, "Fully this Ecelin to supersede "That man," remarked the seniors. Singular! Sordello's inability to bar Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought About by his strange disbelief that aught Was ever to be done,—this thrust the Twain Under Taurello's tutelage,—whom, brain And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod Indissolubly bound to baffle God Who loves the world—and thus allowed the thin Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin, And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic (Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quick To demonstration—prove wherever's will To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip— Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip, They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand (So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band Together, cross their coats as for Christ's cause, And saving Milan win the world's applause. Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew Never so pleasant as in Valley Rù By San Zenon where Alberic in turn Saw his exasperated captors burn Seven children and their mother; then, regaled So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take God's part and testify that 'mid the brake Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll, You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll— The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat The modern church beneath,—no harm in that! Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper, Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre Above the ravage: there, at deep of day A week since, heard I the old Canon say He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst And Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsed Only five years ago. He added, "June 's "The month for carding off our first cocoons "The silkworms fabricate"—a double news, Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose!

And Naddo gone, all's gone; not Eglamor! Believe, I knew the face I waited for, A guest my spirit of the golden courts! Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports, Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained Its joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned, And still my spirit held an upward flight, Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light More and more gorgeous—ever that face there The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care As perfect triumph were not sure for all, But, on a few, enduring damp must fall, —A transient struggle, haply a painful sense Of the inferior nature's clinging—whence Slight starting tears easily wiped away, Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play Of irrepressible admiration—not Aspiring, all considered, to their lot Who ever, just as they prepare ascend Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend Thy frank delight at their exclusive track, That upturned fervid face and hair put back!

Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes— Many a tale, of this retreat betimes, Was born: Sordello die at once for men? The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved— Who thus, by fortune ordering events, Passed with posterity, to all intents, For just the god he never could become. As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb In praise of him: while what he should have been, Could be, and was not—the one step too mean For him to take,—we suffer at this day Because of: Ecelin had pushed away Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake: He did much—but Sordello's chance was gone. Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone, Apollo had been compassed: 't was a fit He wished should go to him, not he to it —As one content to merely be supposed Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed Really at home—one who was chiefly glad To have achieved the few real deeds he had, Because that way assured they were not worth Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth— A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes Never itself, itself. Had he embraced Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot All he was anxious to appear, but scarce Solicitous to be. A sorry farce Such life is, after all! Cannot I say He lived for some one better thing? this way.— Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill, Morning just up, higher and higher runs A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's On the square castle's inner-court's low wall Like the chine of some extinct animal Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze (Save where some slender patches of grey maize Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost Matting the balm and mountain camomile. Up and up goes he, singing all the while Some unintelligible words to beat The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet, So worsted is he at "the few fine locks "Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks "Sun-blanched the livelong summer,"—all that's left Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft, Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect He sleeps, the feverish poet—I suspect Not utterly companionless; but, friends, Wake up! The ghost's gone, and the story ends I'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul, That spirits are conjectured fair or foul, Evil or good, judicious authors think, According as they vanish in a stink Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough! Merely the savour's rareness; any nose May ravage with impunity a rose: Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours! I'd tell you that same pungency ensures An after-gust, but that were overbold. Who would has heard Sordello's story told.