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Sordello 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

Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow

Down the near terrace to the farther bank,

And only one spot left from out the

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

As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,

Tumultuary splendours folded

To die.

Nor turned he till Ferrara's din(Say, the monotonous speech from a man's

Who lets some first and eager purpose

In a new fancy's birth—the speech keeps

Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone)—Aroused him, surely offered succour.

Paused with this eve; ere she

Herself,—best put off new strange thoughts awhile,

That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile,—What help to pierce the future as the

Lay in the plaining city?                            And at

The main discovery and prime concern,

All that just now imported him to learn,

Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to

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

Lighted his old life's every shift and change,

Effort with counter-effort; nor the

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

Demanding only outward influence,

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

Power to uplift his power,—such moon's

Over such sea-depths,—and their mass had

Onward from the beginning and still

Its course: but years and years the sky

Held none, and so, untasked of any love,

His sensitiveness idled, now amort,

Alive now, and, to sullenness or

Given wholly up, disposed itself

At every passing instigation,

And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt,

Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a

Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding

Of whitest ripples o'er the reef—found

For much display; not gathered up and,

Right from its heart, encompassing the world.

So had Sordello been, by consequence,

Without a function: others made

To strength not half his own, yet had some

Within, submitted to some moon,

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

Of having lived in his degree,—a stage,

Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage,

To stop at; and to this the spirits

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

By winning it to notice and

Their souls with alien glory, some one

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

Combine in some ideal form past

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

What must be Hell—a progress thus

Through all existence, still above the

That 's offered them, still fain to reach

The widened range, in virtue of their

Of sovereignty.

Not that a Palma's Love,

A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal

To swaying all Sordello: but why

Some love meet for such strength, some moon

Would match his sea?—or fear,

Good manifest,

Only the Best breaks faith?—Ah but the

Somehow eludes us ever, still might

And is not!

Crave we gems?

No

Of their material round us!

Pliant

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,

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

With fervours: human forms are well enough!

But we had hoped, encouraged by the

Profuse at nature's pleasure, men

These actual men!—and thus are

In arguing, from Good—the Best, from

Divided—force combined, an ocean's

From this our sea whose mere intestine

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

Helpfully to weak vision that had

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

Embodied?

Stronger vision could

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

The People were himself; nor, by the

At their condition, was he less

To alter the discrepancy beheld,

Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly

Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art,

Then palmed on him as alien woe—the

To succour, proud that he forsook himself.

All is himself; all service, therefore,

Alike, nor serving one part,

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,

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

Push a vain mummery which perchance

Of his fast-slipping resolution

Likewise: accordingly the Crowd—(as

He had unconsciously contrived forgetI' the whole, to dwell o' the points . . . one might

The signal horrors easier than

With a dim vulgar vast unobvious

Not to be fancied off, nor gained

In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk,

But by dim vulgar vast unobvious

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

Piteously little must that service prove—Had surely proved in any case! for,

Each other obstacle away, let

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

So happily, no gesture luring it,

The earnest of a flock to follow?

Vain,

Most vain! a life to spend ere this he

To the poor crowd's complacence: ere the

Pronounce it captured, he descries a

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

If he shall live as many lives, may

How to secure: not else.

Then Mantua

Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled—Buds blasted, but of breath more like

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,

With the commencement, merits crowning!

Must truth be casual truth,

In sparks so mean, at intervals

So rarely, that 't is like at no one

Of the world's story has not truth, the

Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had

The world's course right, been really in the world—Content the while with some mean spark by

Of some chance-blow, the solitary

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

Sky-ward!          Sordello's miserable

Was looked for at the moment: he would

This badge. and all it brought, to

Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him

The Kaiser from his purpose,—would

His own belief, in any case.

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

Our world (I labour to extract the

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

Gigantic with its power of joy,

The world's eternity of

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

Gave partially enfranchisement, he

Himself quite through mere secondary

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

Into the mid deep yearnings

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

And on into the very nucleus

That first determined there exist a globe.

As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved,

So seemed Sordello's closing-truth

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

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

Eternity, as Time—as Matter—Mind,

If Mind,

Eternity, should choose

Their attributes within a Life: thus

With circumstance, next change beholds them

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

In place of flesh may stop their flight

Its new sphere, as that course does harm or

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

Of his own self-sufficiency: made

By craving to expand the power he had,

And not new power to be

This made it;

Soul on Matter being thrust,

Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in

On Matter: let the Soul's attempt

Matter beyond the scheme and so

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

Changed but in kind the same, still

To the appointed circumstance and

To all beyond.

A sphere is but a sphere;

Small,

Great, are merely terms we bandy here;

Since to the spirit's absoluteness

Are like.

Now, of the present sphere we

Life, are conditions; take but this

Many; the body was to be so

Youthful, no longer: but, since no

Tied to that body's purposes his soul,

She chose to understand the body's

More than the body's self—had fain

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 wringA joy thence, she held worth experiencing:

Which, far from half discovered even,—lo,

The minute gone, the body's power let

Apportioned to that joy's acquirement!

Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke—From the volcano's vapour-flag, winds

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

Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain,

Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again—The Small, a sphere as perfect as the

To the soul's absoluteness.

Too long on such a morning's

And the whole music it was framed afford,—The chord's might half discovered, what should

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

And then no marvel if the spirit, shownA saddest sight—the body lost

Through her officious proffered help,

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,

The body's term, supply the power it

From her infinity, compel it

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

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

Series of spheres—Eternity, his

Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for,

Single sphere—Time.

But does our knowledge

No farther?

Is the cloud of hindrance

But by the failing of the fleshly yoke,

Its loves and hates, as now when death lets

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

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

Each purpose ordered right—the soul 's no

Beyond the body's purpose under it.

Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay,

And that sky-space of water, ray for

And star for star, one richness where they

As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,

Tumultuary splendours folded

To die—would soul, proportioned thus,

Exciting discontent, or surelier

The body if, aspiring, it rebel?

But how so order life?

Still

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

To all that was before, all that shall

After this sphere—all and each

Save some sole and immutable Great,

And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its

To follow?

Never may some soul see All—The Great Before and After, and the

Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore,

And take the single course prescribed before,

As the king-bird with ages on his

Travels to die in his ancestral glooms?

But where descry the Love that shall

That course?

Here is a soul whom, to affect,

Nature has plied with all her means, from

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

Decides he save or no?

One word to end!

Ah my Sordello,

I this once

And speak for you.

Of a Power above you

Which, utterly incomprehensible,

Is out of rivalry, which thus you

Love, tho' unloving all conceived by man—What need!

And of—none the minutest

To that out-nature, nought that would

And so let rivalry begin to live—But of a Power its

Who, being for authority the same,

Communication different, should claimA course, the first chose but this last revealed—This Human clear, as that Divine concealed—What utter need!                  What has Sordello found?

Or can his spirit go the mighty round,

End where poor Eglamor begun?

So,

Old fable, the two eagles went two

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

Though on a shifting waste of sand, men

Jove's temple.

Quick, what has Sordello found?

For they approach—approach—that foot's

Palma?

No,

Salinguerra though in mail;

They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the

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

Help from above in his extreme despair,

And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns

With short quick passionate cry: as Palma

In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,

It beat.         By this, the hermit-bee has

His day's toil at Goito: the

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

That passed betwixt them, and become the

To the soft small unfrighted bee, as

Him with one fault—so, no remembrance

Of the stone maidens and the font of

He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone.

Alas, my friend, alas Sordello,

Anon they laid within that old font-tomb,

And, yet again, alas!                       And now is 't

Our while bring back to mind, much less set

How Salinguerra extricates

Without Sordello?

Ghibellin and

May fight their fiercest out?

If Richard

In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct,

Who cares,

Sordello gone?

The upshot, sure,

Was peace; our chief made some frank

That prospered; compliment fell thick and

On its disposer, and Taurello

With foe and friend for an outstripping soul,

Nine days at least.

Then,—fairly reached the goal,—He, by one effort, blotted the great

Out of his mind, nor further tried to

With Este, that mad evening's style, but

Away the Legate and the League,

No blame at least the brothers had incurred,—Dispatched a message to the Monk, he

Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at,

Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin

And ne'er spoke more,—informed the

He but retained their rule so long as

Lingered in pupilage,—and last, no

Apparent else of keeping safe the

From Germany direct to

For Friedrich,—none, that is, to

The faith and promptitude of who should

Obtain Sofia's dowry,—sore perplexed—(Sofia being youngest of the

Of daughters,

Ecelin was wont to

The envious magnates with—nor, since he

Henry of Egna this fair child, had

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

In pure necessity, and, so

His slender last of chances, quite made

Old prophecy, and spite of all the

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

Was sucked into Romano.

And so

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

Somehow against by a blind

Which, chronicling whatever woe

Ferrara, noted this the obscure

Of "Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo"Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,"The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but

Which of Sofia's five was meant.                                   The

Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse,

Obliterated not the

Distinctive features at a crash: but

And duller these, next year, as Guelfs

Each to his stronghold.

Then (securely

Ecelin at Campese slept; close by,

Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,

With cushioned head and gloved hand to

The cavalier he was)—then his heart

Young Ecelin at last; long since adult.

And, save Vicenza's business, what

In blood and blaze? (So hard to

Sordello till his plain withdrawal!)

Then its new lord on Lombardy.

I' the

Of time when Ecelin and

Closed with Taurello, come precisely

That in Verona half the souls

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

Was wholly his—Taurello sinking

From temporary station to a

That suited.

News received of this acquist,

Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who

Taurello then?

Another year: they

Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a

For refuge, and, when hundreds two or

Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free,"Opposing Alberic,—vile Bassanese,—(Without Sordello!)—Ecelin at

Slaughtered them so observably, that oftA little Salinguerra looked with

Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper

To get appointed his proud uncle's page.

More years passed, and that sire had dwindled

To a mere showy turbulent soldier,

Better through age, his parts still in repute,

Subtle—how else?—but hardly so

As his contemporaneous friends professed;

Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,

Known by each neighbour, and allowed for,

Keep his incorrigible ways, nor

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

Was meddled with; no overlooking that!

She captured him in his Ferrara,

And florid at a banquet, more by

Than force, to speak the truth; there 's slender

Ascribed you for assisting eighty

To pull his death on such a man; fate

The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine

You fritter: so, presiding his board-head,

The old smile, your assurance all went

With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!)In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,

Made some pretence at fighting, some

For the shame done his eighty

The principle, none found it in his

To be much angry with

Their galleys with the prize, and what

But carry him to Venice for a show?—Set him, as 't were, down gently—free to

His gait, inspect our square, pretend

The swallows soaring their eternal curve'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if

Gathered importunately, fives and tens,

To point their children the Magnifico,

All but a monarch once in firm-land,

His gait among them now—"it took, indeed,"Fully this Ecelin to supersede"That man," remarked the seniors.

Singular!

Sordello's inability to

Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly

About by his strange disbelief that

Was ever to be done,—this thrust the

Under Taurello's tutelage,—whom,

And heart and hand, he forthwith in one

Indissolubly bound to baffle

Who loves the world—and thus allowed the

Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin,

And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic(Mere man, alas!) to put his problem

To demonstration—prove wherever's

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

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

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

And saving Milan win the world's applause.

Ecelin perished: and I think grass

Never so pleasant as in Valley RùBy San Zenon where Alberic in

Saw his exasperated captors

Seven children and their mother; then,

So far, tied on to a wild horse, was

To death through raunce and bramble-bush.

I

God's part and testify that 'mid the

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

The modern church beneath,—no harm in that!

Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper,

Rustles the lizard and the cushats

Above the ravage: there, at deep of dayA week since, heard I the old Canon

He saw with his own eyes a barrow

And Alberic's huge skeleton

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

Its joyous look of love!

Suns waxed and waned,

And still my spirit held an upward flight,

Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and

More and more gorgeous—ever that face

The last admitted! crossed, too, with some

As perfect triumph were not sure for all,

But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,—A transient struggle, haply a painful

Of the inferior nature's

Slight starting tears easily wiped away,

Fine jealousies soon stifled in the

Of irrepressible

Aspiring, all considered, to their

Who ever, just as they prepare

Spiral on spiral, wish thee well,

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

Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti

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

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

Could be, and was not—the one step too

For him to take,—we suffer at this

Because of:

Ecelin had pushed

Its chance ere Dante could arrive and

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

He wished should go to him, not he to it—As one content to merely be

Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he

Really at home—one who was chiefly

To have achieved the few real deeds he had,

Because that way assured they were not

Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth—A tree that covets fruitage and yet

Never itself, itself.

Had he

Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian

And, praising that, just thrown him in to

All he was anxious to appear, but

Solicitous to be.

A sorry

Such life is, after all!

Cannot I

He lived for some one better thing? this way.—Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless

By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,

Morning just up, higher and higher runsA child barefoot and rosy.

See! the

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

Like the chine of some extinct

Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze(Save where some slender patches of grey

Are to be overleaped) that boy has

The whole hill-side of dew and

Matting the balm and mountain camomile.

Up and up goes he, singing all the

Some unintelligible words to

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

Of the Goito lay!

And thus bereft,

Sleep and forget,

Sordello!

In

He sleeps, the feverish poet—I

Not utterly companionless; but, friends,

Wake up!

The ghost's gone, and the story endsI'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,

That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,

Evil or good, judicious authors think,

According as they vanish in a

Or in a perfume.

Friends, be frank! ye

Civet,

I warrant.

Really?

Like enough!

Merely the savour's rareness; any

May ravage with impunity a rose:

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

I'd tell you that same pungency

An after-gust, but that were overbold.

Who would has heard Sordello's story told.

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Robert Browning

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the f…

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