Chapter XX: Introduction: New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan (2)

_Luigi._ They teach
Others to kill him--me--and, if I fail,
Others to succeed; now, if A tried and failed,
I could not teach that: mine 's the lesser task.
Mother, they visit night by night ...

_Mother._ --You, Luigi?
Ah, will you let me tell you what you are?

_Luigi._ Why not? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint,
You may assure yourself I say and say
Ever to myself! At times--nay, even as now
We sit--I think my mind is touched, suspect
All is not sound: but is not knowing that,
What constitutes one sane or otherwise?
I know I am thus--so, all is right again.
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk,
And see men merry as if no Italy
Were suffering; then I ponder--"I am rich,
Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me,
More than it troubles these?" But it does trouble.
No, trouble 's a bad word: for as I walk
There 's springing and melody and giddiness,
And old quaint turns and passages of my youth,
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves,
Return to me--whatever may amuse me:
And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven
Accords with me, all things suspend their strife,
The very cicala laughs "There goes he, and there!
Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way
For the world's sake: feast him this once, our friend!"
And in return for all this, I can trip
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go
This evening, mother!

_Mother._ But mistrust yourself--
Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him!

_Luigi._ Oh, there I feel--am sure that I am right!

_Mother._ Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere means
To this wild enterprise: say, you are right,--
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass
What would require a cool head, a cool heart,
And a calm hand? You never will escape.

_Luigi._ Escape? To even wish that, would spoil all.
The dying is best part of it. Too much
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine,
To leave myself excuse for longer life:
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy,
That I might finish with it ere my fellows
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay?
I was put at the board-head, helped to all
At first; I rise up happy and content.
God must be glad one loves his world so much.
I can give news of earth to all the dead
Who ask me:--last year's sunsets, and great stars
Which had a right to come first and see ebb
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away--
Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood,
Impatient of the azure--and that day
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm--
May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights--
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul!

_Mother._ (He will not go!)

_Luigi._ You smile at me? 'T is true,--
Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness,
Environ my devotedness as quaintly
As round about some antique altar wreathe
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls.

_Mother._ See now: you reach the city, you must cross
His threshold--how?

_Luigi._ Oh, that's if we conspired!
Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess--
But guess not how the qualities most fit
For such an office, qualities I have,
Would little stead me, otherwise employed,
Yet prove of rarest merit only here.
Every one knows for what his excellence
Will serve, but no one ever will consider
For what his worst defect might serve: and yet
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder
In search of a distorted ash?--I find
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow.
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man
Arriving-at the palace on my errand!
No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up--
White satin here, to set off my black hair;
In I shall march--for you may watch your life out
Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you;
More than one man spoils everything. March straight--
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for,
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on
Through guards and guards-- I have rehearsed it all
Inside the turret here a hundred times.
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe!
But where they cluster thickliest is the door
Of doors; they'll let you pass--they'll never blab
Each to the other, he knows not the favorite,
Whence he is bound and what's his business now.
Walk in--straight up to him; you have no knife:
Be prompt, how should he scream? Then, out with you!
Italy, Italy, my Italy!
You 're free, you 're free! Oh mother, I could dream
They got about me--Andrea from his exile,
Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave!

_Mother._ Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism
The easiest virtue for a selfish man
To acquire: he loves himself--and next, the world--
If he must love beyond,--but naught between:
As a short-sighted man sees naught midway
His body and the sun above. But you
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient
To my least wish, and running o'er with love:
I could not call you cruel or unkind.
Once more, your ground for killing him!--then go!

_Luigi._ Now do you try me, or make sport of me?
How first the Austrians got these provinces ...
(If that is all, I 'll satisfy you soon)
--Never by conquest but by cunning, for
That treaty whereby ...

_Mother._ Well?

_Luigi._ (Sure, he 's arrived,
The tell-tale cuckoo: spring 's his confidant,
And he lets out her April purposes!)
Or ... better go at once to modern time.
He has ... they have ... in fact, I understand
But can't restate the matter; that's my boast:
Others could reason it out to you, and prove
Things they have made me feel.

_Mother._ Why go to-night?
Morn 's for adventure. Jupiter is now
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi!

_Luigi._ "I am the bright and morning-star," saith God--
And, "to such an one I give the morning-star."
The gift of the morning-star! Have I God's gift
Of the morning-star?

_Mother._ Chiara will love to see
That Jupiter an evening-star next June.

_Luigi._ True, mother. Well for those who live through June!
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps
That triumph at the heels of June the god
Leading his revel through our leafy world.
Yes, Chiara will be here.

_Mother._ In June: remember,
Yourself appointed that month for her coming.

_Luigi._ Was that low noise the echo?

_Mother._ The night-wind.
She must be grown--with her blue eyes upturned
As if life were one long and sweet surprise:
In June she comes.

_Luigi._ We were to see together
The Titian at Treviso. There, again!

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing_--

_A king lived long ago,
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nigher heaven than now;
And the king's locks curled,
Disparting o'er a forehead full
As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn
Of some sacrificial bull--
Only calm as a babe new-born:
For he was got to a sleepy mood,
So safe from all decrepitude,
Age with its bane, so sure gone by,
(The gods so loved him while he dreamed)
That, having lived thus long, there seemed
No need the king should ever die._

_Luigi._ No need that sort of king should ever die!

_Among the rocks his city was:
Before his palace, in the sun,
He sat to see his people pass,
And judge them every one
From its threshold of smooth stone.
They haled him many a valley-thief
Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief
Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat,
Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found
On the sea-sand left aground;
And sometimes clung about his feet,
With bleeding lip and burning cheek,
A woman, bitterest wrong to speak
Of one with sullen thickset brows:
And sometimes from the prison-house_
_The angry priests a pale wretch brought,
Who through some chink had pushed and pressed
On knees and elbows, belly and breast,
Worm-like into the temple,--caught
He was by the very god,
Who ever in the darkness strode
Backward and forward, keeping watch
O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch!
These, all and every one,
The king judged, sitting in the sun._

_Luigi._ That king should still judge sitting in the sun!

_His councillors, on left and right,
Looked anxious up,--but no surprise
Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes
Where the very blue had turned to white.
'Tis said, a Python scared one day
The breathless city, till he came,
With forky tongue and eyes on flame.
Where the old king sat to judge alway;
But when he saw the sweepy hair
Girt with a crown of berries rare
Which the god will hardly give to wear
To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,
At his wondrous forest rites,--
Seeing this, he did not dare
Approach that threshold in the sun,
Assault the old king smiling there.
Such grace had kings when the world begun!_ [PIPPA _passes._

_Luigi._ And such grace have they, now that the world ends!
The Python at the city, on the throne,
And brave men, God would crown for slaying him,
Lurk in by-corners lest they fall his prey.
Are crowns yet to be won in this late time,
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach?
'T is God's voice calls: how could I stay? Farewell!

_Talk by the way, while_ PIPPA _is passing from the Turret to the Bishop's Brother's House, close to the Duomo S. Maria. Poor_ GIRLS _sitting on the steps._

_1st Girl._ There goes a swallow to Venice--the stout seafarer!
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings.
Let us all wish; you, wish first!

_2d Girl._ I? This sunset
To finish.

_3d Girl._ That old--somebody I know,
Grayer and older than my grandfather,
To give me the same treat he gave last week--
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers,
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling
The while some folly about how well I fare,
Let sit and eat my supper quietly:
Since had he not himself been late this morning
Detained at--never mind where,--had he not ...
"Eh, baggage, had I not!"--

_2d Girl._ How she can lie!

_3d Girl._ Look there--by the nails!

_2d Girl._ What makes your fingers red?

_3d Girl._ Dipping them into wine to write bad words with
On the bright table: how he laughed!

_1st Girl._ My turn.
Spring's come and summer's coming. I would wear
A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day;
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed;
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat,
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats ... ah, I should say,
This is away in the fields--miles!

_3d Girl._ Say at once
You'd be at home: she'd always be at home!
Now comes the story of the farm among
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool,
They've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were,
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage,
Made a dung-hill of your garden!

_1st Girl._ They destroy
My garden since I left them? well--perhaps
I would have done so: so I hope they have!
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;
They called it mine, I have forgotten why,
It must have been there long ere I was born:
_Cric_--_cric_--I think I hear the wasps o'erhead
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there
And keep off birds in fruit-time--coarse long papers,
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.

_3d Girl._ How her month twitches! Where was I?--before
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns
And wasps--would I be such a fool!--Oh, here!
This is my way: I answer every one
Who asks me why I make so much of him--
(If you say, "you love him"--straight "he 'll not be gulled!")
"He that seduced me when I was a girl
Thus high--had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,
Brown, red, white,"--as the case may be: that pleases!
See how that beetle burnishes in the path!
There sparkles he along the dust: and, there--
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled; at least!

_1st Girl._ When I was young, they said if you killed one
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next.

_2d Girl._ When you were young? Nor are you young, that's true.
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!
Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still?
No matter, so you keep your curious hair.
I wish they'd find a way to dye our hair
Your color--any lighter tint, indeed,
Than black: the men say they are sick of black,
Black eyes, black hair!

_4th Girl._ Sick of yours, like enough.
Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys
And ortolans? Giovita, of the palace,
Engaged (but there's no trusting him) to slice me
Polenta with a knife that had cut up
An ortolan.

_2d Girl._ Why, there! Is not that Pippa
We are to talk to, under the window,--quick!--
Where the lights are?

_1st Girl._ That she? No, or she would sing,
For the Intendant said ...

_3d Girl._ Oh, you sing first!
Then, if she listens and comes close ... I'll tell you,--
Sing that song the young English noble made,
Who took you for the purest of the pure,
And meant to leave the world for you--what fun!

_2d. Girl._ [_Sings._]

_You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,
From seeds of April's sowing._

_I plant a heartfull now: some seed
At least is sure to strike,
And yield--what you'll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, may be, like._

_You'll look at least on love's remains,
A grave's one violet:
Your look?--that pays a thousand pains.
What's death? You'll love me yet!_

_3d Girl._ [_To_ PIPPA _who approaches._] Oh, you may come closer--we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with. I 'll tell you all about it.

IV. NIGHT

_Inside the Palace by the Duomo._ MONSIGNOR, _dismissing his_ Attendants.

_Monsignor._ Thanks, friends, many thanks! I chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared? _Benedicto benedicatur_ ... ugh, ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter-weather: but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 'twas full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [_To the_ Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! [_The others leave the apartment._] I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo.

_Intendant._ Uguccio--

_Mon._ ... 'guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli, Fermo and Fossombruno;--what I do need instructing about, are these accounts of your administration of my poor brother's affairs. Ugh! I shall never get through a third part of your accounts; take some of these dainties before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a crust and water suffice.

_Inten._ Do you choose this especial night to question me?

_Mon._ This night, Ugo. You have managed my late brother's affairs since the death of our elder brother: fourteen years and a month, all but three days. On the Third of December, I find him ...

_Inten._ If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back.

_Mon._ Ay, ay, ugh, ugh,--nothing but disappointments here below! I remark a considerable payment made to yourself on this Third of December. Talk of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both: he was going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvellous change that has happened in his notions of Art. Here's his letter,--"He never had a clearly conceived Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has practised expressing other men's Ideals; and, in the very perfection he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There is but one method of escape: confiding the virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its characteristics,"--strike out, I dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?

_Inten._ Is Correggio a painter?

_Mon._ Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why foolish? He may--probably will--fail egregiously; but if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some such way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits who have conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other channel), transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo!

_Inten._ Sir, I can submit no longer to this course of yours. First, you select the group of which I formed one,--next you thin it gradually,--always retaining me with your smile,--and so do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. And now then? Let this farce, this chatter end now: what is it you want with me?

_Mon._ Ugo!

_Inten._ From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me as you questioned me about this and the other article in those papers--why your brother should have given me this villa, that _podere_,--and your nod at the end meant,--what?

_Mon._ Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!--

_Inten._ I have your brother's hand and seal to all I possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him--ask me!

_Mon._ I would better not: I should rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your true name,) was the interdict ever taken off you for robbing that church at Cesena?

_Inten._ No, nor needs be: for when I murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him ...

_Mon._ Ah, he employed you in that business, did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa and that _podere_, for fear the world should find out my relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with every wickedness under heaven: my own father ... rest his soul!--I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may rest: my dear two dead brothers were,--what you know tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came out from among them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if from this, by contrast only,--for I, the bishop, am the brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences of his crime: and not one _soldo_ shall escape me. Maffeo, the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities the virtuous forego, the villanous seize. Because, to pleasure myself apart from other considerations, my food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw,--am I therefore to let you, the off-scouring-of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations so unaccountably and exclusively associated with it? Must I let villas and _poderi_ go to you, a murderer and thief, that you may beget by means of them other murderers and thieves? No--if my cough would but allow me to speak!

_Inten._ What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?

_Mon._ Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in. How should I dare to say ...

_Inten._ "Forgive us our trespasses"?

_Mon._ My friend, it is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning?--I?--who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double that by allowing you to trespass.

_Inten._ And suppose the villas are not your brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty enough just now!

_Mon._ 1, 2--Nᵒ. 3!--ay, can you read the substance of a letter, Nᵒ. 3, I have received from Rome? It is precisely on the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain child of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late younger brother--that the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but the taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heritage for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice brings my people from the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why, man, do I not know the old story? The heir between the succeeding heir, and this heir's ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, and the life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence? Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come now!

_Inten._ So old a story, and tell it no better? When did such an instrument ever produce such an effect? Either the child smiles in his face; or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put himself in the employer's power so thoroughly: the child is always ready to produce--as you say--howsoever, wheresoever, and whensoever.

_Mon._ Liar!

_Inten._ Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, though the gallows await me to-morrow; for what a life did I lead! Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity; which happens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop--you!

_Mon._ I see through the trick, caitiff! I would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, however--seven times sifted.

_Inten._ And how my absurd riches encumbered me! I dared not lay claim to above half my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and die!

Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like your brother I frightened to death: let us understand one another. Sir, I will make away with her for you--the girl--here close at hand; not the stupid obvious kind of killing; do not speak--know nothing of her nor of me! I see her every day--saw her this morning: of course there is to be no killing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every three years, and I can entice her thither--have indeed begun operations already. There's a certain lusty blue-eyed florid-complexioned English knave, I and the Police employ occasionally. You assent, I perceive--no, that's not it--assent I do not say--but you will let me convert my present havings and holdings into cash, and give me time to cross the Alps? 'Tis but a little black-eyed pretty singing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of harm's way up to this present; for I always intended to make your life a plague to you with her. 'T is as well settled once and forever. Some women I have procured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome scoundrel, off for somebody; and once Pippa entangled!--you conceive? Through her singing? Is it a bargain?

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing_--

_Overhead the tree-tops meet,
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;
There was naught above me, naught below,
My childhood had not learned to know:
For, what are the voices of birds
--Ay, and of beasts,--but words, our words,
Only so much more sweet?
The knowledge of that with my life begun.
But I had so near made out the sun,
And counted your stars, the seven and one,
Like the fingers of my hand:
Nay, I could all but understand
Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;
And just when out of her soft fifty changes
No unfamiliar face might overlook me--
Suddenly God took me._ [PIPPA _passes_.

_Mon._ [_Springing up._] My people--one and all--all--within there! Gag this villain--tie him hand and foot! He dares ... I know not half he dares--but remove him--quick! _Miserere mei, Domine!_ Quick, I say!

PIPPA'S _Chamber again. She enters it._

The bee with his comb,
The mouse at her dray,
The grub in his tomb,
While winter away;
But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray,
How fare they?
Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze!
"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"--
The summer of life so easy to spend,
And care for to-morrow so soon put away!
But winter hastens at summer's end,
And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray,
How fare they?
No bidding me then to ... what did Zanze say?
"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes
More like" ... (what said she?)--"and less like canoes!"
How pert that girl was!--would I be those pert
Impudent staring women! It had done me,
However, surely no such mighty hurt
To learn his name who passed that jest upon me:
No foreigner, that I can recollect,
Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect
Our silk-mills--none with blue eyes and thick rings
Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events.
Well, if old Luca keep his good intents,
We shall do better, see what next year brings!
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear
More destitute than you perhaps next year!
Bluph ... something! I had caught the uncouth name
But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter
Above us--bound to spoil such idle chatter
As ours: it were indeed a serious matter
If silly talk like ours should put to shame
The pious man, the man devoid of blame,
The ... ah but--ah but, all the same,
No mere mortal has a right
To carry that exalted air;
Best people are not angels quite:
While--not the worst of people's doings scare
The devil; so there 's that proud look to spare!
Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! for
I have just been the holy Monsignor:
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother,
And you too, Luigi!--how that Luigi started
Out of the turret--doubtlessly departed
On some good errand or another,
For he passed just now in a traveller's trim,
And the sullen company that prowled
About his path, I noticed, scowled
As if they had lost a prey in him.
And I was Jules the sculptor's bride,
And I was Ottima beside,
And now what am I?--tired of fooling.
Day for folly, night for schooling!
New year's day is over and spent,
Ill or well, I must be content.
Even my lily 's asleep, I vow:
Wake up--here 's a friend I've plucked you!
Call this flower a heart's-ease now!
Something rare, let me instruct you,
Is this, with petals triply swollen,
Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;
While the leaves and parts that witness
Old proportions and their fitness,
Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;
Call this pampered thing improved now!
Suppose there 's a king of the flowers
And a girl-show held in his bowers---
"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"
Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,
I have made her gorge polenta
Till both cheeks are near as bouncing
As her ... name there 's no pronouncing!
See this heightened color too,
For she swilled Breganze wine
Till her nose turned deep carmine;
'T was but white when wild she grew.
And only by this Zanze's eyes
Of which we could not change the size,
The magnitude of all achieved
Otherwise, may be perceived."

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day!
How could that red sun drop in that black cloud?
Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away,
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed!
Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's.
Oh lark, be day's apostle
To mavis, merle and throstle,
Bid them their betters jostle
From day and its delights!
But at night, brother owlet, over the woods,
Toll the world to thy chantry;
Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods
Full complines with gallantry:
Then, owls and bats,
Cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!
[_After she has begun to undress herself._
Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day:
--Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to ... in some way ... move them--if you please,
Do good or evil to them some slight way.
For instance, if I wind
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind [_Sitting on the bedside._
And border Ottima's cloak's hem.
Ah me, and my important part with them,
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!
True in some sense or other, I suppose. [_As she lies down._
God bless me! I can pray no more to-night.
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

_All service ranks the same with God--
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first._ [_She sleeps._

KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES

A TRAGEDY

This was No. II. of _Bells and Pomegranates_ and was issued in 1842, though it appears to have been written before the publication of _Pippa Passes_. The following is the advertisement prefixed to the tragedy when first published and always afterward retained.

"So far as I know, this tragedy is the first artistic consequence
of what Voltaire termed 'a terrible event without consequences;'
and although it professes to be historical, I have taken more
pains to arrive at the history than most readers would thank me
for particularizing: since acquainted, as I will hope them to
be, with the chief circumstances of Victor's remarkable European
career--nor quite ignorant of the sad and surprising facts I
am about to reproduce (a tolerable account of which is to be
found, for instance, in Abbe Roman's _Récit_, or even the fifth
of Lord Orrery's Letters from Italy)--I cannot expect them to be
versed, nor desirous of becoming so, in all the detail of the
memoirs, correspondence, and relations of the time. From these
only may be obtained a knowledge of the fiery and audacious
temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and
singular fertility in resources, of Victor--the extreme and
painful sensibility, prolonged immaturity of powers, earnest good
purpose and vacillating will of Charles--the noble and right
woman's manliness of his wife--and the ill-considered rascality
and subsequent better-advised rectitude of D'Ormea. When I say,
therefore, that I cannot but believe my statement (combining as it
does what appears correct in Voltaire and plausible in Condorcet)
more true to person and thing than any it has hitherto been my
fortune to meet with, no doubt my word will be taken, and my
evidence spared as readily. R. B."

LONDON, 1842.

PERSONS

VICTOR AMADEUS, first King of Sardinia.
CHARLES EMANUEL, his son, Prince of Piedmont.
POLYXENA, wife of Charles.
D'ORMEA, minister.

FIRST YEAR, 1730.--KING VICTOR