Of plentifully-watered palms in spring :

Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne,

For beauty, knowledge, strength, should stand alone, And mortals love the letters of his name."

-Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the same.
New reign, same date. The scribe goes on to say
How that same year, on such a month and day,
"John the Pannonian, groundedly believed
A blacksmith's bastard, whose hard hand reprieved
The Empire from its fate the year before—
Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore
The same for six years, (during which the Huns
Kept off their fingers from us) till his sons
Put something in his liquor"—and so forth.

Then a new reign. Stay-"Take at its just worth" (Subjoins an annotator) "what I give

As hearsay.

Some think, John let Protus live And slip away. 'Tis said, he reached man's age At some blind northern court; made, first a page, Then, tutor to the children; last, of use

About the hunting-stables. I deduce

He wrote the little tract 'On worming dogs,'
Whereof the name in sundry catalogues

Is extant yet. A Protus of the race

Is rumoured to have died a monk in Thrace,—

And if the same, he reached senility."

Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great

eye,

Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can

To give you the crown-grasper.

What a man!

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA.

I.

I wonder do you feel to-day

As I have felt, since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May ?

II.

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalised me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III.

Help me to hold it! first it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin : yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV.

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles,-blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal,—and last

Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast!

V.

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI.

Such life there, through such length of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting Nature have her way
While Heaven looks from its towers!

VII.

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

VIII.

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours, nor mine, -nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? what the core Of the wound, since wound must be?

IX.

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs-your part, my part In life, for good and ill.

X,

No. I yearn upward—touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth-I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speakThen the good minute goes.

XI.

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, wherever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star?

XII.

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern—

Infinite passion, and the pain

of finite hearts that yearn.

HOLY-CROSS DAY.

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME.

["Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for by the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome, should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, undertrampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted, blind, restive and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought-nay (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in'), haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him; though not to my lord be altogether the glory."— Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.]

Though what the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:

I.

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!

Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week.
Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough,
Stinking and savoury, smug and gruff,
Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime
Gives us the summons-'tis sermon-time.