And just when out of her soft fifty changes
No unfamiliar face might overlook me
Suddenly God took me.

[PIPPA passes.

within there!

Gag this villain

tie him

SCENE. PIPPA's chamber again. She enters it.

--

The bee with his comb,

The mouse at her dray,
The grub in his tomb,

Wile winter away;

240

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?

what did Zanze

say

250

?

No bidding me then to "Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes

More like "

like canoes!

(what said she?) " and less

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

260

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

Το

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!

270

280

290

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."

300

310

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day!

320

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 howlet, 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!

330

[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

please,

move them

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. 350

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.

1842.

NOTE.

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 Abbé 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 right woman's manliness of his wife and the illconsidered 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

the noble and