Up and show faces all of you!-"All of you!”

That's the king's dwarf with the scarlet comb; now

hark

Come down and meet your fate! Hark-"Meet your

fate!"

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi-do not

Go to his City! putting crime aside,

Half of these ills of Italy are feigned

Your Pellicos and writers for effect,

Write for effect.

Luigi.

Hush! say A. writes, and B.

Mother. These A's and B's write for effect, I say.

Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good

Is silent-you hear each petty injury

None of his daily virtues; he is old,
Quiet, and kind, and densely stupid-why
Do A. and B. not kill him themselves?

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 by night...

Mother.

Ah,

-You, Luigi?

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 me !
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 cicalas laugh "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

Of 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 cold 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
That 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! 'Tis 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.

VOL. I.

Oh, that's if we conspired!

14

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess—
But guess not how the qualities required
For such an office-qualities I have—
Would little stead me otherwise employed,
Yet prove of rarest merit here-here only.
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 ?—it happens
The wry spoilt branch's 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 every thing. March straight—
Only no clumsy knife to fumble for-

Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on

Thro' 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 favourite,
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 nought between:
As a short-sighted man sees nought midway

His body and the sun above.

Are

But you

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 ask 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.

Luigi.

Well?

(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 times—
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?