By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes
Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets
Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms.

Time fleets:

That's worst! Because the pre-appointed age
Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage

And crowd she promised.

Though restlessly at rest.
Fancies to soothe him.

Lean he grows and pale,

Hardly avail

Time steals, yet alone

He tarries here! The earnest smile is gone.
How long this might continue matters not;
-For ever, possibly; since to the spot
None come our lingering Taurello quits
Mantua at last, and light our lady flits
Back to her place disburthened of a care.
Strange-to be constant here if he is there!
Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both
Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth

Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb

And Richard wavering: let but Friedrich come,

Find matter for the minstrelsy's report

-Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court

To sing us a Messina morning up,

And, double rillet of a drinking cup,

Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth,

Northward to Provence that, and thus far south

The other! What a method to apprise
Neighbours of births, espousals, obsequies,
Which in their very tongue the Troubadour
Records and his performance makes a tour,
For Trouveres bear the miracle about,
Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout,
Until the Formidable House is famed

Over the country-as Taurello aimed,
Who introduced, although the rest adopt,

The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped,
Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse

No longer, in the light of day pursues

Her plans at Mantua: whence an accident
Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content
Opened, like any flash that cures the blind,
The veritable business of mankind.

91

BOOK THE SECOND

THE Woods were long austere with snow: at last Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, Brightened, "as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods "Our buried year, a witch, grew young again "To placid incantations, and that stain

"About were from her cauldron, green smoke blent
"With those black pines "—so Eglamor gave vent
To a chance fancy. Whence a just rebuke
From his companion; brother Naddo shook
The solemnest of brows: "Beware,” he said,
"Of setting up conceits in nature's stead!"
Forth wandered our Sordello. Nought so sure
As that to-day's adventure will secure
Palma, the visioned lady-only pass

O'er yon damp mound and its exhausted grass,
Under that brake where sundawn feeds the stalks

Of withered fern with gold, into those walks

Of pine and take her! Buoyantly he went.

Again his stooping forehead was besprent
With dew-drops from the skirting ferns. Then wide
Opened the great morass, shot every side

With flashing water through and through; a-shine,
Thick-steaming, all-alive. Whose shape divine,
Quivered i' the farthest rainbow-vapour, glanced
Athwart the flying herons? He advanced,
But warily; though Mincio leaped no more,
Each foot-fall burst up in the marish-floor
A diamond jet and if he stopped to pick
Rose-lichen, or molest the leeches quick,
And circling blood-worms, minnow, newt or loach,
A sudden pond would silently encroach

This way and that. On Palma passed. The verge
Of a new wood was gained. She will emerge

Flushed, now, and panting,-crowds to see,-will own
She loves him-Boniface to hear, to groan,

To leave his suit! One screen of pine-trees still
Opposes: but the startling spectacle—

Mantua, this time! Under the walls-a crowd

Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud

Round a pavilion.

How he stood !

In truth

No prophecy had come to pass: his youth

In its prime now-and where was homage poured

Upon Sordello?-born to be adored,

And suddenly discovered weak, scarce made
To cope with any, cast into the shade

By this and this. Yet something seemed to prick
And tingle in his blood; a sleight-a trick-

And much would be explained. It went for noughtThe best of their endowments were ill bought

With his identity: nay, the conceit,

That this day's roving led to Palma's feet

Was not so vain-list! The word, "Palma!" Steal Aside, and die, Sordello; this is real,

And this—abjure!

What next? The curtains see

Dividing! She is there; and presently

He will be there-the proper You, at length—
In your own cherished dress of grace and strength:
Most like, the very Boniface!

Not so.

It was a showy man advanced; but though
A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound
Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around,
"This is not he," Sordello felt; while, "Place
"For the best Troubadour of Boniface!"
Hollaed the Jongleurs,-" Eglamor, whose lay
"Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day!"
Obsequious Naddo strung the master's lute