Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
Who, were he set to plan and execute

As you are pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
To Rafael's!-And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare-yet, only you to see,

Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
The very wrong to Francis! it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they
died:

Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go! | And I have labored somewhat in my time

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michael Angelo?
Do you forget already words like those ?)
If really there was such a chance, so lost,
Is, whether you're not grateful—but more
pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, Love, -come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house

We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me.
Oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct. instead of mortar fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you-you, and not with me? Those
loans !

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that!
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The gray remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more-the Virgin's face,
Not your's this time! I want you at my side
To hear them—that is, Michael Angelo-
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand-there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff.
Leve, does that please you? Ah,but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less.

And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures-let him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance.
Yes,

You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps,new chances,one more chance-
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Angelo and me
To cover-the three first without a wife,
While I have mine? So-still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,-as I choose.
Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR,
NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND.

['WILL sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin:
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And fee's about his spine small eft-things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh
And while above his head a pompion-plant,
Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,
Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,
And now a flower drops with a bee inside,
And now a fruit to suap at, catch and crunch:
He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross
And recross till they weave a spider-web
(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times),
And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,
Touching that other, whom his dam called God.
Because to talk about him, vexes-ha,
Could he but know! and time to vex is now,
When talk is safer than in winter-time.
Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep
In confidence he drudges at their task,
And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos !

"Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, win is, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
"Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:
He hated that He cannot change His cold,
Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish

That longed to 'scape th rock-stream where she And give the manikin three legs for his one,

And in her old bounds buried her despair,
Hating and loving warmth alike so He.
"Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,
Trees and the fowls here, beasts and creeping thing.
Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;
Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
He hath watched hunt with that slant white-
wedge eye

By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,
And says a plain word when she finds her prize,

But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves
That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks
About their hole-He made all these and more,
Made all we see, and us, in spite how else?
He could not, Himself, make a second self
To be His mate: as well have made Himself.

He would not make what He mislikes or slights,
An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:
But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport,
Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be-
Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,
Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,
Things He admires and mocks too,-that is it.
Because, so brave, so better though they be,
It nothing skills if He begin to plague.
Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,
Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,
And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.
Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,
Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,
Making and marring clay at will? So He.
"Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,
Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea;
Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;
'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
And two worms he whose nippers end in red;
As it likes me each time, I do; so He.
Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,
But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!
Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,
And envieth that, so helped, such things do more
Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,

Than He who made them! What consoles but
this?

That they, unless through Him, do nanght at all,
And must submit: what other use in things!
'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint
That, blown through, gives exact the scream o'

the jay

When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:
Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay
Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt :
Put case such pipe could prattle and boast and say
"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,

I make the cry my maker cannot make
With his great round mouth; he must blow
through mine!"

Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,—But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?
Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,
Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my
brain,

And throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,
And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.
Put case,
unable to be what I wish,
I yet could make a live bird out of clay:
Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban
Able to fly ?-for, there, see, he hath wings,
And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,
And there, a sting to do his foes offence,
There, and I will that he begin to live,
Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns
Of grigs high up that make the merry din,
Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me

not.

In which feat. if his lg snapped, brittle clay,
And he lay stupid-like,-why, I should laugh:
And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,
Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,—
Well, as the chance were, this might take or else
Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,
What knows,-the something over Setebos
That made him, or He, may be, found and fought,
Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.
There may be something quiet o'er His head,
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,
Since both derive from weakness in some way.
I joy because the quails come: would not joy
Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:
This quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.
'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,
But never spends much thought nor care that way.
It may look up, work up,-the worse for those
It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos
The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
Who, making Himself feared through what He
does,

Looks up, first, and perceives He cannot soar
To what is quiet and hath happy life;
Next looks down here, and out of very spite
Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,
These good things to match those as hips do
grapes.

'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle :
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-
shaped,

Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot ;

And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and crouch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a seabeast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban ;
A bitter heart, that bides its time and bites.
'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,
Taketh his mirth with make-believes : so He.
His dam held that the quiet made all things
Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.
Who made them weak, meant weakness He might

vex.

Had He meant other, while His hand was in,

Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,
Like an orc's arm r? Aye,-so spoil His sport!
He is the One now: only He doth all.

'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.
Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?
'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast
Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,
But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate
Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,

Use all his hands, and exercise much craft,
By no means for the love of what is worked.
Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world
When all goes right, in this safe summer time,
And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,
Than trying what to do with wit and strength.
'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,
And squared and stuck three squares of soft white
chalk,

And, with a fish tooth, scratched a moon on each,
And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,
Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.
No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;
'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.
'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!
One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why?
So it is, all the same, as well I find.

Crawling to lay their eggs here; well, one wave,
Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,
Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,
And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite.
'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)
Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:
Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!
'Dug up a newt He may have envied once
And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.
Please Him and hinder this ?-What Prosper does?
Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!
There is the sport: discover how or die!
All need not die, for of the things o' the isle
Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees
Those at His mercy,-why, they please Him most
When.. when . . well, never try the same
way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.
You must not know His ways, and play Him off
Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:
'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears

But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,
And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence :
'Spareth an urchin that, contrariwise,
For fright at my approach: the two ways please.
Curls up into a ball, pretending death
But what would move my choler more than this,
That either creature counted on its life

To-morrow and next day and all days to come,
'Saving forsooth in the inmost of its heart,
'Because he did so yesterday with me,
And otherwise with such an other brute,
So must he do henceforth and always"-Ay?
'Would teach the reasoning couple what "must

"

'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,
And we shall have to live in fear of Him
So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no
change,

If He have done His best, make no new world
To please him more, so leave off watching this,-
If He surprise not even the quiet's self
Some strange day,-or, suppose, grow into it
As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,
And there is He, and nowhere help at all.
'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.

His dam held different, that after death

He both plagued enemies and feasted friends :

Idly! He doth his worst in this our life,
Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
Saving last pain for worst,-with which, an end.
Meanwhile, the best way to escape his ire
Is, not to seem too happy. Sees, himself,
Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,
Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.
'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball
On head and tail as if to save their lives :
Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.
Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose

'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,

With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises

And always, above all else, envies Him.

WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN.

(Born 1813-Died 1865.)