And just as he is uttering the blasphemy, Pippa passes, her song floating through the open window: The year's at the spring, The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven All's right with the world! Sebald turns with a look of horror to Ottima : God's in his heaven! Do you hear that? Instantly, his crime looks hideous; his love for this woman is horrible; she herself is hateful to his sight. There is wonderful dramatic power in the following passages, where Sebald pours out his feelings of horror, without directly addressing Ottima; while she, amazed at the sudden revulsion, entreats him not to talk about her, but to speak directly to her : Speak to me-speak not of me. But Sebald takes no notice of anything she says; he has renounced her for ever; and, whatever punishment may overtake him, he will welcome it, now that he sees and feels the hatefulness of his sin : : That little peasant's voice Has righted all again. Though I be lost, Nature or trick! I see what I have done, Entirely now! Oh, I am proud to feel Such torments-let the world take credit thence- I hate, hate-curse you! God's in His heaven! This tremendous revulsion overwhelms Ottima; we are made to feel that some better impulse, even in her guilty nature, is roused by this swift stroke of judgment. These two souls, that would otherwise have gone on in sin until they plunged each other into hell, seem now to have a possibility of salvation. Ottima declares she will die with Sebald; in her closing words she strips her soul of selfish passion, and though she be lost herself prays that her lover may find mercy :— Not to me, God-to him be merciful! While this tragedy is being enacted, unconscious of the judgment in which she has had such a vital part, Pippa passes on her way. III. A In the second section of the poem, we are introduced to the house of Jules, a young sculptor, who has just brought his bride home from church. number of art students have played him a shameful trick; by means of forged letters he has been persuaded that a young lady so admires his sculpture that she has fallen in love with him. Jules' passion is kindled by these fervent epistles, and he consents to marry the lady without even having seen her. Now that he brings her home, he discovers that his wife is, indeed, most beautiful, but that she is an ignorant, base-born peasant girl, who has been lent out, at so much a day, as a model to the painters of the town; and already he hears the loud laughter of the students underneath his window, mocking him for the successful cheat. When first Phene undertook to be a partner in the trick, the young child scarcely understood what she was doing; she merely obeyed her foster-mother old Natalia, and did as she was told. But when Jules leads her into his study, and pours out all the passion of his heart, she begins to see what a serious matter this is. The sculptor at first wonders why his beautiful bride is so silent; he still believes her to be a high-born cultured lady, and he longs to hear her speak. The crisis approaches with that marvellous passage, where Jules describes, how, to his æsthetic intuition, all the forms of nature scem prophetic of the perfect human form; and how the marble, under his chisel, becomes plastic to the living ideal which seems to lurk within the stone. The passage begins with the words, "Gaze like my very life's stuff," and closes with "Flushes and glowings radiate and hover about its track." Phene listens; and, though she cannot understand the meaning of the inspired words, she feels their power and grandeur. A new soul seems born within her; to dwell always with this sublime man would be translation into a finer world. In the following words it is as though Galatea were offering worship to her creator Pygmalion :— You creature with the eyes! If I could look for ever up to them, As now you let me,-I believe, all sin, All memory of wrong done or suffering borne, Would drop down, lower and lower, to the earth Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay -Never to overtake the rest of me, All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself, Above the world! But the terrible confession must be made; the bridegroom learns that he has been tricked into marrying a base-born girl, one of the students' favourite models. In fierce indignation, Jules vows vengeance upon his enemies; he gives Phene gold, they must separate, he will never see her face again,- -when, all at once, Pippa's song comes floating to his ears, telling the story of the Page, who loved the Queen, and longed to be able to do some great task to prove his devotion. In this song, the Queen sits at a window, while her maid dresses her hair; a young page below is singing: Give her but the least excuse to love me! When-where How can this arm establish her above me, There already, to eternally reprove me? ("Hist" said Kate the queen; But "Oh "-cried the maiden binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen 66 'Crumbling your hounds their messes!") Is she wronged?—to the rescue of her honour, My heart! Is she poor?-What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth's to cleave, a sea's to part! But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her ! ("Nay, list,"-bade Kate the queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, ""Tis only a page that carols unseen Ah! Jules well knows that story of the Queen who renounced the Crown of Cyprus, and the Page who longed to win her love, and yet felt so helpless to do anything to serve her. If she had been wronged, he could have avenged her; if she had been poor, he could have cloven the earth or parted the sea to find wealth to lay at her feet; but she needed nothing he could do or give, and so his love was robbed of power to affirm itself. Jules listens to the ballad, then looks at his bride, and begins to realise what a true love is,-not self-aggrandisement, but service; not getting everything, but giving everything; and here he has power to do everything to exalt this woman's soul just waking to life beneath his touch. Could Pygmalion renounce Galatea after his prayer had gifted her with a soul? Why, thinks Jules, this will be a finer vocation than his art : Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff From form, be nothing? This new soul is mine! Under this new impulse, he destroys every model in his studio, in order that he may begin life all afresh. A new soul wakes up within him under the power of this perfect love; he will take his bride to dwell with him in some distant island, where no echo of the old life of sin and suffering can ever come. And you are ever by me while I gaze -Are in my arms as now-as now-as now! In the fourth section of the poem, we find that the |