GOOD WILL-ILL LUCK, GET SECOND PRIZE 325

More and more gorgeous ever that face there
The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care
As perfect triumph were not sure for all,
But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,

A transient struggle, haply a painful sense
Of the inferior nature's clinging whence
Slight starting tears easily wiped away,
Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play
Of irrepressible admiration not
Aspiring, all considered, to their lot
Who ever, just as they prepare ascend
Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend
Thy frank delight at their exclusive track,
That upturned fervid face and hair put back!

Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes
Many a tale, of this retreat betimes,
Was born: Sordello die at once for men?
The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen
Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved
Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved-
Who thus, by fortune ordering events,
Passed with posterity, to all intents,
For just the god he never could become.

As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb
In praise of him: while what he should have been,
Could be, and was not -

For him to take,

the one step too mean

we suffer at this day

Because of: Ecelin had pushed away

Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take
That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake:
He did much but Sordello's chance was gone.

Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,

Apollo had been compassed· 't was a fit
He wished should go to him, not he to it

As one content to merely be supposed
Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed
Really at home one who was chiefly glad
To have achieved the few real deeds he had,
Because that way assured they were not worth
Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth -
A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes
Never itself, itself. Had he embraced

Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit
And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot
All he was anxious to appear, but scarce
Solicitous to be. A sorry farce

Such life is, after all! Cannot I say
He lived for some one better thing? this way.
Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill
By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,
Morning just up, higher and higher runs
A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's
On the square castle's inner-court's low wall
Like the chine of some extinct animal

Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze
(Save where some slender patches of gray maize
Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed
The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost
Matting the balm and mountain camomile.
Up and up goes he, singing all the while
Some unintelligible words to beat

The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,
So worsted is he at " the few fine locks

Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks
Sunblanched the livelong summer,"

- all that's left

Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,
Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect
He sleeps, the feverish poet- I suspect
Not utterly companionless; but, friends,

Wake up! The ghost 's gone, and the story ends
I'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,
That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,
Evil or good, judicious authors think,
According as they vanish in a stink

Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff

Civet, I warrant.

Really? Like enough!

Merely the savor's rareness; any nose

May ravage with impunity a rose :

Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours!
I'd tell you that same pungency ensures
An after-gust, but that were overbold.
Who would has heard Sordello's story told.

PIPPA PASSES

A DRAMA

66

I DEDICATE MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM,
ADMIRINGLY TO THE AUTHOR OF ION,'
AFFECTIONATELY TO MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD.

LONDON, 1841.

R. B.

NEW YEAR'S DAY AT ASOLO IN THE TREVISAN. A large mean airy chamber. A girl, PIPPA, from the silk-mills, springing out of bed.

DAY!

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last ;

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay;

For not a froth-flake touched the rim

Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,

Rose, reddened, and its seething breast

Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,

A mite of my twelve-hours' treasure,

The least of thy gazes or glances,

(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure) One of thy choices or one of thy chances,

(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure)

My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure,

Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing,
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going,
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood
All shall be mine! But thou must treat me not
As the prosperous are treated, those who live

At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot,
In readiness to take what thou wilt give,
And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest
Me, who am only Pippa, old-year's sorrow,

Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow:
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow.
All other men and women that this earth
Belongs to, who all days alike possess,
Make general plenty cure particular dearth,
Get more joy one way, if another, less:
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven,
Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's!
Try now! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones -
And let thy morning rain on that superb
Great haughty Ottima; can rain disturb
Her Sebald's homage? All the while thy rain
Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane,
He will but press the closer, breathe more warm
Against her cheek; how should she mind the storm?
And, morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom

O'er Jules and Phene, what care bride and groom
Save for their dear selves? "T is their marriage-day ;
And while they leave church and go home their way,
Hand clasping hand, within each breast would be
Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee.
Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve
With mist, will Luigi and his mother grieve
The lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth,
She in her age, as Luigi in his youth,

For true content? The cheerful town, warm close
And safe, the sooner that thou art morose,
Receives them. And yet once again, outbreak
In storm at night on Monsignor, they make
Such stir about, - whom they expect from Rome
To visit Asolo, his brothers' home,
And say here masses proper to release

A soul from pain, — what storm dares hurt his peace?
Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to ward
Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard.
But Pippa- just one such mischance would spoil
Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil
At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!
And here I let time slip for nought!

Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught
With a single splash from my ewer!
You that would mock the best pursuer,
Was my basin over-deep?

And up, up,

One splash of water ruins you asleep,
fleet your brilliant bits
Wheeling and counterwheeling,
Reeling, broken beyond healing:

Now grow together on the ceiling!
That will task your wits.

Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped to see
Morsel after morsel flee

As merrily, as giddily

...

Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on,
Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple?
Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon?

New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple,
Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird's poll!
Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple
Of ocean, bud there, fairies watch unroll
Such turban-flowers; I say, such lamps disperse
Thick red flame through that dusk green universe!
I am queen of thee, floweret!

And each fleshy blossom

Than leaves that embower it,

Or shells that embosom)

From weevil and chafer?

Laugh through my pane then; solicit the bee;
Gibe him, be sure; and, in midst of thy glee,
Love thy queen, worship me!

Worship whom else? For am I not, this day, Whate'er I please? What shall I please to-day? My morn, noon, eve and night how spend my day? To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk,

The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk :
But, this one day, I have leave to go,

And play out my fancy's fullest games;
I may fancy all day - and it shall be so

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo!

See! Up the hillside yonder, through the morning,
Some one shall love me, as the world calls love:
I am no less than Ottima, take warning!