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So solitary, she accepts at last

Our Lady for her gossip, and frets on

Against the sinful world which goes its rounds
In marrying and being married, just the same
As when 'twas almost good and had the right,
(Her Gian alive, and she herself eighteen).
And yet, now even, if Madonna willed,
She'd win a tern in Thursday's lottery,

And better all things. Did she dream for nought,
That, boiling cabbage for the fast-day's soup,

It smelt like blessed entrails? such a dream
For nought? would sweetest Mary cheat her so,
And lose that certain candle, straight and white
As any fair grand-duchess in her teens,
Which otherwise should flare here in a week?
Benigna sis, thou beauteous Queen of heaven!

I sate there musing and imagining

Such utterance from such faces: poor blind souls
That writhed toward heaven along the devil's trail,-
Who knows, I thought, but He may stretch his hand
And pick them up? 'tis written in the Book,
He heareth the young ravens when they cry;
And yet they cry for carrion.—O my God,-
And we, who make excuses for the rest,
We do it in our measure. Then I knelt,
And dropped my head upon the pavement too,
And prayed, since I was foolish in desire
Like other creatures, craving offal-food,
That He would stop his ears to what I said,
And only listen to the run and beat
Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood-

And then

I lay and spoke not. But He heard in heaven.

So many Tuscan evenings passed the same!
I could not lose a sunset on the bridge,
And would not miss a vigil in the church,
And liked to mingle with the out-door crowd
So strange and gay and ignorant of my face,
For men you know not, are as good as trees.
And only once, at the Santissima,

I almost chanced upon a man I knew,

Sir Blaise Delorme. He saw me certainly,
And somewhat hurried, as he crossed himself,
The smoothness of the action,-then half bowed,
But only half, and merely to my shade,

I slipped so quick behind the porphyry plinth,
And left him dubious if 'twas really I,
Or peradventure Satan's usual trick
To keep a mounting saint uncanonised.
But I was safe for that time, and he too;
The argent angels in the altar-flare
Absorbed his soul next moment. The good man!
In England we were scarce acquaintances,
That here in Florence he should keep my thought
Beyond the image on his eye, which came

And went and yet his thought disturbed my life :
For, after that, I often sate at home

On evenings, watching how they fined themselves With gradual conscience to a perfect night,

Until a moon, diminished to a curve,

Lay out there, like a sickle for His hand

Who cometh down at last to reap the earth.

At such times, ended seemed my trade of verse;
I feared to jingle bells upon my robe

Before the four-faced silent cherubim :
With God so near me, could I sing of God?
I did not write, nor read, nor even think,

But sate absorbed amid the quickening glooms,
Most like some passive broken lump of salt
Dropt in by chance to a bowl of œnomel,
To spoil the drink a little, and lose itself,
Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost.

EIGHTH BOOK.

ONE eve it happened when I sate alone,
Alone upon the terrace of my tower,
A book upon my knees, to counterfeit
The reading that I never read at all,
While Marian, in the garden down below,
Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrill
The drowsy silence of the exhausted day)
And peeled a new fig from that purple heap
In the grass beside her,-turning out the red
To feed her eager child, who sucked at it
With vehement lips across a gap of air
As he stood opposite, face and curls a-flame
With that last sun-ray, crying, 'give me, give,'
And stamping with imperious baby-feet,
(We're all born princes)-something startled ine,-
The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks
Abruptly, as if frightened at itself;

'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above
In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,
And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book,
And knew, the first time, 'twas Boccaccio's tales,
The Falcon's,-of the lover who for love
Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us
Do it still, and then we sit and laugh no more.

Laugh you, sweet Marian! you've the right to laugh,
Since God himself is for you, and a child!
For me there's somewhat less,—and so, I sigh.

The heavens were making room to hold the night,
The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates
To let the stars out slowly (prophesied

In close-approaching advent, not discerned),
While still the cue-owls from the cypresses
Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse
Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually
The purple and transparent shadows slow
Had filled up the whole valley to the brim,
And flooded all the city, which you saw
As some drowned city in some enchanted sea,
Cut off from nature,-drawing you who gaze,
With passionate desire, to leap and plunge,
And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,
And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks
You cannot kiss but you shall bring away
Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell
Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down,
So deep; and fifty churches answer it
The same, with fifty various instances.
Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets
The Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire:
And, past the quays, Maria Novella's Place,
In which the mystic obelisks stand up
Triangular, pyramidal, each based
On a single trine of brazen tortoises,

To guard that fair church, Buonarroti's Bride,
That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes,
Her quadrant and armillary dials, black
With rhythms of many suns and moons, in vain

Enquiry for so rich a soul as his,—

Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear . . .

And, oh my heart, .. the sea-king!

...

In my ears

The sound of waters. There he stood, my king!

I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up
I rose, as if he were my king indeed,
And then sate down, in trouble at myself,
And struggling for my woman's empery.
'Tis pitiful; but women are so made:

We'll die for you, perhaps,-'tis probable;
But we'll not spare you an inch of our full height:
We'll have our whole just stature,-five feet four,
Though laid out in our coffins: pitiful!

-'You, Romney!-Lady Waldemar is here?'

He answered in a voice which was not his, 'I have her letter; you shall read it soon: But first, I must be heard a little, I,

Who have waited long and travelled far for that, Although you thought to have shut a tedious book And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page, And here you find me.'

Did he touch my hand,

Or but my sleeve? I trembled, hand and foot,--
He must have touched me.- Will you sit?' I asked,
And motioned to a chair; but down he sate,
A little slowly, as a man in doubt,

Upon the couch beside me,-couch and chair
Being wheeled upon the terrace.

"You are come,

My cousin Romney?-this is wonderful.

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