Llo'S Inability To Bar Rivals The Stage, That Evening, Mainly Brought About By His Strange Disbelief That Aught Was Ever To Be Done, This Thrust The Twain Under Taurello'S Tutelage, Whom, Brain And Heart And Hand, He Forthwith In One Rod Indissolubly Bound To Baffle God Who Loves The World And Thus Allowed The Thin Grey Wizened Dwarfish Devil Ecelin, And Massy-Muscled Big-Boned Alberic (Mere Man, Alas!) To Put His Problem Quick To Demonstration Prove Wherever'S Will To Do, There'S Plenty To Be Done, Or Ill Or Good. Anointed, Then, To Rend And Rip Kings Of The Gag And Flesh-Hook, Screw And Whip, They Plagued The World: A Touch Of Hildebrand (So Far From Obsolete!) Made Lombards Band Together, Cross Their Coats As For Christ'S Cause, And Saving Milan Win The World'S Applause. Ecelin Perished: And I Think Grass Grew Never So Pleasant As In Valley R? By San Zenon Where Alberic In Turn Saw His Exasperated Captors Burn Seven Children And Their Mother; Then, Regaled So Far, Tied On To A Wild Horse, Was Trailed To Death Through Raunce And Bramble-Bush. I Take God'S Part And Testify That 'Mid The Brake Wild O'Er His Castle On The Pleasant Knoll, You Hear Its One Tower Left, A Belfry, Toll The Earthquake Spared It Last Year, Laying Flat The Modern Church Beneath, No Harm In That! Chirrups The Contumacious Grasshopper, Rustles The Lizard And The Cushats Chirre Above The Ravage: There, At Deep Of Day A Week Since, Heard I The Old Canon Say He Saw With His Own Eyes A Barrow Burst And Alberic'S Huge Skeleton Unhearsed Only Five Years Ago. He Added, "June 'S "The Month For Carding Off Our First Cocoons "The Silkworms Fabricate" A Double News, Nor He Nor I Could Tell The Worthier. Choose! And Naddo Gone, All'S Gone; Not Eglamor! Believe, I Knew The Face I Waited For, A Guest My Spirit Of The Golden Courts! Oh Strange To See How, Despite Ill-Reports, Disuse, Some Wear Of Years, That Face Retained Its Joyous Look Of Love! Suns Waxed And Waned, And Still My Spirit Held An Upward Flight, Spiral On Spiral, Gyres Of Life And Light 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 The One Step Too Mean For Him To Take, 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 Grey 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 "Sun-Blanched 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 Savour'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.