Betokened strong will! As no leap of pulse Pricked me, that first time, so did none convulse My veins at this occasion for resolve. Had that devolved which did not then devolve Upon me, I had done-what now to do Was quietly apparent. "Tell me who The man was, crouching by the porphyry vase!" "No, never! All was folly in his case, All guilt in mine. I tempted, he complied." "And yet you loved me?" "Loved you. Double-dyed In folly and in guilt, I thought you gave Your heart and soul away from me to slave At statecraft. Since my right in you seemed lost, I stung myself to teach you, to your cost, What you rejected could be prized beyond Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fond Look on, a fatal word to." "And you still Love me? Do I conjecture well, or ill ?" Nor more. Contemptibility-exempt How could I, from its proper duecontempt ? I have too much despised you to divert My life from its set course by help or hurt Of your all-despicable life perturb The calm I work in, by-men's mouths to curb, Which at such news were clamorous enough Men's eyes to shut before my broidered stuff With the huge hole there, my emblazoned wall Blank where a scutcheon hung, - by, worse than all, Each day's procession, my paraded life Robbed and impoverished through the wanting wife -Now that my life (which means my work) was grown Riches indeed! Once, just this worth alone Seemed work to have, that profit gained thereby Of good and praise would-how rewardingly! Fall at your feet, - a crown I hoped to cast Before your love, my love should crown at last. No love remaining to cast crown before, My love stopped work now: but contempt the more Impelled me task as ever head and hand, Because the very fiends weave ropes of sand 'Conjecture- well, or ill! I had Rather than taste pure hell in idle And flight induced "those three words Thus I unroll you then the manu- Which when Marchese dell' Oriolo By letter, being absent at his land "God's justice"-(of the multi-It must behoove a son,- things plicity Of such communications extant still, In person of his Vicar-upon-earth, haply so, To act as honor prompts a cavalier And son, perform his duty to all three, Mother and brothers" - here advice broke off. By which advice informed and fortified As he professed himself - as bound by birth To hear God's voice in primogeni ture Paolo, who kept his mother company In her domain Subiaco, straightway dared His whole enormity of enterprise Sixty about, to far surpass her peers The coëtaneous dames, in youth and grace. Done the misdeed, its author takes to flight, Foiling thereby the justice of the world: Not God's however, God, be sure, knows well The way to clutch a culprit. With ess here! The present sinner, when he least expects, Snug-cornered somewhere i' the Basilicate, Stumbles upon his death by violence. A man of blood assaults the man of blood And slays him somehow. This was afterward: Enough, he promptly met with his deserts, And, ending thus, permits we end with him, And push forthwith to this important point. His matricide fell out, of al .he days, Precisely when the law-procedure closed And, every cranny searched accordingly, There comes to light-O lynx-eyed Cardinal! Onofrio's unconsidered writing-scrap, The letter in reply to Paolo's prayer, The word of counsel that-things proving so, Paolo should act the proper knightly part, And do as was incumbent on a son, A brother and a man of birth, be sure! Whereat immediately the officers Proceeded to arrest Onofrio - found At foot-ball, child's play, unaware of harm, Safe with his friends, the Orsini, at their seat Monte Giordano; as he left the house He came upon the watch in wait for him Set by the Barigel, - was caught and caged. News of which capture being, that same hour, Conveyed to Rome, forthwith our Eminence |