Aloft he sits upon his horse of brass;
And they, that read the legend underneath,
Go and pronounce him happy. Yet, methinks,
There is a chamber that, if walls could speak,
Would turn their admiration into pity.
Half of what passed died with him; but the rest,
All he discovered when the fit was on,
All that, by those who listened, could be gleaned
From broken sentences and starts in sleep,
Is told, and by an honest chronicler.
Two of his sons, Giovanni and Garzia,
(The eldest had not seen his nineteenth summer,)
Went to the chase; but only one returned.
Giovanni, when the huntsman blew his horn
O'er the last stag that started from the brake,
And in the heather turned to stand at bay,
Appeared not, and at close of day was found
Bathed in his innocent blood. Too well, alas!
The trembling Cosmo guessed the deed, the doer;
And, having caused the body to be borne
In secret to that chamber, at an hour
When all slept sound, save she who bore them both,
Who little thought of what was yet to come,
And lived but to be told-he bade Garzia
Arise and follow him. Holding in one hand
A winking lamp, and in the other a key,
Massive and dungeon-like, thither he led;
And, having entered in, and locked the door,
The father fixed his eyes upon the son,
And closely questioned him. No change betrayed,
Or guilt, or fear. Then Cosmo lifted up
The bloody sheet. "Look there! Look there!" he cried, "Blood calls for blood-and from a father's hand!
Unless thyself will save him that sad office.
What!" he exclaimed, when, shuddering at the sight, The boy breathed out, "I stood but on my guard."
"Darest thou then blacken one who never wronged thee, Who would not set his foot upon a worm?
Yes, thou must die, lest others fall by thee,
And thou shouldst be the slayer of us all."
Then from Garzia's belt he drew the blade,
That fatal one which spilt his brother's blood;
And, kneeling on the ground, "Great God!" he cried, "Grant me the strength to do an act of justice.
Thou knowest what it costs me; but, alas!
How can I spare myself, sparing none else?
Grant me the strength, the will-and oh! forgive
The sinful soul of a most wretched son.
'Tis a most wretched father who implores it."
Long on Garzia's neck he hung and wept,
Long pressed him to his bosom tenderly;
And then, but while he held him by the arm,
Thrusting him backward, turned away his face,
And stabbed him to the heart.
Studious of men, anxious to learn and know,
When in the train of some great embassy
He came, a visitant, to Cosmo's court,
Think on the past; and, as he wandered through
The ample spaces of an ancient house,
Silent, deserted-stop awhile to dwell
Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall
Together, as of Two in bonds of love,
Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude,
From the sad looks of him who could have told
The terrible truth. Well might he heave a sigh
For poor humanity, when he beheld
That very Cosmo shaking o'er his fire,
Drowsy, and deaf, and inarticulate,
Wrapped in his night-gown, o'er a sick man's mess,
In the last stage-death-struck and deadly pale,
His wife, another, not his Eleanor,
At once his nurse and his interpreter.
LOWLY, shining head, where we lay thee down
With the lowly dead, droop thy golden crown!
Meekly, marble palms, fold across the breast,
Sculptured in white calms of unbreaking rest!
Softly, starry eyes, veil your darkened spheres,
Nevermore to rise in summershine or tears!
Calmly, crescent lips, yield your dewy rose
To the wan eclipse of this pale repose!
Slumber, aural shells! No more dying Even
Through your spiral cells weaveth gales of heaven.
Stilly, slender feet, rest from rosy rhyme,
With the ringing sweet of her silver clime!
Holy smile of God, spread the glory mild
Underneath the sod on this little child!
HAIL holy light! offspring of heaven first-born ;
Or of th' Eternal, co-eternal beam
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hearest thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes, than to th' Orphean lyre,
sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief,
Thee Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate.
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note: thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou celestial Light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
ALL truth is from the sempiternal source
Of Light Divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome
Drew from the stream below. More favored, we
Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.
To them it flowed much mingled and defiled
With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams
Illusive of philosophy, so called,
But falsely. Sages after sages strove
In vain to filter off a crystal draught
Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced
The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred
Intoxication and delirium wild.
In vain they pushed inquiry to the birth
And springtime of the world; asked, Whence is man?
Why formed at all? and wherefore as he is?
Where must he find his Maker? with what rites
Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless?
Or does he sit regardless of his works?
Has man within him an immortal seed?
Or does the tomb take all? If he survive
His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone
A Deity could solve. Their answers, vague
And all at random, fabulous and dark,
Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life,
Defective and unsanctioned, proved too weak
To bind the roving appetite, and lead
Blind nature to a God not yet revealed.
"Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts,
Explains all mysteries, except her own,
And so illuminates the path of life,
That fools discover it, and stray no more.
Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,
My man of morals, nurtured in the shades
Of Academus-is this false or true?
Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools?
If Christ, then why resort at every turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occasions, when in him reside
Grace, knowledge, comfort-an unfathomed store?
How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached!
Men that, if now alive, would sit content
And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,
Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth,
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candor too!
GOD made the country, and man made the town.
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threatened in the fields and groves?
Possess ye, therefore, ye who, borne about
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue
But that of idleness, and taste no scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only can ye shine;
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