Sordello: Book the First

TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON.     Who will, may hear Sordello's story told:     His story? Who believes me shall behold     The man, pursue his fortunes to the end,     Like me: for as the friendless-people's friend     Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din     And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin     Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out     Sordello, compassed murkily about     With ravage of six long sad hundred years.     Only believe me. Ye believe?     Appears     Verona . . . Never, I should warn you first,     Of my own choice had this, if not the worst     Yet not the best expedient, served to tell     A story I could body forth so well     By making speak, myself kept out of view,     The very man as he was wont to do,     And leaving you to say the rest for him.     Since, though I might be proud to see the dim     Abysmal past divide its hateful surge,     Letting of all men this one man emerge     Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,     I should delight in watching first to last     His progress as you watch it, not a whit     More in the secret than yourselves who sit     Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems     Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,     Makers of quite new men, producing them,     Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem     The wearer's quality; or take their stand,     Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand,     Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends,     Summoned together from the world's four ends,     Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell,     To hear the story I propose to tell.     Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick,     Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick,     And shaming her; 't is not for fate to choose     Silence or song because she can refuse     Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache     Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake:     I have experienced something of her spite;     But there 's a realm wherein she has no right     And I have many lovers. Say; but few     Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view     The host I muster! Many a lighted face     Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace;     What else should tempt them back to taste our air     Except to see how their successors fare?     My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man     Striving to look as living as he can,     Brother by breathing brother; thou art set,     Clear-witted critic, by . . . but I 'll not fret     A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen     Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean     The living in good earnest ye elect     Chiefly for love suppose not I reject     Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep,     Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep,     To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,     Verona! stay thou, spirit, come not near     Now not this time desert thy cloudy place     To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!     I need not fear this audience, I make free     With them, but then this is no place for thee!     The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown     Up out of memories of Marathon,     Would echo like his own sword's griding screech     Braying a Persian shield, the silver speech     Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin,     Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in     The knights to tilt, wert thou to hear! What heart     Have I to play my puppets, bear my part     Before these worthies?     Lo, the past is hurled     In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world,     Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears     Its outline, kindles at the core, appears     Verona. 'T is six hundred years and more     Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore     The purple, and the Third Honorius filled     The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled:     A last remains of sunset dimly burned     O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned     By the wind back upon its bearer's hand     In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,     The woods beneath lay black. A single eye     From all Verona cared for the soft sky.     But, gathering in its ancient market-place,     Talked group with restless group; and not a face     But wrath made livid, for among them were     Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care     To feast him. Fear had long since taken root     In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,     The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way     It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and grey     Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro,     Letting the silent luxury trickle slow     About the hollows where a heart should be;     But the young gulped with a delirious glee     Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood     At the fierce news: for, be it understood,     Envoys apprised Verona that her prince     Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since     A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust     Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust     With Ecelin Romano, from his seat     Ferrara, over zealous in the feat     And stumbling on a peril unaware,     Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare,     They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue.     Immediate succour from the Lombard League     Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope,     For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope     Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast!     Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast.     "Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes     "Mirth for the devil when he undertakes     "To play the Ecelin; as if it cost     "Merely your pushing-by to gain a post     "Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all,     "There be sound reasons that preferment fall     "On our beloved" . . .     "Duke o' the Rood, why not?"     Shouted an Estian, "grudge ye such a lot?     "The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,     "Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown,     "That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts,     "And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts."     "Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane     "Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain     "To fly but forced the earth his couch to make     "Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake,     "Waits he the Kaiser's coming; and as yet     "That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let     "Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs     "The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs     "The sea it means to cross because of him.     "Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim;     "Creep closer on the creature! Every day     "Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say,     "Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips     "Telling upon his perished finger-tips     "How many ancestors are to depose     "Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze     "Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt     "Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt     "When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet     "Buccio Virt God's wafer, and the street     "Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm     "With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm!     "This could not last. Off Salinguerra went     "To Padua, Podest, 'with pure intent,'     "Said he, 'my presence, judged the single bar     "'To permanent tranquillity, may jar     "'No longer' so! his back is fairly turned?     "The pair of goodly palaces are burned,     "The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk     "A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk     "In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way,     "Old Salinguerra back again I say,     "Old Salinguerra in the town once more     "Uprooting, overturning, flame before,     "Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled;     "Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead     "Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne,     "He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone,     "Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce     "Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce,     "On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth     "To see troop after troop encamp beneath     "I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch     "It took so many patient months to snatch     "Out of the marsh; while just within their walls     "Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls     "A parley: 'let the Count wind up the war!'     "Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star,     "Agrees to enter for the kindest ends     "Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends,     "No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort     "Should fly Ferrara at the bare report.     "Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog;     "'Ten, twenty, thirty, curse the catalogue     "'Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows     "'Not the least sign of life' whereat arose     "A general growl: 'How? With his victors by?     "'I and my Veronese? My troops and I?     "'Receive us, was your word?' So jogged they on,     "Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone     "Into the trap! "     Six hundred years ago!     Such the time's aspect and peculiar woe     (Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles,     Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills     His sprawling path through letters anciently     Made fine and large to suit some abbot's eye)     When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask,     Flung John of Brienne's favour from his casque,     Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave     Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve     Losses to Otho and to Barbaross,     Or make the Alps less easy to recross;     And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear,     Was excommunicate that very year.     "The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!"     Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife,     Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin,     Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin,     Its cry: what cry?     "The Emperor to come!"     His crowd of feudatories, all and some,     That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields,     One fighter on his fellow, to our fields,     Scattered anon, took station here and there,     And carried it, till now, with little care     Cannot but cry for him; how else rebut     Us longer? cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut     In the mid-sea, each domineering crest     Which nought save such another throe can wrest     From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown     Since o'er the waters, twine and tangle thrown     Too thick, too fast accumulating round,     Too sure to over-riot and confound     Ere long each brilliant islet with itself,     Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf,     Whirling the sea-drift wide: alas, the bruised     And sullen wreck! Sunlight to be diffused     For that! sunlight, 'neath which, a scum at first,     The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst     Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main,     And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again,     So kindly blazed it that same blaze to brood     O'er every cluster of the multitude     Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments,     An emulous exchange of pulses, vents     Of nature into nature; till some growth     Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe     A surface solid now, continuous, one:     "The Pope, for us the People, who begun     "The People, carries on the People thus,     "To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!"     See you?     Or say, Two Principles that live     Each fitly by its Representative.     "Hill-cat" who called him so? the gracefullest     Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest     Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur,     Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr     Soothes jealous neighbours when a Saxon scout     Arpo or Yoland, is it? one without     A country or a name, presumes to couch     Beside their noblest; until men avouch     That, of all Houses in the Trevisan,     Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van,     Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled     That name at Milan on the page of gold,     Godego's lord, Ramon, Marostica,     Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria,     And every sheep cote on the Suabian's fief!     No laughter when his son, "the Lombard Chief"     Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent     To Italy along the Vale of Trent,     Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now     The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow,     The Asolan and Euganean hills,     The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills     Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay     Among and care about them; day by day     Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot,     A castle building to defend a cot,     A cot built for a castle to defend,     Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end     To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge     By sunken gallery and soaring bridge.     He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems     The griesliest nightmare of the Church's dreams,     A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged     From its old interests, and nowise changed     By its new neighbourhood: perchance the vaunt     Of Otho, "my own Este shall supplant     "Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in     A son as cruel; and this Ecelin     Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall     And curling and compliant; but for all     Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck     Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek     Proved 't was some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went     To feed: whereas Romano's instrument,     Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole     I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole     Successively, why should not he shed blood     To further a design? Men understood     Living was pleasant to him as he wore     His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er,     Propped on his truncheon in the public way,     While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray,     Lost at Oliero's convent.     Hill-cats, face     Our Azzo, our Guelf Lion! Why disgrace     A worthiness conspicuous near and far     (Atii at Rome while free and consular,     Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun)     By trumpeting the Church's princely son?     Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine,     Ancona's march, Ferrara's . . . ask, in fine,     Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk     Found it intolerable to be sunk     (Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell)     Quite out of summer while alive and well:     Ended when by his mat the Prior stood,     'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood,     Striving to coax from his decrepit brains     The reason Father Porphyry took pains     To blot those ten lines out which used to stand     First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand.     The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore     Was vested in a certain Twenty-four;     And while within his palace these debate     Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate,     Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare     Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care     For aught that 's seen or heard until we shut     The smother in, the lights, all noises but     The carroch's booming: safe at last! Why strange     Such a recess should lurk behind a range     Of banquet-rooms? Your finger thus you push     A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush     Upon the banqueters, select your prey,     Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way     Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear     A preconcerted signal to appear;     Or if you simply crouch with beating heart,     Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part     To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now;     Nor any . . . does that one man sleep whose brow     The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er?     What woman stood beside him? not the more     Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes     Because that arras fell between! Her wise     And lulling words are yet about the room,     Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom     Down even to her vesture's creeping stir.     And so reclines he, saturate with her,     Until an outcry from the square beneath     Pierces the charm: he springs up, glad to breathe,     Above the cunning element, and shakes     The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks     On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it,     The lean frame like a half-burnt taper, lit     Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away     Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day,     In his wool wedding-robe.     For he for he,     Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy,     (If I should falter now) for he is thine!     Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine!     A herald-star I know thou didst absorb     Relentless into the consummate orb     That scared it from its right to roll along     A sempiternal path with dance and song     Fulfilling its allotted period,     Serenest of the progeny of God     Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops     With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops     Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent     Utterly with thee, its shy element     Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear.     Still, what if I approach the august sphere     Named now with only one name, disentwine     That under-current soft and argentine     From its fierce mate in the majestic mass     Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass     In John's transcendent vision, launch once more     That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore     Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,     Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume     Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope     Into a darkness quieted by hope;     Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye     In gracious twilights where his chosen lie,     I would do this! If I should falter now!     In Mantua territory half is slough,     Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks     Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes     With sand the summer through: but 't is morass     In winter up to Mantua walls. There was,     Some thirty years before this evening's coil,     One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil,     Goito; just a castle built amid     A few low mountains; firs and larches hid     Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound     The rest. Some captured creature in a pound,     Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress,     Secure beside in its own loveliness,     So peered with airy head, below, above,     The castle at its toils, the lapwings love     To glean among at grape-time. Pass within.     A maze of corridors contrived for sin,     Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past,     You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last     A maple-panelled room: that haze which seems     Floating about the panel, if there gleams     A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold     And in light-graven characters unfold     The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade     Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made,     Cut like a company of palms to prop     The roof, each kissing top entwined with top,     Leaning together; in the carver's mind     Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined     With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair     Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear     A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick     To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick     Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits     Across the buttress suffer light by fits     Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop     A dullish grey-streaked cumbrous font, a group     Round it, each side of it, where'er one sees,     Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides     Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh     Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh     First pulse of life shot brightening the snow.     The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so     They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed;     Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed,     Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil     Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale,     Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length     Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength     Goes when the grate above shuts heavily.     So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see,     Like priestesses because of sin impure     Penanced for ever, who resigned endure,     Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs.     And every eve, Sordello's visit begs     Pardon for them: constant as eve he came     To sit beside each in her turn, the same     As one of them, a certain space: and awe     Made a great indistinctness till he saw     Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks,     Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks     And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain     Her load were lightened, one shade less the stain     Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt     From off the rosary whereby the crypt     Keeps count of the contritions of its charge?     Then with a step more light, a heart more large,     He may depart, leave her and every one     To linger out the penance in mute stone.     Ah, but Sordello? 'T is the tale I mean     To tell you.     In this castle may be seen,     On the hill tops, or underneath the vines,     Or eastward by the mound of firs and pines     That shuts out Mantua, still in loneliness,     A slender boy in a loose page's dress,     Sordello: do but look on him awhile     Watching ('t is autumn) with an earnest smile     The noisy flock of thievish birds at work     Among the yellowing vineyards; see him lurk     ('T is winter with its sullenest of storms)     Beside that arras-length of broidered forms,     On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light     Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright     Ecelo, dismal father of the brood,     And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed,     Auria, and their Child, with all his wives     From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives,     Lady of the castle, Adelaide. His face     Look, now he turns away! Yourselves shall trace     (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine,     A sharp and restless lip, so well combine     With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive     Delight at every sense; you can believe     Sordello foremost in the regal class     Nature has broadly severed from her mass     Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames     Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,     For loose fertility; a footfall there     Suffices to upturn to the warm air     Half-germinating spices; mere decay     Produces richer life; and day by day     New pollen on the lily-petal grows,     And still more labyrinthine buds the rose.     You recognise at once the finer dress     Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness     At eye and ear, while round the rest is furled     (As though she would not trust them with her world)     A veil that shows a sky not near so blue,     And lets but half the sun look fervid through.     How can such love? like souls on each full-fraught     Discovery brooding, blind at first to aught     Beyond its beauty, till exceeding love     Becomes an aching weight; and, to remove     A curse that haunts such natures to preclude     Their finding out themselves can work no good     To what they love nor make it very blest     By their endeavour, they are fain invest     The lifeless thing with life from their own soul,     Availing it to purpose, to control,     To dwell distinct and have peculiar joy     And separate interests that may employ     That beauty fitly, for its proper sake.     Nor rest they here; fresh births of beauty wake     Fresh homage, every grade of love is past,     With every mode of loveliness: then cast     Inferior idols off their borrowed crown     Before a coming glory. Up and down     Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine     To throb the secret forth; a touch divine     And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod;     Visibly through his garden walketh God.     So fare they. Now revert. One character     Denotes them through the progress and the stir,     A need to blend with each external charm,     Bury themselves, the whole heart wide and warm,     In something not themselves; they would belong     To what they worship stronger and more strong     Thus prodigally fed which gathers shape     And feature, soon imprisons past escape     The votary framed to love and to submit     Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it,     Whence grew the idol's empery. So runs     A legend; light had birth ere moons and suns,     Flowing through space a river and alone,     Till chaos burst and blank the spheres were strown     Hither and thither, foundering and blind:     When into each of them rushed light to find     Itself no place, foiled of its radiant chance.     Let such forego their just inheritance!     For there 's a class that eagerly looks, too,     On beauty, but, unlike the gentler crew,     Proclaims each new revealment born a twin     With a distinctest consciousness within,     Referring still the quality, now first     Revealed, to their own soul its instinct nursed     In silence, now remembered better, shown     More thoroughly, but not the less their own;     A dream come true; the special exercise     Of any special function that implies     The being fair, or good, or wise, or strong,     Dormant within their nature all along     Whose fault? So, homage, other souls direct     Without, turns inward. "How should this deject     "Thee, soul?" they murmur; "wherefore strength be quelled     "Because, its trivial accidents withheld,     "Organs are missed that clog the world, inert,     "Wanting a will, to quicken and exert,     "Like thine existence cannot satiate,     "Cannot surprise? Laugh thou at envious fate,     "Who, from earth's simplest combination stampt     "With individuality uncrampt     "By living its faint elemental life,     "Dost soar to heaven's complexest essence, rife     "With grandeurs, unaffronted to the last,     "Equal to being all!"     In truth? Thou hast     Life, then wilt challenge life for us: our race     Is vindicated so, obtains its place     In thy ascent, the first of us; whom we     May follow, to the meanest, finally,     With our more bounded wills?     Ah, but to find     A certain mood enervate such a mind,     Counsel it slumber in the solitude     Thus reached nor, stooping, task for mankind's good     Its nature just as life and time accord     "Too narrow an arena to reward     "Emprize the world's occasion worthless since     "Not absolutely fitted to evince     "Its mastery!" Or if yet worse befall,     And a desire possess it to put all     That nature forth, forcing our straitened sphere     Contain it, to display completely here     The mastery another life should learn,     Thrusting in time eternity's concern,     So that Sordello. . . .     Fool, who spied the mark     Of leprosy upon him, violet-dark     Already as he loiters? Born just now,     With the new century, beside the glow     And efflorescence out of barbarism;     Witness a Greek or two from the abysm     That stray through Florence-town with studious air,     Calming the chisel of that Pisan pair:     If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet!     While at Siena is Guidone set,     Forehead on hand; a painful birth must be     Matured ere Saint Eufemia's sacristy     Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze     At the moon: look you! The same orange haze,     The same blue stripe round that and, in the midst,     Thy spectral whiteness, Mother-maid, who didst     Pursue the dizzy painter!     Woe, then, worth     Any officious babble letting forth     The leprosy confirmed and ruinous     To spirit lodged in a contracted house!     Go back to the beginning, rather; blend     It gently with Sordello's life; the end     Is piteous, you may see, but much between     Pleasant enough. Meantime, some pyx to screen     The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon     The goblin! So they found at Babylon,     (Colleagues, mad Lucius and sage Antonine)     Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine,     In rummaging among the rarities,     A certain coffer; he who made the prize     Opened it greedily; and out there curled     Just such another plague, for half the world     Was stung. Crawl in then, hag, and couch asquat,     Keeping that blotchy bosom thick in spot     Until your time is ripe! The coffer-lid     Is fastened, and the coffer safely hid     Under the Loxian's choicest gifts of gold.     Who will may hear Sordello's story told,     And how he never could remember when     He dwelt not at Goito. Calmly, then,     About this secret lodge of Adelaide's     Glided his youth away; beyond the glades     On the fir-forest border, and the rim     Of the low range of mountain, was for him     No other world: but this appeared his own     To wander through at pleasure and alone.     The castle too seemed empty; far and wide     Might he disport; only the northern side     Lay under a mysterious interdict     Slight, just enough remembered to restrict     His roaming to the corridors, the vault     Where those font-bearers expiate their fault,     The maple-chamber, and the little nooks     And nests, and breezy parapet that looks     Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled.     Some foreign women-servants, very old,     Tended and crept about him all his clue     To the world's business and embroiled ado     Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most.     And first a simple sense of life engrossed     Sordello in his drowsy Paradise;     The day's adventures for the day suffice     Its constant tribute of perceptions strange,     With sleep and stir in healthy interchange,     Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease     Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees,     Eats the life out of every luscious plant,     And, when September finds them sere or scant,     Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite,     And hies him after unforeseen delight.     So fed Sordello, not a shard dissheathed;     As ever, round each new discovery, wreathed     Luxuriantly the fancies infantine     His admiration, bent on making fine     Its novel friend at any risk, would fling     In gay profusion forth: a ficklest king,     Confessed those minions! eager to dispense     So much from his own stock of thought and sense     As might enable each to stand alone     And serve him for a fellow; with his own,     Joining the qualities that just before     Had graced some older favourite. Thus they wore     A fluctuating halo, yesterday     Set flicker and to-morrow filched away,     Those upland objects each of separate name,     Each with an aspect never twice the same,     Waxing and waning as the new-born host     Of fancies, like a single night's hoar-frost,     Gave to familiar things a face grotesque;     Only, preserving through the mad burlesque     A grave regard. Conceive! the orpine patch     Blossoming earliest on the log-house thatch     The day those archers wound along the vines     Related to the Chief that left their lines     To climb with clinking step the northern stair     Up to the solitary chambers where     Sordello never came. Thus thrall reached thrall;     He o'er-festooning every interval,     As the adventurous spider, making light     Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height,     From barbican to battlement: so flung     Fantasies forth and in their centre swung     Our architect, the breezy morning fresh     Above, and merry, all his waving mesh     Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged.     This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged     To laying such a spangled fabric low     Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow.     But its abundant will was baulked here: doubt     Rose tardily in one so fenced about     From most that nurtures judgment, care and pain:     Judgment, that dull expedient we are fain,     Less favoured, to adopt betimes and force     Stead us, diverted from our natural course     Of joys contrive some yet amid the dearth,     Vary and render them, it may be, worth     Most we forego. Suppose Sordello hence     Selfish enough, without a moral sense     However feeble; what informed the boy     Others desired a portion in his joy?     Or say a ruthful chance broke woof and warp     A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp,     A fawn breathless beneath the precipice,     A bird with unsoiled breast and unfilmed eyes     Warm in the brake could these undo the trance     Lapping Sordello? Not a circumstance     That makes for you, friend Naddo! Eat fern-seed     And peer beside us and report indeed     If (your word) "genius" dawned with throes and stings     And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs,     Summers, and winters quietly came and went.     Time put at length that period to content,     By right the world should have imposed: bereft     Of its good offices, Sordello, left     To study his companions, managed rip     Their fringe off, learn the true relationship,     Core with its crust, their nature with his own:     Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone.     As if the poppy felt with him! Though he     Partook the poppy's red effrontery     Till Autumn spoiled their fleering quite with rain,     And, turbanless, a coarse brown rattling crane     Lay bare. That 's gone: yet why renounce, for that,     His disenchanted tributaries flat     Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn,     Their simple presence might not well be borne     Whose parley was a transport once: recall     The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all,     A poppy: why distrust the evidence     Of each soon satisfied and healthy sense?     The new-born judgment answered, "little boots     "Beholding other creatures' attributes     "And having none!" or, say that it sufficed,     "Yet, could one but possess, oneself," (enticed     Judgment) "some special office!" Nought beside     Serves you? "Well then, be somehow justified     "For this ignoble wish to circumscribe     "And concentrate, rather than swell, the tribe     "Of actual pleasures: what, now, from without     "Effects it? proves, despite a lurking doubt,     "Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared?     "That, tasting joys by proxy thus, you fared     "The better for them?" Thus much craved his soul,     Alas, from the beginning love is whole     And true; if sure of nought beside, most sure     Of its own truth at least; nor may endure     A crowd to see its face, that cannot know     How hot the pulses throb its heart below.     While its own helplessness and utter want     Of means to worthily be ministrant     To what it worships, do but fan the more     Its flame, exalt the idol far before     Itself as it would have it ever be.     Souls like Sordello, on the contrary,     Coerced and put to shame, retaining will,     Care little, take mysterious comfort still,     But look forth tremblingly to ascertain     If others judge their claims not urged in vain,     And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud.     So, they must ever live before a crowd:     "Vanity," Naddo tells you.     Whence contrive     A crowd, now? From these women just alive,     That archer-troop? Forth glided not alone     Each painted warrior, every girl of stone,     Nor Adelaide (bent double o'er a scroll,     One maiden at her knees, that eve, his soul     Shook as he stumbled through the arras'd glooms     On them, for, 'mid quaint robes and weird perfumes,     Started the meagre Tuscan up, her eyes,     The maiden's, also, bluer with surprise)     But the entire out-world: whatever, scraps     And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps,     Conceited the world's offices, and he     Had hitherto transferred to flower or tree,     Not counted a befitting heritage     Each, of its own right, singly to engage     Some man, no other, such now dared to stand     Alone. Strength, wisdom, grace on every hand     Soon disengaged themselves, and he discerned     A sort of human life: at least, was turned     A stream of lifelike figures through his brain.     Lord, liegeman, valvassor and suzerain,     Ere he could choose, surrounded him; a stuff     To work his pleasure on; there, sure enough:     But as for gazing, what shall fix that gaze?     Are they to simply testify the ways     He who convoked them sends his soul along     With the cloud's thunder or a dove's brood-song?     While they live each his life, boast each his own     Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone     In some one point where something dearest loved     Is easiest gained far worthier to be proved     Than aught he envies in the forest-wights!     No simple and self-evident delights,     But mixed desires of unimagined range,     Contrasts or combinations, new and strange,     Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized     By this, the sudden company loves prized     By those who are to prize his own amount     Of loves. Once care because such make account,     Allow that foreign recognitions stamp     The current value, and his crowd shall vamp     Him counterfeits enough; and so their print     Be on the piece, 't is gold, attests the mint,     And "good," pronounce they whom his new appeal     Is made to: if their casual print conceal     This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss     What he has lived without, nor felt the loss     Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome,     What matter? So must speech expand the dumb     Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late     Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate,     Betakes himself to study hungrily     Just what the puppets his crude phantasy     Supposes notablest, popes, kings, priests, knights,     May please to promulgate for appetites;     Accepting all their artificial joys     Not as he views them, but as he employs     Each shape to estimate the other's stock     Of attributes, whereon a marshalled flock     Of authorized enjoyments he may spend     Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend     With tree and flower nay more entirely, else     'T were mockery: for instance, "How excels     "My life that chieftain's?" (who apprised the youth     Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth,     Imperial Vicar?) "Turns he in his tent     "Remissly? Be it so my head is bent     "Deliciously amid my girls to sleep.     "What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep     "I climbed an hour ago with little toil:     "We are alike there. But can I, too, foil     "The Guelf's paid stabber, carelessly afford     "Saint Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword     "Baffling the treason in a moment?" Here     No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer     To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand,     Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand     With Ecelin's success try, now! He soon     Was satisfied, returned as to the moon     From earth; left each abortive boy's-attempt     For feats, from failure happily exempt,     In fancy at his beck. "One day I will     "Accomplish it! Are they not older still     "Not grown-up men and women? 'T is beside     "Only a dream; and though I must abide     "With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent     "For all myself, acquire an instrument     "For acting what these people act; my soul     "Hunting a body out may gain its whole     "Desire some day!" How else express chagrin     And resignation, show the hope steal in     With which he let sink from an aching wrist     The rough-hewn ash-bow? Straight, a gold shaft hissed     Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down     Superbly! "Crosses to the breach! God's Town     "Is gained him back!" Why bend rough ash-bows more?     Thus lives he: if not careless as before,     Comforted: for one may anticipate,     Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate     Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names     Startle, real places of enormous fames,     Este abroad and Ecelin at home     To worship him, Mantua, Verona, Rome     To witness it. Who grudges time so spent?     Rather test qualities to heart's content     Summon them, thrice selected, near and far     Compress the starriest into one star,     And grasp the whole at once!     The pageant thinned     Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind     His spirit passed to winnow and divide;     Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side     The strong clave to the wise; with either classed     The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed     Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced     Themselves eventually, graces loosed,     Strengths lavished, all to heighten up One Shape     Whose potency no creature should escape.     Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen's talk?     Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk,     Is some grey scorching Saracenic wine     The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline     Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped,     Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped,     Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent     To keep in mind his sluggish armament     Of Canaan: Friedrich's, all the pomp and fierce     Demeanour! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce     So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells     Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells     On the obdurate! That right arm indeed     Has thunder for its slave; but where 's the need     Of thunder if the stricken multitude     Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood,     While songs go up exulting, then dispread,     Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead     Like an escape of angels? 'T is the tune,     Nor much unlike the words his women croon     Smilingly, colourless and faint-designed     Each, as a worn-out queen's face some remind     Of her extreme youth's love-tales. "Eglamor     "Made that!" Half minstrel and half emperor,     What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew.     The kinder sort were easy to subdue     By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones;     And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones     Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this,     Striving to name afresh the antique bliss,     Instead of saying, neither less nor more,     He had discovered, as our world before,     Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid     Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid     The youth what thefts of every clime and day     Contributed to purfle the array     He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine     Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen,     Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped     Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped     He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock     Though really on the stubs of living rock     Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof,     Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof,     Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly,     Born of the simmering quiet, there to die.     Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied     Mighty descents of forest; multiplied     Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees,     There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease.     And, proud of its observer, straight the wood     Tried old surprises on him; black it stood     A sudden barrier ('twas a cloud passed o'er)     So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more     Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)     Each clump, behold, was glistering detached     A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems!     Yet could not he denounce the stratagems     He saw thro', till, hours thence, aloft would hang     White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang     To measure, that whole palpitating breast     Of heaven, 't was Apollo, nature prest     At eve to worship.     Time stole: by degrees     The Pythons perish off; his votaries     Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem     Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem     Emphatic; only girls are very slow     To disappear his Delians! Some that glow     O' the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench     Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench;     Alike in one material circumstance     All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance     The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice,     His Daphne! "We secure Count Richard's voice     "In Este's counsels, good for Este's ends     "As our Taurello," say his faded friends,     "By granting him our Palma!" the sole child,     They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled     Ecelin, years before this Adelaide     Wedded and turned him wicked: "but the maid     "Rejects his suit," those sleepy women boast.     She, scorning all beside, deserves the most     Sordello: so, conspicuous in his world     Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled     Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound     About her like a glory! even the ground     Was bright as with spilt sunbeams; breathe not, breathe     Not! poised, see, one leg doubled underneath,     Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow,     Rests, but the other, listlessly below,     O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air,     The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where     The languid blood lies heavily; yet calm     On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm,     As but suspended in the act to rise     By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes     Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets     Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms.     Time fleets:     That 's worst! Because the pre-appointed age     Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage     And crowd she promised. Lean he grows and pale,     Though restlessly at rest. Hardly avail     Fancies to soothe him. Time steals, yet alone     He tarries here! The earnest smile is gone.     How long this might continue matters not;     For ever, possibly; since to the spot     None come: our lingering Taurello quits     Mantua at last, and light our lady flits     Back to her place disburthened of a care.     Strange to be constant here if he is there!     Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both     Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth     Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb     And Richard wavering: let but Friedrich come,     Find matter for the minstrelsy's report     Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court     To sing us a Messina morning up,     And, double rillet of a drinking cup,     Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth,     Northward to Provence that, and thus far south     The other! What a method to apprise     Neighbours of births, espousals, obsequies,     Which in their very tongue the Troubadour     Records! and his performance makes a tour,     For Trouveres bear the miracle about,     Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout,     Until the Formidable House is famed     Over the country as Taurello aimed,     Who introduced, although the rest adopt,     The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped,     Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse     No longer, in the light of day pursues     Her plans at Mantua: whence an accident     Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content     Opened, like any flash that cures the blind,     The veritable business of mankind.