Between the fifth day and the sixth, all die.
I became blind; and in my misery

Went groping for them, as I knelt and crawled
About the room; and for three days I called
Upon their names, as though they could speak too,
Till famine did what grief had failed to do.'

Having spoke thus, he seized with fiery eyes
That wretch again, his feast and sacrifice,
And fastened on the skull, over a groan,
With teeth as strong as mastiff's on a bone.

Ah, Pisa! thou that shame and scandal be
To the sweet land that speaks the tongue of Sì,
Since Florence spareth thy vile neck the yoke,
Would that the very isles would rise, and choke
Thy river, and drown every soul within
Thy loathsome walls. What if this Ugolin
Did play the traitor, and give up (for so
The rumour runs) thy castles to the foe,
Thou hadst no right to put to rack like this
His children. Childhood innocency is.

But that same innocence, and that man's name,
Have damned thee, Pisa, to a Theban fame.

PURGATORIO, CANTO I, 13-27

[First published in Stories from the Italian Poets, 1846. Not reprinted.]

THE Sweetest oriental sapphire blue,

Which the whole air in its pure bosom had,

Greeted mine eyes, far as the heavens withdrew;

So that again they felt assured and glad,

Soon as they issued forth from the dead air,

Where every sight and thought had made them sad.
The beauteous star, which lets no love despair,
Made all the orient laugh with loveliness,
Veiling the Fish that glimmered in its hair.
I turned me to the right to gaze and bless,
And saw four more, never of living wight
Beheld, since Adam brought us our distress;
Heaven seemed rejoicing in their happy light.
O widowed northern pole, bereaved indeed,
Since thou hast had no power to see that sight!

PURGATORIO, CANTO II, 10-29

[First published in The Indicator, December 1, 1819. Not reprinted.]

THAT Solitary shore we still kept on,

Like men, who musing on their journey, stay

At rest in body, yet in heart are gone;

When lo, as at the early dawn of day,

10

Red Mars looks deepening through the foggy heat,
Down in the west, far o'er the watery way;
So did mine eyes behold (so may they yet)
A light, which came so swiftly o'er the sea,
That never wing with such a fervour beat.
I did but turn to ask what it might be

Of my sage leader, when its orb had got
More large meanwhile, and came more gloriously:
And by degrees, I saw I knew not what

Of white about it; and beneath the white
Another.
One word, till those first issuing candours bright
Fanned into wings; but soon as he had found
Who was the mighty voyager now in sight,
He cried aloud, Down, down upon the ground:
It is God's Angel.'

My great master uttered not

PURGATORIO, CANTO VIII, 1-6

19

20

[First published in Ainsworth's Magazine, December 1844. Reprinted in Stories from the Italian Poets, 1846; A Jar of Honey, 1848. Text 1848.]

'Twas now the hour, when love of home melts through
Men's hearts at sea, and longing thoughts portray

The moment when they bade sweet friends adieu;

And the new pilgrim now, on his lone way,
Thrills as he hears the distant vesper bell,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

I love... melts through] thoughts voyagers, and oft portray 1844.

renew 1844.

5 as] if 1846.

2 The sighs of vesper] village 1844.

PICTURE OF FLORENCE IN THE TIME OF DANTE'S

ANCESTORS

Paradiso, Canto XV, 97-129

[First published in Stories from the Italian Poets, 1846. Not reprinted.]

FLORENCE, before she broke the good old bounds,
Whence yet are heard the chimes of eve and morn,
Abided well in modesty and peace.

No coronets had she-no chains of gold

No gaudy sandals-no rich girdles rare

That caught the eye more than the person did.
Fathers then feared no daughter's birth, for dread
Of wantons courting wealth; nor were their homes
Emptied with exile. Chamberers had not shown
What they could dare, to prove their scorn of shame.
Your neighbouring uplands then beheld no towers
Prouder than Rome's, only to know worse fall.

I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad

Girt with a thong of leather and his wife

ΤΟ

Come from the glass without a painted face.
Nerlis I saw, and Vecchios, and the like,
In doublets without cloaks;
Contented while they spun.
They knew the place where they should lie when dead;
Nor were their beds deserted while they lived.

and their good dames
Blest women those !

They nursed their babies; lulled them with the songs
And household words of their own infancy;

And while they drew the distaffs' hair away,

In the sweet bosoms of their families,

Told tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome.

It had been then as marvellous to see

A man of Lapo Salterello's sort,

Or woman like Cianghella, as to find

A Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.

PETRARCH

PETRARCH'S CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH

IN THE BOWER OF LAURA

20

[First published in The Examiner, December 8, 1816; reprinted in The Indicator, July 12, 1820; and in 1832-60. Text 1832-60.]

[First published in The Indicator, April 19, 1820. Not reprinted.]

WALKING and musing in a wood, I saw

Some ladies gathering flowers, now this, now t'other,

And crying in delight to one another,

Look here, look here: what's this? a fleur-de-lis.
No, no, some roses farther onward there:

No; they're not rampions,

Yes, they are: Anna, Beatrice, or Lisa,

Come here, come here for mushrooms, just a bit
There, there's the betony-you're treading it.

We shall be caught, the weather 's going to change:
See, see it lightens-hush-and there's the thunder,
Was that the bell for vespers, too, I wonder?
Why, you faint-hearted thing, it isn't noon:
It was the nightingale-I know his tune-
There's something stirring there!

Where, where ?

There, in the bushes.'

Here every lady pokes, and peeps, and pushes;
When suddenly, in middle of the rout,

A great large snake comes out.

'Olord! O lord! Good heavens! O me! O me!'
And off they go, scampering with all their power,
While from above, down comes a pelting shower.
Frightened, and scrambling, jolting one another,
They shriek, they run, they slide: the foot of one
Catches her gown, and where the foot should be
Down goes the knee,

And hands, and clothes, and all; some stumble on,
Brushing the hard earth off, and some the mud.
What they plucked, so glad and heaping,

Now becomes not worth their keeping.

Off it squirrs, leaf, root, and flower;

Yet not the less for that they scream and scower,
In such a passage, happiest she

Who plies her notes most rapidly.

So fixed I stood, gazing at that fair set,

That I forgot the shower, and dripped with wet.

ANDREA DE BASSO

ODE TO A DEAD BODY

30

40

[First published in The Indicator, September 6, 1820. Reprinted (11. 1-28) 1828 (Lord Byron, &c.); (complete) 1832, 1860.

No variants.]