Ye break it up to set thereon
A fortress or perhaps a throne,
And pray that God cast down his eyes
Benignly on burnt sacrifice,
The sacrifice of flesh and bone
Fashioned, they tell us, like His own.
Ye in the cold lie all the night
Under thin tents, at morn to fight.
Neither for horn'd nor fleecy cattle
Start we to mingle in the battle,
Or in the pasture shed their blood
To pamper idleness with food.
Indeed we do eat worms; what then?
Do not those very worms eat men,
And have the impudence to say
Ye shall ere long be such as they?
We never kill or wound a brother,
Men kill by thousands one another,
And, though ye swear ye wish but peace,
Your feuds and warfares never cease.'
Such homebrought truths the gardener,
Though mild by nature, could not bear,
And lest the mole might more have said
He chopt its head off with the spade.
The mother of the Muses, we are taught,
Is Memory she has left me; they remain,
And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing
About the summer days, my loves of old.
Alas! alas! is all I can reply.
Memory has left with me that name alone,
Harmonious name, which other bards may sing,
But her bright image in my darkest hour
Comes back, in vain comes back, call'd or uncall'd.
Forgotten are the names of visitors
Ready to press my hand but yesterday;
Forgotten are the names of earlier friends
Whose genial converse and glad countenance
Are fresh as ever to mine ear and eye;
To these, when I have written, and besought
Remembrance of me, the word Dear alone
Hangs on the upper verge, and waits in vain.
A blessing wert thou, O oblivion,
If thy stream carried only weeds away,
But vernal and autumnal flowers alike
It hurries down to wither on the strand.
Erin! thou art indeed of ancient race,
Erynnys bore thee, she who brought with her
That apple which retain'd in endless strife
Three Goddesses on Ida, she who urged
A few years later the fierce son of Thetis
To threaten Agamemnon: hardly could
Pallas withhold him and his lifted sword.
Forgettest thou thy merriment, thy jokes,
Thy genial hours, thy hospitable heart
Swift to fly open with the whiskey-cork?
Forgettest thou thy bard who, hurried home
From distant lands and, bent by poverty,
Reposed among the quiet scenes he loved
In native Auburn, nor disdain'd to join
The village dancers on the sanded floor?
No poet since hath Nature drawn so close
To her pure bosom as her Oliver.
Thou hearest yet the melodies of Moore,
Who sang your blue-eyed maidens worthily
If any voice of song can reach so high.
Why art thou, Erin, like a froward child
Struggling with screams to scratch its nurse's face,
And, pincht by hunger, throwing food away?
Thy harp sounds only discords: wilt thou never
Awake from dreams of murder? Shall the priest
Chaunt рах vobiscum and, before he leaves
The chapel, thrust a dagger in a hand
Working to grasp it?
But not all who chaunt
Are alike bloody-minded: one I knew
Familiar with his flock, nor much averse
To fare with it the seventh day, or sixth,
Or any other in the calendar.
By summer's heat his lips were often parcht,
By winter's cold as often. The Right Reverend
My lord the bishop scantily provided
For this poor brother; was it not enough
To own him, and to ask him how he did?
His modesty might have been deeply hurt
Had he seen sundry rents in certain parts
Where rents are most unseemly, and the girls
Might titter at 'em as they sew'd 'em up.
Then, had not the Right Reverend given him
Quite as much food as raven gave Elijah
By that divine commission from above?
Elijah was no curate, but a prophet,
And men should feed according to their station.
Poor were my friend's parishioners: he met
The wealthiest of them: "Faith and troth!" he cried, 'My eyes are ready to leap out to see
Thy merry face, Mic! Are all well at home?
Judy, that pattern wife, Bess, that brave girl,
Match for a lord, if lord were match for her."
Bedad! my eyes would have met yours halfway,"
Said honest Mic, and kist the proffer'd hand.
"Ours are all well; but Bess hath two feet lame
With chilblains, broken or about to break;
They plague her, and our Judy plagues her worse
Because she would put stockings on, the minx!
And how the divil find another pair
Entire and dacent for Saint Patrick's day?
Judy's will fit no other leg than hers,
And she has only one to bless her with,
This one she can not spare; it may please God
To send another in His own good time,
And then, who knows? we all must live in hope.
Now, father, will your Reverence step indoors?"
"Impossible. I must be home to dinner.
What have you? buttermilk?
And barrel'd, and at Bristow by the stamer."
Come Michaelmas, my blessed saint's own day.
Look yonder; there he lies and winks at us,
And rises not, even to your Reverence.
But he shall pay for it, come Michaelmas,
The pay-day and the saint's day the world over.
Grunt, grunt away, boy! thou shalt change thy note
For shriller, longer-winded; wait awhile."
"Mic, we must all await the appointed hour.
Let him be aisy, and don't bother him
Because thou art the luckier of the two,
For thou canst shove thy sins upon my shoulder
And leave wet eyes behind when thine are dry."
"Father! that ugly baist hath made you low." Well, I do think I would be better for
A drop, or half a drop, of cool nate whiskey."
"Was ever such bad luck since stills were stills! Jue drank the last to comfort her poor child."
FRA DOLCINO AND MARGARITA.
Dolcino was pursued with fire and sword,
Until the bloodhounds which had suckt the dugs
Of Rome's old wolf had trackt him coucht among
His native hills.
He halted briefly; there they scented him
Amid the faithful poor whose bread he ate,
Bread freely proffered and blest gratefully.
Next was his flight to the castellated
Robialto, where Biandrate held to him
A hospitable hand, a hand unmail'd
But rarely. Long the pious fugitive
Would not imperil him who stood observed
In eminence of station. More obscure
Emiliano Sola, who contrived
How from Dalmatia he might best return
To Italy, now brought to Campertogno
The weary pilgrim. Emiliano Sola
Would rather leave his home and fertile mead
Along Valsesia than desert his friend.
He loaded many teams with wheat and wool,
And drove before him oxen, freed from yoke,
Unused to mount steep crags; the household dog
Followed, though oft rebuked, and halting oft
Under the shadow of the panting kine.
Two winters then were spent above the snow,
And food was wanting both for man and beast,
So that the direst famine shrivel'd them,
Leaving but half what they had been before.
Escape was none; five thousand foes around
After five thousand had already tinged
With ropy gore the Sesia, like red snakes
Twisting, convolving, clashing, numberless.
Who has not seen Varallo, and not paused
Amid the beauteous scene to mourn the fate
Of men so brave, of women brave no less,
Whose flesh was torn from them while wolves around
Growl'd for it as 'twas cast into the flames;
But there was little for them had they all.
Ranieri di Perzana was ordain'd
Lord Bishop of Vercelli, proud alike
Of crosier and of sword, and rendering each
Its service to the other; princely state
Was his, with palaces and wide domains,
While over icebergs, over precipices,
Homeless and roofless, with eight hundred men,
Women, and children, Fra Dolcino fled.
"Now," said the bishop to his holy band,
"See, what avails it to have purified
Our violated church with fire and blood
Of thousand thousand reprobates, while one
Defies us from his Alpine fastnesses,
Consorted with that wicked Margarita
Of Trent, who shares his faith and who pretends
To live with him in virgin purity,
Altho' she never took the cloistral vows
Nor call'd the Church's blessing.
To read that book which we alone may read,
Christ's WILL AND TESTAMENT, bequeathed to us
Residuary legatees of all
In his rich treasury for our use lockt up,
And Peter's heir holds in his hand the key.
Against the abomination rise, my sons,
And leave on yonder mount no soul alive.
But there are some whom we may first convert.
Tell the rude rabble, snorting now and rearing
Against that sacred chair which Christ himself
Placed for St. Peter and St. Peter's heirs,
That I prepare in my dispensary
An application for stiff necks and wry,
The which shall straiten them and set them up."
Familiarly and pleasantly, as wont,
Thus spake Ranieri, by the Grace of God
And God's vicegerent, Bishop of Vercelli.
A patriot, bold as those whose hardy deeds
He traces with a poet's fire, relates
How winter after winter, destitute
Of fuel and of food, these mountaineers
Maintain❜d their post, nor daunted nor deceived;
How not the stronger sex alone sustain'd
The brunt of battle; of the weaker stood
A hundred, fighting till a hundred fell.
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