XVIII

They grubbed with a will: and at length- O cor
Humanum, pectora caca, and the rest!
They found no gaud they were prying for,

No ring, no rose, but - who would have guessed?

A double Louis-d'or!

XIX.

Here was a case for the priest: he heard,
Marked, inwardly digested, laid

Finger on nose, smiled, "There's a bird
Chirps in my ear: " then, "Bring a spade,
Dig deeper!" he gave the word.

XX.

And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,
Or rotten planks which composed it once,
Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid
A mint of money, it served for the nonce
To hold in its hair-heaps hid!

XXI.

Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont
(She the stainless soul) to treasure up
Money, earth's trash and heaven's affront?
Had a spider found out the communion-cup,
Was a toad in the christening-font?

XXII.

Truth is truth: too true it was.

Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first, Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it- alasTill the humour grew to a head and burst, And she cried, at the final pass,

XXIII.

"Talk not of God, my heart is stone!
Nor lover nor friend- be gold for both!
Gold I lack; and, my all, my own,

It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth
If they let my hair alone!"

до

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XXIV.

Louis-d'or, some six times five,

And duly double, every piece.

Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive,
With parents preventing her soul's release
By kisses that kept alive,

XXV.

With heaven's gold gates about to ope,

With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still, An instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope

For gold, the true sort - Gold in heaven, if you will; But I keep earth's too, I hope."

XXVI.

Enough! The priest took the grave's grim yield:

The parents, they eyed that price of sin

As if thirty pieces lay revealed

On the place to bury strangers in,

The hideous Potter's Field.

XXVII.

But the priest bethought him: "Milk that's spilt'
You know the adage! Watch and pray!

Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!
It would build a new altar; that, we may !"
And the altar therewith was built.

XXVᎥᏞ.

Why I deliver this horrible verse?

As the text of a sermon, which now I preach: Evil or good may be better or worse

In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse.

XXIX.

The candid incline to surmise of late

That the Christian faith proves false, I find; For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate

Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's words have weight:

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XXX.

I still, to suppose it true, for my part,

See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:

'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie - taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart.

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THE STATUE AND THE BUST.

Tand a statue watches it from the square,
HERE'S a palace in Florence, the world knows well,

And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,

At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, "Who rides by with the royal air?"

The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased-

They felt by its beats her heart expand –
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, "The Great Duke Ferdinand."

That self-same instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back-

66

Who is she?"

-"A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day."

Hair in heaps lay heavily

Over a pale brow spirit-pure

Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure —
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes
Of the blackest black our eyes endure.

And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.

He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes:
The Past was a sleep, and her life began.

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,
A feast was held, that self-same night,
In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.

(For Via Larga is three parts light, But the palace overshadows one,

Because of a crime which may God requite!

To Florence and God the wrong was done,
Thro' the first republic's murder there
By Cosimo and his cursed son.)

The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)
Turned, in the midst of his multitude,

At the bright approach of the bridal pair.

Face to face the lovers stood

A single minute and no more,

While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,
As the courtly custom was of yore.

In a minute can lovers exchange a word?
If a word did pass, which I do not think,
Only one out of the thousand heard.

H

That was the bridegroom. At day's brink
He and his bride were alone at last

In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink.

Calmly he said that her lot was cast,

That the door she had passed was shut on her
Till the final catafalk repassed.

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,
Thro' a certain window facing the East,
She could watch like a convent's chronicler.

Since passing the door might lead to a feast,
And a feast might lead to so much beside,
He, of many evils, chose the least.

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“Freely I choose too,” said the bride:
"Your window and its world suffice,"
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied —

"If I spend the night with that devil twice, May his window serve as my loop of hell Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!

"I fly to the Duke who loves me well, Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow Ere I count another ave-bell.

"T is only the coat of a page to borrow,
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim,
And I save my soul - but not to-morrow 99

(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)
"My father tarries to bless my state:
I must keep it one day more for him.

"Is one day more so long to wait? Moreover the Duke rides past, I know; We shall see each other, sure as fate."

She turned on her side and slept. Just so!
So we resolve on a thing, and sleep:
So did the lady, ages ago.

That night the Duke said, "Dear or cheap
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove
To body or soul, I will drain it deep."

And on the morrow, bold with love,

He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)

And smiled ""T was a very funeral,
Your lady will think, this feast of ours,
A shame to efface, whate'er befall!

"What if we break from the Arno bowers, And try if Petraja, cool and green,

Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen

On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, "Too much favour for me so mean!