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Death's protocol with every stroke:

And now . . . the drop there scarcely can Impair the keenness of the steel.

"So man and sword may have their use; And if the soil beneath my foot

In valour's act is forfeited,

I'll strike the harder, take my dues
Out nobler, and all loss confute
From ampler heavens above my head.

"My King, King Victor, I am thine!
So much Nice-dust as what I am

(To make our Italy) must cleave. Forgive that." Forward with a sign

He went.

You've seen the telegram?

Palermo's taken, we believe.

CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

ὡς βασιλει, ὡς θεῷ, ὡς νεκρῳ.

GREGORY NAZIANZEN.

THE Pope on Christmas Day
Sits in St. Peter's chair;
But the peoples murmur and say,
"Our souls are sick and forlorn,

And who will show us where

Is the stable where Christ was born?”

The star is lost in the dark;

The manger is lost in the straw,

The Christ cries faintly . . . hark!

Through bands that swaddle and strangle— But the Pope in the chair of awe

Looks down the great quadrangle.

The magi kneel at his foot,

Kings of the east and west,

But, instead of the angels, (mute

Is the "Peace on earth" of their song), The peoples, perplexed and opprest,

Are sighing, "How long, how long?"

And, instead of the kine, bewilder in
Shadow of aisle and dome,

The bear who tore up the children,
The fox who burnt up the corn,
And the wolf who suckled at Rome
Brothers to slay and to scorn.

Cardinals left and right of him,
Worshippers round and beneath,
The silver trumpets at sight of him
Thrill with a musical blast:
But the people say through their teeth,
"Trumpets? we wait for the Last!"

He sits in the place of the Lord,

And asks for the gifts of the time; Gold, for the haft of a sword,

To win back Romagna averse,

Incense, to sweeten a crime,

And myrrh, to embitter a curse.

Then a king of the west said, "Good !—
I bring thee the gifts of the time;
Red, for the patriot's blood,

Green, for the martyr's crown,

White, for the dew and the rime,

When the morning of God comes down."

-O mystic tricolor bright!

The Pope's heart quailed like a man's: The cardinals froze at the sight,

Bowing their tonsures hoary:
And the eyes in the peacock-fans
Winked at the alien glory.

But the peoples exclaimed in hope,
"Now blessed be he who has brought
These gifts of the time to the Pope,
When our souls were sick and forlorn.
-And here is the star we sought,

To show us where Christ was born!

ITALY AND THE WORLD.

FLORENCE, Bologna, Parma, Modena-
When you named them a year ago,
So many graves reserved by God, in a
Day of Judgment, you seemed to know,
open and let out the resurrection.

Το

And meantime, (you made your reflection

If you were English), was nought to be done But sorting sables, in predilection

For all those martyrs dead and gone,
Till the new earth and heaven made ready.

And if your politics were not heady,

Violent,-"Good," you added, "good
In all things! mourn on sure and steady.
Churchyard thistles are wholesome food
For our European wandering asses.

'The date of the resurrection passes
Human fore-knowledge: men unborn
Will gain by it (even in the lower classes),
But none of these. It is not the morn
Because the cock of France is crowing.

"Cocks crow at midnight, seldom knowing Starlight from dawn-light! 't is a mad

Poor creature." Here you paused, and growing Scornful,—suddenly, let us add,

The trumpet sounded, the graves were open.

Life and life and life! agrope in

The dusk of death, warm hands, stretched out For swords, proved more life still to hope in, Beyond and behind. Arise with a shout, Nation of Italy, slain and buried !

Hill to hill and turret to turret

Flashing the tricolor,--newly created Beautiful Italy, calm, unhurried,

Rise heroic and renovated,

Rise to the final restitution.

Rise; prefigure the grand solution

Of earth's municipal, insular schisms,— Statesmen draping self-love's conclusion In cheap, vernacular patriotisms, Unable to give up Judæa for Jesus.

Bring us the higher example; release us

Into the larger coming time:

And into Christ's broad garment piece us
Rags of virtue as poor as crime,
National selfishness, civic vaunting.

No more Jew nor Greek then,—taunting

Nor taunted;-no more England nor France !

But one confederate brotherhood planting

One flag only, to mark the advance,
Onward and upward, of all humanity

For fully developed Christianity
Is civilization perfected.

"Count the ships," in national vanity,

"Measure the frontier," shall it be said? -Count the nation's heart-beats sooner.

For, though behind by a cannon or schooner,
That nation still is predominant

Whose pulse beats quickest in zeal to oppugn or
Succour another, in wrong or want,
Passing the frontier in love and abhorrence.

Modena, Parma, Bologna, Florence,

Open us out the wider way!

Dwarf, in that chapel of old St. Laurence,
Your Michel Angelo's giant Day,

With the grandeur of this Day breaking o'er us!

Ye who, restrained as an ancient chorus,

Mute while the choryphæus spake,

Hush your separate voices before us,
Sink your separate lives for the sake
Of one sole Italy's living for ever!

Givers of coat and cloak too,-never

Grudging that purple of yours at the best,-
By your heroic will and endeavour,
Each sublimely dispossessed,

That all may inherit what each surrenders!

Earth shall bless you, O noble emenders
On egotist nations! Ye shall lead

The plough of the world, and sow new splendours
Into the furrow of things for seed,-

Ever the richer for what ye have given.

Lead us and teach us, till earth and heaven
Grow larger around us and higher above.
Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven;
We bait our traps with the name of love,
Till hate itself has a kinder meaning.

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