Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace !"
Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew
His little children to the window-place
He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest
They too should govern as the people willed.
What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best,
Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled

With good warm human tears which unrepressed
Ran down. I like his face; the forehead's build
Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps
Sufficient comprehension,-mild and sad,

And careful nobly,—not with care that wraps
Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad,
But careful with the care that shuns a lapse
Of faith and duty, studious not to add

A burden in the gathering of a gain,

And so, God save the Duke, I say with those
Who that day shouted it; and while dukes reign,
May all wear in the visible overflows

Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!
For God must love it better than repose.

And all the people who went up to let

Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told-Where guess ye that the living people met,

Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled Their banners?

In the Loggia? where is set

Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze or gold, (How name the metal, when the statue flings

Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword

Superbly calm, as all opposing things,

Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred Since ended?

No, the people sought no wings From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored

An inspiration in the place beside

From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand, Where Buonarroti passionately tried

From out the close-clenched marble to demand

The head of Rome's sublimest homicide,

Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand, Despairing he could find no model-stuff

Of Brutus in all Florence where he found The gods and gladiators thick enough.

Nor there! the people chose still holier ground : The people, who are simple, blind and rough, Know their own angels, after looking round. Whom chose they then? where met they?

On the stone

Called Dante's,—a plain flat stone scarce discerned
From others in the pavement,-whereupon

He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned
To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone
The lava of his spirit when it burned :
It is not cold to-day. O passionate

Poor Dante who, a banished Florentine,
Didst sit austere at banquets of the great
And muse upon this far-off stone of thine
And think how oft some passer used to wait
A moment, in the golden day's decline,
With "Good-night, dearest Dante !"—well, good-night!
I muse now, Dante, and think verily,
Though chapelled in the byeway out of sight,
Ravenna's bones would thrill with ecstasy,
Couldst know thy favourite stone's elected right
As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee
Their earliest chartas from. Good-night, good morn,
Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure
That thine is better comforted of scorn,

And looks down earthward in completer cure

Than when, in Santa Croce church, forlorn
Of any corpse, the architect and hewer
Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb.'
For now thou art no longer exiled, now
Best honoured: we salute thee who art come
Back to the old stone with a softer brow
Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some
Good lovers of our age to track and plough2
Their way to, through time's ordures stratified,
And startle broad awake into the dull
Bargello chamber: now thou 'rt milder-eyed,—
Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull
Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side,
Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful
At May-game. What do I say? I only meant
That tender Dante loved his Florence well,
While Florence, now, to love him is content;
And, mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell,
Of love's dear incense by the living sent
To find the dead, is not accessible
To lazy livers-no narcotic,-not

Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,—
But trod out in the morning air by hot

Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown,
And use the name of greatness unforgot,
To meditate what greatness may be done.

For Dante sits in heaven and ye stand here,
And more remains for doing, all must feel,
Than trysting on his stone from year to year
To shift processions, civic toe to heel,
The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer

For what was felt that day? a chariot-wheel

The Florentines, to whom the Ravennese refused the body of Dante (demanded of them "in a late remorse of love"), have given a cenotaph in this church to their divine poet. Something less than a grave.

2 In allusion to Mr. Kirkup's discovery of Giotto's fresco portrait of Dante.

May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.

But if that day suggested something good,
And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,—
Better means freer. A land's brotherhood,
Is most puissant: men, upon the whole,

Are what they can be,--nations, what they would.

Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy!
Will to be noble! Austrian Metternich
Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree;

And thine is like the lion's when the thick
Dews shudder from it, and no man would be
The stroker of his mane, much less would prick
His nostril with a reed. When nations roar

Like lions, who shall tame them and defraud Of the due pasture by the river-shore ?

Roar, therefore ! shake your dew-laps dry abroad : The amphitheatre with open door

Leads back upon the benches who applaud

The last spear-thruster.

Yet the Heavens forbid

That we should call on passion to confront The brutal with the brutal and, amid

This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt And lion's-vengeance for the wrongs men did And do now, though the spears are getting blunt. We only call, because the sight and proof

Of lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof, Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof : Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow Or given or taken. Children use the fist

Until they are of age to use the brain ; And so we needed Cæsars to assist

Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed,

Until our generations should attain
Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas,
Attain already; but a single inch

Will raise to look down on the swordsman's pass,
As knightly Roland on the coward's flinch :
And, after chloroform and ether-gas,

We find out slowly what the bee and finch
Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each,—
How to our races we may justify

Our individual claims, and, as we reach

Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses,--how to fill a breach

With olive-branches,-how to quench a lie

With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek

With Christ's most conquering kiss. Why these are things

Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak

The "glorious arms" of military kings.

And so with wide embrace, my England, seek
To stifle the bad heat and flickerings
Of this world's false and nearly expended fire!
Draw palpitating arrows to the wood,
And twang abroad thy high hopes and thy higher
Resolves, from that most virtuous altitude!

Till nations shall unconsciously aspire

By looking up to thee, and learn that good
And glory are not different. Announce law
By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace;
Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe,

And how pure hands, stretched simply to release
A bond slave, will not need a sword to draw
To be held dreadful. O my England, crease
Thy purple with no alien agonies,

No struggles towards encroachment, no vile war !
Disband thy captains, change thy victories,

Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are, Helping, not humbling.