XL.

Оn, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.
I have heard love talked in my early youth,
And since, not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth
Slips on the nut, if after frequent showers
The shell is over-smooth; and not so much
Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate,
Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such
A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait

Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,
And think it soon when others cry "Too late.”

XLI..

I THANK all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall,

To hear my music in its louder parts,

Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's

Or temple's occupation, beyond call.

But thou, who in my voice's sink and fall,
When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's
Own instrument, didst drop down at thy foot,
To hearken what I said between my tears, .
Instruct me how to thank thee!—Oh, to shoot
My soul's full meaning into future years,
That they should lend it utterance, and salute
Love that endures! with Life that disappears!

XLII.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose.
I shall but love thee better after death.

P

XLIII.

BELOVED, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew

In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.

So, in the like name of that love of ours,

Take back these thoughts, which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew

From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and

bowers

Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,

And wait thy weeding: yet here's eglantine,
Here's ivy!-take them, as I used to do

Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine;
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS Poem contains the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany of which she was a witness. "From a window," the critic may demur. She bows to the objection in the very title of her work. No continuous narrative, nor exposition of political philosophy, is attempted by her. It is a simple story of personal impressions, whose only value is in the intensity with which they were received, as proving her warm affection for a beautiful and unfortunate country; and the sincerity with which they are related, as indicating her own good faith and freedom from all partizanship.

Of the two parts of this Poem, the first was written nearly three years ago, while the second resumes the actual situation of 1851. The discrepancy between the two parts is a sufficient guarantee to the public of the truthfulness of the writer, who, though she certainly escaped the epidemic "falling sickness" of enthusiasm for Pio Nono, takes shame upon herself that she believed, like a woman, some royal oaths, and lost sight of the probable consequences of some obvious popular defects. If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader, let him understand that to the writer it has been more so. But such discrepancy we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature the discrepancy between aspiration and performance, between faith and disillusion, between hope and fact.

...

"Oh trusted, broken prophecy,

Oh richest fortune sourly crost,

Born for the future, to the future lost!"

Nay, not lost to the future in this case. The future of Italy shall not be disinherited.

FLORENCE, 1851.