A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

What was he doing, the great god Pan,

Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,

And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river?

tt.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river,
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

ui.

High on the shore sate the great god Pan,

While turbidly flowed the river, And hacked and hewed as a great god can

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed.

Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed

To prove it fresh from the river.

iv.

He cut it short did the great god Pan,

(How tall it stood in the river I) Then drew the pith like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,
Then notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes as he sate by the river,

v.

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan,

(Laughed while he sate by the river !) 'The only way since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed,'

Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan,

Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die, And the lilies revived, and the dragonfly

Came back to dream on the river.

vtt.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan

To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain—

For the reed that grows never more again

As a reed with the reeds of the river.

FIRST NEWS FROM VILLAFRANCA.

Peace, peace, peace, do you say? What! with the enemy's guns in our ears?

With the country's wrong not rendered back? What! while Austria stands at bay In Mantua, and our Venice bears The cursed flag of the yellow and black 1

n.

Peace, peace, peace, do you say?

And this the Mincio? Where's the fleet?

And where's the sea? Are we ail
blind

Or mad with the blood shed yesterday,
Ignoring Italy under our feet.
And seeing things before, behind?

itt.

Peace, peace, peace, do you say?

What uncontested, undented?

Because we triumph, we succumb? A pair of emperors stand in the way

Pisa is here, and Livorna is here, And thousands of faces in wild exultation.

Burn over the windows to feel him near— (Is it not so, Cavour?) Burn over from terrace, roof, window and wall. On this King of us all.

vi.

Grave I A good man's ever the graver For bearing a nation's trust secure: And he, he thinks of the Heart, beside,

Which broke for Italy, failing to save her.

And pining away by Oporto's tide. Is it not so, Cavour, That he thinks of his vow on that royal pall,

This king of us all?

vtt,

Flowers, flowers, from the flowery city! Such innocent thanks for a deed so pure.

As melting away for joy into flowers The nation invites him to enter his Pitti And evermore reign on this Florence

of ours. Is it not so, Cavour? He'll stand where the reptiles were used to crawl, This King of us all.

vitt.

Grave as the manner of noble men is— The deed unfinished will weigh on

the doer: And, baring his head to those crapeveiled flags, He bows to the grief of the South and Venice.

—Let's riddle the last of the yellow to rags,

And swear by Cavour That the King shall reign where oppressors fall,

Trne King of us all.

THE SWORD OF CASTRUCCIO CASTRUCANI.

'Quest a e per me.'—Victoh Emanuel,

When Victor Emanuel, the King,
Went down to his Lucca that day,

The people, each vaunting the thing
As he gave it, gave all things away
In a burst of fierce gratitude, say.

As they tore out their hearts for the king.

n.

Gave the green forest-walk on the wall. With the Apennine blue through the trees:

Gave palaces, churches and all The great pictures which burn out of these;

But the eyes of the King seemed to freeze

Ashe glanced upon ceiling and wall, lit.

'Good,' said the King as he past.

Was he cold to the arts? or else coy To possession 1 or crossed at the last.

Whispered some, by the vote in Savoy 1

Shout!—love him enough for his joy! 'Good,' said the King as ne past.

iv.

He, travelling the whole day through flowers,

And protesting amenities, found, Af Pistoia, betwixt the two showers Of red roses, 'the Orphans' (renowned

As the heirs of Puccini) who wound With a sword through the crowd and th* flowers.

v.

'Tis the sword of Castruccio, O King! In old strife of intestine hate

Very famous. Accept what we bring, We.who cannot be sons by our fate. Tendered citizens by thee of late.

And endowed with a country and King.

'Read :—Puccini has willed that this sword

(Which once made in an ignorant feud

Many orphansj remain in our ward
Till some patriot its pure civic blood
Wipe away in the foe's and make
good.

In delivering the land by the sword'
vn.

Then the King exclaimed, 'This is for me r

And he dashed out his sword on the hilt,

While his blue eye shot fire openly
And his heart overboiled till it spilt
A hot prayer,—God, the rest as thou
wilt!

But grant me this !—this is for me /'

vitt.

0 Victor Emanuel, the King.

The sword be for thee, and the deed, And naught for the alien next spring,

Naught for Hapsburg and Bourbon agreed;

But, for us, a great Italy freed. With a hero to head us, . . our King.

SUMMING UP IN ITALY. (inscribed To Intelligent Publics Out

OF iT.)

Observe how it will be at last.

When our Italy stands at full stature,

A year ago tied down so fast

That the cord cut the quick of her nature I

You'll honor the deed and its scope,
Then, in logical sequence upon it.

Will use up the remnants of rope

By hanging the men who have done it.

tt.

The speech in the Commons which hits you

A sketch off, how dungeons mast feel,—

The official dispatch which commits you From stamping out groans with your heel,—

Suggestions in journal or book for

Good efforts,—are praised ... as is meet:

But what in this world can men look for.

Who only achieve and complete 1 ilt.

True, you've praise for the fireman, who sets his

Brave face to the axle of the flame. Disappears in the smoke and then fetches

A babe down, or idiot that's lame,— For the boor even, who rescues through pity

A sheep from the brute who would kick it:

But saviours of nations !—'tis pretty. And doubtful: they may be so wicked!

iv.

Azeglio, Farini, Mamiani,

Ricasoli, — doubt by the dozen ! — here's

Pepoli too, and Cipriani,

Imperial cousins and cogeners;

Arese, Laiatico, courtly

Of manners, if stringent of mouth, Garibaldi—we'll come to him shortly,

(As soon as he ends in the south.)

v.

Napoleon,—as strong as ten armies,

Corrupt as seven devils,—a fact You accede to, then seek where the harm is

Drained off from the man to his act, And find ... a free nation. Suppose

Some hell-brood in Eden's sweet greenery, Convoked for creating ... a rose !—

Would it suit the infernal machinery?

vl.

Cavour,—to the despot's desire.

Who his own thought so craftily marries.

What is he but just a thin wire

For conducting the lightning from Paris 1

Yes, write down the two as compeers, Confessing (you would not permit a lie)

He bore up his Piedmont ten years
Till she suddenly smiled and was
Italy.

vn.

And the King, with that "stain on his 'scutcheon "* Savoy ... as the calumny runs! If it be not his blood,—with his clutch on

The sword, and his face to the guns.

0 first where the battle-storm gathers, O loyal of hearts on the throne,

Let those keep the 'graves of their fathers,'

Who quail, in the nerve, from their own!

vitt.

For thee;—through the dim Hadesportal

The dream of a voice,—' Blessed thou Who hast made all tby race thrice immortal!

No need of the sepulchres now! Left to Bourbons and Hapsburgs, who fester

Above-ground with worm-eaten souls, While the ghost of some poor feudal jester

Before them strews treaties in holes.'
IX.

,—But hush !—am I dreaming a poem
Of Hades, heaven, justice 1—not I.

I began too far off, in my proem,

With what men believe and deny, I And, on earth, whatsoever the meed is,

(To sum us as thoughtful reviewers,) The moral of every great deed is

The virtue of slandering the doers.

* Sea Diploniatical CoiTcapoixieiic*.

What shall we add now? He is dead.
And I who praise and you who blame,
With wash of words across his name.
Find suddenly declared instead—
'On Sunday, third of August, dead /'

tt.

Which stops the whole we talked to-day.
I, quickened to a plausive glance
At his large general tolerance
By common people's narrow way,
Stopped short in praising. Dead, they
say.

nr.

And you, who had just put in a sort
Of cold deduction—' rather, large
Through weakness of the continent
marge,

Than greatness of the thing contained'— Broke off. Dead !—there, you stood restrained.

iv.

As if we had talked in following one
Up some long gallery. 'Would you

choose

And air like that? The gait is loose—

Or noble.' Sudden in the sun

An oubliette winks. Where if he?

Dead. Man's ' I was ' by God's * I am'—
All hero-worship comes to that.
High heart, high thought, high fame,
as flat

As a gravestone. Bring your Jacet

jam— The epitaph's an epigram.

vi.

Dead. There's an answer to arrest All carping. Dust's his nat ural place;

He'll let the flies buzz round his face And though you slander, not protest,i —From such an one, exact the Best!