iv,

What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat

Cling, strangle a little I To sew by degree;,

And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat! To dream and to dote.

v.

To teach them ... It stings there. / made them indeed Speak plain the word 'country.' / taught them, no doubt, That a country's a thing men should die for at need. / prated of liberty, rights, and about The tyrant turned out.

vi.

And when their eyes flashed . . ' O my beautiful eyes! I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise, When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels!

—God! how the house feels I

vtt.

At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled

With my kisses, of camp-life and glory

and how

They both loved me, and soon, coming
home to be spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from

my brow
With their green-laurel bough,

vitt.

Then was triumph at Turin. 'Ancona was free!' And some one came out of the cheers in the street. With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. —My Guido was dead !—I fell down at his feet.

While they cheered in the street.

iX.

I bore it—friends soothed me: my grief looked sublime As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained

To the height he had gained.

X.

And letters still came,—shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand. 'I was not to faint. One loved me for two . . . would be with me ere long: And 'Viva Italia' he died for, our saint.

Who forbids our complaint.

Xi

My Nanni would add ' he was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turned off the balls . . . was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear. And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed.

To live on for the rest.'

Xii.

On which without pause up the telegraph line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta :—Shot. Tell his mother. Ah, ah,—' his,' ' their' mother : not ' mine.' No voice says ' my mother' again to me. What!

You think Guido forgot?

Xitt

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy

with Heaven, They drop earth's affection, conceive

not of woe? I think not. Themselves were too lately

forgiven

On she drew, as a queen might do.
To meet a Dream of Italy,—

Of magical town and musical wave,
Where even a god, his amulet blue
Of shining sea, in an ecstasy

Dropt and forgot i n a nereid's cave.

Down she goes, as the soft wind blows. To live more smoothly than mortals can,

To love and to reign as queen and wife.

To wear a crown that smells of a rose, And still, with a sceptre as light as a fan,

Beat sweet time to the song of life.

She braved the shock and the counter-shock Of hero and traitor, bullet and knife, While Italy pushed, like a vengeful ghost,

That son of the cursed from Gaeta's rock.

tX.

What will ye give her, who could not deliver,

German Princesses? A laurel-wreath All over-scored with your signatures, Graces, Serenities, Highnesses ever? Mock her not, fresh from the truth of Death,

Conscious of dignities higher than yours.

What is this? As quick as a kiss

Falls the smile from her girlish mouth! The lion-people has left its lair. Roaring along her garden of bliss. And the fiery underworld of the South Scorched a way to the upper air.

And a fire-stone ran in the form of a man,

Burningly, boundingly, fatal, and fell, i Bowling the kingdom down! Where was the king? She had heard somewhat, since life began.

Of terrors on earth and horrors in hell. But never, never, of such a thing!

You think she dropped when her dream was stopped. When the blotch of Bourbon blood! inlay,

Lividly rank, her new lord's cheek? Not so. Her high heart overtopped The royal part she had come to play. Only the men in that hour were weak. I

And twice a wife by her ravaged life, And twice a queen by her kingdom lost.

What will yc put in your casket shut,
Ladies of Paris, in sympathy's name?
Guizot's daughter, what have you
brought her?
Withered immortelles, long ago cut
For guilty dynasties perished in shame.
Putrid to memory, Guizot's daugh-
ter?

Xt.

Ah poor queen! so young and so serene! What shall we do for her, now hope's done,

Standing at Rome in these ruins old.

She too a ruin and no more a queen Leave her that diadem made by the sun,

Turning her hair to an innocent gold.

Ay! bring close to her, as 'twere a rose, to her.

Yon free child from an Apennine city Singing for Italy,—dumb in the place!

Something like solace, let us suppose, to her

Given, in that homage of wonder and

pity.

By his pure eyes to see her beautiful face.

XIIt.

Nature, excluded, savagely brooded, Ruined all queendom and dogmas of state,—

Then in reaction remorseful and mild.

Rescues the womanhood, nearly eluded, Shows her what's sweetest in womanly fate— Sunshine from Heaven, and the eyes of a child.

THE KING'S GIFT.

Teresa, ah, Teresita! Now what has the messenger brought her.

Our Garihaldi's youngest daughter,
To make her stop short in her singing?

Will she not once more repeat a

Verse from that hymn of our hero's.
Setting the souls of us ringing?

Break off the song where the tear rose?
Ah, Teresita!

ii.

A young thing, mark, is Teresa; Her eyes have caught fire, to be sure, in That necklace of jewels from Turin, Till blind their regard to us men is. But still she remembers to raise a Shy look at her father, and note,

. . . 'Could she sing on as well about Venice;

Yet wear such a frame at her throat 1 Decide for Teresa.'

m.

Teresa, ah, Teresita I His right hand has passed on her head. 'Accept it, my daughter,' he said;

'Ay, wear it, true child of thy mother, Then sing, till all start to their feet, a New verse even bolder and freer!

King Victor's no king like another,
But verily noble as we are,
Child, Teresita I*

THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. [the Last Poem.] Rom, Mat, 186i.

'Now give us lands where olives grow,'

Cried the North to the South, 'Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow

Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard row!'

Cried the North to the South.

'Now give us men from the sunless plain.'

Cried the South to the North, 'By need of work in the snow and the rain

Made strong, and brave by familiar pain!'

Cried the South to the North.

n.

'Give lucider hills and intenser seas,'

Said the North to the South, 'Since ever by symbols and bright degrees

Art, childlike, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,'

Said the North to the South.

'Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer,' Said the South to the North, 'That stand in the dark on the lowest stair,

While affirming of God, "He is certainly there"' Said the South to the North.

in.

'Yet, oh, for the skies that are softer and higher!' Sighed the North to the South. 'For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire

And the insects made of a song or a fire!'

Sighed the North to the South.

'And oh, for a seer, to discern the same!'

Sighed the South to the North, '—For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame,

To call the tree and the flower by its name!'

Sighed the South to the North. iv.

The North sent therefore a man of men

As a grace to the South,— And thus to Rome, came Andersen. '—Alas, but must you tahe him again?'

Said the South to the North.