But all she might have changed to, or might change to,

(I know not since

she never speaks a word—)

Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,

Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
When I had offered her the little knife,

And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet?

"Take it,' I said to her the second time,

'Take it and keep it.' And then came a fire
That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood,
And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
The day was one red blindness; till it seemed
Within the whirling brain's entanglement

feet

That she or I or all things bled to death.
And then I found her lying at my
And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
The look she gave me when she took the knife
Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
And fell, and her stiff bodice scooped the sand
Into her bosom.

Do

And she keeps it, see,

you not see she keeps it? - there, beneath Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart.

For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
The little hilt of horn and pearl, even such
A dagger as our women of the coast

Twist in their garters.

Father, I have done.

And from her side now she unwinds the thick
Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
But like the sand at Iglio does not change.
Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
I have told all: tell me at once what hope
Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
Soon, when she shows the crimson steel to God.

DANTE AT VERONA.

'Yea, thou shalt learn how salt his food who fares Upon another's bread, how steep his path Who treadeth up and down another's stairs.'

(Div. Com. Parad. xvii.)

'Behold, even I, even I am Beatrice.'

(Div. Com. Purg. xxx.)

OF Florence and of Beatrice

Servant and singer from of old,
O'er Dante's heart in youth had toll'd
The knell that gave his Lady peace;

And now in manhood flew the dart

Wherewith his City pierced his heart.

Yet if his Lady's home above

Was Heaven, on earth she filled his soul;

And if his City held control

To cast the body forth to rove,

The soul could soar from earth's vain throng,

And Heaven and Hell fulfil the song

But little light we find that clears The darkness of the exiled years. Follow his spirit's journey:-nay,

What fires are blent, what winds are blown On paths his feet may tread alone?

Yet of the twofold life he led

In chainless thought and fettered will

Some glimpses reach us,

somewhat still

Of the steep stairs and bitter bread, –

Of the soul's quest whose stern avow

For years had made him haggard now

Alas! the Sacred Song whereto

Both heaven and earth had set their hand Not only at Fame's gate did stand Knocking to claim the passage through, But toiled to ope that heavier door Which Florence shut for evermore.

Shall not his birth's baptismal Town
One last high presage yet fulfil,
And at that font ir. Florence still

His forehead take the laurel-crown?

O God! or small dead souls deny
The undying soul its prophecy

Aye, 'tis their hour. Not yet forgot
The bitter words he spoke that day
When for some great charge far away
Her rulers his acceptance sought.

And if I go, who stays?'. so rose

His scorn: -'And if I stay, who goes?

6

'Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay :'
(The curled lips mutter): ' and no star
Is from thy mortal path so far
As streets where childhood knew the way.
To Heaven and Hell thy feet may win,
But thine own house they come not in.'

Therefore, the loftier rose the song

To touch the secret things of God,

The deeper pierced the hate that trod

On base men's track who wrought the wrong; Till the soul's effluence came to be

Its own exceeding agony.