Soften'd by intervening crystal, and

Rippled like flowing waters by the wind,

All vow'd to Sperchius as they were-behold them!

And him-as he stood by Polixena,

With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before

The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece looked her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flew.

I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of
Philistine stature would have gladly pared
His own Goliath down to a slight David:
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a show
Rather than hero. Thou shalt be indulged,
If such be thy desire; and yet, by being
A little less removed from present men
In figure, thou canst sway them more; for all
Would rise against thee now, as if to hunt

A new-found mammoth; and their cursed engines,
Their culverins, and so forth, would find way
Through our friend's armour there, with greater ease
Than the adulterer's arrow through his heel,
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize

In Styx.

Arn. Then let it be as thou deem'st best.

The eyes of happier man. I would have look'd
On beauty in that sex which is the type
Of all we know or dream of beautiful
Beyond the world they brighten, with a sigh-
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to win,
Though to a heart all love, what could not love me
In turn, because of this vile crooked clog,
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could have borne
It all, had not my mother spurn'd me from her.
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort

Of shape;-my dam beheld my shape was hopeless.
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere
I knew the passionate part of life, I had
Been a clod of the valley,-happier nothing
Than what I am. But even thus, the lowest,
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind, what courage
And perseverance could have done, perchance
Had made me something-as it has made heroes
Of the same mould as mine. You lately saw me
Master of my own life, and quick to quit it;
And he who is so is the master of
Whatever dreads to die.

Dusky, but not uncomely.

Stran.

Your aspect is

If I chose,

For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
They woo with fearless deeds the smiles of fortune,
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar, win them.
Stran. Well spoken! And thou doubtless wilt remain
Form'd as thou art. I may dismiss the mould
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, to incase
This daring soul, which could achieve no less
Without it?

Arn. Had no power presented me
The possibility of change, I would

Have done the best which spirit may to make
Its way, with all deformity's dull, deadly,
Discouraging weight upon me, like a mountain,
In feeling, on my heart as on my shoulders—
An hateful and unsightly molehill to

Arn.

Mine' Stran. Yes. You Shall change with Thetis' son, and I with Bertha, Your mother's offspring. People have their tastes; You have yours—I mine.

Arn. Stran.

Despatch! despatch!

Even so.

[The Stranger takes some earth and moulds it along the turf, and then addresses the phantom of Achilles.

Beautiful shadow

Of Thetis's boy!

Who sleeps in the meadow

Whose grass grows o'er Troy : From the red earth, like Adam.* Thy likeness I shape, As the being who made him, Whose actions I ape. Thou clay, be all glowing, Till the rose in his check Be as fair as, when blowing, It wears its first streak'

* Adam means “red earth," from which the first man was formed.

Ye violets, I scatter,

Now turn into eyes! And thou sunshiny water,

Of blood take the guise! Let these hyacinth boughs

Be his long flowing hair, And wave o'er his brows,

As thou wavest in air! Let his heart be this marble

I tear from the rock

But his voice as the warble

Of birds on yon oak! Let his flesh be the purest Of mould, in which grew

The lily-root surest,

And drank the best dew! Let his limbs be the lightest Which clay can compound, And his aspect the brightest On earth to be found' Elements, near me,

Be mingled and stirr'd, Know me, and hear me, And leap to my word! Sunbeams, awaken

This earth's animation! "T is done! He hath taken

His stand in creation!

And if

And vultures take it, if they will.
Stran.

They do, and are not scared by it, you'll say
It must be peace-time, and no better fare
Abroad i' the fields.

Arn.
Let us but leave it there;
No matter what becomes on 't.
Stran.

That's ungracious,
If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be,
It hath sustaind your soul full many a day.

Arn. Ay, as the dunghill may conceal a gem
Which is now set in gold, as jewels should be.
Stran. But if I give another form, it must be
By fair exchange, not robbery. For they
Who make men without women's aid have long
Had patents for the same, and do not love
Your interlopers. The devil may take men,
Not make them,-though he reap the benefit
Of the original workmanship:-and therefore
Some one must be found to assume the shape
You have quitted.
Arn.

Who would do so?

earth.)

Clay! not dead, but soul-less!

Though no man would choose thee

An immortal no less

Deigns not to refuse thee.
Clay thou art; and unto spirit
All clay is of equal merit.

Fire! without which naught can live;
Fire! but in which naught can live,
Save the fabled salamander,
Or immortal souls, which wander,
Praying what doth not forgive,
Howling for a drop of water,

Burning in a quenchless lot:

Fire! the only element

Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm,
Save the worm which dieth not,
Can preserve a moment's form,

But must with thyself be blent:

Fire! man's safeguard and his slaughter: Fire! Creation's first-born daughter,

And Destruction's threaten'd son,

When heaven with the world hath done: Fire! assist me to renew

Life in what lies in my view

Stiff and cold!

I merely shudder. Where is fled the shape Thou lately worest?

Stran.

Not so

To the world of shadows.

But let us thread the present. Whither wilt thou? Arn. Must thou be my companion?

Stran.

Wherefore not?

My betters! see, of your new

I said it ere You inhabited your present dome of beauty. Arn. True. I forget all things in the new joy Of this immortal change.

Stran.

In a few moments

Arn. I have heard great things of Rome.
Stran.
A goodly choice

And scarce a better to be found on earth,
Since Sodom was put out. The field is wide too;
For now the Frank, and Hun, and Spanish scion
Of the old Vandals, are at play along

The sunny shores of the world's gat jen.

The theatre where emperors and their subjects
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze upon
The battles of the monarchs of the wild
And wood, the lion and his tusky rebels
Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust
In the arena, (as right well they might,
When they had left no human foe unconquer'd ;)
Made even the forest pay its tribute of
Life to their amphitheatre, as well
As Dacia men to die the eternal death
For a sole instant's pastime, and "Pass on,
To a new gladiator!"-Must it fall?

Cas. The city, or the amphitheatre?
The church, or one, or all? for you confound
Both them and me.

Yes, sir. You forget I am or was Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape

And a worse name. I'm Cæsar and a hunchback Now. Well! the first of Cæsars was a bald-head, And loved his laurels better as a wig

Thus

(So history says) than as a glory.
The world runs on, but we 'll be merry still.
I saw your Romulus (simple as I am)

Slay his own twin, quick-born of the same womb,
Because he leapt a ditch, ('t was then no wall,
Whate'er it now be ;) and Rome's earliest cement
Was brother's blood; and if its native blood
Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red
As e'er 't was yellow, it will never wear
The deep hue of the ocean and the earth,
Which the great robber sons of fratricide
Have made their never-ceasing scene of slaughter
For ages.

Arn. But what have these done, their far Remote descendants, who have lived in peace, The peace of heaven, and in her sunshine of Piety?

Cas. And what had they done, whom the old Romans o'erswept ?-Hark!

Arn.

They are soldiers singing

In my grammar, certes. 1 Was educated for a monk of all times, And once I was well versed in the forgotten Etruscan letters, and-were I so mindedCould make their hieroglyphics plainer than Your alphabet

Arn.

And wherefore do you not?

Cas. It answers better to resolve the alphabet
Back into hieroglyphics. Like your statesman,
And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist,
Philosopher, and what not, they have built
More Babels, wi out new dispersion, than

The stammering young ones of the flood's dull ooze,
Who fail'd and fled each other. Why? why, narry,
Because no mar, could understand his neighbour.
They are wiser now, and will not separate
For nonsense. Nay, it is their brotherhood,
Their Shibboleth, their Koran, Talmud, their

Cas.

And man too. Let us liaten!

Song of the Soldiers within. The black bands came over The Alps and their snow; With Bourbon, the rover,

They pass'd the broad Po. We have beaten all foemen,

We have captured a king, We have turn'd back on no men, And so let us sing!

Here's the Bourbon for ever!

Though penuyless all,

We'll have one more endeavour
At yonder old wall.

With the Bourbon we'll gather

At day-dawn before The gates, and together

Or break or climb o'er The wall: on the ladder

As mounts each firm foot,

Our shouts shall grow gladder,

And death only be mute. With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er The walls of old Rome,

And who then shall count o'er

The spoils of each dome?
Up! up with the lily!

And down with the keys!
In old Rome, the seven-hilly,
We'll revel at ease.
Her streets shall be gory,
Her Tiber all red,
And her temples so hoary

Shall clang with our tread.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
The Bourbon for aye!
Of our song bear the burden!
And fire, fire away!
With Spain for the vanguard,
Our varied host comes;
And next to the Spaniard
Beat Germany's drums;
And Italy's lances

Are couch'd at their mother;
But our leader from France is,
Who warr'd with his brother.
Oh, the Bourbon! the Bourbon!
Sans country or home,
We'll follow the Bourbon
To plunder old Rome.

An indifferent song

Phil. Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of adamant,

They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery.
Bourb. That they will falter is my least of fears.
That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for
Their chief, and all their kindled appetites
To marshal them on-were those hoary walls
Mountains, and those who guard them like the gods
Of the old fables, I would trust my Titans;—
But now-
Phil. They are but men who war with mortals.
Bourb. True: but those walls have girded in grea
And sent forth mighty spirits. The past earth
And present phantom of imperious Rome
Is peopled with those warriors; and methinks
They flit along the eternal city's rampart,
And stretch their glorious, gory, shadowy hands,
And beckon me away!
Phil.
So let them! Wilt thou
Turn back from shadowy menaces of shadows?
Bourb. They do not menace me. I could have faced,
Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp

[ages,

And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands, And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes Fascinate mine. Look there!

Phil.

A lofty battlement.

Bourb.

Phil.

I look upon

And there!

Not even

Slight crook'd friend's as snake-like in his words
As his deeds.
Cas.
Your highness much mistakes me.
The first snake was a flatterer-I am none;
And for my deeds, I only sting when stung.
Bourb. You are brave, and that's enough for me
and quick

In speech as sharp in action-and that's more.
I am not alone a soldier, but the soldiers'
Comrade.

Cæs. They are but bad company, your highness And worse even for their friends than foes, as being More permanent acquaintance.

Phil.

How now, fellow! Thou waxest insolent, beyond the privilege Of a buffoon.

Let him alone; he 's brave, and ever has

Been first, with that swart face and mountain shoulder,
In field or storm, and patient in starvation;
And for his tongue, the camp is full of licence,
And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue
Is, to my mind, far preferable to

The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration
Of a mere famish'd, sullen, grumbling slave,
Whom nothing can convince save a full meal,
And wine, and sleep, and a few maravedis,
With which he deems him rich.
Cas.

It would be well

.

Cæs. Upon its topmost, let us hope:
So shall he have his full deserts.
Bourb.
The world's
Great capital perchance is ours to-morrow.
Through every change the seven-hill'd city hath
Retain'd her sway o'er nations, and the Cæsars
But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics
Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or priest,
Still the world's masters! Civilized, barbarian,
Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus

Have been the circus of an empire. Well!
'T was their turn-now 't is ours; and let us hope
That we will fight as well, and rule much better.

Cas. No doubt, the camp's the school of cric rights.

What would you make of Rome?
Bourb.

Cæs. In Alaric's time?
Bourb.

That which it was.

No, slave! in the first Cæsar's,

Whose name you bear like other cursCas.

'Tis a great name for bloodhounds. Bourb.

In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. Be serious?

And kings There's a demor Wilt never