Part 6

“Regarded so long, we render thee sad?” said she. “Not you,” sighed I, “but my own inconstancy! I worship each and each; in the morning one, And then, alas! another at sink of sun.

“To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is my troth Of yesternight with Tune: can one cleave to both?” —“Be not perturbed,” said she. “Though apart in fame, As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same.

—“But my loves go further—to Story, and Dance, and Hymn, The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim— Is swayed like a river-weed as the ripples run!” —“Nay, wight, thou sway’st not. These are but phases of one;

“And that one is I; and I am projected from thee, One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest to be— Extern to thee nothing. Grieve not, nor thyself becall, Woo where thou wilt; and rejoice thou canst love at all!”

ROME AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS (1887)

WHO, then, was Cestius, And what is he to me?— Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word Of anything he did; For me he is a man who died and was interred To leave a pyramid

Whose purpose was exprest Not with its first design, Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest Two countrymen of mine.

Cestius in life, maybe, Slew, breathed out threatening; I know not. This I know: in death all silently He does a kindlier thing,

In beckoning pilgrim feet With marble finger high To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street, Those matchless singers lie . . .

—Say, then, he lived and died That stones which bear his name Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide; It is an ample fame.

LAUSANNE IN GIBBON’S OLD GARDEN: 11–12 P.M. June 27, 1897

(The 110th anniversary of the completion of the “Decline and Fall” at the same hour and place)

A SPIRIT seems to pass, Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal: He contemplates a volume stout and tall, And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias.

Anon the book is closed, With “It is finished!” And at the alley’s end He turns, and soon on me his glances bend; And, as from earth, comes speech—small, muted, yet composed.

“How fares the Truth now?—Ill? —Do pens but slily further her advance? May one not speed her but in phrase askance? Do scribes aver the Comic to be Reverend still?

“Still rule those minds on earth At whom sage Milton’s wormwood words were hurled: ‘Truth like a bastard comes into the world Never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth’?”

ZERMATT TO THE MATTERHORN (June-July, 1897)

THIRTY-TWO years since, up against the sun, Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight, Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height, And four lives paid for what the seven had won.

They were the first by whom the deed was done, And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight To that day’s tragic feat of manly might, As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.

Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon Thou watch’dst each night the planets lift and lower; Thou gleam’dst to Joshua’s pausing sun and moon, And brav’dst the tokening sky when Cæsar’s power Approached its bloody end: yea, saw’st that Noon When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

THE BRIDGE OF LODI {290} (Spring, 1887)

WHEN of tender mind and body I was moved by minstrelsy, And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi” Brought a strange delight to me.

In the battle-breathing jingle Of its forward-footing tune I could see the armies mingle, And the columns cleft and hewn

III

On that far-famed spot by Lodi Where Napoleon clove his way To his fame, when like a god he Bent the nations to his sway.

Hence the tune came capering to me While I traced the Rhone and Po; Nor could Milan’s Marvel woo me From the spot englamoured so.

And to-day, sunlit and smiling, Here I stand upon the scene, With its saffron walls, dun tiling, And its meads of maiden green,