What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,

And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow:
My Italy's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this - and we sit on forlorn
When the Man-Child is born.

Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Both both my boys! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me!

[This was LAURA SAVIO, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]

LOVED ONCE.

I classed, appraising once,

Earth's lamentable sounds; the welladay,

The jarring yea and nay,

The fall of kisses on unanswering clay,

The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller;
But all did leaven the air

With a less bitter leaven of 'sure despair,
Than these words "I loved ONCE."

And who saith, "I loved ONCE?"

Not angels, whose clear eyes, love, love, foresee,
Love through eternity!

Who, by To Love, do apprehend To Be.

Ibid.

Not God, called Love, his noble crown-name,—casting
A light too broad for blasting!

The great God changing not from everlasting,
Saith never, "I loved ONCE."

Nor ever the "Loved ONCE,"

Dost THOU say, Victim-Christ, misprized friend!
The cross and curse may rend;

But, having loved, Thou lovest to the end!

It is man's saying-man's! Too weak to move
One sphered star above,

Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love
With his No More, and Once.

How say ye, "We loved once,"
Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold enow,
Mourners, without that snow?

Ah, friends! and would ye wrong each other so?
And could ye say of some, whose love is known,
Whose prayers have met your own,

Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone, Such words, "We loved them ONCE?"

Could ye, 66 Weloved her once,"

Lay calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight?
When hearts of better right

Stand in between me and your happy light?
And when, as flowers kept too long in the shade,
Ye find my colours fade,

And all that is not love in me, decayed?

Such words - Ye loved me ONCE!

When mute the lips which deprecate to-day?

Not so! not then-least then! when Life is shriven

And death's full joy is given,—

Of those who sit and love you up in Heaven,
Say not, "We loved them once."

Say never, ye loved ONCE!

God is too near above, the grave below,

And all our moments go

Too quickly past our souls, for saying so:
The mysteries of Life and Death avenge
Affections light of range-

There comes no change to justify that change,
Whatever comes-loved ONCE!

And yet that word of ONCE

Is humanly acceptive! Kings have said,

Shaking a discrowned head,

"We ruled once,"-idiot tongues, "We once bested,”Cripples once danced i' the vines—and bards approved Were once by scornings, moved!

But love strikes one hour — LOVE. Those never loved,
Who dream that they loved ONCE.

STANZAS.

From "In Memoriam."-Tennyson.

The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.

No doubt, vast eddies in the flood

Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;

Yet, oh ye ministers of good,

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do

With old results that look like new,

If this were all your mission here,

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
To fool the crowd with glorious lies,
To cleave a creed in sects and cries,
To change the bearing of a word,

To shift an arbitrary power,

To cramp the student at his desk,
To make old baseness picturesque
And tuft with grass a feudal tower;

Why then my scorn might well descend
On you and yours. I see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,

Is toil coöperant to an end.

375

DIES IRA.

[Translated by General Dix.]

Thomas de Celano.

THAT DAY, A DAY OF WRATH, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers! - ZEPHANIAH i. 15, 16.

Day of vengeance, without morrow!
Earth shall end in flame and sorrow,
As from Saint and Seer we borrow.

Ah! what terror is impending,
When the Judge is seen descending,
And each secret veil is rending.

To the throne, the trumpet sounding,
Through the sepulchres resounding,
Summons all, with voice astounding.

Death and Nature, mazed, are quaking,
When, the grave's long slumber breaking,
Man to judgment is awaking.

On the written Volume's pages,
Life is shown in all its stages-
Judgment-record of past ages!

Sits the Judge, the raised arraigning,
Darkest mysteries explaining,

Nothing unavenged remaining.

What shall I then say, unfriended,

By no advocate attended,

When the just are scarce defended?

King of majesty tremendous,
By Thy saving grace defend us,
Fount of pity, safety send us!

Holy Jesus, meek, forbearing,
For my sins the death-crown wearing,
Save me, in that day, despairing.

Worn and weary, Thou hast sought me;
By Thy cross and passion bought me―
Spare the hope Thy labors brought me.

Righteous Judge of retribution,
Give, O give me absolution
Ere the day of dissolution.

As a guilty culprit groaning,
Flushed my face, my errors owning,
Hear, O God, my spirit's moaning!
Thou to Mary gav'st remission,
Heard'st the dying thief's petition,
Bad'st me hope in my contrition.
In my prayers no grace discerning,
Yet on me Thy favor turning,
Save my soul from endless burning.

Give me, when Thy sheep confiding
Thou art from the goats dividing,
On Thy right a place abiding!

When the wicked are confounded,
And by bitter flames surrounded,
Be my joyful pardon sounded!

Prostrate, all my guilt discerning,
Heart as though to ashes turning;
Save, O save me from the burning!
Day of weeping, when from ashes
Man shall rise mid lightning flashes,
Guilty, trembling with contrition,
Save him, Father, from perdition!

EXTRACT FROM "DE PROFUNDIS."

He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and leave His throne:
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all,—
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.

Mrs. Browsing.

He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love foregone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?