s old.

Then they, who know the chronicle of Earth,
Spoke of her loveliness, that like a flame
Far-handed down from noble birth to birth,
Gladdened the world for ages ere she came.
"Yea, yea," they said, "from Summer's royal sun
Comes that immortal line,
And was create not for this age alone
Nor wholly thine,
Being indeed a flower whose root is one
With Life Divine.

{155}

"To the sweet buds that of herself are part
Already she this portion hath bequeathed,
As, not less surely, into thy proud heart
Her nobleness, O poet, she hath breathed,
That her inheritance by them and thee
The world may keep alway,
When the still sunlight of her eyes shall be
Lost to the day,
And even the fragrance of her memory
Fading away."

{156}

_Amore Altiero_

Since thou and I have wandered from the highway
And found with hearts reborn
This swift and unimaginable byway
Unto the hills of morn,
Shall not our love disdain the unworthy uses
Of the old time outworn?

I'll not entreat thy half unwilling graces
With humbly folded palms,
Nor seek to shake thy proud defended places
With noise of vague alarms,
Nor ask against my fortune's grim pursuing
The refuge of thy arms.

Thou'lt not withhold for pleasure vain and cruel
That which has long been mine,
Nor overheap with briefly burning fuel
A fire of flame divine,
Nor yield the key for life's profaner voices
To brawl within the shrine.

{157}

But thou shalt tell me of thy queenly pleasure
All that I must fulfil,
And I'll receive from out my royal treasure
What golden gifts I will,
So that two realms supreme and undisputed
Shall be one kingdom still.

And our high hearts shall praise the beauty hidden
In starry-minded scorn
By the same Lord who hath His servants bidden
To seek with eyes new-born
This swift and unimaginable byway
Unto the hills of morn.

{158}

_The Pedlar's Song_

I tramped among the townward throng
A sultry summer's morn:
They mocked me loud, they mocked me long,
They laughed my pack to scorn.
But a likely pedlar holds his peace
Until the reckoning's told:--
Merrily I to market went, tho' songs were all my gold.

At weary noon I left the town,
I left the highway straight,
I climbed the silent, sunlit down
And stood by a castle gate.
Never yet