Sons,
As by the finger of the Gods betray'd,
Trapp'd in the Temple they took refuge in.
And now began my over-swelling Fortune
To look suspicious in mine eyes. I fear'd
The dangerous Seas that were to carry back
The fruit of such a Conquest and the Host
Whose arms had reap'd it all. My fear was vain:
The Seas were laid, the Wind was fair, we touch'd
Our own Italian Earth once more. And then
When nothing seem'd to pray for, yet I pray'd;
That because Fortune, having reach'd her height,
Forthwith begins as fatal a decline,
Her fall might but involve myself alone,
And glance beside my Country. Be it so!
By my sole ruin may the jealous Gods
Absolve the Common-weal--by mine--by me,
Of whose triumphal Pomp the front and rear--
O scorn of human Glory--was begun
And closed with the dead bodies of my Sons.
Yes, I the Conqueror, and conquer'd Perseus,
Before you two notorious Monuments
Stand here of human Instability.
He that was late so absolute a King
Now, captive led before my Chariot, sees
His sons led with him captive--but alive;
While I, the Conqueror, scarce had turn'd my face
From one lost son's still smoking Funeral,
And from my Triumph to the Capitol
Return--return in time to catch the last
Sigh of the last that I might call my Son,
Last of so many Children that should bear
My name to Aftertime. For blind to Fate,
And over-affluent of Posterity,
The two surviving Scions of my Blood
I had engrafted in an alien Stock,
And now, beside himself, no one survives
Of the old House of Paullus."

Myself, on the whole, I greatly prefer this version to Mr Aldis Wright's:
still, which is the later, which the earlier, it were hard to determine
on internal grounds. For, as has befallen many a greater poet,
FitzGerald's alterations were by no means always improvements. One sees
this in the various editions of his masterpiece, the 'Rubaiyat.' However,
by a comparison of the date (1856) on the fly-leaf of my father's
notebook with that of a published letter of FitzGerald's to Professor
Cowell (May 28, 1868), I am led to conclude that my father's copy is an
early draft.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

MISERERE.

{Music score: p133.jpg}

"_Lord_, _have mercy_."

1. LORD, who wast content to die,
That poor sinners may draw nigh
_cres._ To the throne of grace on high,
_p_ _Miserere_, _Domine_.

2. Who dost hear my every groan,
Intercedest at the throne,
_cres._ Making my p