rret. Not a word
I spoke, but look'd my children in the face
No tear I shed, so firmly did I brace
My soul; but _they_ did; and my Anselm said,
'Father, you look so!--Won't they bring us bread?'
E'en then I wept not, nor did answer word
All day, nor the next night. And now was stirr'd,
Upon the world without, another day;
And of its light there came a little ray,
Which mingled with the gloom of our sad jail;
And looking to my children's bed, full pale,
In four small faces mine own face I saw.
Oh, then both hands for misery did I gnaw;
And they, thinking I did it, being mad
For food, said, 'Father, we should be less sad
If you would feed on us. Children, they say,
Are their own father's flesh. Starve not to-day.'
Thenceforth they saw me shake not, hand nor foot.
That day, and next, we all continued mute.
O thou hard Earth!--why opened'st thou not?
Next day (it was the fourth in our sad lot)
My Gaddo stretched him at my feet, and cried,
'Dear father, won't you help me?' and he died.
And surely as thou seest me here undone,
I saw my whole three children, one by one,
Between the fifth day and the sixth, all die.
I became blind; and in my misery
Went groping for them, as I knelt and crawl'd
About the room; and for three days I call'd
Upon their names, as though they could speak too,
Till famine did what grief had fail'd to do."

Having spoke thus, he seiz'd with fiery eyes
That wretch again, his feast and sacrifice,
And fasten'd on the skull, over a groan,
With teeth as strong as mastiff's on a bone.
Ah, Pisa! thou that shame and scandal be
To the sweet land that speaks the tongue of Si.[1]

Since Florence spareth thy vile neck the yoke,
Would that the very isles would rise, and choke
Thy river, and drown every soul within
Thy loathsome walls. What if this Ugolin
Did play the traitor, and give up (for so
The rumour runs) thy castles to the foe,
Thou hadst no right to put to rack like this
His children. Childhood innocency is.
But that same innocence, and that man's name,
Have damn'd thee, Pisa, to a Theban fame?[2]

* * * * *

REAL STORY OF UGOLINO,

AND CHAUCER'S FEELING RESPECTING THE POEM.

Chaucer has told the greater part of this story beautifully in his
"Canterbury Tales;" but he had not the heart to finish it. He refers
for the conclusion to his original, hight "Dant," the "gr