I've a Friend, over the sea;

   I like him, but he loves me.

   It all grew out of the books I write;

   They find such favour in his sight

   That he slaughters you with savage looks

   Because you don't admire my books.

   He does himself though,—and if some vein

   Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain,

   To-morrow month, if I lived to try,

   Round should I just turn quietly,                              10

   Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand

   Till I found him, come from his foreign land

   To be my nurse in this poor place,

   And make my broth and wash my face

   And light my fire and, all the while,

   Bear with his old good-humoured smile

   That I told him "Better have kept away

   Than come and kill me, night and day,

   With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,

   The creaking of his clumsy boots."                             20

   I am as sure that this he would do,

   As that Saint Paul's is striking two.

   And I think I rather... woe is me!

   —Yes, rather would see him than not see,

   If lifting a hand could seat him there

   Before me in the empty chair

   To-night, when my head aches indeed,

   And I can neither think nor read

   Nor make these purple fingers hold

   The pen; this garret's freezing cold!                          30

   And I've a Lady—there he wakes,

   The laughing fiend and prince of snakes

   Within me, at her name, to pray

   Fate send some creature in the way

   Of my love for her, to be down-torn,

   Upthrust and outward-borne,

   So I might prove myself that sea

   Of passion which I needs must be!

   Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint

   And my style infirm and its figures faint,                     40

   All the critics say, and more blame yet,

   And not one angry word you get.

   But, please you, wonder I would put

   My cheek beneath that lady's foot

   Rather than trample under mine

   That laurels of the Florentine,

   And you shall see how the devil spends

   A fire God gave for other ends!

   I tell you, I stride up and down

   This garret, crowned with love's best crown,                   50

   And feasted with love's perfect feast,

   To think I kill for her, at least,

   Body and soul and peace and fame,

   Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,

   —So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,

   Filled full, eaten out and in

   With the face of her, the eyes of her,

   The lips, the little chin, the stir

   Of shadow round her mouth; and she

   —I'll tell you,—calmly would decree                          60

   That I should roast at a slow fire,

   If that would compass her desire

   And make her one whom they invite

   To the famous ball to-morrow night.

   There may be heaven; there must be hell;

   Meantime, there is our earth here—well!

   NOTES:

   "Time's Revenges."  An author soliloquizes in his garret

   over the fact that he possesses a friend who loves him and

   would do anything in his power to serve him, but for

   whom he cares almost nothing.  At the same time he

   himself loves a woman to such distraction that he counts

   himself crowned with love's best crown while sacrificing

   his soul, his body, his peace, and his fame in brooding on

   his love, while she could calmly decree that he should

   roast at a slow fire if it would compass her frivolously

   ambitious designs.  Thus his indifference to his friend is

   avenged by the indifference the lady shows toward him.

   46.  The Florentine:  Dante. Used here, seemingly, as

   a symbol of the highest attainments in poesy, his (the

   speaker's) reverence for which is so great that he would

   rather put his cheek under his lady's foot than that poetry

   should suffer any indignity at his hands; yet in spite of

   all the possibilities open to him through his enthusiasm for

   poetry, he prefers wasting his entire energies upon one

   unworthy of him.

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

   That second time they hunted me

   From hill to plain, from shore to sea,

   And Austria, hounding far and wide

   Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side,

   Breathed hot and instant on my trace,—

   I made six days a hiding-place

   Of that dry green old aqueduct

   Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked

   The fire-flies from the roof above,

   Bright creeping thro' the moss they love:                      10

   —How long it seems since Charles was lost!

   Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed

   The country in my very sight;

   And when that peril ceased at night,

   The sky broke out in red dismay

   With signal fires; well, there I lay

   Close covered o'er in my recess,

   Up to the neck in ferns and cress,

   Thinking on Metternich our friend,

   And Charles's miserable end,                                   20

   And much beside, two days; the third,

   Hunger overcame me when I heard

   The peasants from the village go

   To work among the maize; you know,

   With us in Lombardy, they bring

   Provisions packed on mules, a string

   With little bells that cheer their task,

   And casks, and boughs on every cask

   To keep the sun's heat from the wine;

   These I let pass in jingling line,                             30

   And, close on them, dear noisy crew,

   The peasants from the village, too;

   For at the very rear would troop

   Their wives and sisters in a group

   To help, I knew.  When these had passed,

   I threw my glove to strike the last,

   Taking the chance: she did not start,

   Much less cry out, but stooped apart,

   One instant rapidly glanced round,

   And saw me beckon from the ground.                             40

   A wild bush grows and hides my crypt;

   She picked my glove up while she stripped

   A branch off, then rejoined the rest

   With that; my glove lay in her breast.

   Then I drew breath; they disappeared:

   It was for Italy I feared.

       An hour, and she returned alone

   Exactly where my glove was thrown.

   Meanwhile came many thoughts: on me

   Rested the hopes of Italy.                                     50

   I had devised a certain tale

   Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail

   Persuade a peasant of its truth;

   I meant to call a freak of youth

   This hiding, and give hopes of pay,

   And no temptation to betray.

   But when I saw that woman's face,

   Its calm simplicity of grace,

   Our Italy's own attitude

   In which she walked thus far, and stood,                       60

   Planting each naked foot so firm,

   To crush the snake and spare the worm—

   At first sight of her eyes, I said,

   "I am that man upon whose head

   They fix the price, because I hate

   The Austrians over us: the State

   Will give you gold—oh, gold so much!

   If you betray me to their clutch,

   And be your death, for aught I know,

   If once they find you saved their foe.                         70

   Now, you must bring me food and drink,

   And also paper, pen and ink,

   And carry safe what I shall write

   To Padua, which you'll reach at night

   Before the duomo shuts; go in,

   And wait till Tenebrae begin;

   Walk to the third confessional,

   Between the pillar and the wall,

   And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace?

   Say it a second time, then cease;                              80

   And if the voice inside returns,

   From Christ and Freedom; what concerns

   The cause of Peace?—for answer, slip

   My letter where you placed your lip;

   Then come back happy we have done

   Our mother service—I, the son,

   As you the daughter of our land!"

      Three mornings more, she took her stand

   In the same place, with the same eyes:

   I was no surer of sun-rise                                     90

   Than of her coming.  We conferred

   Of her own prospects, and I heard

   She had a lover—stout and tall,

   She said—then let her eyelids fall,

   "He could do much"—as if some doubt

   Entered her heart,—then, passing out

   "She could not speak for others, who

   Had other thoughts; herself she knew,"

   And so she brought me drink and food.

   After four days, the scouts pursued                           100

   Another path; at last arrived

   The help my Paduan friends contrived

   To furnish me: she brought the news.

   For the first time I could not choose

   But kiss her hand, and lay my own

   Upon her head—"This faith was shown

   To Italy, our mother; she

   Uses my hand and blesses thee."

   She followed down to the sea-shore;

   I left and never saw her more.                                110

      How very long since I have thought

   Concerning—much less wished for—aught

   Beside the good of Italy,

   For which I live and mean to die!

   I never was in love; and since

   Charles proved false, what shall now convince

   My inmost heart I have a friend?

   However, if I pleased to spend

   Real wishes on myself—say, three—

   I know at least what one should be.                           120

   I would grasp Metternich until

   I felt his red wet throat distil

   In blood thro' these two hands.  And next,

   —Nor much for that am I perplexed—

   Charles, perjured traitor, for his part,

   Should die slow of a broken heart

   Under his new employers.  Last

   —Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast

   Do I grow old and out of strength.

   If I resolved to seek at length                               130

   My father's house again, how scared

   They all would look, and unprepared!

   My brothers live in Austria's pay

   —Disowned me long ago, men say;

   And all my early mates who used

   To praise me so-perhaps induced

   More than one early step of mine—

   Are turning wise: while some opine

   "Freedom grows license," some suspect

   "Haste breeds delay," and recollect                           140

   They always said, such premature

   Beginnings never could endure!

   So, with a sullen "All's for best,"

   The land seems settling to its rest.

   I think then, I should wish to stand

   This evening in that dear, lost land,

   Over the sea the thousand miles,

   And know if yet that woman smiles

   With the calm smile; some little farm

   She lives in there, no doubt: what harm                       150

   If I sat on the door-side bench,

   And, while her spindle made a trench

   Fantastically in the dust,

   Inquired of all her fortunes—just

   Her children's ages and their names,

   And what may be the husband's aims

   For each of them.  I'd talk this out,

   And sit there, for an hour about,

   Then kiss her hand once more, and lay

   Mine on her head, and go my way.                              160

      So much for idle wishing—how

   It steals the time! To business now.

   NOTES:

   "The Italian in England."  An Italian patriot who has taken

   part in an unsuccessful revolt against Austrian  dominance,

   reflects upon the incidents of his escape and flight from

   Italy to the end that if he ever should have a thought

   beyond the welfare of Italy, he would wish first for the

   discomfiture of his enemies and then to go and see once

   more the noble woman who at the risk of her own life

   helped him to escape.  Though there is no exact historical

   incident upon which this poem is founded, it has a

   historical background.  The Charles referred to (lines 8,

   11, 20, 116, 125) is Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, of

   the younger branch of the house of Savoy.  His having

   played with the patriot in his youth, as the poem says, is

   quite possible, for Charles was brought up as a simple

   citizen in a public school, and one of his chief friends was

   Alberta Nota, a writer of liberal principles, whom he

   made his secretary.  As indicated in the poem, Charles

   at first declared himself in sympathy, though in a somewhat

   lukewarm manner, with the rising led by Santa Rosa against

   Austrian domination in 1823, and upon the abdication of

   Victor Emanuel he became regent of Turin.  But when

   the king Charles Felix issued a denunciation against the

   new government, Charles Albert succumbed to the king's

   threats and left his friends in the lurch.  Later the Austrians

   marched into the country, Santa Rosa was forced

   to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends, he who might

   well have been the very patriot of the poem was obliged

   to fly from Italy.

   19.   Metternich:  the distinguished Austrian diplomatist

   and determined enemy of Italian independence.

   76.  Tenebrae: darkness.  "The office of matins and

   lauds, for the three last days in Holy Week.  Fifteen

   lighted candles are placed on a triangular stand, and at the

   conclusion of each psalm one is put out till a single candle

   is left at the top of the triangle.  The extinction of the

   other candles is said to figure the growing darkness of the

   world at the time of the Crucifixion.  The last candle

   (which is not extinguished, but hidden behind the altar

   for a few moments) represents Christ, over whom Death

   could not prevail.'' (Dr. Berdoe)