And here I, whom its magic put to proof,
Beginning to be no longer I, immersed
Myself amidst those tallowy fellow-men
As if they had been of my land and kin.

What would your Excellency? The piece was fine, And ours, and played, too, as it should be played: It drives old grudges out when such divine

Music as that mounts up into your head!

But when the piece was done, back to my line
I crept again, and there I should have stayed,
But that just then, to give me another turn,
From those mole-mouths a hymn began to yearn:

A German anthem, that to heaven went

On unseen wings, up from the holy fane:
It was a prayer, and seemed like a lament,
Of such a pensive, grave, pathetic strain
That in my soul it never shall be spent ;

And how such heavenly harmony in the brain
Of those thick-skulled barbarians should dwell
I must confess it passes me to tell.

In that sad hymn I felt the bitter-sweet

Of the songs heard in childhood, which the soul Learns from belovéd voices, to repeat

To its own anguish in the days of dole:
A thought of the dear mother, a regret,
A longing for repose and love, the whole
Anguish of distant exile seemed to run
Over my heart and leave it all undone:

When the strain ceased, it left me pondering
Tenderer thoughts and stronger and more clear:
These men, I mused, the selfsame despot king,
Who rules in Slavic and Italian fear,

Tears from their homes and arms that round them cling,
And drives them slaves thence, to keep us slaves

here:

From their familiar fields afar they pass

Like herds to winter in some strange morass.

To a hard life, to a hard discipline,
Derided, solitary, dumb, they go:
Blind instruments of many-eyed Rapine

And purposes they share not and scarce know;
And this fell hate that makes a gulf between
The Lombard and the German aids the foe
Who tramples both divided, and whose bane
Is in the love and brotherhood of men.

Poor souls! far off from all that they hold dear,
And in a land that hates them! Who shall say
That at the bottom of their hearts they bear
Love for our tyrant? I should like to lay
They've our hate for him in their pockets! Here,
But that I turned in haste and broke away,
I should have kissed a corporal stiff and tall,
And like a scarecrow stuck against the wall.

Giuseppe Giusti. Tr. W. D. Howells.

THE LAST SUPPER.

By Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the Convent of Maria della Grazia, Milan.

THOUGH searching damps and many an envious flaw
Have marred this work, the calm, ethereal grace,
The love, deep-seated in the Saviour's face,

The mercy, goodness, have not failed to awe
The elements; as they do melt and thaw
The heart of the beholder, and erase
(At least for one rapt moment) every trace
Of disobedience to the primal law.

The annunciation of the dreadful truth

Made to the Twelve survives: lip, forehead, cheek,
And hand reposing on the board in ruth
Of what it utters, while the unguilty seek
Unquestionable meanings, still bespeak

A labor worthy of eternal youth!

William Wordsworth.

LEONARDO'S "LAST SUPPER AT MILAN.

NOME! if thy heart be pure, thy spirits calm.

COME!

If thou hast no harsh feelings, or but those

Which self-reproach inflicts, ah no, bestows,

Her wounds, here probed, find here their gentlest balm. O the sweet sadness of that lifted palm!

The dreadful deed to come his lips disclose;

Yet love and awe, not wrath, that countenance shows,

As though they sang even now that ritual psalm
Which closed the feast piacular. Time hath done
His work on this fair picture; but that face
His outrage awes. Stranger! the mist of years
Between thee hung and half its heavenly grace,
Hangs there, a fitting veil; nor that alone,
Gaze on it also through a veil of tears!

Aubrey de Vere.

THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.

WITH steps subdued, silence, and labor long,

I reached the marble roofs. Awe vanquished dread. White were they as the summit of Mont Blanc, When noontide parleys with that mountain's head. The far-off Alps, by morning tinged with red, Blushed through the spires that round in myriads sprung:

A silver gleam the wind-stirred poplars flung

O'er Lombardy's green sea below me spread.
Of these I little saw. In trance I stood;
Ere death, methought, admitted to the skies;
Around me, like a heavenly multitude
Crowning some specular mount of Paradise,
Thronged that angelic concourse robed in stone :
The sun, ascending, in their faces shone !

Aubrey de Vere.

MILAN CATHEDRAL.

OT with such sweet emotion would it thrill

NOT

My heart, this delicate stone tracery,
From base to finial, climbing toward the sky,
While saint and angel countless niches fill,
If naught more holy than mere craftsman's skill
Had wrought this fine lace-like embroidery
Of marble; and with lavish industry

Tossed fruit and flower, at its fantastic will,
About, around, in fairy showers y-sprent;
No; this profusion of ethereal beauty
Sprang from a softer influence than duty:
By reverent love the plan was fashioned;
By earnest love, the obedient chisel led,
Praukt it in tenderest embodiment.

John Bruce Norton.

MILAN CATHEDRAL.

PEERLESS church of old Milan,

How brightly thou com'st back to me, With all thy minarets and towers,

And sculptured marbles fair to see!

With all thy airy pinnacles

So white against the cloudless blue;

With all thy richly storied panes,

And mellowed sunlight streaming through.