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Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail
Amid his cowering senate with thy name,
Though thou and he were great; it will avail
To thine own fame that Otho's should not fail.

II

"Twill wrong thee not-thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,

Abjure such envious fame- great Otho died Like thee-he sanctified his country's steel, At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,

In his own blood. A deed it was to bring
Tears from all men though full of gentle
pride,

Such pride as from impetuous love may spring,
That will not be refused its offering.

III

Dark is the realm of grief: but human things Those may not know who cannot weep for them.

MADDALO, a Courtier.

MALPIGLIO, a Poet.

TASSO

PIGNA, a Minister.
ALBANO, an Usher.

MADDALO

No access to the Duke! You have not said

That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?

ii. 5 bring, Boscombe MS. || buy, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.
Tasso. Published by Garnett, 1862. Composed, 1818.

PIGNA

Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna
Waits with state papers for his signature?

MALPIGLIO

The Lady Leonora cannot know

That I have written a sonnet to her fame,

In which I

Venus and Adonis.

You should not take my gold and serve me not.

ALBANO

In truth I told her, and she smiled and said, “If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,

Art the Adonis whom I love, and he

The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.”

Oh, trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,

Those nods and smiles were favors worth the zechin.

MALPIGLIO

The words are twisted in some double sense
That I reach not; the smiles fell not on me.

PIGNA

How are the Duke and Duchess occupied ?

ALBANO

Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was lean

ing,

His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.
The Princess sate within the window-seat,
And so her face was hid; but on her knee

Her hands were clasped, veinèd, and pale as snow,
And quivering-young Tasso, too, was there.

MADDALO

Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped

heaven

Thou drawest down smiles - they did not rain on

thee.

MALPIGLIO

Would they were parching lightnings for his sake

On whom they fell!

SONG

I

I loved-alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.

I thought, but not as now I do,

Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,
Of all that men had thought before,
And all that nature shows, and more.

II

And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love;

And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.

Song. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

III

Sometimes I see before me flee
A silver spirit's form, like thee,
O Leonora, and I sit

still watching it,

Till by the grated casement's ledge
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge

Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.

MARENGHI

I

LET those who pine in pride or in revenge,
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,
Or barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange
Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade,
Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn

Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

II

A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now.

III

Another scene ere wise Etruria knew

Its second ruin through internal strife,

And tyrants through the breach of discord threw The chain which binds and kills. As death to life,

Marenghi, Rossetti || Mazenghi, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published, vii.-xv., by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, i.-xxviii., by Rossetti, 1870. posed, 1818.

Com

As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.

IV

In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold

Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn At sacrament; more holy ne'er of old

Etrurians mingled with the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests.

V

And reconciling factions wet their lips

With that dread wine, and swear to keep each

spirit

Undarkened by their country's last eclipse.

VI

Was Florence the liberticide? that band
Of free and glorious brothers who had planted,
Like a green isle 'mid Æthiopian sand,
A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted
Of many impious faiths-wise, just do they,
Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' prey?

VII

O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory,

Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor; Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,

As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender. The light-invested angel Poesy

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.

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