Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Page 206

by Homer


  Who will, may hear Sordello’s story told:

  His story? Who believes me shall behold

  The man, pursue his fortunes to the end,

  Like me: for as the friendless-people’s friend

  Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din

  And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin

  Named o’ the Naked Arm, I single out

  Sordello, compassed murkily about

  With ravage of six long sad hundred years.

  Only believe me. Ye believe?

  Appears

  Verona... Never, — I should warn you first, —

  Of my own choice had this, if not the worst

  Yet not the best expedient, served to tell

  A story I could body forth so well

  By making speak, myself kept out of view,

  The very man as he was wont to do,

  And leaving you to say the rest for him.

  Since, though I might be proud to see the dim

  Abysmal past divide its hateful surge,

  Letting of all men this one man emerge

  Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,

  I should delight in watching first to last

  His progress as you watch it, not a whit

  More in the secret than yourselves who sit

  Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems

  Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,

  Makers of quite new men, producing them,

  Would best chalk broadly on each vesture’s hem

  The wearer’s quality; or take their stand,

  Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand,

  Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends,

  Summoned together from the world’s four ends,

  Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell,

  To hear the story I propose to tell.

  Confess now, poets know the dragnet’s trick,

  Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick,

  And shaming her; ‘t is not for fate to choose

  Silence or song because she can refuse

  Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache

  Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake:

  I have experienced something of her spite;

  But there ‘s a realm wherein she has no right

  And I have many lovers. Say; but few

  Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view

  The host I muster! Many a lighted face

  Foul with no vestige of the grave’s disgrace;

  What else should tempt them back to taste our air

  Except to see how their successors fare?

  My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man

  Striving to look as living as he can,

  Brother by breathing brother; thou art set,

  Clear-witted critic, by... but I ‘ll not fret

  A wondrous soul of them, nor move death’s spleen

  Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean

  The living in good earnest — ye elect

  Chiefly for love — suppose not I reject

  Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep,

  Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep,

  To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,

  Verona! stay — thou, spirit, come not near

  Now — not this time desert thy cloudy place

  To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!

  I need not fear this audience, I make free

  With them, but then this is no place for thee!

  The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown

  Up out of memories of Marathon,

  Would echo like his own sword’s griding screech

  Braying a Persian shield, — the silver speech

  Of Sidney’s self, the starry paladin,

  Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in

  The knights to tilt, — wert thou to hear! What heart

  Have I to play my puppets, bear my part

  Before these worthies?

  Lo, the past is hurled

  In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world,

  Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears

  Its outline, kindles at the core, appears

  Verona. ‘T is six hundred years and more

  Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore

  The purple, and the Third Honorius filled

  The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled:

  A last remains of sunset dimly burned

  O’er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned

  By the wind back upon its bearer’s hand

  In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,

  The woods beneath lay black. A single eye

  From all Verona cared for the soft sky.

  But, gathering in its ancient market-place,

  Talked group with restless group; and not a face

  But wrath made livid, for among them were

  Death’s staunch purveyors, such as have in care

  To feast him. Fear had long since taken root

  In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,

  The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way

  It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and grey

  Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro,

  Letting the silent luxury trickle slow

  About the hollows where a heart should be;

  But the young gulped with a delirious glee

  Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood

  At the fierce news: for, be it understood,

  Envoys apprised Verona that her prince

  Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since

  A year with Azzo, Este’s Lord, to thrust

  Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust

  With Ecelin Romano, from his seat

  Ferrara, — over zealous in the feat

  And stumbling on a peril unaware,

  Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare,

  They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue.

  Immediate succour from the Lombard League

  Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope,

  For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope

  Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast!

  Men’s faces, late agape, are now aghast.

  “Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes

  “Mirth for the devil when he undertakes

  “To play the Ecelin; as if it cost

  “Merely your pushing-by to gain a post

  “Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all,

  “There be sound reasons that preferment fall

  “On our beloved”...

  ”Duke o’ the Rood, why not?”

  Shouted an Estian, “grudge ye such a lot?

  “The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,

  “Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown,

  “That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts,

  “And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts.”

  “Taurello,” quoth an envoy, “as in wane

  “Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain

  “To fly but forced the earth his couch to make

  “Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake,

  “Waits he the Kaiser’s coming; and as yet

  “That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let

  “Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs

  “The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs

  “The sea it means to cross because of him.

  “Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim;

  “Creep closer on the creature! Every day

  “Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say,

  “Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips

  “Telling upon his perished finger-tips

  “How many ancestors are to depose

  “Ere he be Satan’s Viceroy when the doze

  “Deposits him in hell. So,
Guelfs rebuilt

  “Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt

  “When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet

  “Buccio Virtù — God’s wafer, and the street

  “Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm

  “With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm!

  “This could not last. Off Salinguerra went

  “To Padua, Podestà, ‘with pure intent,’

  “Said he, ‘my presence, judged the single bar

  “‘To permanent tranquillity, may jar

  “‘No longer’ — so! his back is fairly turned?

  “The pair of goodly palaces are burned,

  “The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk

  “A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk

  “In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way,

  “Old Salinguerra back again — I say,

  “Old Salinguerra in the town once more

  “Uprooting, overturning, flame before,

  “Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled;

  “Who ‘scaped the carnage followed; then the dead

  “Were pushed aside from Salinguerra’s throne,

  “He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone,

  “Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce

  “Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce,

  “On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth

  “To see troop after troop encamp beneath

  “I’ the standing corn thick o’er the scanty patch

  “It took so many patient months to snatch

  “Out of the marsh; while just within their walls

  “Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls

  “A parley: ‘let the Count wind up the war!’

  “Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star,

  “Agrees to enter for the kindest ends

  “Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends,

  “No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort

  “Should fly Ferrara at the bare report.

  “Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog;

  “‘Ten, twenty, thirty, — curse the catalogue

  “‘Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows

  “‘Not the least sign of life’ — whereat arose

  “A general growl: ‘How? With his victors by?

  “‘I and my Veronese? My troops and I?

  “‘Receive us, was your word?’ So jogged they on,

  “Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone

  “Into the trap!—”

  Six hundred years ago!

  Such the time’s aspect and peculiar woe

  (Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles,

  Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills

  His sprawling path through letters anciently

  Made fine and large to suit some abbot’s eye)

  When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask,

  Flung John of Brienne’s favour from his casque,

  Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave

  Saint Peter’s proxy leisure to retrieve

  Losses to Otho and to Barbaross,

  Or make the Alps less easy to recross;

  And, thus confirming Pope Honorius’ fear,

  Was excommunicate that very year.

  “The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!”

  Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife,

  Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin,

  Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin,

  Its cry: what cry?

  ”The Emperor to come!”

  His crowd of feudatories, all and some,

  That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields,

  One fighter on his fellow, to our fields,

  Scattered anon, took station here and there,

  And carried it, till now, with little care —

  Cannot but cry for him; how else rebut

  Us longer? — cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut

  In the mid-sea, each domineering crest

  Which nought save such another throe can wrest

  From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown

  Since o’er the waters, twine and tangle thrown

  Too thick, too fast accumulating round,

  Too sure to over-riot and confound

  Ere long each brilliant islet with itself,

  Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf,

  Whirling the sea-drift wide: alas, the bruised

  And sullen wreck! Sunlight to be diffused

  For that! — sunlight, ‘neath which, a scum at first,

  The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst

  Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main,

  And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again,

  So kindly blazed it — that same blaze to brood

  O’er every cluster of the multitude

  Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments,

  An emulous exchange of pulses, vents

  Of nature into nature; till some growth

  Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe

  A surface solid now, continuous, one:

  “The Pope, for us the People, who begun

  “The People, carries on the People thus,

  “To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!”

  See you?

  Or say, Two Principles that live

  Each fitly by its Representative.

  “Hill-cat” — who called him so? — the gracefullest

  Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest

  Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur,

  Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr

  Soothes jealous neighbours when a Saxon scout

  — Arpo or Yoland, is it? — one without

  A country or a name, presumes to couch

  Beside their noblest; until men avouch

  That, of all Houses in the Trevisan,

  Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van,

  Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled

  That name at Milan on the page of gold,

  Godego’s lord, — Ramon, Marostica,

  Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria,

  And every sheep cote on the Suabian’s fief!

  No laughter when his son, “the Lombard Chief”

  Forsooth, as Barbarossa’s path was bent

  To Italy along the Vale of Trent,

  Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now —

  The hamlets nested on the Tyrol’s brow,

  The Asolan and Euganean hills,

  The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills

  Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay

  Among and care about them; day by day

  Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot,

  A castle building to defend a cot,

  A cot built for a castle to defend,

  Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end

  To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge

  By sunken gallery and soaring bridge.

  He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems

  The griesliest nightmare of the Church’s dreams,

  — A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged

  From its old interests, and nowise changed

  By its new neighbourhood: perchance the vaunt

  Of Otho, “my own Este shall supplant

  “Your Este,” come to pass. The sire led in

  A son as cruel; and this Ecelin

  Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall

  And curling and compliant; but for all

  Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck

  Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek

  Proved ‘t was some fiend, not him, the man’s-flesh went

  To feed: whereas Romano’s instrument,

  Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole

  I’ the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole

&nb
sp; Successively, why should not he shed blood

  To further a design? Men understood

  Living was pleasant to him as he wore

  His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o’er,

  Propped on his truncheon in the public way,

  While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray,

  Lost at Oliero’s convent.

  Hill-cats, face

  Our Azzo, our Guelf Lion! Why disgrace

  A worthiness conspicuous near and far

  (Atii at Rome while free and consular,

  Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun)

  By trumpeting the Church’s princely son?

  — Styled Patron of Rovigo’s Polesine,

  Ancona’s march, Ferrara’s... ask, in fine,

  Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk

  Found it intolerable to be sunk

  (Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell)

  Quite out of summer while alive and well:

  Ended when by his mat the Prior stood,

  ‘Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood,

  Striving to coax from his decrepit brains

  The reason Father Porphyry took pains

  To blot those ten lines out which used to stand

  First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand.

  The same night wears. Verona’s rule of yore

  Was vested in a certain Twenty-four;

  And while within his palace these debate

  Concerning Richard and Ferrara’s fate,

  Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare

  Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care

  For aught that ‘s seen or heard until we shut

  The smother in, the lights, all noises but

  The carroch’s booming: safe at last! Why strange

  Such a recess should lurk behind a range

  Of banquet-rooms? Your finger — thus — you push

  A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush

  Upon the banqueters, select your prey,

  Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way

  Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear

  A preconcerted signal to appear;

  Or if you simply crouch with beating heart,

  Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part

  To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now;

  Nor any... does that one man sleep whose brow

  The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o’er?

  What woman stood beside him? not the more

  Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes

  Because that arras fell between! Her wise

  And lulling words are yet about the room,

  Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom

  Down even to her vesture’s creeping stir.

  And so reclines he, saturate with her,

 

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