DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

CANTO TWELFTH.

PAIRED, like two oxen treading under yoke, That burdened soul and I as far had gone

As the loved Tutor let. But when he spoke These words: "Now leave him! We must travel on, For here 'tis good with spread of sail and stroke Of oar, to push his boat as each best may;" I made myself, as walking needs, erect,

But only in body; just it is to say

My thoughts were bowed, my spirit was deject. Still I was moving, and with willing feet

Followed my Master; both began to show How light we were, when thus he said: ""Tis meet That, walking here, thou bend thine eyes below, So to observe, and make the moments fleet, Over what kind of bed thy footsteps go."

Even as, that so their memory may survive,
Our earthly tombs, above the buried, bear
The graven form of what they were alive;
Whence oft one weeps afresh the image there,
Pricked by remembrance,-which doth only give
To souls compassionate a sting of pain--
So I saw figured o'er, but with more skill
In the resemblance, all the narrow plain
Which formed our pathway, jutting from the hill.

*

Him there I marked, on one side, noblest made
Of all God's creatures, stricken down from heaven
Like lightning! Opposite, there was displayed
Briareus, cast from where he late had striven,
Smit by celestial thunderbolts, and laid
Heavy on earth and in the frost of death.

I saw Thymbræus, Pallas too, and Mars,
Still armed, around their sire, with bated breath
Viewing the giants, their torn limbs and scars!
Nimrod I saw, at foot of his great tower,

As if bewildered, gazing on the tribes
That showed with him such haughtiness of power
In Shinar's plain, as Genesis describes.

* Lucifer.

Saul! in Gilboa, that no more from heaven
Felt rain or dew, how dead on thine own sword
Didst thou appear! Thee, mad Arachne, there
I saw, half spider! fumbling the deplored

Shreds of that work which wrought for thee despair. O Rehoboam! there no more in threat

Stands thy fierce figure; smit with fear he flies,
Whirled in a chariot, none pursuing yet:

Showed also that hard pavement to mine eyes
How young Alcmæon made his mother sell
With life the luckless ornament she wore
How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell

The sons, and left his corpse there on the floor.
The cruel carnage and the wreck it showed

Which Tomyris made, when she to Cyrus.cried: Blood thou didst thirst for! now I give thee blood; And showed th' Assyrians flying far and wide In utter rout, with Holofernes dead,

And all the slaughter that befell beside, And the grim carcase by the bloody bed.

Troy next I saw, an ashy, caverned waste: O Ilion! how vile the work showed thee Which there is graven,-how utterly abased! What master of pencil or of stile* was he

Who so those traits and figures could have traced That subtlest wit had been amazed thereby? Alive the living seemed, and dead the dead! Who saw the truth no better saw than I,

While bowed I went, all underneath my tread.

Now swell with pride, and on with lofty stalk,
Children of Eve! nor bend your visage aught
So to behold the sinful way ye walk.

More of the mountain than my busied thought
Had been aware of we had rounded now,

And much more of his course the sun had spent ; When he, who still went first with watchful brow, Exclaimed: "Look up!-to accomplish our ascent Time no more suffers to proceed so slow.

See yonder angel hastening on his way

To come towards us! and from her service, lo!
The sixth returning handmaid of the day.
Give to thy mien the grace of reverence, then,
That he may joy to marshal us above.
Think thus: this day will never dawn again."
I had so often felt his words reprove

* Stile here means a sculptor's tool, and not a writer's style.

My slowness, warning me to lose no time,

That on this point I read his dark words right.
With sparkling face, as glows at rosy prime

The tremulous morning star, and robed in white,
That being of beauty moved towards us, and said,
Opening his arms and then his pinions wide,
"Come, here the steps are!-easy to the tread
And close at hand: now upward ye may glide.”
But very few obey this Angel's call:

O human race! born high on wings to soar,
Why at a little breath do ye so fall?

He brought us where the rock a pass revealed
Hewn out, his pinions on my forehead beat
And with his promise my safe-going sealed.

As, to the right, in climbing to the seat

Of the fair church that looketh lordly down
Over the bridge that bears the name this day
Of Rubaconte, on the well-ruled town, †
The sharp ascent is broken by a way

Of stairs constructed in the old time, ere
Fraud was in measure and in ledger found;
Thus the steep bank is graduated there
Which falls abruptly from the other round:
On either side the tall rock grazes though.
As we turned thitherward, were voices heard,
Beati pauperes spiritu! singing so

As might not be exprest by any word.

Ah! these approaches-how unlike to Hell's!
With chant of anthems one makes entrance here;
Down there with agony's ferocious yells.

Now, as we climb, the sacred stairs appear
More easy than the plain had seemed before:
Wherefore I thus began: "O Master! say,
What heavy load is tak'n from me? No more
I feel that weariness upon my way."

"When every P, upon thy temples traced,
Almost obliterate now," he answered me,
"Shall be, like this one, totally erased,
So by right will thy feet shall vanquished be,
That they not only no fatigue shall know,
But ev'n with pleasure shall be forward sped."
Then did I like as men do when they go
Unweeting what they carry on their head,

Til signs from some one their suspicion waking,
The assistant hand its own assurance tries,

This is the well-known church of S. Miniato, which every boy who has been to Florence must well remember.

↑ Florence, in irony.

And seeks and findeth, such discovery making
As may not be afforded by the eyes.

Spreading my right-hand fingers, I could find
Six letters only of the seven which he

Who bore the keys had on my forehead signed:
Observing which, my Master smiled on me.

*The Angel, sitting at the gate of Purgatory, had described (as the readers of the Ninth Cant● may remember, v. 112) the letter P seven times with the point of his sword on the forehead of Dante, in sign of the seven deadly sins,-Peccata-one of which, and Dante's worst, the sin of pride, now vanishes from his soul as the letter fades from his forehead.

THE EPIPHANY.

GRAPES AND THORNS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."

CHAPTER VIII.

SUMMER FRIENDS.