There, enough! I have my support again,
Again the knowledge that my babe was, is,
Will be mine only. Him, by death, I give
Outright to God, without a further care,
But not to any parent in the world, –
So to be safe: why is it we repine?
What guardianship were safer could we
choose?

All human plans and projects come to naught:

My life, and what I know of other lives, Prove that: no plan nor project! God shall care!

And so on: wherefore should I blame you much?

So we are made, such difference in minds, Such difference too in eyes that see the minds!

That man, you misinterpret and mispriseThe glory of his nature, I had thought, Shot itself out in white light, blazed the truth

Through every atom of his act with me: Yet where I point you, through the crystal shrine,

Purity in quintessence, one dew-drop,
You all descry a spider in the midst.
One says, "The head of it is plain to see,"
And one, "They are the feet by which I
judge,"

All say, "Those films were spun by nothing else."

Have hope now, and one day expect content! 989

How well to do what I shall never do!"
So I said, "Had there been a man like that,
To lift me with his strength out of all strife
Into the calm, how I could fly and rest!
I have a keeper in the garden here
Whose sole employment is to strike me low
If ever I, for solace, seek the sun.
Life means with me successful feigning
death,

Lying stone-like, eluding notice so,
Foregoing here the turf and there the sky.
Suppose that man had been instead of
this!"

Presently Conti laughed into my ear,

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Had tripped up to the raised place where I sat"Cousin, I flung them brutishly and hard! Because you must be hurt, to look austere As Caponsacchi yonder, my tall friend A-gazing now. Ah, Guido, you so close? Keep on your knees, do! Beg her to forgive!

My cornet battered like a cannon-ball. Good-by, I'm gone!"- -nor waited the reply.

All this, now, being not so strange to me, Used to such misconception day by day And broken-in to bear, I bore, this time. More quietly than woman should perhaps ; Repeated the mere truth and held my tongue.

For why? They sent him to the wars next day.

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Nor poisoned he the foreigner, my friend, Who wagered on the whiteness of my breast,

The swarth skins of our city in dispute: For, though he paid me proper compliment,

On this the thrust and that the shame, and how

1049

Good cause for jealousy cures jealous fools, And what a paragon was this same priest She talked about until I stopped my ears, She said, "A week is gone; you comb your hair,

Then go mope in a corner, cheek on palm, Till night comes round again, so, waste a week

As if your husband menaced you in sport. Have not I some acquaintance with his tricks?

Oh no, he did not stab the serving-man Who made and sang the rhymes about me once !

You little girl, whose eyes do good to mine, I am the Pope, am Sextus, now the Sixth; And that Twelfth Innocent, proclaimed to-day,

Is Lucifer disguised in human flesh!
The angels, met in conclave, crowned me!'
thus

He gibbered and I listened; but I knew
All was delusion, ere folk interposed,
'Unfasten him, the maniac!' Thus I know
All your report of Caponsacchi false,
Folly or dreaming: I have seen so much
By that adventure at the spectacle,
The face I fronted that one first, last time:

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