And the soiled maskers trailed heavily homeward their fanciful trappings. Silent the stars shone down on the narrow streets, and the watchman Dozed in his corner and dreamed of the coming delights of the morrow. Can I forget the wild masque-ball at the brilliant Teatro? Dominoes, white, black, and red, all thronging and jostling each other: Men dark-bearded and women in costumes as fair as Sultanas, Every one free as the wind, by fashion's conventions untrammelled, All borne away for the moment, and chasing the butterfly Pleasure, Till the stars faded and set in the cold grey light of the morning. Then, last of all, like a candle that flares at its death in the socket, Burst on the night the bewildering blaze of the wild Moccoletti, Flashed in the windows from palace to palace the swift 'llumination, Flashed in the street, on foot and in carriage each man and each woman Bearing aloft from all reach their torches, with breath or with flapper Striving to keep their own and to put out the lights of their neighbours, While Senza Moccolo, Moccolo! all through the Corso resounded. Can I forget thee, Rome, at this season of innocent pleasure? Now when I see how the tyrants have caught thee and ruffled thy plumage, Clipped the gay pinions which once every year thou spreadest in frolic; Forced thee to laugh, when the bitterest scorn should have answered their meddling; Forced thee to take thy harp from the willows and sing at their bidding, When thou shouldst call down the lightning of heaven to blast thy oppressors! Patience! the day hastens onward. Thunderclouds on the horizon Rumble and will not rest. volcano Beneath the thrones a Moans, not in vain; and the hour must come when the forces electric, Justice and Freedom and Truth, no longer can slumber inactive. Then shall thy children exult in a jubilee holier, grander, And thy brief carnival pleasures seem but the sport of a schoolboy To the true freedom that then shall crown thee with blessing and honour! CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRanch. THE SCALINATA I IN Rome there is a glorious flight of stone, This marvellous height, up which the pilgrim plods Below this giant stairway, in the square, A stolen Naiad from the Sabine hill, Learned on her native mountains far away. In middle of this fount a marble barge Until, so feigns the fancy,-warmly dark, Crowning the flight, a porphyry column stands II In Rome there is a glorious flight of stone, Their tattered misery in the stranger's way, Weeping for bread with unsuffused eyes. Would they did weep, indeed! for, stung to tears Here the brown Sabines, in their gay attires, And many a statue which the world approves. |