At first the children pleased me; many a laugh, That reddened them, I owed their young romance. But the time sped, and Giulia ripened too, Yet would not deem herself the less a child: And when I clad me for the castle, she Would deck herself in the most childish gear, And lay her hand in mine, and tranquilly Look for the kindness in my eyes. She called Odo her playfellow—“The little boy who showed The pictures and the blazoned hooks, The glittering armor and the oaken screen, Grotesque with wry-faced purgatorial shapes Twisted through all its leaves and knotted vines; And the grand, solemn window, rich with forms Of showy saints in holyday array Of green, gold, red, orange and violet, With the pale Christ who towered above them all Dropping a ruby splendor from his side.” She told how “Odo—silly child! would try To catch the window’s glare upon her neck, Or her round arms,” and how “the flatterer vowed The gleam upon her temple seemed to pale Beside the native color of her cheek.” Prattle like this enticed me to her wish, Though cooler reason shook his threatening hand, And counseled flat denial. But by far the finest poem in this collection is the “Ivory Carver.” In the prologue to this poem, Three Spirits, more than angels, met By an Arabian well-side, set Far in the wilderness, a place Hallowed by legendary grace. By this retired fountain the spirits enter into a discussion concerning the condition and prospects of their protégé man. Two of them are evidently croakers. To them the world seems, as to any moral progress, stationary, if not actually retrograding. They are almost indignant that the Lord does not consign the planet with its inhabitants at once to perdition. But the third spirit, a superior intelligence, One, chief among the spirits three, Grander than either, more sedate, Wore yet a look of hope elate, With higher knowledge, larger trust In the long future; _and the rust_ _Of week-day toil with earthly things_ _Stained and yet glorified his wings_. This superior angel maintains that man, though not capable of instantaneous acts or intuitive perceptions, equal to those of the higher orders of beings, is yet not the mere hopeless castaway the two other spirits would make him. Give him but time, and with pain and toil he will work out results worthy even of an angel’s regard. An angel, by direct intuition, may see at once in a shapeless lump of matter all the forms of beauty of which it is capable. Yet man, in process of time, slowly but surely, can bring forth those same wonderful forms. The illustration of this point in the celestial argument leads to the main story.