At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, --Pity me? Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! 5 What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel --Being--who? One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, 10 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 15 "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed--fight on, fare ever There as here!" PIPPA PASSES A DRAMA _PERSONS_ PIPPA. OTTIMA. SEBALD. Foreign Students. GOTTLIEB. SCHRAMM. JULES. PHENE. Austrian Police. BLUPHOCKS. LUIGI and his Mother. Poor Girls. MONSIGNOR and his Attendants. INTRODUCTION NEW YEAR'S DAY AT ASOLO IN THE TREVISAN SCENE.--_A large, mean, airy chamber. A girl_, PIPPA, _from the silk-mills, springing out of bed_. Day! Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last; Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim Where spurting and suppressed it lay, 5 For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 10 Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, than overflowed the world. Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, A mite of my twelve hours' treasure, The least of thy gazes or glances 15 (Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure), One of thy choices or one of thy chances, (Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure) --My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure, Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me! 20