Compare the very beautiful Ballata vi. and Sonnet xlviii., beginning, "Di donne io vidi una gentile schiera." ] With this incomparable sonnet we close that part of the "Vita Nuova" which relates to the life of Beatrice. It fitly completes the golden record of youth. Its tender lines are the epitaph of happy days, and in them is found that mingled sweetness and sadness which in this world are always the final expression of love. Its tone is that of the wind of autumn sighing among the leaves of spring. Beneath its outward meaning lies a prophecy of joy,--but that joy is to be reached only through the gates of death. * * * * * THE PHILTER. "A draught of water, maiden fair," I said to the girl beside the well. Oh, sweet was the smile on her face of guile, As she gave me to drink,--that witch of hell! I drank, and sweet was the draught I drank, And thanked the giver, and still she smiled; And her smile like a curse on my spirit sank, Till my face grew wan, and my heart grew wild. And lo! the light from the day was gone, And gone was maiden, and gone was well: The dark instead, like a wall of stone, And rivers that roared through the dark, and fell. Was it the draught, or was it the smile, Or my own false heart? Ah, who shall tell? But the black waves beat at my weary feet, And sits at my side the witch of hell. DID I? "Giorno d'orrore." Wheels rolled away in the distance; the corner of a gray cloak fluttered where the drive turns down hill. From under the fore-wheel of Juggernaut I struggled back to life with a great sob, that died before it sounded. I looked about the library for some staff to help me to my feet again. The porphyry vases were filled with gorgeous boughs, leaves of deep scarlet, speckled, flushed, gold-spotted, rimmed with green, dashed with orange, tawny and crimson, blood-sprinkled, faint clear amber; all hues and combinations of color rioted and revelled in the crowded clusters. To what hand but hers could so much beauty have gathered? to what eye but hers did the magnificent secrets of Nature reveal themselves, so that out of a whole forest her careless straying hand should bring only its culminating glories, its most perfect results, whether of leaf or flower or fruit. For in an urn of tintless alabaster, that had lain centuries in the breathless dust and gloom of an Egyptian tomb, that hand had set a sheaf of gentians, every fringed cup blue as the wild river when a noon sky tints it, or as the vaulted azure of a June midnight on the edge of the Milky Way,--a sheaf no Ceres owned, no foodfull garner coveted, but the satiating aliment of beauty, fresh as if God that hour had pronounced them good, and set his sign-manual upon each delicate tremulous petal, that might have been sapphire, save for its wistful translucence. And on the teapoy in the window stood two