Soothes jealous neighbors when a Saxon scout --Arpo or Yoland, is it?--one without A country or a name, presumes to couch Beside their noblest; until men avouch That, of all Houses in the Trevisan, Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van, [Sidenote: How Ecelo's house grew head of those,] Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled That name at Milan on the page of gold, Godego's lord,--Ramon, Marostica, Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria, And every sheep-cote on the Suabian's fief! No laughter when his son, "the Lombard Chief" Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent To Italy along the Vale of Trent, Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now-- The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow, The Asolan and Euganean hills, The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay Among and care about them; day by day Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot, A castle building to defend a cot, A cot built for a castle to defend, Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge By sunken gallery and soaring bridge. He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems The griesliest nightmare of the Church's dreams, --A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged From its old interests, and nowise changed By its new neighborhood: perchance the vaunt Of Otho, "my own Este shall supplant Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in A son as cruel; and this Ecelin Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall And curling and compliant; but for all Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek Proved 't was some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went To feed: whereas Romano's instrument, Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole Successively, why should not he shed blood To further a design? Men understood Living was pleasant to him as he wore His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er, Propped on his truncheon in the public way, While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray, Lost at Oliero's convent. Hill-cats, face Our Azzo, our Guelf-Lion! Why disgrace [Sidenote: As Azzo Lord of Este heads these.] A worthiness conspicuous near and far (Atii at Rome while free and consular, Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun) By trumpeting the Church's princely son? --Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine, Ancona's march, Ferrara's ... ask, in fine, Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk Found it intolerable to be sunk (Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell) Quite out of summer while alive and well: Ended when by his mat the Prior stood, 'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood, Striving to coax from his decrepit brains