Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume-- Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his chosen lie,-- I would do this! If I should falter now! [Sidenote: One belongs to Dante; his Birthplace.] In Mantua territory half is slough, Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes With sand the summer through: but 't is morass In winter up to Mantua walls. There was, Some thirty years before this evening's coil, One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil, Goito; just a castle built amid A few low mountains; firs and larches hid Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound The rest. Some captured creature in a pound, Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress, Secure beside in its own loveliness, So peered with airy head, below, above, The castle at its toils, the lapwings love To glean among at grape-time. Pass within. A maze of corridors contrived for sin, Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past, You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last A maple-panelled room: that haze which seems Floating about the panel, if there gleams A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold And in light-graven characters unfold The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made, Cut like a company of palms to prop The roof, each kissing top entwined with top, Leaning together; in the carver's mind Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick [Sidenote: A Vault inside the Castle at Goito,] Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits Across the buttress suffer light by fits Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop-- A dullish gray-streaked cumbrous font, a group Round it,--each side of it, where'er one sees,-- Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh First pulse of life shot brightening the snow. The font's edge burdens every shoulder, so They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed; Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed, Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale, Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength Goes when the grate above shuts heavily. So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see, Like priestesses because of sin impure Penanced forever, who resigned endure,