Wearing your verse in place, an amulet Sovereign against all passion, wear and fret! My English Eyebright, if you are not glad That, as I stopped my task awhile, the sad Dishevelled form, wherein I put mankind To come at times and keep my pact in mind, Renewed me,--hear no crickets in the hedge, Nor let a glowworm spot the river's edge At home, and may the summer showers gush Without a warning from the missel thrush! So, to our business, now--the fate of such As find our common nature--overmuch Despised because restricted and unfit To bear the burden they impose on it-- Cling when they would discard it; craving strength To leap from the allotted world, at length They do leap,--flounder on without a term, Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ In unexpanded infancy, unless ... But that 's the story--dull enough, confess! There might be fitter subjects to allure; Still, neither misconceive my portraiture Nor undervalue its adornments quaint: What seems a fiend perchance may prove a saint. Ponder a story ancient pens transmit, Then say if you condemn me or acquit. John the Beloved, banished Antioch For Patmos, bade collectively his flock [Sidenote: Whereupon, with a story to the point,] Farewell, but set apart the closing eve To comfort those his exile most would grieve, He knew: a touching spectacle, that house In motion to receive him! Xanthus' spouse You missed, made panther's meat a month since; but Xanthus himself (his nephew 't was, they shut 'Twixt boards and sawed asunder), Polycarp, Soft Charicle, next year no wheel could warp To swear by Cæsar's fortune, with the rest Were ranged; through whom the gray disciple pressed, Busily blessing right and left, just stopped To pat one infant's curls, the hangman cropped Soon after, reached the portal. On its hinge The door turns and he enters: what quick twinge Ruins the smiling mouth, those wide eyes fix Whereon, why like some spectral candlestick's Branch the disciple's arms? Dead swooned he, woke Anon, heaved sigh, made shift to gasp, heartbroke, "Get thee behind me, Satan! Have I toiled To no more purpose? Is the gospel foiled Here too, and o'er my son's, my Xanthus' hearth, Portrayed with sooty garb and features swarth-- Ah, Xanthus, am I to thy roof beguiled To see the--the--the Devil domiciled?" Whereto sobbed Xanthus, "Father, 't is yourself Installed, a limning which our utmost pelf Went to procure against to-morrow's loss; [Sidenote: He takes up the thread of discourse.] And that's no twy-prong, but a pastoral cross, You're painted with!" His puckered brows unfold-- And you shall hear Sordello's story told. BOOK THE FOURTH