Retrude following! "I am absolved From further toil: the empery devolved On me, 't was Tito's word: I have to lay For once my plan, pursue my plan my way, Prompt nobody, and render an account Taurello to Taurello! Nay, I mount To Friedrich: he conceives the post I kept, --Who did true service, able or inept, Who's worthy guerdon, Ecelin or I. Me guerdoned, counsel follows: would he vie With the Pope really? Azzo, Boniface Compose a right-arm Hohenstauffen's race Must break ere govern Lombardy. I point How easy 't were to twist, once out of joint, The socket from the bone: my Azzo's stare Meanwhile! for I, this idle strap to wear, Shall--fret myself abundantly, what end To serve? There's left me twenty years to spend [Sidenote: As it may be--but also, as it may not be--] --How better than my old way? Had I one Who labored to o'erthrow my work--a son Hatching with Azzo superb treachery, To root my pines up and then poison me, Suppose--'t were worth while frustrate that! Beside, Another life's ordained me: the world's tide Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press Of waves, a single wave through weariness Gently lifted aside, laid upon shore? My life must be lived out in foam and roar, No question. Fifty years the province held Taurello; troubles raised, and troubles quelled, He in the midst--who leaves this quaint stone place, These trees a year or two, then not a trace Of him! How obtain hold, fetter men's tongues Like this poor minstrel with the foolish songs-- To which, despite our bustle, he is linked? --Flowers one may tease, that never grow extinct. Ay, that patch, surely, green as ever, where I set Her Moorish lentisk, by the stair, To overawe the aloes; and we trod Those flowers, how call you such?--into the sod; A stately foreigner--a world of pain To make it thrive, arrest rough winds--all vain! It would decline; these would not he destroyed: And now, where is it? where can you avoid The flowers? I frighten children twenty years Longer!--which way, too, Ecelin appears To thwart me, for his son's besotted youth Gives promise of the proper tiger-tooth: They feel it at Vicenza! Fate, fate, fate, My fine Taurello! Go you, promulgate Friedrich's decree, and here 's shall aggrandize Young Ecelin--your Prefect's badge! a prize [Sidenote: The supposition he most inclines to;] Too precious, certainly. "How now? Compete With my old comrade? shuffle from their seat His children? Paltry dealing! Don't I know Ecelin? now, I think, and years ago! What's changed--the weakness? did not I compound For that, and undertake to keep him sound Despite it? Here's Taurello hankering After a boy's preferment--this plaything