Dodona's Oaks sigh to all winds that blow
But answer not again;

The spirit stilled that breathed therein of old,
Quenched by the doom our sacred books enfold.
With Mithras' temple strew'd

Lies Ammon prone upon the billowy waste

Of Libyan plains, where desert whirlwinds sweep,
And sands more dread than waters surge around.
Her yoke of pards unbound,

Sad Dindymene may no longer keep

High festival, and antique honours taste;
Her Corybants no more on Ida's steep

Or Phrygian mead, or top of Cretan hill,
Lament in accents shrill :

Anubis, Apis, from their altars fled,

Bark not nor bellow now; sorrowing, and in dread.*

That truth shown dimly forth

In the first writings, a new light has been

Light which is light of the Eternal Light.

Run all ye peoples, East, West, South and North,
Follow this star serene,

Which to the Master guides your wandering sight;
Kneel with these kings, your gifts with theirs unite.
Kneel with them to your King, though death be nigh;
Bring gold and frankincense, and fragrant myrrh;
Watch with these shepherds; let not theirs exceed
Your tardy heavenward speed:

Bring all that kindles mind with purest fire;

Even with the angels in rejoicing vie.

Crowned, sit ye in their choir,

That earthly tongues, with theirs, a hymn of praise

And love and joy may raise,

For now, through God in man, to man, thus given,
Heaven stoops to Earth and Earth soars up to Heaven.

Sixtus, if in thy thought

These sacred images the spirit lift

To admiration of celestial things,

Haply the hand that brings

* The flight and consternation of the older Gods, here briefly but clearly indicated, is dwelt on more fully by Milton in his paraphrase. The Italian is:

E dagli altari suoi dolente fugge

Api ed Anubi, e piu non latra, o mugge.'

This hymn in want of a more costly gift,
Some echoings of that early strain hath caught
Borne through the midnight air on angel wings.
Pearls have I none, nor frankincense, nor myrrh;
Statues, nor gems-so lay this offering here.'

(ROME, December 1588.)

Shortly after the date of this Ode, Tasso visited Naples, but returned at the close of the year 1588 to Rome, where he remained till the spring of 1590, when he removed for a short time to Florence. It was a period of great gloom. Dishonest relatives and a tyrannical government had deprived him of his patrimony; piratical publishers intercepted most of the remuneration that might have come to him from his books; and he-of noble birth and gentle culture, as he is rather fond of telling his correspondents-found himself a mendicant at rich men's doors, on one occasion in fact a patient in a public hospital. The sullen silence of Alphonso was also full of menace; and, although all danger of re-incarceration seems now to have passed away, Tasso was not assured of this, and the solitary cell in St Anna-a cave of despair to him-must have ever haunted his vivid imagination.

It is, therefore, little surprising that he should have been deeply stirred by the ceremonies in Holy Week at Monte Oliveto near Siena, through which he passed on his way into Tuscany, and where the fatigue of the journey compelled a rest of some days; or that a feeling of intense depression should pervade the Ode Sulla passione del Redentore' which these ceremonies, or perhaps a picture in an altarpiece contained in this monastery, evoked. It is one of the most faultless and beautiful he ever wrote, and for pathos, delicacy, and sorrow unrelieved save by the greater sorrow of the Redeemer, may be compared with that dirge of Polish freedom-first widely heard in England at a time of national mourning-the Sonata (op. 35) of Chopin. Although undoubtedly commenced at Monte Oliveto near Siena, the monastery of the same name in Florence, where possibly it may have been finished, also claims the honour of having sheltered Tasso at the time of its composition.

THE HOLY CROSS.

'Sad and ailing, spirit mine,

So fond to flit o'er sea and sky

And con this strange earth wistfully,"

Seek not above,

With curious glance, where Bear and Dragon shine,
Heroic form or Zodiac sign;

From thy sad thought all vain deceits remove.

Heavy with sense of doom,

Here let us come,

Where there is saving grace and endless love,
To-day, while feebly gleam

This languid light, this tearful beam.

Dark and dolent, spirit mine,

In pain and penitence look up;

Look in His face who drank the cup

Of mortal suffering;

Think on His sorrow, not on thine;

Think, o'er this earth, how wide His trophies shine;
Behold the mount whence heavenward He took wing-
The head in anguish bent,

And thorns with blood besprent,

Crowned on the Cross behold the Eternal King!

To-day, while sadly gleam

This languid light, this tearful beam.

Weeps not the Sun this day?

Weeps not the World, weeps Nature not with Him?
Who would not weep, this day, so wan and dim—

Thou, spirit, more than all?

What tide of tears, what sun with darken'd ray,

Or moan of gathering storm, in sighs, shall pay

Enough of brine, of gloom, of sobs? Who would not pall His heart in sorrow now,

Before that awful brow,

And sights and signs of grief around him call?

Who but of Heaven will deem

This languid light, this tearful beam?

* It is this wistful longing for the joyous and beautiful things of earth, dashed by a conviction that some deadly venom is inherent in them, that gives the prevailing tone to this later work. An age steeped in what Ruskin calls the venom of the Renaissance '-when the worship of the beautiful became at times hideously orgiastic-could hardly fail to produce this effect on a temperament like Tasso's.

List to the impious din,

The shout, the jeer, the hammer-stroke of guilt;
Know that the tears so shed, the blood thus spilt
Still flow for thee:

Even yet resound around thee and within
The words of anguish that redeem thy sin;
His Cross, His Tomb, caused by thy guilt to be.
List to the pitying voice

Of those who make this choice,

Who share His Crown, His painful Majesty-
The Saints whom well beseem

This languid light, this tearful beam.

Soul, let us also die

With Him, and nail our faults upon this tree,
With Him that we may dwell perpetually.
If for man's earthly need

The Vine, the Figtree and the Palm supply
Rich produce, sweet to taste, fair to the eye,
Will not this loftier growth, whereof the seed
Is Word of God, whose root

Is in man's heart, bear fruit

Most fair, whereon all living things shall feed,

And blossom best where gleam

This languid light, this tearful beam?

God's perfect med'cine this,

Which gives from sickness and sick thoughts release;
The plant whose sap is life, whose fruit is peace.
Here seek, so Faith compelleth,

The health, strength, hope and comfort that are His,
And shall be ours when all infirmities

Are washed from us away, as His Word telleth.
Bleed, suffering heart; lay bare

Thy wounds, and share

The healing stream that from His substance welleth ;
To-day, and when this dream

Is passed, light shall be thine,

A tearless beam.'

(Good Friday, 1590, Monte Oliveto, Siena.)

During the following August, while still at Florence, news arrived that Sixtus V was dead. His successor also died a few days after election; the college of Cardinals seemed in no hurry to elect a new Pope; and, some months later, during the course of the following autumn,

we find Tasso, who had returned to Rome, sternly rebuking the assembled Fathers for their delay in appointing a new head to the Church. The sonnet that contains this fearless expression of opinion concerning the writer's ecclesiastical patrons compares not unfavourably with a similar passage* in Lycidas (1, 110/130); and we give it as an indication of the undiminished sanity and vigour of the mind that produced such fruit, together with Solerti's comment thereon:

To the Cardinals on their delay in electing a Pope:

'What! still in consecrated mantles wrapt,
Dyed with the blood of Christ this crimson hue,
Unmoved by shock of quickening fire, sleeps on
Blind will, O Fathers, in your saintly breasts?
Meanwhile the Church of God among so many-
So many, and such dear and honoured sons-
Widowed, disconsolate, and peril near,
Finds none to dry her eyes, her course to guide.
But if, through fault of yours, in this rough sea,
The barque of Peter anchorless, forlorn,
Suffer fresh harm, beware lest from the side
Of Him whose peace and healing fill the world,
Through Whom to you crown and dominion come,
Issue a sword with righteous vengeance charged.'

'This boldness on Tasso's part is unusual, especially at that time; but, in addition to the general feeling and ill-humour aroused by the extraordinary duration of the interregnum, we detect in this sonnet an expression of personal annoyance in the poet at seeing retarded the probability of a support or of a protector in the new pope.' (Vita,' p. 665.)

Rare indeed may have been the courage at that epoch to address Princes of the Church so bluntly; but the imputation of an unworthy motive in a matter which the writer would have placed above personal considerations seems entirely gratuitous. Unfortunately, the

* 'Cieca voglia' seems to correspond with 'Blind mouths.' St Peter is referred to in his quality of pilot or sailor. Church dignitaries, after having been soundly rated for neglect of duty, are threatened with a mystical engine of punishment.

In addition to the above resemblances (to the passage in Lycidas) the word 'scrannel,' which appears here and has puzzled philologists, may have been coined by Milton to reproduce the sound value of 'scrannio' (a mean seat or stool), used occasionally by Tasso as a term of contempt.

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