To make it possible that thou

Shouldst here with brother-sinners bow.

Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air;

The dust we trample heedlessly

Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare,

Who perished, opening for their race
New pathways to the commonplace.

Henceforth, when rings the health to those
Who live in story and in song,
O nameless dead, that now repose
Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong,
One cup of recognition true

Shall silently be drained to you!

James Russell Lowell.

UCELLO.

PAOLO UCELLO, a Florentine painter at the end of the fourteenth century. His frescos can be seen in Santa Maria Novella. He was fond of introducing birds and animals into his pictures. He was among the first to introduce perspective lines.

HIS is the house where once Ucello lived,

THIS

Through this same doorway passed his trembling
feet,

Beyond the gates of Florence took their way,
A quaint, sad figure in the busy street.

Upon these walls, now dark and dim with age (Yet to all time some touches may endure),

Live the dumb creatures that he loved so well,
Each with its own poetic portraiture.

A meek, most fanciful, and timid soul,
Daily to loving birds he talked and read,
While they, with tender warblings soft and low,
Fluttered forever round his patient head.

And often did these feathered songsters bring
(As to St. Francis in the days of yore),
When all the world looked dark and drear to him,
Most heavenly solace from their bounteous store.

With the celestial melody there grew

Strange computations working in his brain; Dimensions visible of airy lines,

Dreamed of, and thought, and dreamed of o'er again.

He took from heaven immeasurable gifts,

And gave them to the world, before untaught;
He held his soul harmonious with the spheres,
And problems solved, unknown to mortal thought.

Yet for all this, gay Florence loved him not,
Victorious, bright with laughter and with song;
In him she only saw a meek, sad soul,

Of little worth amid her brilliant throng.

Yet now she crowns him proudly as her son,
And gives to him at last immortal fame,
And all can read who pass the crowded way
Engraved upon this door Ucello's name.

Sarah D. Clarke.

OF

DANTE ALIGHIERI.

Florence and of Beatrice

Servant and singer from of old,
O'er Dante's heart in youth had tolled
The knell that gave his lady peace;
And now in manhood flew the dart
Wherewith his city pierced his heart.

Yet if his lady's home above

Was heaven, on earth she filled his soul;
And if his city held control

To cast the body forth to rove,

The soul could soar from earth's vain throng, And heaven and hell fulfil the song.

But little light we find that clears The darkness of the exiled years. Follow his spirit's journey, — nay,

What fires are blent, what winds are blown On paths his feet may tread alone?

Yet of the twofold life he led

In chainless thought and fettered will
Some glimpses reach us,

somewhat still

Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,
Of the soul's quest whose stern avow
For years had made him haggard now.

Alas! the sacred song whereto

Both heaven and earth had set their hand Not only at fame's gate did stand Knocking to claim the passage through, But toiled to ope that heavier door Which Florence shut forevermore.

Shall not his birth's baptismal town
One last high presage yet fulfil,
And at that font in Florence still
His forehead take the laurel-crown?
O God! or shall dead souls deny
The undying soul its prophecy?

Ay, 't is their hour. Not yet forgot
The bitter words he spoke that day
When for some great charge far away
Her rulers his acceptance sought;

"And if I go, who stays? so rose His scorn; "and if I stay, who goes?"

"Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay,"
The curled lips mutter; "and no star
Is from thy mortal path so far
As streets where childhood knew the way.
To heaven and hell thy feet may win,
But thine own house they come not in."

Therefore, the loftier rose the song

To touch the secret things of God,
The deeper pierced the hate that trod

On base men's track who wrought the wrong; Till the soul's effluence came to be

Its own exceeding agony.

Arriving only to depart,

From court to court, from land to land,

Like flame within the naked hand

His body bore his burning heart,
That still on Florence strove to bring
God's fire for a burnt-offering.

*

*

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

T

THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE.

IS morning. Let us wander through the fields,
Where Cimabue found a shepherd-boy

Tracing his idle fancies on the ground;
And let us from the top of Fiesole,
Whence Galileo's glass by night observed
The phases of the moon, look round below
On Arno's vale, where the dove-colored steer
Is ploughing up and down among the vines,
While many a careless note is sung aloud,
Filling the air with sweetness, — and on thee,
Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls,
Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers,
Drawn to our feet.

From that small spire, just caught

By the bright ray, that church among the rest
By one of old distinguished as The Bride,