No More Learning

. . If you should be sheep, and dutiful.
I spoke a word worth chalking
On Milan's wall--but stay,
Here's Poniatowsky talking,--
You'll listen to _him_ to-day,
And call back the Grand-duke.

XII.

You'll take back your Grand-duke?
Observe, there's no one to force it,--
Unless the Madonna, Saint Luke
Drew for you, choose to endorse it.
_I_ charge you, by great Saint Martino
And prodigies quickened by wrong,
Remember your Dead on Ticino;
Be worthy, be constant, be strong--
Bah! --call back the Grand-duke! !


FOOTNOTES:

[14] The Italian tricolor: red, green, and white.




CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

~hos basilei, hos theps, hos nekrps. ~
GREGORY NAZIANZEN.


I.
The Pope on Christmas Day
Sits in Saint Peter's chair;
But the peoples murmur and say
"Our souls are sick and forlorn,
And who will show us where
Is the stable where Christ was born? "

II.

The star is lost in the dark;
The manger is lost in the straw;
The Christ cries faintly . . . hark! . . .
Through bands that swaddle and strangle--
But the Pope in the chair of awe
Looks down the great quadrangle.

III.

The Magi kneel at his foot,
Kings of the East and West,
But, instead of the angels (mute
Is the "Peace on earth" of their song),
The peoples, perplexed and opprest,
Are sighing "How long, how long? "

IV.

And, instead of the kine, bewilder in
Shadow of aisle and dome,
The bear who tore up the children,
The fox who burnt up the corn,
And the wolf who suckled at Rome
Brothers to slay and to scorn.

V.

Cardinals left and right of him,
Worshippers round and beneath,
The silver trumpets at sight of him
Thrill with a musical blast:
But the people say through their teeth,
"Trumpets?