Bound and yet free, companioned and alone,
    Loud mid my silence, I confound my foes: 
    Men think me fool in this vile world of woes;
    God’s wisdom greets me sage from heaven’s high throne. 
With wings on earth oppressed aloft I bound;
    My gleeful soul sad bonds of flesh enclose: 
    And though sometimes too great the burden grows,
    These pinions bear me upward from the ground. 
A doubtful combat proves the warrior’s might: 
    Short is all time matched with eternity: 
    Nought than a pleasing burden is more light. 
My brows I bind with my love’s effigy,
    Sure that my joyous flight will soon be sped
    Where without speech my thoughts shall all be read.

L.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

D’ Italia in Grecia.

From Rome to Greece, from Greece to Libya’s sand,
    Yearning for liberty, just Cato went;
    Nor finding freedom to his heart’s content,
    Sought it in death, and died by his own hand. 
Wise Hannibal, when neither sea nor land
    Could save him from the Roman eagles, rent
    His soul with poison from imprisonment;
    And a snake’s tooth cut Cleopatra’s band. 
In this way died one valiant Maccabee;
    Brutus feigned madness; prudent Solon hid
    His sense; and David, when he feared Gath’s king. 
Thus when the Mystic found that Jonah’s sea
    Was yawning to engulf him, what he did
    He gave to God—­a wise man’s offering.

LI.

APOLOGY BY PARADOX.

Non e brutto il Demon.

The Devil’s not so ugly as they paint;
    He’s well with all, compact of courtesy: 
    Real heroism is real piety: 
    Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faint
If pots stain worse than pipkins, it were quaint
    To charge the pipkins with impurity: 
    Freedom I crave:  who craves not to be free? 
    Yet life that must be feigned for, leaves a taint. 
Ill conduct brings repentance?—­If you prate
    This wise to me, why prate not thus to all
    Philosophers and prophets, and to Christ? 
Not too much learning, as some arrogate,
    But the small brains of dullards have sufficed
    To make us wretched and the world enthrall.

LII.

THE SOUL’S APOLOGY.

Ben sei mila anni.

Six thousand years or more on earth I’ve been: 
    Witness those histories of nations dead,
    Which for our age I have illustrated
    In philosophic volumes, scene by scene. 
And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun serene
    Eclipsed, wilt argue that I had no head
    To live by.—­Why not try the sun instead,
    If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen? 
If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combined