[Footnote 60: “Egli era partito con molto riverescimento da Ravenna, e col pressentimento che la sua partenza da Ravenna ci sarebbe cagione di molti mali. In ogni lettera che egli mi scriveva allora egli mi esprimeva il suo dispiacere di lasciare Ravenna. ’Se papa e richiamato (mi scriveva egli) io torno in quel istante a Ravenna, e se e richiamato prima della mia partenza, io non parto.’ In questa speranza egli differi varii mesi a partire. Ma, finalmente, non potendo piu sperare il nostro ritorno prossimo, egli mi scriveva—’Io parto molto mal volontieri prevedendo dei mali assai grandi per voi altri e massime per voi; altro non dico,—lo vedrete.’ E in un altra lettera, ’Io lascio Ravenna cosi mal volontieri, e cosi persuaso che la mia partenza non puo che condurre da un male ad un altro piu grande che non ho cuore di scrivere altro in questo punto.’ Egli mi scriveva allora sempre in Italiano e trascrivo le sue precise parole—ma come quei suoi pressentimenti si verificarono poi in appresso!]
[Footnote 61: The leaf that contains the original of this extract I have unluckily mislaid.]
* * * * *
“BOLOGNA.
“’Twas night;
the noise and bustle of the day
Were o’er. The
mountebank no longer wrought
Miraculous cures—he
and his stage were gone;
And he who, when the crisis
of his tale
Came, and all stood breathless
with hope and fear,
Sent round his cap; and he
who thrumm’d his wire
And sang, with pleading look
and plaintive strain
Melting the passenger.
Thy thousand cries [62],
So well portray’d and
by a son of thine,
Whose voice had swell’d
the hubbub in his youth,
Were hush’d, BOLOGNA,
silence in the streets,
The squares, when hark, the
clattering of fleet hoofs;
And soon a courier, posting
as from far,
Housing and holster, boot
and belted coat
And doublet stain’d
with many a various soil,
Stopt and alighted. ’Twas
where hangs aloft
That ancient sign, the Pilgrim,
welcoming
All who arrive there, all
perhaps save those
Clad like himself, with staff
and scallop-shell,
Those on a pilgrimage:
and now approach’d
Wheels, through the lofty
porticoes resounding,
Arch beyond arch, a shelter
or a shade
As the sky changes. To
the gate they came;
And, ere the man had half
his story done,
Mine host received the Master—one
long used
To sojourn among strangers,
every where
(Go where he would, along
the wildest track)
Flinging a charm that shall
not soon be lost,
And leaving footsteps to be
traced by those
Who love the haunts of Genius;
one who saw,
Observed, nor shunn’d
the busy scenes of life,
But mingled not; and mid the
din, the stir,
Lived as a separate Spirit.
“Much