III.

How oft, when in a sordid cell confined,
My active thoughts, my free, my chainless mind
Were borne far, far, to these old rooms where we
Brothers and sisters, by our mother's knee,
Roused the scared neighbours with our gleeful joys,
And greybeards wondered at the bold brave boys
                                                                Of Cairolà.

IV.

I thought of these wide rooms, the ceilings high,
These lines of windows letting in the sky;
In stripes of orient opal set in blue
The night with all her marvels glittered through;
The morning's rose, the evening's purple pall
Shone through those frames like pictures on a wall
                                                              Of Cairolà.

V.

Here, where the everlasting hills lift up
This fairest Florence in a jewelled cup
Of em'rald, streaked with pearl and amethyst,
With agate curves by ruby sunsets kiss'd;
Where Nature wears her brightest, rosiest face,
My heart recals with love thy homelier grace,
                                                        My Cairolà.

VI.

I watch old Giotto's bell–tower spring in air,
And mark how suns and moons have burnished fair
The marble molten through with light and flame,
And then I think of one in form the same,
But loftier, barer, slighter, which doth rise
Upholding on its spire the soft blue skies
                                                          Of Cairolà

VII.

How often when a child I wistful gazed,
And deemed it pierced the firmament upraised,
That earth might thus sustain the floor of heaven!
But now, long years, a sadder faith has given;
God's sky no longer seems so near as then—
I had not learned my bitter doubts of men
                                                           At Cairolà.

VIII.

'Twas there, beneath the soft Venetian skies,
My boyish life I vowed to sacrifice,
As I had read in Plutarch good men gave
Nobly their lives, their country's life to save.
And thus I earned my exile; life has past
In one long struggle since I saw thee last,
                                                         My Cairolà.

IX.

How long since then! How many hopes cut down,
How many leaves have dropped from youth's bright
       crown,
My end yet unattained! I linger here,
While all alone, my mother sitteth there,
And sighs as she looks round the empty room,
Ben mio! thou art long in coming home
                                                        To Cairolà.

X.

But no! Amid the stormy northern skies
Sudden I see the bow of Hope arise;
There is a stir of nations met to free
That fairest city throned by the sea:
They break our yoke, they loose us from our chain,
I shall not die until I see again
                                                                My Cairolà.

XI.

Fair as that bride of cities which St. John
In vision saw, our Italy hath won;
The crystal pavements and the house of gold,
The priceless pearl so often bought and sold.
Venice is free! for me my task is done,
My mother! welcome home thy dying son
                                                           To Cairolà.

JOKES.

THE printing of jest–books began here three
hundred and odd years ago, and is going on
still. Yet, if the whole national stock of original
wit were to be gathered in and put into a book
all by itself, such a modest–looking pamphlet
would come of it as would be wonderful to most
beholders.

One Hierocles, in the early Christian days,
spent much of his time in researches into this
highly momentous subject; being the first author
upon it. He left behind him, as the harvest of
his labours, TWENTY–ONE JOKES, which we may
securely believe were all that to his knowledge
existed up and down the world, after as many
as five hundred years of its Christian life were
spent, in addition, as many people are aware, of
a previous four thousand. Twenty–one jokes
in four thousand five hundred years! Which
is as much as to say that the old world made
a joke once in about two hundred and fifty
years, and then took breath.

What a stale, worn, threadbare thing that
first joke must have been when the second joke
was made! The stock of fun was of course
comparatively rich then; there was a glimpse of
fertility. What an extraordinary run there
must have been upon the little stranger!

So we see that for forty–five centuries the
world was in the habit of preparing its jokes
with a stupendous degree of deliberation and
forethought; and the inhabitants of the universe
(who lived, however, snugly, in a tiny corner of
it) maintained themselves respectably and
comfortably during that period on twenty–one
facetiæ. But a marvellous revolution was
impending. The world was meditating (speaking
jocularly) a gigantic and astounding spring.
From twenty–one jokes, the Hieroclean legacy,
to twenty–one millions was like one step
accomplished in a moment; or, in ordinary language,
in about thirteen hundred years. Everything is
comparative. Those first forty–five centuries
joked so slowly, that we get somehow into a
way of looking at them as if they had been
mere chronological atoms. Adding thirteen
new centuries to the old forty–five, brings us
very nearly down to the age in which we live;
for argument's sake, say quite to it. We stand
at twenty–one million jokes. Are we content?
May twenty–one million jokes be regarded as
high–water mark? The greatest nation in the
world ought to rest and be thankful with such
an enormous fortune.

These jokes have landed in England from all
parts of the world, and have been examined on
disembarkation by competent scholars. They
have been taught our language, and have had
their clothes changed, so that no one should