and when he died, asked that the monarchy would die with him. He never dreamed, nor have his people, that Paul I. was the world's fool.
"A republic now?" my rescuer finished. "Nonsense! All newspaper talk to make the story good. Not one of them would know a poll if he saw it. Exempt from taxation, perhaps, because there is nothing to tax beyond the lobsters, which you may be sure are levied on. Try them some day at the Caffe Roma in the Corso. Beyond that export, it is a miserable land of rocks."
"And wild goats," I added, musingly.
The moon was shining as we came out on deck, lighting up the English fleet at anchor a few miles away. The cruisers made a splendid picture, with the silver flood for a foreground, while behind them, bigger than the rock of Gibraltar, rose Tavolara.
Hepaticas
IN the frail hepaticas—
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed—
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis.
I am mortal. Woe 'is me!
Her sweet immortality!
Spirit, must I always fare,
Following thy averted looks?
Now thy white arm, now thy hair,
Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?
Thou who hauntest, whispering,
All the slopes and vales of Spring.
Cease to lure! or grant to me
All thy beauty! though it pain,
Slay with splendor utterly!
Flash revealment on my brain!
And one moment let me see
All thy immortality!
