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masterly his execution.

That memorable day,
(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square)
I leaned a little and overlooked my prize
By the low railing round the fountain-source
Close to the statue, where a step descends:
While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose
Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place
For marketmen glad to pitch basket down,
Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet,
And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read
Presently, though my path grew perilous
Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait
Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes
And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine:
Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves,
Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape,
Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear,--
And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun:
None of them took my eye from off my prize.
Still read I on, from written title page
To written index, on, through street and street,
At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge;
Till, by the time I stood at home again
In Casa Guidi by Felice Church,
Under the doorway where the black begins
With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold,
I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth
Gathered together, bound up in this book,
Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest.

This power, combined with his power of portraiture, makes this long poem
alive. No other man of his century could paint like him the to and fro
of a city, the hurly-burly of humanity, the crowd, the movement, the
changing passions, the loud or quiet clash of thoughts, the gestures,
the dress, the interweaving of expression on the face, the whole play of
humanity in war or peace. As we read, we move with men and women; we are
pressed everywhere by mankind. We listen to the sound of humanity,
sinking sometimes to the murmur we hear at night from some high window
in London; swelling sometimes, as in _Sordello_, into a roar of
violence, wrath, revenge, and war. And it was all contained in that
little body, brain and heart; and given to us, who can feel it, but not
give it. This is the power which above all endears him to us as a poet.
We feel in each poem not only the waves of the special event of which he
writes, but also the large vibration of the ocean of humanity.

He was not unaware of this power o