they seem to say among
Themselves -- "when he is ripened into man?
Oh! if on him St. Peter's mantle fall,
What a blest aera! what a happy call!"

XCI
That brave youth's liberal pastimes are designed
In other place; on Alpine mountain hoar
Here he affronts the bear of rugged kind;
And there in rushy bottom bays the boar:
Now on his jennet he outgoes the wind,
And drives some goat or gallant hind before;
Which falls o'ertaken on the dusty plain,
By his descending faulchion cleft in twain.

XCII
He is descried, amid a fair array
Of poets and philosophers elsewhere
This pricks for him the wandering planets' way;
These earth, these heaven for his instruction square.
Some chant sad elegies, some verses gay
Lays lyric or heroic; singers there
He with rich music hears; nor moves a pace
But what in every step is sovereign grace.

XCIII
The first part of the storied walls pourtraied
That noble prince's gentle infancy.
Cassandra all beside had overlaid
With fears of justice, prudence, modesty,
Valour, and that fifty virtue, which hath made
With those fair sisters closest amity;
I speak of her that gives and that bestows.
With all these virtues gilt, the stripling glows.

XCIV
In this part is the princely youth espied
With that unhappy duke, the Insubri's head;
In peace they sit in council at his side,
Together armed, the serpent-banner spread.
The youth by one unchanging faith is tied
To him for ever, well or ill bested;
His followers still in flight before the foe,
His guide in peril, his support in woe.

XCV
Him in another quarter you descry,
For his Ferrara and her duke in fear,
Who by strange proofs doth sift, and certify
To his just brother, vouched by tokens clear,
The close device of that ill treachery,
Hatched by those kinsmen whom he held most dear;
Hence justly he becomes that title's heir,
Which Rome yet free bade righteous Tully bear.

XCVI
Elsewhere in martial panoply he shone,
Hasting to help the church with lifted blade;
With scanty and tumultuous levy gone
Against well-ordered host in arms arraid:
And lo! the coming of that chief alone
Affords the priestly band such present aid,
Extinguished are the fires before they spread.
He came, he saw, he conquered, may be said.

XCVII
Elsewhere he stands upon his native strand,
Fighting against the mightiest armament,
Th