Poems Read Online

. .

»Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,

Ye faint-eyed children of the Hours,«

Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers

Which she had from the breathing –

. . . . . .

A table near of polished porphyry.

They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye

That looked on them – a fragrance from the touch

Whose warmth checked their life; a light such

As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove

The childish pity that she felt for them,

And a remorse that from their stem

She had divided such fair shapes made

A feeling in the which was a shade

Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay

All gems that make the earth's dark bosom gay.

rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,

And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes

The livery of unremembered snow –

Violets whose eyes have drunk –

. . . . . .

Fiordispina and her nurse are now

Upon the steps of the high portico;

Under the withered arm of Media

She flings her glowing arm

. . . . . .

step by step and stair by stair,

That withered woman, gray and white and brown –

More like a trunk by lichens overgrown

Than anything which once could have been human.

And ever as she goes the palsied woman

. . . . . .

»How slow and painfully you seem to walk,

Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.«

»And well it may,

Fiordispina, dearest – well-a-day!

You are hastening to a marriage-bed;

I to the grave!« – »And if my love were dead,

Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie

Beside him in my shroud as willingly

As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.«

»Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought

Not be remembered till it snows in June;

Such fancies are a music out of tune

With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.

What! would you take all beauty and delight

Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,

And leave to grosser mortals? –

And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet

And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?

Who knows whether the loving game is played,

When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,

The naked soul goes wandering here and there

Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?

The violet dies not till it« –

Time Long Past

I

Like the ghost of a dear friend dead

Is Time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,

A hope which is now forever past,

A love so sweet it could not last,

Was Time long past.

II

There were sweet dreams in the night

Of Time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last –

That Time long past.

III

There is regret, almost remorse,

For Time long past.

'Tis like a child's beloved corse

A father watches, till at last

Beautz is like remembrance, cast

From Time long past.

Dirge for the Year

I

Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,

Come and sigh, come and weep!

Merry Hours, smile instead,

For the Year is but asleep.

See, it smiles as it is sleeping,

Mocking your untimely weeping.

II

As an earthquake rocks a corse

In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,

Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;

Solemn Hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,

So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the Year: – be calm and mild,

Trembling Hours, she will arise

With new love within her eyes.

IV

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;

February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave,

And April weeps – but, O ye Hours!

Follow with May's fairest flowers.

To Night

I

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,

Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where, all the long and lone daylight,

Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,

Which make thee terrible and dear, –

Swift be thy flight!

II

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,

Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;

Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,

Touching all with thine opiate wand –

Come, long-sought!

III

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

And the weary Day turned to his rest,

Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.

IV

Thy brother Death came, and cried,

Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,

Murmured like a noontide bee,

Shall I nestle near thy side?

Wouldst thou me? – And I replied,

No, not thee!

V

Death will come when thou art dead,

Soon, too soon –

Sleep will come when thou art fled;

Of neither would I ask the boon

I ask of thee, beloved Night –

Swift be thine approaching flight,

Come soon, soon!

Time

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,

Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe

Are brackish with the salt of human tears!

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow

Claspest the limits of mortality,

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,

Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,

Who shall put forth on thee,

Unfathomable Sea?

Lines

I

Far, far away, O ye

Halcyons of Memory,

Seek some far calmer nest

Than this abandoned breast!

No news of your false spring

To my heart's winter bring,

Once having gone, in vain

Ye come again.

II

Vultures, who build your bowers

High in the Future's towers,

Withered hopes on hopes are spread!

Dying joys, choked by the dead,

Will serve your beaks for prey

Many a day.

From the Arabic: an Imitation

I

My faint spirit was sitting in the light

Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon

For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight

Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,

Did companion thee.

II

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,

Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove

With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,

Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,

It may bring to thee.

To Emilia Viviani

I

Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me

Sweet-basil and mignonette?

Embleming love and health, which never yet

In the same wreath might be.

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?

For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower – the very doubt endears

My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

II

Send the stars light, but send not love to me,

In whom love ever made

Health like a heap of embers soon to fade –

The Fugitives

I

The waters are flashing,

The white hail is dashing,

The lightnings are glancing,

The hoar-spray is dancing –

Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,

The thunder is tolling,

The forest is swinging,

The minster bells ringing –

Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,

Wreck-strewn and in motion:

Bird, beast, man and worm

Have crept out of the storm –

Come away!

II

»Our boat has one sail,

And the helmsman is pale; –

A bold pilot I trow,

Who should follow us now,« –

Shouted he –

And she cried: »Ply the oar!

Put off gaily from shore!« –

As she spoke, bolts of death

Mixed with hail, specked their path

O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,

The blue beacon-cloud broke,

And though dumb in the blast,

The red cannon flashed fast

From the lee.

III

And »Fear'st thou?« and »Fear'st thou?«

And »Seest thou?« and »Hear'st thou?«

And »Drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,

I and thou?«

One boat-cloak did cover

The loved and the lover –

Their blood beats one measure,

They murmur proud pleasure

Soft and low; –

While around the lashed Ocean,

Like mountains in motion,

Is withdrawn and uplifted,

Sunk, shattered and shifted

To and fro.

IV

In the court of the fortress

Beside the pale portress,

Like a bloodhound well beaten

The bridegroom stands, eaten

By shame;

On the topmost watch-turret,

As a death-boding spirit,

Stands the gray tyrant father,

To his voice the mad weather

Seems tame;

And with curses as wild

As e'er clung to child,

He devotes to the blast,

The best, loveliest and last

Of his name!

To ––

Music, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory –

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.

Song

I

Rarely, rarely, comest thou,

Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?

Many a weary night and day

'Tis since thou art fled away.

II

How shall ever one like me

Win thee back again?

With the joyous and the free

Thou wilt scoff at pain.

Spirit false! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

III

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

IV

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure;

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

V

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,

And the starry night;

Autumn evening, and the morn

When the golden mists are born.

VI

I love snow, and all the forms

Of the radiant frost;

I love waves, and winds, and storms,

Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be

Untainted by man's misery.

VII

I love tranquil solitude,

And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference? but thou dost possess

The things I seek, not love them less.

VIII

I love Love – though he has wings,

And like light can flee,

But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee –

Thou art love and life! Oh, come,

Make once more my heart thy home.

Mutability

I

The flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright.

II

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,

Survive their joy, and all

Which ours we call.

III

Whilst skies are blue and bright,

Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night

Make glad the day,

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,

Dream thou – and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.

Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon

What! alive and so bold, O Earth?

Art thou not overbold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old

In the light of thy morning mirth,

The last of the flock of the starry fold?

Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,

And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?

How! is not his death-knell knolled?

And livest thou still, Mother Earth?

Thou wert warming thy fingers old

O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled –

What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

»Who has known me of old,« replied Earth,

»Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art overbold.«

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth

As she sung, »To my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled,

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

Still alive and still bold,« shouted Earth,

»I grow bolder and still more bold.

The dead fill me ten thousandfold

Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.

I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,

Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead

My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.

Ay, alive and still bold,« muttered Earth,

»Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.

Leave the millions who follow to mould

The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead

Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.«

Sonnet: Political Greatness

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,

Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,

Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;

Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,

History is but the shadow of their shame,

Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts

As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,

Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery

Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit

By force or custom? Man who man would be,

Must rule the empire of himself; in it

Must be supreme, establishing his throne

On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy

Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

The Aziola

I

»Do you not hear the Aziola cry?

Methinks she must be nigh,«

Said Mary, as we sate

In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;

And I, who thought

This Aziola was some tedious woman,

Asked, »Who is Aziola?« How elate

I felt to know that it was nothing human,

No mockery of myself to fear or hate:

And Mary saw my soul,

And laughed, and said, »Disquiet yourself not;

'Tis nothing but a little downy owl.«

II

Sad Aziola! many an eventide

Thy music I had heard

By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,

And fields and marshes wide, –

Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,

The soul ever stirred;

Unlike and far sweeter than them all.

Sad Aziola! from that moment I

Loved thee and thy sad cry.

A Lament

I

O world! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before;

When will return the glory of your prime?

No more – Oh, never more!

II

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,

Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

No more – Oh, never more!

Remembrance

I

Swifter far than summer's flight –

Swifter far than youth's delight –

Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone –

As the earth when leaves are dead,

As the night when sleep is sped,

As the heart when joy is fled,

I am left lone, alone.

II

The swallow summer comes again –

The owlet night resumes her reign –

But the wild-swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou. –

My heart each day desires the morrow;

Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;

Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

III

Lilies for a bridal bed –

Roses for a matron's head –

Violets for a maiden dead –

Pansies let my flowers be:

On the living grave I bear

Scatter them without a tear –

Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

To Edward Williams

I

The serpent is shut out from Paradise.

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more

In which its heart-cure lies:

The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower

Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs

Fled in the April hour.

I too must seldom seek again

Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II

Of hatred I am proud, – with scorn content;

Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown

Itself indifferent;

But, not to speak of love, pity alone

Can break a spirit already more than bent.

The miserable one

Turns the mind's poison into food, –

Its medicine is tears, – its evil good.

III

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,

Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die:

The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,

Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask

Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene, –

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought

Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

V

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,

»She loves me – loves me not.«

And if this meant a vision long since fled –

If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought –

If it meant, – but I dread

To speak what you may know too well:

Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;

No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,

When it no more would roam;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast

Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest:

Doubtless there is a place of peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved

His heart with words, – but what his judgement bade

Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know,

Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

To ––

I

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,

And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

II

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not, –

The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

To ––

I

When passion's trance is overpast,

If tenderness and truth could last,

Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep

Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,

I should not weep, I should not weep!

II

It were enough to feel, to see,

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest – and burn and be

The secret food of fires unseen,

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

III

After the slumber of the year

The woodland violets reappear,

All things revive in field or grove,

And sky and sea, but two, which move

And form all others, life and love.

A Bridal Song

I

The golden gates of Sleep unbar

Where Strength and Beauty, met together,

Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather!

Night, with all thy stars look down, –

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, –

Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true.

Let eyes not see their own delight; –

Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight

Oft renew.

II

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!

Holy stars, permit no wrong!

And return to wake the sleeper,

Dawn, – ere it be long!

O joy! O fear! what will be done

In the absence of the sun!

Come along!

Epithalamium

Another Version of the Preceding

Night, with all thine eyes look down!

Darkness shed its holiest dew!

When ever smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true?

Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,

Lest eyes see their own delight!

Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight

Oft renew.

Boys.

O joy! O fear! what may be done

In the absence of the sun?

Come along!

The golden gates of sleep unbar!

When strength and beauty meet together,

Kindles their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather.

Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,

Lest eyes see their own delight!

Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight

Oft renew.

Girls.

O joy! O fear! what may be done

In the absence of the sun?

Come along!

Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep her!

Holiest powers, permit no wrong!

And return, to wake the sleeper,

Dawn, ere it be long.

Hence, swift hour! and quench thy light,

Lest eyes see their own delight!

Hence, coy hour I and thy loved flight

Oft renew.

Boys and Girls.

O joy! O fear! what will be done

In the absence of the sun?

Come along!

Another Version of the Same

Boys Sing.

Night! with all thine eyes look down!

Darkness! weep thy holiest dew!

Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true.

Haste, coy hour! and quench all light,

Lest eyes see their own delight!

Haste, swift hour! and thy loved flight

Oft renew!

Girls Sing.

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!

Holy stars! permit no wrong!

And return, to wake the sleeper,

Dawn, ere it be long!

O joy! O fear! there is not one

Of us can guess what may be done

In the absence of the sun: –

Come along!

Boys.

Oh! linger long, thou envious eastern lamp

In the damp

Caves of the deep!

Girls.

Nay, return, Vesper! urge thy lazy car!

Swift unbar

The gates of Sleep!

Chorus.

The golden gate of Sleep unbar,

When Strength and Beauty, met together,

Kindle their image, like a star

In a sea of glassy weather.

May the purple mist of love

Round them rise, and with them move,

Nourishing each tender gem

Which, like flowers, will burst from them.

As the fruit is to the tree

May their children ever be!

Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear

And many there were hurt by that strong boy,

His name, they said, was Pleasure,

And near him stood, glorious beyond measure,

Four Ladies who possess all empery

In earth and air and sea,

Nothing that lives from their award is free.

Their names will I declare to thee,

Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,

And they the regents are

Of the four elements that frame the heart,

And each diversely exercised her art

By force or circumstance or sleight

To prove her dreadful might

Upon that poor domain.

Desire presented her [false] glass, and then

The spirit dwelling there

Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair

Within that magic mirror,

And dazed by that bright error,

It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger,

And death, and penitence, and danger,

Had not then silent Fear

Touched with her palsying spear,

So that as if a frozen torrent

The blood was curdled in its current;

It dared not speak, even in look or motion,

But chained within itself its proud devotion.

Between Desire and Fear thou wert

A wretched thing, poor heart!

Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast,

Wild bird for that weak nest.

Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,

And from the very wound of tender thought

Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes

Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,

Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.

Then Hope approached, she who can borrow

For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,

And Fear withdrew, as night when day

Descends upon the orient ray,

And after long and vain endurance

The poor heart woke to her assurance.

– At one birth these four were born

With the world's forgotten morn,

And from Pleasure still they hold

All it circles, as of old.

When, as summer lures the swallow,

Pleasure lures the heart to follow –

O weak heart of little wit!

The fair hand that wounded it,

Seeking, like a panting hare,

Refuge in the lynx's lair,

Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,

Ever will be near.

Fragments Written for Hellas

I

Fairest of the Destinies,

Disarray thy dazzling eyes:

Keener far thy lightnings are

Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,

And the smile thou wearest

Wraps thee as a star

Is wrapped in light.

II

Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn

From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,

Or could the morning shafts of purest light

Again into the quivers of the Sun

Be gathered – could one thought from its wild flight

Return into the temple of the brain

Without a change, without a stain, –

Could aught that is, ever again

Be what it once has ceased to be.

Greece might again be free!

III

A star has fallen upon the earth

Mid the benighted nations,

A quenchless atom of immortal light,

A living spark of Night,

A cresset shaken from the constellations.

Swifter than the thunder fell

To the heart of Earth, the well

Where its pulses flow and beat,

And unextinct in that cold source

Burns, and on course

Guides the sphere which is its prison,

Like an angelic spirit pent

In a form of mortal birth,

Till, as a spirit half-arisen

Shatters its charnel, it has rent,

In the rapture of its mirth,

The thin and painted garment of the Earth,

Ruining its chaos – a fierce breath

Consuming all its forms of living death.

Fragment: »I Would Not Be a King«

I would not be a king – enough

Of woe it is to love;

The path to power is steep and rough,

And tempests reign above.

I would not climb the imperial throne;

'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun

Thaws in the height of noon.

Then farewell, king, yet were I one,

Care would not come so soon.

Would he and I were far away

Keeping flocks on Himalay!

Ginevra

Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one

Who staggers forth into the air and sun

From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,

Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain

Of usual shapes, till the familiar train

Of objects and of persons passed like things

Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,

Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent

Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,

Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil,

Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,

And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth,

And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth, –

And of the gold and jewels glittering there

She scarce felt conscious, – but the weary glare

Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,

Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight,

A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud

Was less heavenly fair – her face was bowed,

And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair

Were mirrored in the polished marble stair

Which led from the cathedral to the street;

And ever as she went her light fair feet

Erased these images.

The bride-maidens who round her thronging came,

Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,

Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been another's

Their own by gentle sympathy; and some

Sighing to think of an unhappy home:

Some few admiring what can ever lure

Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure

Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing

Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed – and, lo! she stands

Looking in idle grief on her white hands,

Alone within the garden now lier own;

And through the sunny air, with jangling tone,

The music of the merry marriage-bells,

Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells; –

Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams

That he is dreaming, until slumber seems

A mockery of itself – when suddenly

Antonio stood before her, pale as she.

With agony, with sorrow, and with pride,

He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,

And said – »Is this thy faith?« and then as one

Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun

With light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise

And look upon his day of life with eyes

Which weep in vain that they can dream no more,

Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore

To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood

Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued

Said – »Friend, if earthly violence or ill,

Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will

Of parents, chance or custom, time or change,

Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge,

Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech,

With all their stings and venom can impeach

Our love, – we love not: – if the grave which hides

The victim from the tyrant, and divides

The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart

Imperious inquisition to the heart

That is another's, could dissever ours,

We love not.« – »What! do not the silent hours

Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed?

Is not that ring« – a pledge, he would have said,

Of broken vows, but she with patient look

The golden circle from her finger took,

And said – »Accept this token of my faith,

The pledge of vows to be absolved by death;

And I am dead or shall be soon – my knell

Will mix its music with that merry bell,

Does it not sound as if they sweetly said

›We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed‹?

The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn

Will serve unfaded for my bier – so soon

That even the dying violet will not die

Before Ginevra.« The strong fantasy

Had made her accents weaker and more weak,

And quenched the crimson life upon her cheek,

And glazed her eyes, and spread an atmosphere

Round her, which chilled the burning noon with fear,

Making her but an image of the thought

Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought

News of the terrors of the coming time.

Like an accuser branded with the crime

He would have cast on a beloved friend,

Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end

The pale betrayer – he then with vain repentance

Would share, he cannot now avert, the sentence –

Antonio stood and would have spoken, when

The compound voice of women and of men

Was heard approaching; he retired, while she

Was led amid the admiring company

Back to the palace, – and her maidens soon

Changed her attire for the afternoon,

And left her at her own request to keep

An hour of quiet and rest: – like one asleep

With open eyes and folded hands she lay,

Pale in the light of the declining day.

Meanwhile the day sinks fast, the sun is set,

And in the lighted hall the guests are met;

The beautiful looked lovelier in the light

Of love, and admiration, and delight

Reflected from a thousand hearts and eyes,

Kindling a momentary Paradise.

This crowd is safer than the silent wood,

Where love's own doubts disturb the solitude;

On frozen hearts the fiery rain of wine

Falls, and the dew of music more divine

Tempers the deep emotions of the time

To spirits cradled in a sunny clime: –

How many meet, who never yet have met,

To part too soon, but never to forget.

How many saw the beauty, power and wit

Of looks and words which ne'er enchanted yet;

But life's familiar veil was now withdrawn,

As the world leaps before an earthquake's dawn,

And unprophetic of the coming hours,

The matin winds from the expanded flowers

Scatter their hoarded incense, and awaken

The earth, until the dewy sleep is shaken

From every living heart which it possesses,

Through seas and winds, cities and wildernesses,

As if the future and the past were all

Treasured i' the instant; – so Gherardi's hall

Laughed in the mirth of its lord's festival,

Till some one asked – »Where is the Bride?« And then

A bridesmaid went, – and ere she came again

A silence fell upon the guests – a pause

Of expectation, as when beauty awes

All hearts with its approach, though unbeheld,

Then wonder, and then fear that wonder quelled; –

For whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew

The colour from the hearer's cheeks, and flew

Louder and swifter round the company;

And then Gherardi entered with an eye

Of ostentatious trouble, and a crowd

Surrounded him, and some were weeping loud.

They found Ginevra dead! if it be death

To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath,

With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,

And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light

Mocked at the speculation they had owned.

If it be death, when there is felt around

A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,

And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair

From the scalp to the ankles, as it were

Corruption from the spirit passing forth,

And giving all it shrouded to the earth,

And leaving as swift lightning in its flight

Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night

Of thought we know thus much of death, – no more

Than the unborn dream of our life before

Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore.

The marriage feast and its solemnity

Was turned to funeral pomp – the company,

With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they

Who loved the dead went weeping on their way

Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise

Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes,

On which that form, whose fate they weep in vain,

Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again.

The lamps which, half extinguished in their haste,

Gleamed few and faint o'er the abandoned feast,

Showed as it were within the vaulted room

A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom

Had passed out of men's minds into the air.

Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,

Friends and relations of the dead, – and he,

A loveless man, accepted torpidly

The consolation that he wanted not;

Awe in the place of grief within him wrought.

Their whispers made the solemn silence seem

More still – some wept, ...

Some melted into tears without a sob,

And some with hearts that might be heard to throb

Leaned on the table, and at intervals

Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls

And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came

Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame

Of every torch and taper as it swept

From out the chamber where the women kept; –

Their tears fell on the dear companion cold

Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled

The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,

And finding Death their penitent had shrived,

Returned like ravens from a corpse whereon

A vulture has just feasted to the bone.

And then the mourning women came. –

. . .