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?
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 A bride's-maid went, and ere she came again [then 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;
Is not that ring"-a pledge, he would have said, For whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew
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
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 Leant 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.—
And one to the charnel-and one, Oh where?
The dark arrow fled
In the noon.
WHERE art thou, beloved To-morrow ? When young and old, and strong and weak, Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,-
In thy place--ah ! well-a-day ! We find the thing we fled-To-day.
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,—
Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, Never smiled the inconstant moon
The rats in her heart
Will have made their nest,
And the worms be alive in her golden hair;
While the spirit that guides the sun
Sits throned in his flaming chair,
Let eyes not see their own delight ;- Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight Oft renew.
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!
THE BOAT,
ON THE SERCHIO.
OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boat-man, has brought the mast, And the oars and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast. Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.
The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there, To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree, The owl and the bat fled drowsily. Day had kindled the dewy woods And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aery gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.
Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free;
And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe,
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn, Glow-worms went out on the river's brim, Like lamps which a student forgets to trim: The beetle forgot to wind his horn,
The crickets were still in the meadow and hill: Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, Night's dreams and terrors, every one, Fled from the brains which are their prey, From the lamp's death to the morning ray.
List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair; How it scatters Dominic's long black hair! Singing of us, and our lazy motions, If I can guess a boat's emotions."-
The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, The living breath is fresh behind, As, with dews and sunrise fed, Comes the laughing morning wind ;- The sails are full, the boat makes head Against the Serchio's torrent fierce, Then flags with intermitting course, And hangs upon the wave,
Which fervid from its mountain source Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come,- Swift as fire, tempestuously
It sweeps into the affrighted sea ; In morning's smile its eddies coil, Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil, Torturing all its quiet light Into columns fierce and bright.
The Serchio, twisting forth Between the marble barriers which it clove At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm The wave that died the death which lovers love,
Living in what it sought; as if this spasm Had not yet past, the toppling mountains cling, But the clear stream in full enthusiasm Pours itself on the plain, until wandering, Down one clear path of effluence crystalline Sends its clear waves, that they may fling At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine: Then, through the pestilential deserts wild Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted fir, It rushes to the Ocean.
"Do you not hear the Aziola cry? Methinks she must be nigh,"
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere the 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 and hate! And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed and said, "Disquiet yourself not, "Tis nothing but a little downy owl."
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 they all: Sad Aziola! from that moment I Loved thee and thy sad cry.
THEY were two cousins, almost like two twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had razed their love-which could not be But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together, like two flowers Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather-the same clime Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see All those who love, and who ever loved like thee, Fiordispina Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture;
He faints, dissolved into a sense of love;
But thou art as a planet sphered above,
But thou art Love itself-ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit-such emotion
Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May
Had not brought forth this morn-your weddingday.
I ARISE from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet
Has led me-who knows how? To thy chamber window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream- The champak odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart, As I must die on thine, O beloved as thou art!
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.
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.
As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the dead-cold year to-day; Solemn hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.
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.
January grey 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.
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