"Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears--soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony."
SHAKESPEARE.
BOAT SONG ON THE LAKE OF COMO.
I.
The Beautiful Clime!--the Clime of Love!
Thou beautiful Italy!
Like a mother's eyes, the earnest skies
Ever have smiles for thee!
Not a flower that blows, not a beam that glows,
But what is in love with thee!
II.
The beautiful lake, the Larian lake!*
Soft lake like a silver sea,
The Huntress Queen, with her nymphs of sheen,
Never had bath like thee.
See, the Lady of night and her maids of light,
Even now are mid-deep in thee!
* The ancient name of Como.
III.
Beautiful child of the lonely hills,
Ever blest may thy slumbers be!
No mourner should tread by thy dreamy bed,
No life bring a care to thee--
Nay, soft to thy bed, let the mourner tread--
And life be a dream like thee!
Such, though uttered in the soft Italian tongue, and now imperfectly
translated--such were the notes that floated one lovely evening in
summer along the lake of Como. The boat, from which came the song,
drifted gently down the sparkling waters, towards the mossy banks of a
lawn, whence on a little eminence gleamed the white walls of a villa,
backed by vineyards. On that lawn stood a young and handsome woman,
leaning on the arm of her husband, and listening to the song. But her
delight was soon deepened into one of more personal interest, as the
boatmen, nearing the banks, changed their measure, and she felt that the
minstrelsy was in honour of herself.
SERENADE TO THE SONGSTRESS.
I.
CHORUS.
Softly--oh, soft! let us rest on the oar,
And vex not a billow that sighs to the shore:--
For sacred the spot where the starry waves meet
With the beach, where the breath of the citron is sweet.
There's a spell on the waves that now waft us along
To the last of our Muses, the Spirit of Song.
RECITATIVE.
The Eagle of old renown,
And the Lombard's iron crown
And Milan's mighty name are ours no more;
But by this glassy water,
Harmonia's youngest daughter,
Still from the lightning saves one laurel to our shore.
II.
CHORUS.
They heard thee, Teresa, the Teuton, the Gaul,
Who have raised the rude thrones of the North on our fall;
They heard thee, and bow'd to the might of thy song;
Like love went thy steps o'er the hearts of the strong;
As the moon to the air, as the soul to the clay,
To the void of this earth was the breath of thy lay.
RECITATIVE.
Honour for aye to her
The bright interpreter
Of Art's great mysteries to the enchanted throng;
While tyrants heard thy strains,
Sad Rome forgot her chains;
The world the sword had lost was conquer'd back by song!
"Thou repentest, my Teresa, that thou hast renounced thy dazzling career
for a dull home, and a husband old enough to be thy father," said the
husband to the wife, with a smile that spoke confidence in the answer.
"Ah, no! even this homage would have no music to me if thou didst not
hear it."
She was a celebrated personage in Italy--the Signora Cesarini, now
Madame de Montaigne. Her earlier youth had been spent upon the stage,
and her promise of vocal excellence had been most brilliant. But after
a brief though splendid career, she married a French gentleman of good
birth and fortune, retired from the stage, and spent her life
alternately in the gay saloons of Paris and upon the banks of the dreamy
Como, on which her husband had purchased a small but beautiful villa.
She still, however, exercised in private her fascinating art; to
which--for she was a woman of singular accomplishment and talent--she
added the gift of the improvvisatrice. She had just returned for the
summer to this lovely retreat, and a party of enthusiastic youths from
Milan had sought the lake of Como to welcome her arrival with the
suitable homage of song and music. It is a charming relic, that custom
of the brighter days of Italy; and I myself have listened, on the still
waters of the same lake, to a similar greeting to a greater genius--the
queenlike and unrivalled Pasta--the Semiramis of Song! And while my
boat paused, and I caught something of the enthusiasm of the serenaders,
the boatman touched me, and, pointing to a part of the lake on which the
setting sun shed its rosiest smile, he said, "There, Signor, was drowned
one of your countrymen 'bellissimo uomo! che fu bello!'"--yes, there, in
the pride of his promising youth, of his noble and almost godlike
beauty, before the very windows--the very eyes--of his bride--the waves
without a frown had swept over the idol of many hearts--the graceful and
gallant Locke.* And above his grave was the voluptuous sky, and over it
floated the triumphant music. It was as the moral of the Roman
poets--calling the living to a holiday over the oblivion of the dead.
* Captain William Locke of the Life Guards (the only son of the
accomplished Mr. Locke of Norbury Park), distinguished by a character
the most amiable, and by a personal beauty that certainly equalled,
perhaps surpassed, the highest masterpiece of Grecian sculpture. He was
returning in a boat from the town of Como to his villa on the banks of
the lake, when the boat was upset by one of the mysterious
under-currents to which the lake is dangerously subjected; and he was
drowned in sight of his bride, who was watching his return from the
terrace or balcony of their home.
As the boat now touched the bank, Madame de Montaigne accosted the
musicians, thanked them with a sweet and unaffected earnestness for the
compliment so delicately offered, and invited them ashore. The
Milanese, who were six in number, accepted the invitation, and moored
their boat to the jutting shore. It was then that Monsieur de Montaigne
pointed out to the notice of his wife a boat, that had lingered under
the shadow of a bank, tenanted by a young man, who had seemed to listen
with rapt attention to the music, and who had once joined in the chorus
(as it was twice repeated), with a voice so exquisitely attuned, and so
rich in its deep power, that it had awakened the admiration even of the
serenaders themselves.
"Does not that gentleman belong to your party?" De Montaigne asked of
the Milanese.
"No, Signor, we know him not," was the answer; "his boat came unawares
upon us as we were singing."
While this question and answer were going on, the young man had quitted
his station, and his oars cut the glassy surface of the lake, just
before the place where De Montaigne stood. With the courtesy of his
country, the Frenchman lifted his hat; and, by his gesture, arrested the
eye and oar of the solitary rower. "Will you honour us," he said, "by
joining our little party?"
"It is a pleasure I covet too much to refuse," replied the boatman, with
a slight foreign accent, and in another moment he was on shore. He was
one of remarkable appearance. His long hair floated with a careless
grace over a brow more calm and thoughtful than became his years; his
manner was unusually quiet and self-collected, and not without a certain
stateliness, rendered more striking by the height of his stature, a
lordly contour of feature, and a serene but settled expression of
melancholy in his eyes and smile. "You will easily believe," said he,
"that, cold as my countrymen are esteemed (for you must have discovered
already that I am an Englishman), I could not but share in the
enthusiasm of those about me, when loitering near the very ground sacred
to the inspiration. For the rest, I am residing for the present in
yonder villa, opposite to your own; my name is Maltravers, and I am
enchanted to think that I am no longer a personal stranger to one whose
fame has already reached me." Madame de Montaigne was flattered by
something in the manner and tone of the Englishman, which said a great
deal more than his words; and in a few minutes, beneath the influence of
the happy continental ease, the whole party seemed as if they had known
each other for years. Wines, and fruits, and other simple and
unpretending refreshments, were brought out and ranged on a rude table
upon the grass, round which the guests seated themselves with their host
and hostess, and the clear moon shone over them, and the lake slept
below in silver. It was a scene for a Boccaccio or a Claude.
The conversation naturally fell upon music; it is almost the only thing
which Italians in general can be said to know--and even that knowledge
comes to them, like Dogberry's reading and writing, by nature--for of
music, as an /art/, the unprofessional amateurs know but little. As
vain and arrogant of the last wreck of their national genius as the
Romans of old were of the empire of all arts and arms, they look upon
the harmonies of other lands as barbarous; nor can they appreciate or
understand appreciation of the mighty German music, which is the proper
minstrelsy of a nation of men--a music of philosophy, of heroism, of the
intellect and the imagination; beside which, the strains of modern Italy
are indeed effeminate, fantastic, and artificially feeble. Rossini is
the Canova of music, with much of the pretty, with nothing of the grand!
The little party talked, however, of music, with an animation and gusto
that charmed the melancholy Maltravers, who for weeks had known no
companion save his own thoughts, and with whom, at all times, enthusiasm
for any art found a ready sympathy. He listened attentively, but said
little; and from time to time, whenever the conversation flagged, amused
himself by examining his companions. The six Milanese had nothing
remarkable in their countenances or in their talk; they possessed the
characteristic energy and volubility of their countrymen, with something
of the masculine dignity which distinguishes the Lombard from the
Southern, and a little of the French polish, which the inhabitants of
Milan seldom fail to contract. Their rank was evidently that of the
middle class; for Milan has a middle class, and one which promises great
results hereafter. But they were noways distinguished from a thousand
other Milanese whom Maltravers had met with in the walks and cafes of
their noble city. The host was somewhat more interesting. He was a
tall, handsome man, of about eight-and-forty, with a high forehead, and
features strongly impressed with the sober character of thought. He had
but little of the French vivacity in his manner; and without looking at
his countenance, you would still have felt insensibly that he was the
eldest of the party. His wife was at least twenty years younger than
himself, mirthful and playful as a child, but with a certain feminine
and fascinating softness in her unrestrained gestures and sparkling
gaiety, which seemed to subdue her natural joyousness into the form and
method of conventional elegance. Dark hair carelessly arranged, an open
forehead, large black laughing eyes, a small straight nose, a complexion
just relieved from the olive by an evanescent, yet perpetually recurring
blush; a round dimpled cheek, an exquisitely-shaped mouth with small
pearly teeth, and a light and delicate figure a little below the
ordinary standard, completed the picture of Madame de Montaigne.
"Well," said Signor Tirabaloschi, the most loquacious and sentimental of
the guests, filling his glass, "these are hours to think of for the rest
of life. But we cannot hope the Signora will long remember what we
never can forget. Paris, says the French proverb, /est le paradis des
femmes/: and in Paradise, I take it for granted, we recollect very
little of what happened on earth."
"Oh," said Madame de Montaigne, with a pretty musical laugh, "in Paris
it is the rage to despise the frivolous life of cities, and to affect
/des sentimens romanesques/. This is precisely the scene which our fine
ladies and fine writers would die to talk of and to describe. Is it not
so, /mon ami/?" and she turned affectionately to De Montaigne.
"True," replied he; "but you are not worthy of such a scene--you laugh
at sentiment and romance."
"Only at French sentiment and the romance of the Chaussee d'Antin. You
English," she continued, shaking her head at Maltravers, "have spoiled
and corrupted us; we are not content to imitate you, we must excel you;
we out-horror horror, and rush from the extravagant into the frantic!"
"The ferment of the new school is, perhaps, better than the stagnation
of the old," said Maltravers. "Yet even you," addressing himself to the
Italians, "who first in Petrarch, in Tasso, and in Ariosto, set to
Europe the example of the Sentimental and the Romantic; who built among
the very ruins of the classic school, amidst its Corinthian columns and
sweeping arches, the spires and battlements of the Gothic--even you are
deserting your old models and guiding literature into newer and wilder
paths. 'Tis the way of the world--eternal progress is eternal change."
"Very possibly," said Signor Tirabaloschi, who understood nothing of
what was said. "Nay, it is extremely profound; on reflection, it is
beautiful--superb! you English are so--so--in short, it is admirable.
Ugo Foscolo is a great genius--so is Monti; and as for Rossini,--you
know his last opera--/cosa stupenda/!"
Madame de Montaigne glanced at Maltravers, clapped her little hands, and
laughed outright. Maltravers caught the contagion, and laughed also.
But he hastened to repair the pedantic error he had committed of talking
over the heads of the company. He took up the guitar, which, among
their musical instruments, the serenaders had brought, and after
touching its chords for a few moments, said: "After all, Madame, in your
society, and with this moonlit lake before us, we feel as if music were
our best medium of conversation. Let us prevail upon these gentlemen to
delight us once more."
"You forestall what I was going to ask," said the ex-singer; and
Maltravers offered the guitar to Tirabaloschi, who was in fact dying to
exhibit his powers again. He took the instrument with a slight grimace
of modesty, and then saying to Madame de Montaigne, "There is a song
composed by a young friend of mine, which is much admired by the ladies;
though to me it seems a little too sentimental," sang the following
stanzas (as good singers are wont to do) with as much feeling as if he
could understand them!
NIGHT AND LOVE.
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes!
As stars look on the sea!
For thoughts, like waves that glide by night,
Are stillest where they shine;
Mine earthly love lies hushed in light
Beneath the heaven of thine.
There is an hour when angels keep
Familiar watch on men;
When coarser souls are wrapt in sleep,--
Sweet spirit, meet me then.
There is an hour when holy dreams
Through slumber fairest glide;
And in that mystic hour it seems
Thou shouldst be by my side.
The thoughts of thee too sacred are
For daylight's common beam;--
I can but know thee as my star,
My angel, and my dream!
And now, the example set, and the praises of the fair hostess exciting
general emulation, the guitar circled from hand to hand, and each of the
Italians performed his part; you might have fancied yourself at one of
the old Greek feasts, with the lyre and the myrtle-branch going the
round.
But both the Italians and the Englishman felt the entertainment would be
incomplete without hearing the celebrated vocalist and improvvisatrice
who presided over the little banquet; and Madame de Montaigne, with a
woman's tact, divined the general wish, and anticipated the request that
was sure to be made. She took the guitar from the last singer, and
turning to Maltravers, said, "You have heard, of course, some of our
more eminent improvvisatori, and therefore if I ask you for a subject it
will only be to prove to you that the talent is not general amongst the
Italians."
"Ah," said Maltravers, "I have heard, indeed, some ugly old gentlemen
with immense whiskers, and gestures of the most alarming ferocity, pour
out their vehement impromptus; but I have never yet listened to a young
and a handsome lady. I shall only believe the inspiration when I hear
it direct from the Muse."
"Well, I will do my best to deserve your compliments--you must give me
the theme."
Maltravers paused a moment, and suggested the Influence of Praise on
Genius.
The improvvisatrice nodded assent, and after a short prelude broke forth
into a wild and varied strain of verse, in a voice so exquisitely sweet,
with a taste so accurate, and a feeling so deep that the poetry sounded
to the enchanted listeners like the language that Armida might have
uttered. Yet the verses themselves, like all extemporaneous effusions,
were of a nature both to pass from the memory and to defy transcription.
When Madame de Montaigne's song ceased, no rapturous plaudits
followed--the Italians were too affected by the science, Maltravers by
the feeling, for the coarseness of ready praise;--and ere that delighted
silence which made the first impulse was broken, a new comer, descending
from the groves that clothed the ascent behind the house, was in the
midst of the party.
"Ah, my dear brother," cried Madame Montaigne, starting up, and banging
fondly on the arm of the stranger, "why have you lingered so long in the
wood? You, so delicate! And how are you? How pale you seem!"
"It is but the reflection of the moonlight, Teresa," said the intruder;
"I feel well." So saying, he scowled on the merry party, and turned as
if to slink away.
"No, no," whispered Teresa, "you must stay a moment and be presented to
my guests: there is an Englishman here whom you will like--who will
/interest/ you."
With that she almost dragged him forward, and introduced him to her
guests. Signor Cesarini returned their salutations with a mixture of
bashfulness and /hauteur/, half-awkward and half-graceful, and muttering
some inaudible greeting, sank into a seat and appeared instantly lost in
reverie. Maltravers gazed upon him, and was pleased with his
aspect--which, if not handsome, was strange and peculiar. He was
extremely slight and thin--his cheeks hollow and colourless, with a
profusion of black silken ringlets that almost descended to his
shoulders. His eyes, deeply sunk into his head, were large and
intensely brilliant; and a thin moustache, curling downwards, gave an
additional austerity to his mouth, which was closed with gloomy and
half-sarcastic firmness. He was not dressed as people dress in general,
but wore a frock of dark camlet, with a large shirt-collar turned down,
and a narrow slip of black silk twisted rather than tied round his
throat; his nether garments fitted tight to his limbs, and a pair of
half-hessians completed his costume. It was evident that the young man
(and he was very young--perhaps about nineteen or twenty) indulged that
coxcombry of the Picturesque which is the sign of a vainer mind than is
the commoner coxcombry of the /Mode/.
It is astonishing how frequently it happens, that the introduction of a
single intruder upon a social party is sufficient to destroy all the
familiar harmony that existed there before. We see it even when the
intruder is agreeable and communicative--but in the present instance, a
ghost could scarcely have been a more unwelcoming or unwelcome visitor.
The presence of this shy, speechless, supercilious-looking man threw a
damp over the whole group. The gay Tirabaloschi immediately discovered
that it was time to depart--it had not struck any one before, but it
certainly /was/ late. The Italians began to bustle about, to collect
their music, to make fine speeches and fine professions--to bow and to
smile--to scramble into their boat, and to push towards the inn at Como,
where they had engaged their quarters for the night. As the boat glided
away, and while two of them were employed at the oar, the remaining four
took up their instruments and sang a parting glee. It was quite
midnight--the hush of all things around had grown more intense and
profound--there was a wonderful might of silence in the shining air and
amidst the shadows thrown by the near banks and the distant hills over
the water. So that as the music chiming in with the oars grew fainter
and fainter, it is impossible to describe the thrilling and magical
effect it produced.
The party ashore did not speak; there was a moisture, a grateful one, in
the bright eyes of Teresa, as she leant upon the manly form of De
Montaigne, for whom her attachment was, perhaps, yet more deep and pure
for the difference of their ages. A girl who once loves a man, not
indeed old, but much older than herself, loves him with such a /looking
up/ and venerating love! Maltravers stood a little apart from the
couple, on the edge of the shelving bank, with folded arms and
thoughtful countenance. "How is it," said he, unconscious that he was
speaking half aloud, "that the commonest beings of the world should be
able to give us a pleasure so unworldly? What a contrast between those
musicians and this music. At this distance their forms are dimly seen,
one might almost fancy the creators of those sweet sounds to be of
another mould from us. Perhaps even thus the poetry of the Past rings
on our ears--the deeper and the diviner, because removed from the clay
which made the poets. O Art, Art! how dost thou beautify and exalt us;
what is nature without thee!"
"You are a poet, Signor," said a soft clear voice beside the
soliloquist; and Maltravers started to find that he had had unknowingly
a listener in the young Cesarini.
"No," said Maltravers; "I cull the flowers, I do not cultivate the
soil."
"And why not?" said Cesarini, with abrupt energy; "you are an
Englishman--/you/ have a public--you have a country--you have a living
stage, a breathing audience; we, Italians, have nothing but the dead."
As he looked on the young man, Maltravers was surprised to see the
sudden animation which glowed upon his pale features.
"You asked me a question I would fain put to you," said the Englishman,
after a pause. "/You/, methinks, are a poet?"
"I have fancied that I might be one. But poetry with us is a bird in
the wilderness--it sings from an impulse--the song dies without a
listener. Oh that I belonged to a /living/ country,--France, England,
Germany, Arnerica,--and not to the corruption of a dead giantess--for
such is now the land of the ancient lyre."
"Let us meet again, and soon," said Maltravers, holding out his hand.
Cesarini hesitated a moment, and then accepted and returned the
proffered salutation. Reserved as he was, something in Maltravers
attracted him; and, indeed, there was that in Ernest which fascinated
most of those unhappy eccentrics who do not move in the common orbit of
the world.
In a few moments more the Englishman had said farewell to the owner of
the villa, and his light boat skimmed rapidly over the tide.
"What do you think of the /Inglese/?" said Madame de Montaigne to her
husband, as they turned towards the house. (They said not a word about
the Milanese.)
"He has a noble bearing for one so young," said the Frenchman; "and
seems to have seen the world, and both to have profited and to have
suffered by it."
"He will prove an acquisition to our society here," returned Teresa; "he
interests me; and you, Castruccio?" turning to seek for her brother; but
Cesarini had already, with his usual noiseless step, disappeared within
the house.
"Alas, my poor brother!" she said, "I cannot comprehend him. What does
he desire?"
"Fame!" replied De Montaigne, calmly. "It is a vain shadow; no wonder
that he disquiets himself in vain."