The Countess Laura, for a single year
Fernando's wife, upon her bridal bed,
Like an uprooted lily on the snow,
The withered outcast of a festival,
Lay dead. She died of some uncertain ill,
That struck her almost on her wedding day,
And clung to her, and dragged her slowly down,
Thinning her cheeks and pinching her full lips,
Till in her chance, it seemed that with a year
Full half a century was overpast.
In vain had Paracelsus taxed his art,
And feigned a knowledge of her malady;
In vain had all the doctors, far and near,
Gathered around the mystery of her bed,
Draining her veins, her husband's treasury,
And physic's jargon, in a fruitless quest
For causes equal to the dread result.
The Countess only smiled when they were gone,
Hugged her fair body with her little hands,
And turned upon her pillows wearily,
As though she fain would sleep no common sleep,
But the long, breathless slumber of the grave.
She hinted nothing. Feeble as she was,
The rack could not have wrung her secret out.
The Bishop, when he shrived her, coming forth,
Cried, in a voice of heavenly ecstasy,
"O blessed soul! with nothing to confess
Save virtues and good deeds, which she mistakes--
So humble is she--for our human sins!"
Praying for death, she tossed upon her bed
Day after day; as might a shipwrecked bark
That rocks upon one billow, and can make
No onward motion towards her port of hope.
At length, one morn, when those around her said,
"Surely the Countess mends, so fresh a light
Beams from her eyes and beautifies her face,"--
One morn in spring, when every flower of earth
Was opening to the sun, and breathing up
its votive incense, her impatient soul
Opened itself, and so exhaled to heaven.
When the Count heard it, he reeled back a pace;
Then turned with anger on the messenger;
Then craved his pardon, and wept out his heart
Before the menial; tears, ah me! such tears
As love sheds only, and love only once.
Then he bethought him, "Shall this wonder die,
And leave behind no shadow? not a trace
Of all the glory that environed her,
That mellow nimbus circling round my star?"
So, with his sorrow glooming in his face,
He paced along his gallery of art,
And strode among the painters, where they stood,
With Carlo, the Venetian, at their head,
Studying the Masters by the dawning light
Of his transcendent genius. Through the groups
Of gayly vestured artists moved the Count,
As some lone cloud of thick and leaden hue,
Packed with the secret of a coming storm,
Moves through the gold and crimson evening mists,
Deadening their splendor. In a moment still
Was Carlo's voice, and still the prattling crowd;
And a great shadow overwhelmed them all,
As their white faces and their anxious eyes
Pursued Fernando in his moody walk.
He paused, as one who balances a doubt,
Weighing two courses, then burst out with this:
"Ye all have seen the tidings in my face;
Or has the dial ceased to register
The workings of my heart? Then hear the bell,
That almost cracks its frame in utterance;
The Countess,--she is dead!" "Dead!" Carlo groaned.
And if a bolt from middle heaven had struck
His splendid features full upon the brow,
He could not have appeared more scathed and blanched.
"Dead!--dead!" He staggered to his easel-frame,
And clung around it, buffeting the air
With one wild arm, as though a drowning man
Hung to a spar and fought against the waves.
The Count resumed: "I came not here to grieve,
Nor see my sorrow in another's eyes.
Who'll paint the Countess, as she lies to-night
In state within the chapel? Shall it be
That earth must lose her wholly? that no hint
Of her gold tresses, beaming eyes, and lips
That talked in silence, and the eager soul
That ever seemed outbreaking through her clay,
And scattering glory round it,--shall all these
Be dull corruption's heritage, and we,
Poor beggars, have no legacy to show
That love she bore us? That were shame to love,
And shame to you, my masters." Carlo stalked
Forth from his easel stiffly as a thing
Moved by mechanic impulse. His thin lips,
And sharpened nostrils, and wan, sunken cheeks,
And the cold glimmer in his dusky eyes,
Made him a ghastly sight. The throng drew back
As though they let a spectre through. Then he,
Fronting the Count, and speaking in a voice
Sounding remote and hollow, made reply:
"Count, I shall paint the Countess. 'T is my fate,--
Not pleasure,--no, nor duty." But the Count,
Astray in woe, but understood assent,
Not the strange words that bore it; and he flung
His arm round Carlo, drew him to his breast,
And kissed his forehead. At which Carlo shrank;
Perhaps 't was at the honor. Then the Count,
A little reddening at his public state,--
Unseemly to his near and recent loss,--
Withdrew in haste between the downcast eyes
That did him reverence as he rustled by.
Night fell on Padua. In the chapel lay
The Countess Laura at the altar's foot.
Her coronet glittered on her pallid brows;
A crimson pall, weighed down with golden work,
Sown thick with pearls, and heaped with early flowers,
Draped her still body almost to the chin;
And over all a thousand candles flamed
Against the winking jewels, or streamed down
The marble aisle, and flashed along the guard
Of men-at-arms that slowly wove their turns,
Backward and forward, through the distant gloom.
When Carlo entered, his unsteady feet
Scarce bore him to the altar, and his head
Drooped down so low that all his shining curls
Poured on his breast, and veiled his countenance.
Upon his easel a half-finished work,
The secret labor of his studio,
Said from the canvas, so that none might err,
"I am the Countess Laura." Carlo kneeled,
And gazed upon the picture; as if thus,
Through those clear eyes, he saw the way to heaven.
Then he arose; and as a swimmer comes
Forth from the waves, he shook his locks aside,
Emerging from his dream, and standing firm
Upon a purpose with his sovereign will.
He took his palette, murmuring, "Not yet!"
Confidingly and softly to the corpse,
And as the veriest drudge, who plies his art
Against his fancy, he addressed himself
With stolid resolution to his task,
Turning his vision on his memory,
And shutting out the present, till the dead,
The gilded pall, the lights, the pacing guard,
And all the meaning of that solemn scene
Became as nothing, and creative Art
Resolved the whole to chaos, and reformed
The elements according to her law:
So Carlo wrought, as though his eye and hand
Were Heaven's unconscious instruments, and worked
The settled purpose of Omnipotence.
And it was wondrous how the red, the white,
The ochre, and the umber, and the blue,
From mottled blotches, hazy and opaque,
Grew into rounded forms and sensuous lines;
How just beneath the lucid skin the blood
Glimmered with warmth; the scarlet lips apart
Bloomed with the moisture of the dews of life;
How the light glittered through and underneath
The golden tresses, and the deep, soft eyes
Became intelligent with conscious thought,
And somewhat troubled underneath the arch
Of eyebrows but a little too intense
For perfect beauty; how the pose and poise
Of the lithe figure on its tiny foot
Suggested life just ceased from motion; so
That any one might cry, in marvelling joy,
"That creature lives,--has senses, mind, a soul
To win God's love or dare hell's subtleties!"
The artist paused. The ratifying "Good!"
Trembled upon his lips. He saw no touch
To give or soften. "It is done," he cried,--
"My task, my duty! Nothing now on earth
Can taunt me with a work left unfulfilled!"
The lofty flame, which bore him up so long,
Died in the ashes of humanity;
And the mere man rocked to and fro again
Upon the centre of his wavering heart.
He put aside his palette, as if thus
He stepped from sacred vestments, and assumed
A mortal function in the common world.
"Now for my rights!" he muttered, and approached
The noble body. "O lily of the world!
So withered, yet so lovely! what wast thou
To those who came thus near thee--for I stood
Without the pale of thy half-royal rank--
When thou wast budding, and the streams of life
Made eager struggles to maintain thy bloom,
And gladdened heaven dropped down in gracious dews
On its transplanted darling? Hear me now!
I say this but in justice, not in pride,
Not to insult thy high nobility,
But that the poise of things in God's own sight
May be adjusted; and hereafter I
May urge a claim that all the powers of heaven
Shall sanction, and with clarions blow abroad.--
Laura you loved me! Look not so severe,
With your cold brows, and deadly, close-drawn lips!
You proved it, Countess, when you died for it,--
Let it consume you in the wearing strife
It fought with duty in your ravaged heart.
I knew it ever since that summer day
I painted Lilla, the pale beggar's child,
At rest beside the fountain; when I felt--
O Heaven!--the warmth and moisture of your breath
Blow through my hair, as with your eager soul--
Forgetting soul and body go as one--
You leaned across my easel till our cheeks--
Ah me! 't was not your purpose--touched, and clung!
Well, grant 't was genius; and is genius naught?
I ween it wears as proud a diadem--
Here, in this very world--as that you wear.
A king has held my palette, a grand-duke
Has picked my brush up, and a pope has begged
The favor of my presence in his Rome.
I did not go; I put my fortune by.
I need not ask you why: you knew too well.
It was but natural, it was no way strange,
That I should love you. Everything that saw,
Or had its other senses, loved you, sweet,
And I among them. Martyr, holy saint,--
I see the halo curving round your head,--
I loved you once; but now I worship you,
For the great deed that held my love aloof,
And killed you in the action! I absolve
Your soul from any taint. For from the day
Of that encounter by the fountain-side
Until this moment, never turned on me
Those tender eyes, unless they did a wrong
To nature by the cold, defiant glare
With which they chilled me. Never heard I word
Of softness spoken by those gentle lips;
Never received a bounty from that hand
Which gave to all the world. I know the cause.
You did your duty,--not for honor's sake,
Nor to save sin, or suffering, or remorse,
Or all the ghosts that haunt a woman's shame,
But for the sake of that pure, loyal love
Your husband bore you. Queen, by grace of God,
I bow before the lustre of your throne!
I kiss the edges of your garment-hem,
And hold myself ennobled! Answer me,--
If I had wronged you, you would answer me
Out of the dusty porches of the tomb:--
Is this a dream, a falsehood? or have I
Spoken the very truth?" "The very truth!"
A voice replied; and at his side he saw
A form, half shadow and half substance, stand,
Or, rather, rest; for on the solid earth
It had no footing, more than some dense mist
That waves o'er the surface of the ground
It scarcely touches. With a reverent look
The shadow's waste and wretched face was bent
Above the picture; as though greater awe
Subdued its awful being, and appalled,
With memories of terrible delight
And fearful wonder, its devouring gaze.
"You make what God makes,--beauty," said the shape.
"And might not this, this second Eve, console
The emptiest heart? Will not this thing outlast
The fairest creature fashioned in the flesh?
Before that figure, Time, and Death himself,
Stand baffled and disarmed. What would you ask
More than God's power, from nothing to create?"
The artist gazed upon the boding form,
And answered: "Goblin, if you had a heart,
That were an idle question. What to me
Is my creative power, bereft of love?
Or what to God would be that self-same power,
If so bereaved?" "And yet the love, thus mourned,
You calmly forfeited. For had you said
To living Laura--in her burning ears--
One half that you professed to Laura dead,
She would have been your own. These contraries
Sort not with my intelligence. But speak,
Were Laura living, would the same stale play
Of raging passion tearing out its heart
Upon the rock of duty be performed?"
"The same, O phantom, while the heart I bear
Trembled, but turned not its magnetic faith
From God's fixed centre." "If I wake for you
This Laura,--give her all the bloom and glow
Of that midsummer day you hold so dear,--
The smile, the motion, the impulsive soul,
The love of genius,--yea, the very love,
The mortal, hungry, passionate, hot love,
She bore you, flesh to flesh,--would you receive
That gift, in all its glory, at my hands?"
A smile of malice curled the tempter's lips,
And glittered in the caverns of his eyes,
Mocking the answer. Carlo paled and shook;
A woful spasm went shuddering through his frame,
Curdling his blood, and twisting his fair face
With nameless torture. But he cried aloud,
Out of the clouds of anguish, from the smoke
Of very martyrdom, "O God, she is thine!
Do with her at thy pleasure!" Something grand,
And radiant as a sunbeam, touched the head.
He bent in awful sorrow. "Mortal, see--"
"Dare not! As Christ was sinless, I abjure
These vile abominations! Shall she bear
Life's burden twice, and life's temptations twice,
While God is justice?" "Who has made you judge
Of what you call God's good, and what you think
God's evil? One to him, the source of both,
The God of good and of permitted ill.
Have you no dream of days that might have been,
Had you and Laura filled another fate?--
Some cottage on the sloping Apennines,
Roses and lilies, and the rest all love?
I tell you that this tranquil dream may be
Filled to repletion. Speak, and in the shade
Of my dark pinions I shall bear you hence,
And land you where the mountain-goat himself
Struggles for footing." He outspread his wings,
And all the chapel darkened, as though hell
Had swallowed up the tapers; and the air
Grew thick, and, like a current sensible,
Flowed round the person, with a wash and dash,
As of the waters of a nether sea.
Slowly and calmly through the dense obscure,
Dove-like and gentle, rose the artist's voice:
"I dare not bring her spirit to that shame!
Know my full meaning,--I who neither fear
Your mystic person nor your dreadful power.
Nor shall I now invoke God's potent name
For my deliverance from your toils. I stand
Upon the founded structure of his law,
Established from the first, and thence defy
Your arts, reposing all my trust in that!"
The darkness eddied off; and Carlo saw
The figure gathering, as from outer space,
Brightness on brightness; and his former shape
Fell from him, like the ashes that fall off,
And show a core of mellow fire within.
Adown his wings there poured a lambent flood,
That seemed as molten gold, which plashing fell
Upon the floor, enringing him with flame;
And o'er the tresses of his beaming head
Arose a stream of many-colored light,
Like that which crowns the morning. Carlo stood
Steadfast, for all the splendor, reaching up
The outstretched palms of his untainted soul
Towards heaven for strength. A moment thus; then asked,
With reverential wonder quivering through
His sinking voice, "Who, spirit, and what, art thou?"
"I am that blessing which men fly from,--Death."
"Then take my hand, if so God orders it;
For Laura waits me." "But, bethink thee, man,
What the world loses in the loss of thee!
What wondrous art will suffer with eclipse!
What unwon glories are in store for thee!
What fame, outreaching time and temporal shocks,
Would shine upon the letters of thy name
Graven in marble, or the brazen height
Of columns wise with memories of thee!"
"Take me! If I outlived the Patriarchs,
I could but paint those features o'er and o'er:
Lo! that is done." A smile of pity lit
The seraph's features, as he looked to heaven,
With deep inquiry in his tender eyes.
The mandate came. He touched with downy wing
The sufferer lightly on his aching heart;
And gently, as the skylark settles down
Upon the clustered treasures of her nest,
So Carlo softly slid along the prop
Of his tall easel, nestling at the foot
As though he slumbered; and the morning broke
In silver whiteness over Padua.
GEORGE HENRY BOKER.
OTHELLO'S REMORSE.
FROM "OTHELLO," ACT V. SC. 2.
Behold, I have a weapon;
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:--but, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? 't is not so now.--
Be not afraid, though you do see me weaponed;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismayed? 't is a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires:--where should Othello go?--
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starred wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity--O, cursèd slave!--
Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!--
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead? O! O!
SHAKESPEARE.
THE TRIAL OF BEATRICE.
FROM "THE CENCI," ACT V.
SCENE II.--_A Hall of Justice._ CAMILLO, JUDGES, etc.,
_are discovered seated_; MARZIO _is led in_.
FIRST JUDGE.--Accused, do you persist in your denial?
I ask you, are you innocent, or guilty?
I demand who were the participators
In your offence? Speak truth and the whole truth.
MARZIO.--My God! I did not kill him; I know nothing;
Olimpio sold the robe to me from which
You would infer my guilt.
SECOND JUDGE.--Away with him!
FIRST JUDGE.--Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack's kiss
Speak false? Is it so soft a questioner,
That you would bandy lovers' talk with it
Till it wind out your life and soul? Away!
MARZIO.--Spare me! O, spare! I will confess.
FIRST JUDGE.--Then speak.
MARZIO.--I strangled him in his sleep.
FIRST JUDGE.--Who urged you to it?
MARZIO.--His own son, Giacomo, and the young prelate
Orsino sent me to Petrella; there
The ladies Beatrice and Lucretia
Tempted me with a thousand crowns, and I
And my companion forthwith murdered him.
Now let me die.
FIRST JUDGE.--This sounds as bad as truth. Guards, there,
Lead forth the prisoner!
_Enter_ LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, _and_ GIACOMO, _guarded_.
Look upon this man;
When did you see him last?
BEATRICE.--We never saw him.
MARZIO.--You know me too well, Lady Beatrice.
BEATRICE.--I know thee! How? where? when?
MARZIO.--You know 't was I
Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes
To kill your father. When the thing was done
You clothed me in a robe of woven gold
And bade me thrive: how I have thriven, you see.
You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia,
You know that what I speak is true.
(BEATRICE _advances towards him; he covers his face,
and shrinks back_.)
O, dart
The terrible resentment of those eyes
On the dead earth! Turn them away from me!
They wound: 't was torture forced the truth. My Lords,
Having said this let me be led to death.
BEATRICE.--Poor wretch, I pity thee: yet stay
awhile.
CAMILLO.--Guards, lead him not away.
BEATRICE.--Cardinal Camillo,
You have a good repute for gentleness
And wisdom: can it be that you sit here
To countenance a wicked farce like this?
When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged
From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart
And bade to answer, not as he believes,
But as those may suspect or do desire
Whose questions thence suggest their own reply:
And that in peril of such hideous torments
As merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now
The thing you surely know, which is that you,
If your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel,
And you were told: "Confess that you did poison
Your little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child
Who was the lodestar of your life:"--and tho'
All see, since his most swift and piteous death,
That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time
And all the things hoped for or done therein
Are changed to you, thro' your exceeding grief,
Yet you would say, "I confess anything:"
And beg from your tormentors, like that slave,
The refuge of dishonorable death.
I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert
My innocence.
CAMILLO (_much moved_).--What shall we think, my Lords?
Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen
Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul
That she is guiltless.
JUDGE.--Yet she must be tortured.
CAMILLO.--I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew
(If he now lived he would be just her age;
His hair, too, was her color, and his eyes
Like hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)
As that most perfect image of God's love
That ever came sorrowing upon the earth.
She is as pure as speechless infancy!
JUDGE.--Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord,
If you forbid the rack. His Holiness
Enjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime
By the severest forms of law; nay even
To stretch a point against the criminals.
The prisoners stand accused of parricide
Upon such evidence as justifies
Torture.
BEATRICE.--What evidence? This man's?
JUDGE.--Even so.
BEATRICE (_to_ MARZIO).--Come near. And who
art thou thus chosen forth
Out of the multitude of living men
To kill the innocent?
MARZIO.--I am Marzio,
Thy father's vassal.
BEATRICE.--Fix thine eyes on mine;
Answer to what I ask.
(_Turning to the_ JUDGES.)
I prithee mark
His countenance: unlike bold calumny
Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,
He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends
His gaze on the blind earth.
(_To_ MARZIO.) What! wilt thou say
That I did murder my own father?
MARZIO.--Oh!
Spare me! My brain swims round ... I cannot speak ...
It was that horrid torture forced the truth.
Take me away! Let her not look on me!
I am a guilty miserable wretch;
I have said all I know; now, let me die!
BEATRICE.--My Lords, if by my nature I had been
So stern, as to have planned the crime alleged,
Which your suspicions dictate to this slave,
And the rack makes him utter, do you think
I should have left this two-edged instrument
Of my misdeed; this man, this bloody knife
With my own name engraven on the heft,
Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes,
For my own death? That with such horrible need
For deepest silence, I should have neglected
So trivial a precaution, as the making
His tomb the keeper of a secret written
On a thief's memory? What is his poor life?
What are a thousand lives? A parricide
Had trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives!
(_Turning to_ MARZIO.) And thou ...
MARZIO.--Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more!
That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones,
Wound worse than torture.
(_To the_ JUDGES.) I have told it all;
For pity's sake lead me away to death.
CAMILLO.--Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice;
He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf
From the keen breath of the serenest north.
BEATRICE.--O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge
Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;
So mayst thou answer God with less dismay:
What evil have we done thee? I, alas!
Have lived but on this earth a few sad years
And so my lot was ordered, that a father
First turned the moments of awakening life
To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then
Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul;
And my untainted fame; and even that peace
Which sleeps within the core of the heart's heart;
But the wound was not mortal; so my hate
Became the only worship I could lift
To our great Father, who in pity and love,
Armed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off;
And thus his wrong becomes my accusation;
And art thou the accuser? If thou hopest
Mercy in heaven, show justice upon earth:
Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.
If thou hast done murders, made thy life's path
Over the trampled laws of God and man,
Rush not before thy Judge, and say: "My maker,
I have done this and more; for there was one
Who was most pure and innocent on earth;
And because she endured what never any
Guilty or innocent endured before:
Because her wrongs could not be told, not thought;
Because thy hand at length did rescue her;
I with my words killed her and all her kin."
Think, I adjure you, what it is to slay
The reverence living in the minds of men
Towards our ancient house, and stainless fame!
Think what it is to strangle infant pity,
Cradled in the belief of guileless looks,
Till it become a crime to suffer. Think
What 't is to blot with infamy and blood
All that which shows like innocence, and is,
Hear me, great God! I swear, most innocent,
So that the world lose all discrimination
Between the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,
And that which now compels thee to reply
To what I ask: Am I, or am I not
A parricide?
MARZIO.--Thou art not!
JUDGE.--What is this?
MARZIO.--I here declare those whom I did accuse
Are innocent. 'T is I alone am guilty.
JUDGE.--Drag him away to torments; let them be
Subtle and long drawn out, to tear the folds
Of the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him not
Till he confess.
MARZIO.--Torture me as ye will:
A keener pain has wrung a higher truth
From my last breath. She is most innocent!
Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me;
I will not give you that fine piece of nature
To rend and ruin.
(_Exit_ MARZIO, _guarded_.)
CAMILLO.--What say ye now, my Lords?
JUDGE.--Let tortures strain the truth till it be white
As snow thrice sifted by the frozen wind.
CAMILLO.--Yet stained with blood.
JUDGE (_to_ BEATRICE).--Know you this paper, Lady?
BEATRICE.--Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here
As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he,
Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge,
What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name;
Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.
What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what,
And therefore on the chance that it may be
Some evil, will ye kill us?
(_Enter an Officer._)
OFFICER.--Marzio's dead.
JUDGE.--What did he say?
OFFICER.--Nothing. As soon as we
Had bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us,
As one who baffles a deep adversary;
And holding his breath, died.
JUDGE.--There remains nothing
But to apply the question to those prisoners,
Who yet remain stubborn.
CAMILLO.--I overrule
Further proceedings, and in the behalf
Of these most innocent and noble persons
Will use my interest with the Holy Father.
JUDGE.--Let the Pope's pleasure then be done.
Meanwhile
Conduct these culprits each to separate cells;
And be the engines ready: for this night
If the Pope's resolution be as grave,
Pious, and just as once, I'll wring the truth
Out of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.
(_Exeunt._)
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
FRA GIACOMO.
Alas, Fra Giacomo,
Too late!--but follow me;
Hush! draw the curtain,--so!--
She is dead, quite dead, you see.
Poor little lady! she lies
With the light gone out of her eyes,
But her features still wear that soft
Gray meditative expression,
Which you must have noticed oft,
And admired too, at confession.
How saintly she looks, and how meek!
Though this be the chamber of death,
I fancy I feel her breath
As I kiss her on the cheek.
With that pensive religious face,
She has gone to a holier place!
And I hardly appreciated her,--
Her praying, fasting, confessing,
Poorly, I own, I mated her;
I thought her too cold, and rated her
For her endless image-caressing.
Too saintly for me by far,
As pure and as cold as a star,
Not fashioned for kissing and pressing,--
But made for a heavenly crown.
Ay, father, let us go down,--
But first, if you please, your blessing.
Wine? No? Come, come, you must!
You'll bless it with your prayers,
And quaff a cup, I trust,
To the health of the saint up stairs?
My heart is aching so!
And I feel so weary and sad,
Through the blow that I have had,--
You'll sit, Fra Giacomo?
My friend! (and a friend I rank you
For the sake of that saint,)--nay, nay!
Here's the wine,--as you love me, stay!--
'T is Montepulciano!--Thank you.
Heigh-ho! 'T is now six summers
Since I won that angel and married her:
I was rich, not old, and carried her
Off in the face of all comers.
So fresh, yet so brimming with soul!
A tenderer morsel, I swear,
Never made the dull black coal
Of a monk's eye glitter and glare.
Your pardon!--nay, keep your chair!
I wander a little, but mean
No offence to the gray gaberdine;
Of the church, Fra Giacomo,
I'm a faithful upholder, you know,
But (humor me!) she was as sweet
As the saints in your convent windows,
So gentle, so meek, so discreet,
She knew not what lust does or sin does.
I'll confess, though, before we were one,
I deemed her less saintly, and thought
The blood in her veins had caught
Some natural warmth from the sun.
I was wrong,--I was blind as a bat,--
Brute that I was, how I blundered!
Though such a mistake as that
Might have occurred as pat
To ninety-nine men in a hundred.
Yourself, for example? you've seen her?
Spite her modest and pious demeanor,
And the manners so nice and precise,
Seemed there not color and light,
Bright motion and appetite,
That were scarcely consistent with _ice_?
Externals implying, you see,
Internals less saintly than human?--
Pray speak, for between you and me
You're not a bad judge of a woman!
A jest,--but a jest!--Very true:
'T is hardly becoming to jest,
And that saint up stairs at rest,--
Her soul may be listening, too!
I was always a brute of a fellow!
Well may your visage turn yellow,--
To think how I doubted and doubted,
Suspected, grumbled at, flouted
That golden-haired angel,--and solely
Because she was zealous and holy!
Noon and night and morn
She devoted herself to piety;
Not that she seemed to scorn
Or dislike her husband's society;
But the claims of her _soul_ superseded
All that I asked for or needed,
And her thoughts were far away
From the level of sinful clay,
And she trembled if earthly matters
Interfered with her _aves_ and _paters_,
Poor dove, she so fluttered in flying
Above the dim vapors of hell--
Bent on self-sanctifying--
That she never thought of trying
To save her husband as well.
And while she was duly elected
For place in the heavenly roll,
I (brute that I was!) suspected
Her manner of saving her soul.
So, half for the fun of the thing,
What did I (blasphemer!) but fling
On my shoulders the gown of a monk--
Whom I managed for that very day
To get safely out of the way--
And seat me, half sober, half drunk,
With the cowl thrown over my face,
In the father confessor's place.
_Eheu! benedicite!_
In her orthodox sweet simplicity,
With that pensive gray expression,
She sighfully knelt at confession,
While I bit my lips till they bled,
And dug my nails in my hand,
And heard with averted head
What I'd guessed and could understand.
Each word was a serpent's sting,
But, wrapt in my gloomy gown,
I sat, like a marble thing,
As she told me all!--SIT DOWN!
More wine, Fra Giacomo!
One cup,--if you love me! No?
What, have these dry lips drank
So deep of the sweets of pleasure--
_Sub rosa_, but quite without measure--
That Montepulciano tastes rank?
Come, drink! 't will bring the streaks
Of crimson back to your cheeks;
Come, drink again to the saint
Whose virtues you loved to paint,
Who, stretched on her wifely bed,
With the tender, grave expression
You used to admire at confession,
Lies poisoned, overhead!
Sit still,--or by heaven, you die!
Face to face, soul to soul, you and I
Have settled accounts, in a fine
Pleasant fashion, over our wine.
Stir not, and seek not to fly,--
Nay, whether or not, you are mine!
Thank Montepulciano for giving
You death in such delicate sips;
'T is not every monk ceases living
With so pleasant a taste on his lips;
But, lest Montepulciano unsurely should kiss,
Take this! and this! and this!
Cover him over, Pietro,
And bury him in the court below,--
You can be secret, lad, I know!
And, hark you, then to the convent go,--
Bid every bell of the convent toll,
And the monks say mass for your mistress' soul.
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
GINEVRA.
If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandina),
Stop at a palace near the Reggio gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; through their archèd walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames, such as in old romance,
And lovers, such as in heroic song,
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight,
That in the springtime, as alone they sat,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day.--A summer sun
Sets ere one half is seen; but ere thou go,
Enter the house--prythee, forget it not--
And look awhile upon a picture there.
'T is of a Lady in her earliest youth,
The last of that illustrious race;
Done by Zampieri--but I care not whom.
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.
She sits inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half open, and her finger up,
As though she said "Beware!" her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart,--
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!
Alone it hangs
Over a moldering heirloom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old Ancestor,
That, by the way--it may be true or false--
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride, of an indulgent Sire;
Her Mother dying of the gift she gave,
That precious gift, what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life,
Still as she grew, for ever in his sight;
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gayety,
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;
And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the Bridal-feast,
When all sate down, the bride was wanting there,
Nor was she to be found! Her Father cried,
"'T is but to make a trial of our love!"
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'T was but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back, and flying still,
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger.
But now, alas, she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed,
But that she was not!
Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and, forthwith,
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived,--and long mightst thou have seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find, he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained awhile
Silent and tenantless,--then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When, on an idle day, a day of search
Mid the old lumber in the Gallery,
That moldering chest was noticed; and 't was said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking-place?"
'T was done as soon as said; but on the way
It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold!
All else had perished,--save a nuptial-ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
"GINEVRA."
There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever!
SAMUEL ROGERS.
BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.
The warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire;
"I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train,
I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!--oh, break my father's chain!"
"Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed man this day;
Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way."
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy speed.
And lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band,
With one that 'midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land;
"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned so long to see."
His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his
cheek's blood came and went;
He reached that gray-haired chieftain's side, and there,
dismounting, bent;
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took,--
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?
That hand was cold,--a frozen thing,--it dropped from his like lead,--
He looked up to the face above,--the face was of the dead!
A plume waved o'er the noble brow,--the brow was fixed and white;--
He met at last his father's eyes,--but in them was no sight!
Up from the ground he sprung, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze?
They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze;
They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood,
For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.
"Father!" at length he murmured low, and wept like childhood then:
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!
He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown;
He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sate down.
Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,--
"No more, there is no more," he said, "to lift the sword for now;
My king is false, my hope betrayed; my father--oh! the worth,
The glory, and the loveliness, are passed away from earth!