The poet proceeds to describe how the lovers had passed the morning.
"That morn they sat upon the sea-beach green;
For in that land the sward springs fresh and free
Close to the ocean, and no tides are seen
To break the glassy quiet of the sea:
And Guido, with his arm 'round Isabel,
Unclasped the tresses of her chestnut hair,
Which in her white and heaving bosom fell
Like things enamour'd, and then with jealous air
Bade the soft amorous winds not wanton there;
And then his dark eyes sparkled, and he wound
The fillets like a coronet around
Her brow, and bade her rise and be a queen.
And oh! 'twas sweet to see her delicate hand
Pressed 'gainst his parted lips, as tho' to check
In mimic anger all those whispers bland
He knew so well to use, and on his neck
Her round arm hung; while half as in command
And half entreaty did her swimming eye
Speak of forbearance, 'till from her pouting lip
He snatched the honey-dews that lovers sip,
And then, in crimsoning beauty, playfully
She frowned, and wore that self-betraying air
That women loved and flattered love to wear.
Oft would he, as on that same spot they lay
Beneath the last light of a summer's day,
Tell (and would watch the while her steadfast eye,}
How on the lone Pacific he had been,
When the Sea Lion on his watery way
Went rolling thro' the billows green,
And shook that ocean's dead tranquillity:
And he would tell her of past times, and where
He rambled in his boyhood far away,
And spoke of other worlds and wonders fair
And mighty and magnificent, for he
Had seen the bright sun worshipp'd like a god
Upon that land where first Columbus trod;
And travelled by the deep Saint Lawrence' tide
And by Niagara's cataracts of foam,
And seen the wild deer roam
Amongst interminable forests, where
The serpent and the savage have their lair
Together. Nature there in wildest guise
Stands undisguised and nearer to the skies;
And 'midst her giant trees and waters wide
The bones of things forgotten, burried deep,
Give glimpses of an elder world, espied
By us but in that fine and dreamy sleep,
When Fancy, ever the mother of deep truth,
Breathes her dim oracles on the soul of youth."
She retires, heart broken, from the banquet to her couch.
["Her sleep that night was fearful,-O, that night!
If it indeed was sleep: for in her sight
A form (a dim and waving shadow) stood,
And pointed far up the great Etna's side,
Where, from a black ravine, a dreary wood
Peeps out and frowns upon the storms below,
And bounds and braves the wilderness of snow.
It gazed awhile upon the lonely bride
With melancholy air and glassy eye,
And spoke-['Awake and search yon dell, for I
Though risen above my old mortality,
'Have left my mangled and unburied limbs
'A prey for wolves hard by the waters there,
And one lock of my black and curled hair,
'That one I vowed to thee, my beauty! swims
'Like a mere weed upon the mountain river;
'And those dark eyes you used to love so well
"(They loved you dearly, my own Isabel,)
Are shut, and now have lost their light for ever.'
[Go then unto yon fair ravine, and save
Your husband's heart for some more quiet grave
'Than what the stream and withering winds may lend,
' And 'neath the basil tree we planted, give
"The fond heart burial, so that tree shall live,
'And shed a solace on thy after days:
'And thou-but oh! I ask thee not to tend
The plant on which thy Guido loved to gaze,
'For with a spirit's power I see thy heart."
He said no more, but with the dawning day
Shrunk, as the shadows of the clouds depart
Before the conquering sunbeams, silently.
Then sprung she from the pillow where she lay,
To the wild sense of doubtful misery:
And when she 'woke she did obey the dream,
And journey'd onwards to the mountain stream
Tow'rd which the phantom pointed, and she drew
The thorns aside which there luxuriant grew,
And with a beating heart descended where
The waters washed, it said, its floating hair."]
She journeys to the fatal ravine-and there finds the mangled body of the youth, whom her brother had murdered.
["It was a spot like those romancers paint,
Or painted when of dusky knights they told
Wandering about in forests old,
When the last purple colour was waxing faint,
And day was dying in the west; the trees
(Dark pine and chestnut and the dwarfed oak
And cedar) shook their branches, 'till the shade
Look'd like a spirit, and living as it played,
Seem'd holding dim communion with the breeze:
Below, a tumbling river rolled along,
(Its course by lava rocks and branches broke,)
Singing for aye its fierce and noisy song.
Oh! till that moment none
Could tell (not she) how much of hope the sun
And cheerful morning, with its noises, brought,
And she from each glance a courage caught,
For light and life had scattered half her fright,
And she could almost smile on the past night:
So, with a buoyant feeling, mixed with fear
Lest she might scorn Heav'n's missioned minister,
She took her weary way and searched the dell,
And there she saw him-dead. Poor desolate child
Of sixteen summers, had the waters wild
No pity on the boy you loved so well!"]
"There stiff and cold the dark-eyed Guido lay,
His pale face upwards to the careless day,
That smiled as it was wont; and he was found
His young limbs mangled on the rocky ground,
And, midst the weltering weeds and shallows cold,
His black hair floated as the phantom told,
And like the very dream his glassy eye
Spoke of gone mortality."
She obeys the directions of the spirit; and the basil tree-nourished by that precious deposit-towers and blossoms in rare and unnatural beauty.
["And the tree grew and grew; and brighter green
Shot from its boughs than she before had seen,
And softly with its leaves the west winds play'd;
And she did water it with her tears, and talk
As to a living spirit, and in the shade
Would place it gently when the sun did walk
High in his hot meridian, and she prest
The boughs (which fell like balm) upon her breast.
She never plucked a leaf, nor let a weed
Within the shadow of its branches feed,
But nursed it as a mother guards her child,
And kept it shelter'd from the winter wild :'
And so it grew beyond its fellows, and
Tower'd in unnatural beauty, waving there
And whispering to the moon and midnight air,
And stood a thing unequalled in the land.
But never more along her favourite vale,
Or by the village paths or hurrying river,
Or on the beach, when clouds are seen to sail
Across the setting sun, while waters quiver
And breezes rise to bid the day farewell-
No more in any bower she once lov'd well,
Whose sound or silence to the ear could tell
Aught of the passionate past, the pale girl trod :
Yet Love himself, like an invisible god,
Haunted each spot, and with his own rich breath
Filled the wide air with music sweet and soft,
Such as might calm or conquer Death, if Death
Could e'er be conquer'd, and from aloft
Sad airs, like those she heard in infancy,
Fell on her soul and filled her eyes with tears,
And recollections came of happier years
Thronging from all the cells of memory.
All her heart's follies she remembered then,
How coy and rash-how scornful she had been,
And then how tender, and how coy again,
And every shifting of the burning scene
That sorrow stamps upon the helpless brain."]
Her brother, however, finds the heart, and casts it into the sea. [That day the green tree wither'd, and she knew
The solace of her mind was stol'n and gone :.
32
And then she felt that she was quite alone
In the wide world: so, to the distant woods
And caverned haunts, and where the mountain floods
Thunder unto the silent air, she flew,
She flew away, and left the world behind,
And all that man doth worship, in her flight;
All that around the beating heart is twined;
Yet, as she looked farewell to human kind,
One quivering drop arose and dimin'd her sight,
The last that frenzy gave to poor distress.
And then into the dreary wilderness
She went alone, a craz'd heart-broken thing;
And in the solitude she found a cave
Half hidden by the wild-brier blossoming,
Whereby a black and solitary pine,
Struck by the fiery thunder, stood and gave
Of pow'r and death a token and a sign:
And there she lived for months: She did not heed
The seasons or their change, and she would feed
On roots and berries as the creatures fed
Which had in woods been bred and nourished.
Once, and once only was she seen, and then
The chamois hunter started from his chase,
And stopped to look a moment on her face,
And could not turn him to his sports again.
Thin Famine sat upon her hollow cheek,
And settled madness in her glazed eye
Told of a young heart wrong'd and nigh to break,
And, as the spent winds waver ere they die,
She to herself a few wild words did speak,
And sung a strange and broken melody :
And ever as she sung she strew'd the ground
With yellow leaves that perished ere their time,
And well their fluttering fall did seem to chime
With the low music of her song: the sound
Came like a dirge filling the air around,
And this (or like) the melancholy rhyme."]
"At last she wandered home.
The pale moon shot a sad and troubled light
Amidst the mighty clouds that moved along.
The moaning winds of Autumn sang their song,
And shook the red leaves from the forest trees;
And subterranean voices spoke. The seas
Did rise and fall, and then that fearful swell
Came silently which seamen know so well;
And all was like an Omen. Isabel
Passed to the room where, in old times, she lay,
And there they found her at the break of day;
Her look was smiling, but she never spoke
Or motioned, even to say-her heart was broke:
Yet in the quiet of her shining eye
Lay death, and something we are wont to deem ...
(When we discourse of some such mournful theme,
Beyond the look of mere mortality.
She died-yet scarcely can we call it death
When heaven so softly draws the parting breath :
She was translated to a finer sphere,
For what could match or make her happy here!
She died, and with her gentle death there came
Sorrow and ruin ; and Leoni fell
A victim to that unconsuming flame,
That burns and revels on the heart of man;
Remorse. This is the tale of Isabel,
And of her love the young Italian.”
"The Worship of Dian," and "the Death of Acis," are very elegant and graceful imitations of the higher style of Theocritus; and remind us of Akenside's Hymn to the Naiads-though there is more grace and tenderness, and less majesty.
"Gyges" is the story of old Candaules, attempted in the style of Beppo and Don Juan-and not quite successfully attempted. Mr. C. has no great turn for pleasantry; and no knack at all—and we are glad of it-at scorn and misanthropy. The two stanzas [quoted in the New Month. Mag.-following] which have nothing to do with the story, are touching.
"The Falcon" is an exquisite imitation, or versification, rather, of a beautiful and very characteristic story of Boccacio. Though thrown into a dramatic form, the greater part of it is a very literal version of the words of the original-and the whole is perfectly faithful to its spirit. Nor do we remember to have seen any thing in English, so well calculated to give a just idea of the soft and flowing style, and of the natural grace and pathos of that great master of modern literature. Then follow a number of little poems, songs, sonnets, and elegies-all elegant and fanciful. The following is entitled "Marcelia."
"It was a dreary place. The shallow brook
That ran throughout the wood there took a turn,
And widened: all its music died away,
And in the place a silent eddy told
That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees
Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,
And spicy cedar) clustered, and at night
Shook from their melancholy branches sounds
And sighs like death: 'twas strange, for thro' the day
They stood quite motionless, and looked methought
Like monumental things which the sad earth
From its green bosom had cast out in pity
To mark a young girl's grave.
Never may net
Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shorten'd breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,
And the white heifer lows and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated thro' the evening mists,
|