Voice the sweetest ever heard- Of this azure Italy. Mary dear, come to me soon! I am not well whilst thou art far. As twilight to the western star, O Mary dear, that you were here! The castle echo whispers "Here!" Este, September 1818. XX. THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE. A WOODMAN, whose rough heart was out of tune One nightingale in an interfluous wood Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness-as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they rose The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness. The folded roses and the violets pale Heard her within their slumbers; the abyss Of the circumfluous waters. Every sphere, And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, And every wind of the mute atmosphere, And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, Which is its cradle (ever from below Aspiring, like one who loves too fair, too far, Of one serene and unapproachèd star, The heaven where it would perish), and every form That worshiped in the temple of the night, Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone; Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams. Harmony became love In every soul but one. And so this man returned with axe and saw Was each a Wood-nymph, and kept ever green Into her mother's bosom sweet and soft,Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness. Around the cradles of the birds aloft They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves; and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds; or, where high branches kiss, Make a green space among the silent bowers (Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries); 1818. Odours, and gleams, and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind Pilot-Spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed, One accent never to return again. The world is full of Woodmen who expel 1818. XXI. O MIGHTY mind, in whose deep stream this age XXII. 1818. SILENCE! Oh well are Death and Sleep and Thou Are swallowed up. Yet spare me, Spirit, pity me! To track along the lapses of the air This wandering melody until it rests 1818. XXIII. THE fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses XXIV. My head is wild with weeping for a grief I walk into the air, (but no relief To seek,-or haply, if I sought, to find; 1818. XXV. Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow Mad. No access to the Duke! You have not said That the Count Maddalo would speak with him? Pigna. Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna Waits with state papers for his signature? Mal. The Lady Leonora cannot know That I have written a sonnet to her fame, In which I . . . Venus and Adonis. You should not take my gold, and serve me not. "If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy, Art the Adonis whom I love, and he The Erymanthian boar that wounded him." Oh trust to me, Signor Malpiglio, Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin. That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me. Pigna. How are the Duke and Duchess occupied ? His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed. The Princess sate within the window-seat, And so her face was hid; but on her knee Her hands were clasped, veinèd, and pale as snow, And quivering. Young Tasso, too, was there. Mad. Thou seest on whom from thine own worshiped heaven Thou draw'st down smiles--they did not rain on thee. Mal. Would they were parching lightnings, for his sake On whom they fell! SONG FOR TASSO. I LOVED-alas! our life is love; But, when we cease to breathe and move, I do suppose love ceases too. I thought (but not as now I do) Keen thoughts and bright of linkèd lore,— And still I love, and still I think, And, if I think, my thoughts come fast; And each seems uglier than the last. Sometimes I see before me flee A silver spirit's form, like thee, ... still watching it, Till by the grated casement's ledge Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge. 1818. XXVII. MARENGHI. 1. LET those who pine in pride or in revenge, Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn. II. A massy tower yet overhangs the town, A scattered group of ruined dwellings now. |