Their own by gentle sympathy; and some Sighing to think of an unhappy home: Some few admiring what can ever lure Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure Of parents' smiles, for life's great cheat; a thing Bitter to taste-sweet in imagining!
But they are all dispersed and lo! she stands Looking in idle grief on her white hands, Alone within the garden now her own; And through the sunny air, with jangling tone, The music of the merry marriage bells, Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells; - Absorbed like one within a dream, who dreams That he is dreaming, until slumber seems A mockery of itself—when suddenly Antonio stood before her, pale as she. With agony, with sorrow, and with pride, He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,
And said" Is this thy faith?" and then, as one Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun With light, like a harsh voice, which bids him rise And look upon his day of life with eyes
Which weep in vain that they can dream no more, Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore
To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued
Friend, if earthly violence or ill, Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will
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 envenomed 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,
"What, do not the silent hours
Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed?
Is not that ring"-a pledge, he would have said, 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 not it 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 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 then
A bride's-maid went,--and ere she came again
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; – For whispers passed from mouth to ear, which drew 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. The marriage feast and its solemnity Was turned to funeral pomp; the company With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; and they Who loved the dead, went weeping on their way!
TO A POET'S INFANT CHILD.
THERE are, who will thine infant grace Thy proudest dowry deem; There are, will look upon thy face
And moralizing dream,
As of another atom piled,-
Or wave launched on the sea; Away!-thou 'rt a peculiar child To many and to me.
It is not for thine eye so clear,
Nor even thy beauteous brow, Sweet infant, that I hold thee dear; For many, fair as thou, Have I beheld in stately bower, Perchance in lowly cot,-
Not theirs a soul-retaining power; I saw them, and forgot.
Bright nursling of a Poet's love,
To thee by birth belong
The Delphic shrine, the laurel grove, The heritage of song;-
So rich art thou in natural grace,
So fair that home of thine, Thou seemest of the fabled race, Half earthly,-half divine!
Thou art not reared in low-born care, 'Mid things of sordid mould; All glorious shapes, and visions rare, Thine opening life unfold;
The garlands for thy cradle culled,
To fairy-land belong,
And the strains by which thy sleep is lulled,
To the demi-gods of song!
Then hallowed thus,-thus raised from earth, Thou art no common child! Let others vaunt of lordly birth, By pompous phrase beguiled; And others, of the sword and vest Derived from warrior sire,— Thine, boy, shall be a nobler crest,— Thy father's Wreath and Lyre!
THE dark weed looks over our desolate home, Like a death-pall where honour is closed in the tomb; And it seems as it whispered in sighs to the air, All the tale of the woes that have planted it there!
The chill drop that falls from its cold clammy wreath, How deep hath it worn in the stone underneath! So the one ceaseless thought which these ruins impart With the chill of despair hath sunk deep in the heart!
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