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 50
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 55
To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood
Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued
Said—’Friend, if earthly violence or ill,
Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will
Of parents, chance or custom, time or change, 60
Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge,
Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech,
With all their stings and venom can impeach
Our love, — we love not: — if the grave which hides
The victim from the tyrant, and divides 65
The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart
Imperious inquisition to the heart
That is another’s, could dissever ours,
We love not.’—’What! do not the silent hours
Beckon thee to Gherardi’s bridal bed? 70
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; 75
And I am dead or shall be soon — my knell
Will mix its music with that merry bell,
Does it not sound as if they sweetly said
“We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed”?
The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn 80
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, 85
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. 90
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 — 95
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 100
Changed her attire for the afternoon,
And left her at her own request to keep
An hour of quiet rest: — like one asleep
With open eyes and folded hands she lay,
Pale in the light of the declining day. 105
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, 110
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 115
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 120
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 125
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 130
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 bridesmaid went, — and ere she came again
A silence fell upon the guests — a pause 135
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 140
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 145
To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath,
With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,
And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light
Mocked at the speculation they had owned.
If it be death, when there is felt around 150
A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,
And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair
From the scalp to the ankles, as it were
Corruption from the spirit passing forth,
And giving all it shrouded to the earth, 155
And leaving as swift lightning in its flight
Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night
Of thought we know thus much of death, — no more
Than the unborn dream of our life before
Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore. 160
The marriage feast and its solemnity
Was turned to funeral pomp — the company,
With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they
Who loved the dead went weeping on their way
Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise 165
Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes,
On which that form, whose fate they weep in vain,
Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again.
The lamps which, half extinguished in their haste,
Gleamed few and faint o’er the abandoned feast, 170
Showed as it were within the vaulted room
A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom
Had passed out of men’s minds into the air.
Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,
Friends and relations of the dead, — and he, 175
A loveless man, accepted torpidly
The consolation that he wanted not;
Awe in the place of grief within him wrought.
Their whispers made the solemn silence seem
More still — some wept,… 180
Some melted into tears without a sob,
And some with hearts that might be heard to throb
Leaned on the table and at intervals
Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls
And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came 185
Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame
Of every torch and taper as it swept
From out the chamber where the women kep
t; —
Their tears fell on the dear companion cold
Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled 190
The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,
And finding Death their penitent had shrived,
Returned like ravens from a corpse whereon
A vulture has just feasted to the bone.
And then the mourning women came. — 195
…
THE DIRGE.
Old winter was gone
In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,
And the spring came down
From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches 200
On the limits of wintry night; —
If the land, and the air, and the sea,
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra! 205
She is still, she is cold
On the bridal couch,
One step to the white deathbed,
And one to the bier,
And one to the charnel — and one, oh where? 210
The dark arrow fled
In the noon.
Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled,
The rats in her heart
Will have made their nest, 215
And the worms be alive in her golden hair,
While the Spirit that guides the sun,
Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep.
EVENING: PONTE AL MARE, PISA
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.
There is a draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.)
1.
The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,
And evening’s breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream, 5
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
2.
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;
The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze 10
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.
3.
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever 15
It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the…
You, being changed, will find it then as now.
4.
The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, 20
Like mountain over mountain huddled — but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,
Which the keen evening star is shining through..
THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO.
(Published in part (lines 1-61, 88-118) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous
Poems”, 1824; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical
Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.)
Our boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream,
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
The helm sways idly, hither and thither;
Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,
And the oars, and the sails; but ‘tis sleeping fast, 5
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.
The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there;
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily. 10
Day had kindled the dewy woods,
And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,
And the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow,
And clothed with light of aery gold 15
The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.
Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
And the milkmaid’s song and the mower’s scythe
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: 20
Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,
Glow-worms went out on the river’s brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:
The beetle forgot to wind his horn,
The crickets were still in the meadow and hill: 25
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun
Night’s dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey
From the lamp’s death to the morning ray.
All rose to do the task He set to each, 30
Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;
The million rose to learn, and one to teach
What none yet ever knew or can be known.
And many rose
Whose woe was such that fear became desire; — 35
Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
And made their home under the green hill-side.
It was that hill, whose intervening brow
Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye, 40
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,
With streams and fields and marshes bare,
Divides from the far Apennines — which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air. 45
‘What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?’
‘If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,
And of the miles of watery way 50
We should have led her by this time of day.’-
‘Never mind,’ said Lionel,
‘Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
About yon poplar-tops; and see
The white clouds are driving merrily, 55
And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night. —
How it whistles, Dominic’s long black hair!
List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:
Hear how it sings into the air—’ 60
Impatiently said Melchior,
‘If I can guess a boat’s emotions;
And how we ought, two hours before,
To have been the devil knows where.’ 65
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,
…
So, Lionel according to his art
Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:
‘She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; 70
We’ll put a soul into her, and a heart
Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat.’
…
‘Ay, heave the ballast overboard,
And stow the eatables in the aft locker.’
‘Would not this keg be best a little lowered?’ 75
‘No, now all’s right.’ ‘Those bottles of warm tea —
(Give me some straw) — must be stowed tenderly;
Such as we used, in summer after six,
To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton, 80
And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours
Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours,
Would feast till eight.’
…
With a bottle in one hand,
As if his very soul were at a stand 85
Lionel stood �
� when Melchior brought him steady: —
‘Sit at the helm — fasten this sheet — all ready!’
The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
The living breath is fresh behind,
As with dews and sunrise fed, 90
Comes the laughing morning wind; —
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,
And hangs upon the wave, and stems 95
The tempest of the…
Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth and strong doth come, —
Swift as fire, tempestuously
It sweeps into the affrighted sea; 100
In morning’s smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.
The Serchio, twisting forth 105
Between the marble barriers which it clove
At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm
The wave that died the death which lovers love,
Living in what it sought; as if this spasm
Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling, 110
But the clear stream in full enthusiasm
Pours itself on the plain, then wandering
Down one clear path of effluence crystalline
Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling
At Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine;
Then, through the pestilential deserts wild
Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine,
It rushes to the Ocean.
MUSIC.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
1.
I pant for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain, 5
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
2.
Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, oh more, — I am thirsting yet;
It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it; 10
The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.
3.
As the scent of a violet withered up,
Which grew by the brink of a silver lake,
When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup, 15
And mist there was none its thirst to slake —
And the violet lay dead while the odour flew
On the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue —
4.
As one who drinks from a charmed cup
Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, 20
Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,