Very gently spoke the Rabbi,"Have a care, my son Pedrillo,Thou art orphaned, and who knowethBut thy father loved this people?"
"Think you words like these will touch me?Such I laugh to scorn, sir Rabbi,From high heaven, my sainted fatherOn my deeds will smile in blessing.
"Loyal knight was he and noble,And my mother oft assures me,Ne'er she saw so pure a Christian,'T is from him my zeal deriveth."
"What if he were such anotherAs myself who stand before thee?""I should curse the hour that bore me,I should die of shame and horror."
"Harsher is thy creed than ours;For had I a son as comelyAs Pedrillo, I would love him,Love him were he thrice a Christian.
"In his youth my youth renewingPamper, fondle, die to serve him,Only breathing through his spirit—Couldst thou not love such a father?"
Faltering spoke the deep-voiced Rabbi,With white lips and twitching fingers,Then in clear, young, steady treble,Answered him the boy Pedrillo:
"At the thought my heart revolteth,All your tribe offend my senses,They're an eyesore to my vision,And a stench unto my nostrils.
"When I meet these unbelievers,With thick lips and eagle noses,Thus I scorn them, thus revile them,Thus I spit upon their garment."
And the haughty youth passed onward,Bearing on his wrist his parrot,And the yellow-skirted RabbiWith bowed head sought Donna Clara.
III.
FRA PEDRO.
Golden lights and lengthening shadows,Flings the splendid sun declining,O'er the monastery gardenRich in flower, fruit and foliage.
Through the avenue of nut trees,Pace two grave and ghostly friars,Snowy white their gowns and girdles,Black as night their cowls and mantles.
Lithe and ferret-eyed the younger,Black his scapular denotingA lay brother; his companionLarge, imperious, towers above him.
'T is the abbot, great Fra Pedro,Famous through all SaragossaFor his quenchless zeal in crushingHeresy amidst his townfolk.
Handsome still with hood and tonsure,E'en as when the boy Pedrillo,Insolent with youth and beauty,Who reviled the gentle Rabbi.
Lo, the level sun strikes sparklesFrom his dark eyes brightly flashing.Stern his voice: "These too shall perish.I have vowed extermination.
"Tell not me of skill or virtue,Filial love or woman's beauty—Jews are Jews, as serpents serpents,In themselves abomination."
Earnestly the other pleaded,"If my zeal, thrice reverend master,E'er afforded thee assistance,Serving thee as flesh serves spirit,
"Hounding, scourging, flaying, burning,Casting into chains or exile,At thy bidding these vile wretches,Hear and heed me now, my master.
"These be nowise like their brethren,Ben Jehudah is accountedSaragossa's first physician,Loved by colleague as by patient.
"And his daughter Donna ZaraIs our city's pearl of beauty,Like the clusters of the vineyardDroop the ringlets o'er her temples.
"Like the moon in starry heavensShines her face among her people,And her form hath all the languor,Grace and glamour of the palm-tree.
"Well thou knowest, thrice reverend master,This is not their first affliction,Was it not our Holy OfficeWhose bribed menials fired their dwelling?
"Ere dawn broke, the smoke ascended,Choked the stairways, filled the chambers,Waked the household to the terrorOf the flaming death that threatened.
"Then the poor bed-ridden motherKnew her hour had come; two daughters,Twinned in form, and mind, and spirit,And their father—who would save them?
"Towards her door sprang Ben Jehudah,Donna Zara flew behind himRound his neck her white arms wreathing,Drew him from the burning chamber.
"There within, her sister ZillahStirred no limb to shun her torture,Held her mother's hand and kissed her,Saying, 'We will go together.'
"This the outer throng could witness,As the flames enwound the dwelling,Like a glory they illuminedAwfully the martyred daughter.
"Closer, fiercer, round they gathered,Not a natural cry escaped her,Helpless clung to her her mother,Hand in hand they went together.
"Since that 'Act of Faith' three wintersHave rolled by, yet on the foreheadOf Jehudah is imprintedStill the horror of that morning."Saragossa hath respectedHis false creed; a man of sorrows,He hath walked secure among us,And his art repays our sufferance."
Thus he spoke and ceased. The AbbotLent him an impatient hearing,Then outbroke with angry accent,"We have borne three years, thou sayest?
"'T is enough; my vow is sacred.These shall perish with their brethren.Hark ye! In my veins' pure currentWere a single drop found Jewish,
"I would shrink not from outpouringAll my life blood, but to purge it.Shall I gentler prove to others?Mercy would be sacrilegious.
"Ne'er again at thy soul's peril,Speak to me of Jewish beauty,Jewish skill, or Jewish virtue.I have said. Do thou remember."
Down behind the purple hillsideDropped the sun; above the gardenRang the Angelus' clear cadenceSummoning the monks to vespers.
IN VITA. LXVII.
Since thou and I have proven many a timeThat all our hope betrays us and deceives,To that consummate good which never grievesUplift thy heart, towards a happier clime.This life is like a field of flowering thyme,Amidst the herbs and grass the serpent lives;If aught unto the sight brief pleasure gives,'T is but to snare the soul with treacherous lime.So, wouldst thou keep thy spirit free from cloud,A tranquil habit to thy latest day,Follow the few, and not the vulgar crowd.Yet mayest thou urge, "Brother, the very wayThou showest us, wherefrom thy footsteps proud(And never more than now) so oft did stray."
IN VITA. LXXVI.
Sennuccio, I would have thee know the shameThat's dealt to me, and what a life is mine.Even as of yore, I struggle, burn and pine.Laura transports me, I am still the same.All meekness here, all pride she there became,Now harsh, now kind, now cruel, now benign;Here honor clothed her, there a grace divine;Now gentle, now disdainful of my flame.Here sweetly did she sing; there sat awhile;There she turned back, she lingered in this spot.Here with her splendid eyes my heart she clove.She uttered there a word, and here did smile.Here she changed color. Ah, in such fond thought,Holds me by day and night, our master Love.
IN VITA. CV.
I saw on earth angelic graces beam,Celestial beauty in our world below,Whose mere remembrance thrills with grief and woe;All I see now seems shadow, smoke and dream.I saw in those twin-lights the tear-drops gleam,Those lights that made the sun with envy glow,And from those lips such sighs and words did flow,As made revolve the hills, stand still the stream.Love, courage, wit, pity and pain in one,Wept in more dulcet and harmonious strain,Than any other that the world has known.So rapt was heaven in the dear refrain,That not a leaf upon the branch was blown,Such utter sweetness filled the aerial plain.
IN VITA. CIX.
The God of Love and I in wonder stared,(Ne'er having gazed on miracles ere now,)Upon my lady's smiling lips and brow,Who only with herself may be compared.Neath the calm beauty of her forehead bared,Those twin stars of my love did burn and flow,No lesser lamps again the path might showTo the proud lover who by these had fared.Oh miracle, when on the grass at rest,Herself a flower, she would clasp and holdA leafy branch against her snow-white breast.What joy to see her, in the autumn cold,Wander alone, with maiden thoughts possess'd,Weaving a garland of dry, crispy gold!
COLONNA AND LAURA.
The noble Column, the green Laurel-treeAre fall'n, that shaded once my weary mind.Now I have lost what I shall never find,From North to South, from Red to Indian Sea.My double treasure Death has filched from me,Which made me proud and happy midst my kind.Nor may all empires of the world combined,Nor Orient gems, nor gold restore the key.But if this be according to Fate's will,What may I do, but wander heavy-souled,With ever downcast head, eyes weeping still?O life of ours, so lovely to behold,In one brief morn how easily dost thou spillThat which we toiled for years to gain and hold!
IN MORTE. XLIII.
Yon nightingale who mourns so plaintivelyPerchance his fledglings or his darling mate,Fills sky and earth with sweetness, warbling late,Prophetic notes of melting melody.All night, he, as it were, companions me,Reminding me of my so cruel fate,Mourning no other grief save mine own state,Who knew not Death reigned o'er divinity.How easy 't is to dupe the soul secure!Those two fair lamps, even than the sun more bright,Who ever dreamed to see turn clay obscure?But Fortune has ordained, I now am sure,That I, midst lifelong tears, should learn aright,Naught here can make us happy, or endure.
IN VITA. CANZONE XI.
O waters fresh and sweet and clear,Where bathed her lovely frame,Who seems the only lady unto me;O gentle branch and dear,(Sighing I speak thy name,)Thou column for her shapely thighs, her supple knee;O grass, O flowers, which sheSwept with her gown that veiledThe angelic breast unseen;O sacred air serene,Whence the divine-eyed Love my heart assailed,By all of ye be heardThis my supreme lament, my dying word.
Oh, if it be my fate(As Heaven shall so decree)That Love shall close for me my weeping eyes,Some courteous friend I supplicateMidst these to bury me,Whilst my enfranchised spirit homeward flies;Less dreadful death shall rise,If I may bear this hopeTo that mysterious goal.For ne'er did weary soulFind a more restful spot in all Earth's scope,Nor in a grave more tranquil could win freeFrom outworn flesh and weary limbs to flee.
Perchance the time shall beWhen to my place of rest,With milder grace my wild fawn shall returnHere where she looked on meUpon that day thrice blest:Then she shall bend her radiant eyes that yearnIn search of me, and (piteous sight!) shall learnThat I, amidst the stones, am clay.May love inspire her in such wise,With gentlest breath of sighs,That I, a stony corpse, shall hear her pray,And force the very skies,That I may wipe the tears from her dear eyes.
From the fair boughs descended(Thrice precious memory!)Upon her lap a shower of fragrant bloomAmidst that glory splendid,Humbly reposed she,Attired as with an aureole's golden gloom.Some blossoms edged her skirt, and someFell on her yellow curls,Like burnished gold and pearls,Even so they looked to me upon that day.Some on the ground, some on the river lay,Some lightly fluttering above,Encircling her, seemed whispering: "Here reigns Love."
How many times I cried,As holy fear o'ercame,"Surely this creature sprang from Paradise,"Forgetting all besideHer goddess mien, her frame,Her face, her words, her lovely smile, her eyes.All these did so deviseTo win me from the truth, alas!That I did say and sigh,"How came I hither, when and why?"Deeming myself in heaven, not where I was.Henceforth this grassy spotI love so much, peace elsewhere find I not.My Song, wert thou adorned to thy desire,Thou couldst go boldly forthAnd wander from my lips o'er all the earth.
FRAGMENT. CANZONE XII. 5.
I never see, after nocturnal rain,The wandering stars move through the air serene,And flame forth 'twixt the dew-fall and the rime,But I behold her radiant eyes whereinMy weary spirit findeth rest from pain;As dimmed by her rich veil, I saw her the first time;The very heaven beamed with the light sublimeOf their celestial beauty; dewy-wetStill do they shine, and I am burning yet.Now if the rising sun I see,I feel the light that hath enamored me.Or if he sets, I follow him, when heBears elsewhere his eternal light,Leaving behind the shadowy waves of night.
FRAGMENT. TRIONFO D' AMORE.
I know how well Love shoots, how swift his flight,How now by force and now by stealth he steals,How he will threaten now, anon will smite,And how unstable are his chariot wheels.How doubtful are his hopes, how sure his pain,And how his faithful promise he repeals.How in one's marrow, in one's vital vein,His smouldering fire quickens a hidden wound,Where death is manifest, destruction plain.In sum, how erring, fickle and unsound,How timid and how bold are lovers' days,Where with scant sweetness bitter draughts abound.I know their songs, their sighs, their usual ways,Their broken speech, their sudden silences.Their passing laughter and their grief that stays,I know how mixed with gall their honey is.
FRAGMENT.TRIONFO DELLA MORTE.
Now since nor grief nor fear was longer there,Each thought on her fair face was clear to see,Composed into the calmness of despair—Not like a flame extinguished violently,But one consuming of its proper light.Even so, in peace, serene of soul, passed she.Even as a lamp, so lucid, softly-bright,Whose sustenance doth fail by slow degrees,Wearing unto the end, its wonted plight.Not pale, but whiter than the snow one seesFlaking a hillside through the windless air.Like one o'erwearied, she reposed in peaceAs 't were a sweet sleep filled each lovely eye,The soul already having fled from there.And this is what dull fools have named to die.Upon her fair face death itself seemed fair.
THE MAY NIGHT.
MUSE.Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre;The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar.To-night the Spring is born—the breeze takes fire.Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,Perched on the fresh branch of the first green bush;Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre.
POET.How black it looks within the vale!I thought a muffled form did sailAbove the tree-tops, through the air.It seemed from yonder field to pass,Its foot just grazed the tender grass;A vision strange and fair it was.It melts and is no longer there.
MUSE.My poet, take thy lyre; upon the lawnNight rocks the zephyr on her veiled, soft breast.The rose, still virgin, holds herself withdrawnFrom the winged, irised wasp with love possessed.Hark, all is hushed. Now of thy sweetheart dream;To-day the sunset, with a lingering beam,Caressed the dusky-foliaged linden-grove.All things shall bloom to-night; great Nature thrills,Her couch with perfume, passion, sighs, she fills,Like to the nuptial bed of youthful love.
POET.Why throbs my heart so fast, so low?What sets my seething blood aglow,And fills my sense with vague affright?Who raps upon my chamber-door?My lamp's spent ray upon the floor,Why does it dazzle me with light?Great God! my limbs sink under me!Who enters? who is calling? none!The clock strikes—I am all alone—ÊÊÊÊÊO solitude! O poverty!
MUSE.My poet, take thy lyre. Youth's living wineFerments to-night within the veins divine.My breast is troubled, stifling with desire,The panting breeze has set my lips afire;O listless child, behold me, I am fair!Our first embrace dost thou so soon forget?How pale thou wast, when my wing grazed thy hair.Into mine arms thou fell'st, with eyelids wet!Oh, in thy bitter grief, I solaced thee,Dying of love, thy youthful strength outworn.Now I shall die of hope—oh comfort me!I need thy prayers to live until the morn.
POET.Is it thy voice my spirit knows,O darling Muse! And canst thou beMy own immortal one? my rose,Sole pure and faithful heart where glowsA lingering spark of love for me?Yes, it is thou, with tresses bright,'T is thou, my sister and my bride.I feel amidst the shadowy night,From thy gold gown the rays of lightWithin my heart's recesses glide.
MUSE.My poet, take thy lyre. 'T is I, undying,Who seeing thee to-night so sad and dumb,Like to the mother-bird whose brood is crying,From utmost heaven to weep with thee have come.My friend, thou sufferest; a secret woeGnaws at thy life, thou sighest in the night.Love visits thee, such love as mortals know,Shadow of gladness, semblance of delight.Rise, sing to God the thoughts that fill thy brain,Thy buried pleasures and thy long-past pain.Come, with a kiss, where unknown regions gleam,Awake the mingling echoes of thy days,Sing of thy folly, glory, joy and praise,Be all an unpremeditated dream!Let us invent a realm where one forgets,Come, we are all alone, the world is ours.Green Scotland tawny Italy offsets;Lo, Greece my mother, with her honeyed flowers,Argos and Pteleon with its shrines and groves,Celestial Messa populous with doves;And Pelion with his shaggy, changing brow,Blue Titaresus, and the gulf of steel,Whose waves that glass the floating swan, revealSnowy Camyre to Oloossone's snow.Tell me what golden dreams shall charm our sleep,Whence shall be drawn the tears that we shall weep?This morning when thy lids were touched with light,What pensive seraph, bending kindly near,Dropped lilacs from his airy robe of white,And whispered beams of love within thine ear?Say, shall we sing of sadness, joy or hope?Or bathe in blood the settled, steel-clad ranks?See lovers mount the ladder's silken rope?Or fleck the wind with coursers' foaming flanks?Or shall we tell whose hand the lamps above,In the celestial mansions, year by year,Kindles with sacred oil of life and love?With Tarquin shall we cry, "Come, night is here!"Or shall we dive for pearls beneath the seas,Or find the wild goats by the alpine trees?Bid melancholy gaze upon the skies?Follow the huntsman on the upland lawns?The roe uplifts her tearful, suppliant eyes,Her heath awaits her, and her suckling fawns;He stoops, he slaughters her, he flings her heartStill warm amidst his panting hounds apart.Or shall we paint a maid with vermeil cheek,Who, with her page behind, to vespers fares,Beside her mother, dreamy-eyed and meek,And on her half-oped lips forgets her prayers,Trembles midst echoing columns, hearkeningTo hear her bold knight's clanging spurs outring.Or shall we bid the heroes of old FranceScale full equipped the battlemented wall,And so revive the simple-strained romanceTheir fame inspired our troubadours withal?Or shall we clothe soft elegies in white?Or bid the man of Waterloo reciteHis story, and the crop mown by his art,Or ere the herald of eternal nightOn his green mound with fatal wing did smiteAnd cross his hands above his iron heart?Or shall we gibbet on some satire hereThe name thrice-bought of some pale pamphleteer,Who, hunger-goaded, from his haunts obscure,Dared, quivering with impotence and spite,Insult the hope on Genius' brow of light,And gnaw the wreath his breath had made impure?The lyre! the lyre! I can be still no more.Upon the breath of spring my pinions fly.The air supports me—from the earth I soar,Thou weepest—God has heard—the hour is nigh!
POET.Dear sister, if thou ask but this,From friendly lips a gentle kiss,Or one soft tear from kindly eyes,These will I gladly give to thee.Our love remember tenderly,If thou remountest to the skies.No longer I of hope shall sing,Of fame or joy, of love or art,Alas, not even of suffering,My lips are locked—I lean and cling,To hear the whisper of my heart.
MUSE.What! am I like the autumn breeze for you,Which feeds on tears even to the very grave,For whom all grief is but a drop of dew?O poet, but one kiss—'t was I who gave.The weed I fain would root from out this sodIs thine own sloth—thy grief belongs to God.Whatever sorrow thy young heart have found,Open it well, this ever-sacred woundDealt by dark angels—give thy soul relief.Naught makes us nobler than a noble grief.Yet deem not, poet, though this pain have come,That therefore, here below, thou mayst be dumb.Best are the songs most desperate in their woe—Immortal ones, which are pure sobs I know.When the wave-weary pelican once more,Midst evening-vapors, gains his nest of reeds,His famished brood run forward on the shoreTo see where high above the surge he speeds.As though even now their prey they could destroy,They hasten to their sire with screams of joy,On swollen necks wagging their beaks, they cry;He slowly wins at last a lofty rock,Shelters beneath his drooping wing his flock,And, a sad fisher, gazes on the sky.Adown his open breast the blood flows there;Vainly he searched the ocean's deepest part,The sea was empty and the shore was bare,And for all nourishment he brings his heart.Sad, silent, on the stone, he gives his broodHis father-entrails and his father-blood,Lulls with his love sublime his cruel pain,And, watching on his breast the ruddy stain,Swoons at the fatal banquet from excessOf horror and voluptuous tenderness.Sudden amidst the sacrifice divine,Outworn with such protracted suffering,He fears his flock may let him live and pine;Then up he starts, expands his mighty wing,Beating his heart, and with a savage cryBids a farewell of such funereal toneThat the scared seabirds from their rock-nests fly,And the late traveller on the beach aloneCommends his soul to God—for death floats by.Even such, O poet, is the poet's fate.His life sustains the creatures of a day.The banquets served upon his feasts of stateAre like the pelican's—sublime as they.And when he tells the world of hopes betrayed,Forgetfulness and grief, of love and hate,His music does not make the heart dilate,His eloquence is as an unsheathed blade,Tracing a glittering circle in mid-air,While blood drips from the edges keen and bare.
POET.O Muse, insatiate soul, demandNo more than lies in human power.Man writes no word upon the sandEven at the furious whirlwind's hour.There was a time when joyous youthForever fluttered at my mouth,A merry, singing bird, just freed.Strange martyrdom has since been mine,Should I revive its slightest sign,At the first note, my lyre and thineWould snap asunder like a reed.
THE OCTOBER NIGHT.
POET.My haunting grief has vanished like a dream,Its floating fading memory seems oneWith those frail mists born of the dawn's first beam,Dissolving as the dew melts in the sun.
MUSE.What ailed thee then, O poet mine;What secret misery was thine,Which set a bar 'twixt thee and me?Alas, I suffer from it still;What was this grief, this unknown ill,Which I have wept so bitterly?
POET.'T was but a common grief, well known of men.But, look you, when our heavy heart is sore,Fond wretches that we are! we fancy thenThat sorrow never has been felt before.
MUSE.There cannot be a common grief,Save that of common souls; my friend,Speak out, and give thy heart relief,Of this grim secret make an end.Confide in me, and have no fear.The God of silence, pale, austere,Is younger brother unto death.Even as we mourn we're comforted,And oft a single word is saidWhich from remorse delivereth.
POET.If I were bound this day to tell my woe,I know not by what name to call my pain,Love, folly, pride, experience—neither knowIf one in all the world might thereby gain.Yet ne'ertheless I'll voice the tale to thee,Alone here by the hearth. But do thou takeThis lyre—come nearer—so; my memoryShall gently with the harmonies awake.
MUSE.But first, or ere thy grief thou say,My poet, art thou healed thereof?Bethink thee, thou must speak to-day,As free from hatred as from love.For man has given the holy nameOf consolation unto me.Make me no partner of thy shame,In passions that have ruined thee.
POET.Of my old wounds I am so sound and whole,Almost I doubt they were, nor find their trace;And in the passes where I risked my soul,In mine own stead I see a stranger's face.Muse, have no fear, we both may yield awhileTo this first inspiration of regret.Oh, it is good to weep, 't is good to smile,Remembering sorrows we might else forget.
MUSE.As the watchful mother stoopsO'er her infant's cradled rest,So my trembling spirit droopsO'er this long-closed, silent breast.Speak! I touch the lyre's sweet strings,Feebly, plaintively it sings,With thy voice set free at last.While athwart a radiant beam,Like a light, enchanted dream,Float the shadows of the past.
POET.My days of work! sole days whereon I lived!O thrice-beloved solitude!Now God be praised, once more I have arrivedIn this old study bare and rude.These oft-deserted walls, this shabby den,My faithful lamp, my dusty chair,My palace, my small world I greet again,My Muse, immortal, young and fair.Thank God! we twain may sing here side by side,I will reveal to thee my thought.Thou shalt know all, to thee I will confideThe evil by a woman wrought.A woman, yes! (mayhap, poor friends, ye guess,Or ever I have said the word!)To such a one my soul was bound, no lessThan is the vassal to his lord.Detested yoke! within me to destroyThe vigor and the bloom of youth!Yet only through my love I caught, in sooth,A fleeting glimpse of joy.When by the brook, beneath the evening-star,On silver sands we twain would stray,The white wraith of the aspen tree afarPointed for us the dusky way.Once more within the moonlight do I seeThat fair form sink upon my breast;No more of that! Alas, I never guessedWhither my fate was leading me.The angry gods some victim craved, I fear,At that ill-omened time,Since they have punished me as for a crime,For trying to be happy here!
MUSE.A vision of remembered joyReveals itself to thee once more;Why fearest thou to live it o'er,Retracing it without annoy?Wouldst thou confide the truth to me,And yet those golden days disprove?If fate has been unkind to thee,Do thou no less, my friend, than she,And smile upon thine early love.
POET.Rather I dare to smile upon my woe.Muse, I have said it, I would fain reviewMy crosses, visions, frenzy,—calmly showThe hour, place, circumstance, in order due.'T was an autumnal evening, I recall,Chill, gloomy; this one brings it back again.The murmuring wind's monotonous rise and fallLulled sombre care within my weary brain.I waited at the casement for my love,And listening in the darkness black as death,Such melancholy did my spirit moveThat all at once I doubted of her faith.The street wherein I dwelt was lonely, poor,Lantern in hand, at times, a shade passed by,When the gale whistled through the half-oped door.One seemed to hear afar a human sigh.I know not to what omen, sooth to say,My superstitious spirit fell a prey.Vainly I summoned courage—coward-likeI shuddered when the clock began to strike.She did not come! Alone, with downcast head,I stared at street and walls like one possessed.How may I tell the insensate passion bredBy that inconstant woman in my breast!I loved but her in all the world. One dayApart from her seemed worse than death to me.Yet I remember how I did essayThat cruel night to snap my chain, go free.I named her traitress, serpent, o'er and o'er,Recalled the anguish suffered for her sake,Alas! her fatal beauty rose once more,What grief, what torture in my heart to wake!At last morn broke; with waiting vain outworn,I fell asleep against the casement there.I oped my lids upon the day new born,My dazzled glance swam in the radiant air.Then on the outer staircase, suddenly,I heard soft steps ascend the narrow flight.Save me, Great God! I see her—it is she!Whence com'st thou? speak, where hast thou been this night?What dost thou seek? who brings thee here thus late?Where has this lovely form reclined till day,While I alone must watch and weep and wait?Where, and on whom hast thou been smiling, say!Out, insolent traitress! canst thou come accurst,And offer to my kiss thy lips' ripe charms?What cravest thou? By what unhallowed thirstDarest thou allure me to thy jaded arms?Avaunt, begone! ghost of my mistress dead,Back to thy grave! avoid the morning's beam!Be my lost youth no more remembered!And when I think of thee, I'll know it was a dream!
MUSE.Be calm! I beg thee, I implore!I shudder, hearing of thy pain.O dearest friend, thy wound once moreIs opening to bleed again.Is it so very deep, alas!How slowly do the traces passOf this world's troubles! Thou, my son,Forget her! let thy memory shunEven to this woman's very name,My pitying lips refuse to frame.
POET.Shame upon her, who firstTreason and falsehood taught!With grief and wrath accurst,Who set my brain distraught.Shame, woman baleful-eyed,Whose fatal love entombedIn shadows of thy prideMy April ere it bloomed.It was thy voice, thy smile,Thy poisoned glances bright,Which taught me to revileThe semblance of delight.Thy grace of girlish yearsMurdered my peace, my sleep.If I lose faith in tears,'T is that I saw thee weep.I yielded to thy powerA child's simplicity.As to the dawn the flower,So oped my heart to thee.Doubtless this helpless heartWas thine without defence.Were 't not the better partTo spare its innocence?Shame! thou who didst begetMy earliest, youngest woe.The tears are streaming yetWhich first thou madest flow.Quenchless this source is foundWhich thou hast first unsealed.It issues from a woundThat never may be healed.But in the bitter waveI shall be clean restored,And from my soul shall laveThy memory abhorred!
MUSE.Poet, enough! Though but one single dayLasted thy dream of her who faithless proved,That day insult not; whatsoe'er thou say,Respect thy love, if thou would be beloved.If human weakness find the task too greatOf pardoning the wrongs by others done,At least the torture spare thyself of hate,In place of pardon seek oblivion.The dead lie peaceful in the earth asleep,So our extinguished passions too, should rest.Dust are those relics also; let us keepOur hands from violence to their ashes blest.Why, in this story of keen pain, my friend,Wilt thou refuse naught but a dream to see?Does Nature causeless act, to no wise end?Think'st thou a heedless God afflicted thee?Mayhap the blow thou weepest was to save.Child, it has oped thy heart to seek relief;Sorrow is lord to man, and man a slave,None knows himself till he has walked with grief,—A cruel law, but none the less supreme,Old as the world, yea, old as destiny.Sorrow baptizes us, a fatal scheme;All things at this sad price we still must buy.The harvest needs the dew to make it ripe,And man to live, to feel, has need of tears.Joy chooses a bruised plant to be her type,That, drenched with rain, still many a blossom bears.Didst thou not say this folly long had slept?Art thou not happy, young, a welcome guest?And those light pleasures that give life its zest,How wouldst thou value if thou hadst not wept?When, lying in the sunlight on the grass,Freely thou drink'st with some old friend—confess,Wouldst thou so cordially uplift thy glass,Hadst thou not weighed the worth of cheerfulness?Would flowers be so dear unto thy heart,The verse of Petrarch, warblings of the bird,Shakespeare and Nature, Angelo and Art,But that thine ancient sobs therein thou heard?Couldst thou conceive the ineffable peace of heaven,Night's silence, murmurs of the wave that flows,If sleeplessness and fever had not drivenThy thought to yearn for infinite repose?By a fair woman's love art thou not blest?When thou dost hold and clasp her hand in thine,Does not the thought of woes that once possessed,Make all the sweeter now her smile divine?Wander ye not together, thou and she,Midst blooming woods, on sands like silver bright?Does not the white wraith of the aspen-treeIn that green palace, mark the path at night?And seest thou not, within the moon's pale ray,Her lovely form sink on thy breast again?If thou shouldst meet with Fortune on thy way,Wouldst thou not follow singing, in her train?What hast thou to regret? Immortal HopeIs shaped anew in thee by Sorrow's hand.Why hate experience that enlarged thy scope?Why curse the pain that made thy soul expand?Oh pity her! so false, so fair to see,Who from thine eyes such bitter tears did press,She was a woman. God revealed to thee,Through her, the secret of all happiness.Her task was hard; she loved thee, it may be,Yet must she break thy heart, so fate decreed.She knew the world, she taught it unto thee,Another reaps the fruit of her misdeed.Pity her! dreamlike did her love disperse,She saw thy wound—nor could thy pain remove.All was not falsehood in those tears of hers—Pity her, though it were,—for thou canst love!