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
90
News of the terrors of the coming time.
Like an accuser branded with the crime
He would have cast on a belovèd friend,
Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end
The pale betrayer—he then with vain repentance
95
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
100
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,
105
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
110
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
115
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.
120
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But life’s familiar veil was now withdrawn,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,
125
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,
130
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 bridesmaid went,—and ere she came again
135
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
140
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.
145
They found Ginevra dead! if it be death
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.
150
If it be death, when there is felt around
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,
155
And giving all it shrouded to the earth,
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
160
Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore.
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
165
Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise
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,
170
Gleamed few and faint o’er the abandoned feast,
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,
175
Friends and relations of the dead,—and he,
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
180
More still—some wept, …
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
185
And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came
Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame
Of every torch and taper as it swept
From out the chamber where the women kept;—
Their tears fell on the dear companion cold
190
Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled
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.
195
And then the mourning women came.—
· · · · · · ·
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
200
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
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,
205
Ginevra!
She is still, she is cold
On the bridal couch,
One step to the white deathbed,
And one to the bier,
210
And one to the charnel—and one, oh where?
The dark arrow fled
In the noon.
Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled,
The rats in her heart
215
Will have made their nest,
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
I
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
5
Over the quivering surface of
the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
II
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;
10
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.
III
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
15
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the …
You, being changed, will find it then as now.
IV
The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
20
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,
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
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,
5
And the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast,
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,
10
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.
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,
15
And clothed with light of aëry gold
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,
20
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:
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,
25
The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:
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.
30
All rose to do the task He set to each,
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
35
Whose woe was such that fear became desire;—
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
40
Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye,
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
45
Islanded in the immeasurable air.
‘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,
50
And of the miles of watery way
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
55
The white clouds are driving merrily,
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:
60
Hear how it sings into the air—’
—‘Of us and of our lazy motions,’
Impatiently said Melchior,
‘If I can guess a boat’s emotions;
And how we ought, two hours before,
65
To have been the devil knows where.’
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:
70
‘She dreams that we are not yet out of bed;
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.’
75
‘Would not this keg be best a little lowered?’
‘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
80
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,
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,
85
As if his very soul were at a stand,
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,
90
As, with dews and sunrise fed,
Comes the laughing morning wind;—
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,
95
And hangs upon the wave, and stems
The tempest of the …
Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,—
Swift as fire, tempestuously
100
It sweeps into the affrighted sea
In morning’s smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.
105
The Serchio, twisting forth
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
110
Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling,
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
115
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.
I
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;
5
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
II
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
10
Upon my heart to stifle it;
The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.
III
As the scent of a violet withered up,
Which grew by the brink of a silver lake,
15
When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,
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—
IV
As one who drinks from a charmèd cup
20
Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine
Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,
Invites to love with her kiss divine …
SONNET TO BYRON
[I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but]
If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
The ministration of the thoughts that fill
The mind which, like a worm whose life may share
5
A portion of the unapproachable,
Marks your creations rise as fast and fair
As perfect worlds at the Creator’s will.
But such is my regard that nor your power
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 99
