The Giant Book of Poetry (2006)

by William H. Roetzheim

  until sweet Isabella’s untouched cheek

  fell sick within the rose’s just domain,

  fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek

  by every lull to cool her infant’s pain:

  “How ill she is,” said he, “I may not speak,

  and yet I will, and tell my love all plain:

  if looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,

  and at the least ’twill startle off her cares.”

  So said he one fair morning, and all day

  his heart beat awfully against his side;

  and to his heart he inwardly did pray

  for power to speak; but still the ruddy tide

  stifled his voice, and pulsed resolve away—

  fevered his high conceit of such a bride,

  yet brought him to the meekness of a child:

  Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

  So once more he had waked and anguishëd

  a dreary night of love and misery,

  if Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed

  to every symbol on his forehead high;

  she saw it waxing very pale and dead,

  and straight all flushed; so, lispëd tenderly,

  “Lorenzo!”—here she ceased her timid quest,

  but in her tone and look he read the rest.

  “O Isabella, I can half perceive

  that I may speak my grief into thine ear;

  if thou didst ever anything believe,

  believe how I love thee, believe how near

  my soul is to its doom: I would not grieve

  thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear

  thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live

  another night, and not my passion shrive.”

  “Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,

  lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,

  and I must taste the blossoms that unfold

  in its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.”

  So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,

  and poised with hers in dewy rhyme:

  great bliss was with them, and great happiness

  grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.

  Parting they seemed to tread upon the air,

  twin roses by the zephyr blown apart

  only to meet again more close, and share

  the inward fragrance of each other’s heart.

  She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair

  sang, of delicious love and honeyed dart;

  he with light steps went up a western hill,

  and bade the sun farewell, and joyed his fill.

  All close they met again, before the dusk

  had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,

  all close they met, all eves, before the dusk

  had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,

  close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,

  unknown of any, free from whispering tale.

  Ah! better had it been for ever so,

  than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

  Were they unhappy then?—It cannot be—

  too many tears for lovers have been shed,

  too many sighs give we to them in fee,

  too much of pity after they are dead,

  too many doleful stories do we see,

  whose matter in bright gold were best be read;

  except in such a page where Theseus’ spouse

  over the pathless waves towards him bows.

  But, for the general award of love,

  the little sweet doth kill much bitterness;

  though Dido silent is in under-grove,

  and Isabella’s was a great distress,

  though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove

  was not embalmed, this truth is not the less—

  even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,

  know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

  With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,

  enrichëd from ancestral merchandize,

  and for them many a weary hand did swelt

  in torched mines and noisy factories,

  and many once proud-quivered loins did melt

  in blood from stinging whip;—with hollow eyes

  many all day in dazzling river stood,

  to take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

  For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,

  and went all naked to the hungry shark;

  for them his ears gushed blood; for them in death

  the seal on the cold ice with piteous bark

  lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe

  a thousand men in troubles wide and dark:

  half-ignorant, they turned an easy wheel,

  that set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

  Why were they proud? Because their marble founts

  gushed with more pride than do a wretch’s tears?—

  Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts

  were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?—

  Why were they proud? Because red-lined accounts

  were richer than the songs of Grecian years?—

  Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,

  why in the name of Glory were they proud?

  Yet were these Florentines as self-retired

  in hungry pride and gainful cowardice,

  as two close Hebrews in that land inspired,

  paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies;

  the hawks of ship-mast forests—the untired

  and panniered mules for ducats and old lies—

  quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away,—

  great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

  How was it these same ledger-men could spy

  fair Isabella in her downy nest?

  How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye

  a straying from his toil? Hot Egypt’s pest

  into their vision covetous and sly!

  How could these money-bags see east and west?—

  Yet so they did—and every dealer fair

  must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

  O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!

  Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,

  and of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,

  and of thy roses amorous of the moon,

  and of thy lilies, that do paler grow

  now they can no more hear thy gittern’s tune,

  for venturing syllables that ill beseem

  the Quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

  Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale

  shall move on soberly, as it is meet;

  there is no other crime, no mad assail

  to make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:

  but it is done—succeed the verse or fail—

  to honor thee, and thy gone spirit greet;

  to stead thee as a verse in English tongue,

  an echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

  These brethren having found by many signs

  what love Lorenzo for their sister had,

  and how she loved him too, each unconfines

  his bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad

  that he, the servant of their trade designs,

  should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad,

  when ’twas their plan to coax her by degrees

  to some high noble and his olive-trees.

  And many a jealous conference had they,

  and many times they bit their lips alone,

  before they fixed upon a surest way

  to make the youngster for his crime atone;

  and at the last, these men of cruel clay

  cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;

  for they resolvëd in some forest dim

  to kill Lorenzo, and there bury him.

  So on a pleasant morning, as he leant

  into the sun-rise, o’er t
he balustrade

  of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent

  their footing through the dews; and to him said,

  “You seem there in the Quiet of content,

  Lorenzo, and we are most loath to invade

  calm speculation; but if you are wise,

  bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

  to-day we purpose, aye, this hour we mount

  to spur three leagues towards the Apennine;

  come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count

  his dewy rosary on the eglantine.”

  Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,

  bowed a fair greeting to these serpents’ whine;

  and went in haste, to get in readiness,

  with belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman’s dress.

  And as he to the court-yard passed along,

  each third step did he pause, and listened oft

  if he could hear his lady’s matin-song,

  or the light whisper of her footstep soft;

  and as he thus over his passion hung,

  he heard a laugh full musical aloft;

  when, looking up, he saw her features bright

  smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

  “Love, Isabel!” said he, “I was in pain

  lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:

  Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain

  I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow

  of a poor three hours’ absence? but we’ll gain

  out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.

  Good bye! I’ll soon be back.”—“Good bye!” said she:—

  and as he went she chanted merrily.

  So the two brothers and their murdered man

  rode past fair Florence, to where Arno’s stream

  gurgles through straitened banks, and still doth fan

  itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream

  keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan

  the brothers’ faces in the ford did seem,

  lorenzo’s flush with love.—They passed the water

  into a forest Quiet for the slaughter.

  There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,

  there in that forest did his great love cease;

  ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,

  it aches in loneliness—is ill at peace

  as the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:

  they dipped their swords in the water, and did tease

  their horses homeward, with convulsëd spur,

  each richer by his being a murderer.

  They told their sister how, with sudden speed,

  lorenzo had ta’en ship for foreign lands,

  because of some great urgency and need

  in their affairs, requiring trusty hands.

  Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed,

  and ‘scape at once from Hope’s accursëd bands;

  to-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,

  and the next day will be a day of sorrow.

  She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;

  sorely she wept until the night came on,

  and then, instead of love, O misery!

  She brooded o’er the luxury alone:

  his image in the dusk she seemed to see,

  and to the silence made a gentle moan,

  spreading her perfect arms upon the air,

  and on her couch low murmuring “Where? O where?”

  But Selfishness, Love’s cousin, held not long

  its fiery vigil in her single breast;

  she fretted for the golden hour, and hung

  upon the time with feverish unrest—

  not long—for soon into her heart a throng

  of higher occupants, a richer zest,

  came tragic; passion not to be subdued,

  and sorrow for her love in travels rude.

  In the mid days of autumn, on their eves

  the breath of Winter comes from far away,

  and the sick west continually bereaves

  of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay

  of death among the bushes and the leaves,

  to make all bare before he dares to stray

  from his north cavern. So sweet Isabel

  by gradual decay from beauty fell,

  because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes

  she asked her brothers, with an eye all pale,

  striving to be itself, what dungeon climes

  could keep him off so long? They spake a tale

  time after time, to Quiet her. Their crimes

  came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom’s vale;

  and every night in dreams they groaned aloud,

  to see their sister in her snowy shroud.

  And she had died in drowsy ignorance,

  but for a thing more deadly dark than all;

  it came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,

  which saves a sick man from the feathered pall

  for some few gasping moments; like a lance,

  waking an Indian from his cloudy hall

  with cruel pierce, and bringing him again

  sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

  It was a vision.—In the drowsy gloom,

  the dull of midnight, at her couch’s foot

  Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb

  had marred his glossy hair which once could shoot

  luster into the sun, and put cold doom

  upon his lips, and taken the soft lute

  from his lorn voice, and past his loamëd ears

  had made a miry channel for his tears.

  Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;

  for there was striving, in its piteous tongue,

  to speak as when on earth it was awake,

  and Isabella on its music hung:

  languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,

  as in a palsied Druid’s harp unstrung;

  and through it moaned a ghostly under-song,

  like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

  Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright

  with love, and kept all phantom fear aloof

  from the poor girl by magic of their light,

  the while it did unthread the horrid woof

  of the late darkened time,—the murderous spite

  of pride and avarice,—the dark pine roof

  in the forest,—and the sodden turfëd dell,

  where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

  Saying moreover, “Isabel, my sweet!

  red whortle-berries droop above my head,

  and a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;

  around me beeches and high chestnuts shed

  their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat

  comes from beyond the river to my bed:

  go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,

  and it shall comfort me within the tomb.”

  “I am a shadow now, alas! alas!

  Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling

  alone: I chant alone the holy mass,

  while little sounds of life are round me knelling,

  and glossy bees at noon do field ward pass,

  and many a chapel bell the hour is telling,

  paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,

  and thou art distant in Humanity.”

  “I know what was, I feel full well what is,

  and I should rage, if spirits could go mad;

  though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,

  that paleness warms my grave, as though I had

  a Seraph chosen from the bright abyss

  to be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;

  thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel

  a greater love through all my essence steal.”

  The Spirit mourned “Adieu!”—dissolved and left

  the atom darkness in a slow turmoil
;

  as when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,

  thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,

  we put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,

  and see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:

  it made sad Isabella’s eyelids ache,

  and in the dawn she started up awake;

  “Ha! ha!” said she, “I knew not this hard life,

  I thought the worst was simple misery;

  I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife

  portioned us—happy days, or else to die;

  but there is crime—a brother’s bloody knife!

  Sweet Spirit, thou hast schooled my infancy:

  I’ll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,

  and greet thee morn and even in the skies.”

  When the full morning came, she had devised

  how she might secret to the forest hie;

  how she might find the clay, so dearly prized,

  and sing to it one latest lullaby;

  how her short absence might be unsurmised,

  while she the inmost of the dream would try.

  Resolved, she took with her an aged nurse,

  and went into that dismal forest-hearse.

  See, as they creep along the river side,

  how she doth whisper to that aged Dame,

  and, after looking round the champaign wide,

  shows her a knife.—“What feverous hectic flame

  burns in thee, child?—What good can thee betide,

  that thou should’st smile again?”—The evening came,

  and they had found Lorenzo’s earthy bed;

  the flint was there, the berries at his head.

  Who hath not loitered in a green church-yard,

  and let his spirit, like a demon-mole,

  work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,

  to see skull, coffined bones, and funeral stole;

  pitying each form that hungry Death hath marred

  and filling it once more with human soul?

  Ah! this is holiday to what was felt

  when Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

  She gazed into the fresh-thrown mould, as though

  one glance did fully all its secrets tell;

  clearly she saw, as other eyes would know

  pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;

  upon the murderous spot she seemed to grow,

  like to a native lily of the dell:

  then with her knife, all sudden, she began

  to dig more fervently than misers can.

  Soon she turned up a soiled glove, whereon

  her silk had played in purple fantasies,

  she kissed it with a lip more chill than stone,

  and put it in her bosom, where it dries

  and freezes utterly unto the bone

  those dainties made to still an infant’s cries:

  then ‘gan she work again; nor stayed her care,

  but to throw back at times her veiling hair.