60 “This woman's heart and soul and brain The bee's kiss, now! more! He sings Unless you call me, all the same, What are we two? 20 Familiarly by my pet name, I am a Jew, Which if the Three should hear you call, And carry thee, farther than friends can And me reply to, would proclaim pursue, 65 At once our secret to them all. To a feast of our tribe; Ask of me, too, command me, blame,- 25 Where they need thee to bribe Do, break down the partition-wall The devil that blasts them unless he im'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds bibe Curtained in dusk and splendid folds! Thy ... Scatter the vision forever! And What's left but—all of me to take? now, I am the Three's: prevent them, slake 30 | As of old, I am I, thou art thou! 70 Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage, In practising with gems, can loose Say again, what we are? Their subtle spirit in his crucel The sprite of a star, And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage, I lure thee above where the destinies bar Leave them my ashes when thy use 35 My plumes their full play Till a ruddier ray withering away Some . . . Scatter the vision forever! And Past we glide, and past, and past! now, What's that poor Agnese doing As of old, I am I, thou art thou! 40 He muses Oh, which were best, to roam or rest? The land's lap or the water's breast? 80 Past we glide, and past, and past! To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves, Why's the Pucci Palace flaring Or swim in lucid shallows just Like a beacon to the blast? Eluding water-lily leaves, Guests by hundreds, not one caring An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust If the dear host's neck were wried: Past we glide! To lock you, whom release he must; 85 Which life were best on summer eves? . She sings He speaks, musing The moth's kiss, first! Lie back; could thought of mine improve Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve, you? How my face, your flower, had pursed | From this shoulder let there spring Its petals up; so, here and there A wing; from this, another wing; You brush it, till I grow aware Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! Who wants me, and wide ope I burst. 55 Snow-white must they spring, to blend 91 With your flesh, but I intend | They shall deepen to the end, 45 I crucible. 135 Broa der, into burning gold, Of the staidness and reserve, O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead! Rescue me thou, the only real! 100 First, out a cloud of curtain blew, And scare away this mad ideal Then a sweet cry, and last came you, 140 That came, nor motions to depart! To catch your loryề that must needs Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art! Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach 145 Thy serenader? While there's cast 105 | So far back o'er the balcony Paul's cloak about my head, and fast To catch him ere he climbed too high Gian pinions me, Himself has passed Above you in the Smyrna peach, His stylet? through my back; I reel; That quick the round smooth cord of And . . . is it thou I feel? gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled, 150 They trail me, these three godless knaves, Fell down you like a gorgeous snake Past every church that saints and saves, The Roman girls were wont, of old, Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves 112 When Rome there was, for coolness' sake By Lido's wet accursèd graves, To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. They scoop mine, roll me to its brink, Dear lory, may his beak retain 155 And ... on thy breast I sink! Ever its delicate rose stain As if the wounded lotus-blossoms Had marked their thief to know again! Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow Stay longer yet, for others' sake deep, Than mine! What should your chamber do? As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep, -With all its rarities that ache Caught this way? Death's to fear from In silence while day lasts, but wake flame or steel, At night-time and their life renew, Or poison doubtless; but from water Suspended just to pleasure you 164 feel! Who brought against their will together Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? These objects, and, while day lasts, weave There! Around them such a magic tether Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon That dumb they look: your harp, believe, grass With all the sensitive tight strings To plait in where the foolish jewel was, Which dare not speak, now to itself I flung away: since you have praised my ! Breathes slumberously, as if some elf hair, Went in and out the chords, his wings 'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear. Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, on 175 And while such murmurs flow, the nymph Window just with window mating, Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell Door on door exactly waiting, As the dry limpet for the lymph 180 All's the set face of a child: Come with a tune he knows so well. But behind it, where's a trace And how your statues' hearts must swell! 1 stiletto. : parrot. I spring. 120 170 130 ING IN EUROPE And how your pictures must descend He speaks To see each other, friend with friend! It was ordained to be so, sweet !-and Oh, could you take them by surprise, 185 best You'd find Schidone's eager Duke Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy Doing the quaintest courtesies breast. To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! And, deeper into her rock den, Care Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen Only to put aside thy beauteous hair You'd find retreated from the ken My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not Of that robed counsel-keeping Serl scorn As if the Tizian thinks of her, To death, because they never lived: And is not, rather, gravely bent but I 230 On seeing for himself what toys 195 | Have lived indeed, and so—(yet one more Are these, his progeny invent, kiss)--can die! A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL Let us begin and carry up this corpse, She speaks Singing together. Leave we the common crofts,' the vulgar To-morrow, if a harp-string, say, thorpes 2 Is used to tie the jasmine back That overfloods my room with sweets, 205 Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 5 Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets Cared-for till cock-crow: My Zanze! If the ribbon's black, Look out if yonder be not day again The Three are watching: keep away! Rimming the rock-row! That's the appropriate country; there, Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe men's thought, A mesh of water-weeds about 210 10 Its prow, as if he unaware Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! Chafes in the censer. That I may throw a paper out Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and As you and he go underneath. Crop; Seek we sepulture 215 Only one minute more to-night with me? Crowded with culture! Resume your past self of a month ago! All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; Be you the bashful gallant, I will be Clouds overcome 3 it; The lady with the colder breast than snow. No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my Circling its summit. 20 hand Thither our path lies; wind we up the 220 More than I touch yours when I step to heights; land, Wait ye the warning? And say, “All thanks, Siora!” — Our low life was the level's and the night's; Heart to heart He's for the morning. And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 25 part, Clasp me and make me thine, as mine 'Ware the beholders! thou art! This is our master, famous, calm and dead, 224 (He is surprised, and stabbed. Borne on our shoulders. we. i small farm enclosures. 1 Sir. i overshadow, conceal. ? villages. 35 40 Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling When he had gathered all books had to thorpe and croft, give! Safe from the weather! 30 Sooner, he spurned it. He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Image the whole, then execute the partsSinging together, Fancy the fabric 70 He was a man born with thy face and Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire throat, from quartz, Lyric Apollo! Ere mortar dab brick! Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take note (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the Winter would follow? market-place Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Gaping before us.) Cramped and diminished, Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 75 Moaned he, “New measures, other feet (Hearten our chorus!) anon! That before living he'd learn how to My dance is finished”? liveNo, that's the world's way: (keep the No end to learning: mountain-side, Earn the means first-God surely will Make for the city!) contrive He knew the signal, and stepped on with Use for our earning. pride Others mistrust and say, “But time Over men's pity; escapes: Left play for work, and grappled with Live now or never!” the world 45 | He said, “What's time? Leave Now for Bent on escaping: dogs and apes! “What's in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou Man has Forever.” keepest furled? Back to his book then: deeper drooped Show me their shaping, his head: 85 Theirs who most studied man, the bard Calculus 1 racked him: and sage, Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of Give!”—So, he gowned him, 50 lead: Straight got by heart that book to its Tussis 2 attacked him. last page: “Now, master, take a little rest!"-not Learned, we found him. Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes (Caution redoubled, like lead, Step two abreast, the way winds narAccents uncertain: rowly!) “Time to taste life," another would have Not a whit troubled, said, Back to his studies, fresher than at first, “Up with the curtain!” Fierce as a dragon This man said rather, “Actual life comes He (soul-hydroptic 3 'with a sacred next? thirst) Patience a moment! Sucked at the flagon. Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed Oh, if we draw a circle premature, text, Heedless of far gain, Still there's the comment. 60 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Let me know all! Prate not of most or Bad is our bargain! least, Was it not great? did not he throw on Painful or easy! God, Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the (He loves the burthen)feast, God's task to make the heavenly period Ay, nor feel queasy." Perfect the earthen? Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 65 When he had learned it, he! 55 05 100 1 gall stones. : a cough. 3 thirsty, as in the disease of dropsy. 115 120 Did not he magnify the mind, show | Lofty designs must close in like effects: 145 clear 105 I Loftily lying, Just what it all meant? Leave him-still loftier than the world He would not discount life, as fools do suspects, . here, Living and dying. success 110 THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH answered “Yes! Hence with life's pale lure!” ROME, 15That low man seeks a little thing to do, Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Sees it and does it: Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping This high man, with a great thing to pur back? sue, Nephews-sons mine . . . ah God, I know Dies ere he knows it. not! WellThat low man goes on adding one to She, men would have to be your mother one, once, His hundred's soon hit: Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! 5 This high man, aiming at a million, What's done is done, and she is dead be. Misses an unit. side, That, has the world here should he need Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, the next, And as she died so must we die ourselves, Let the world mind him! And thence ye may perceive the world's This, throws himself on God, and un a dream. perplexed Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 Seeking shall find him. In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, So, with the throttling hands of death Hours and long hours in the dead night, at strife, I ask Ground he at grammar; “Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace Still, through the rattle, parts of speech seems all. were rife: Saint Praxed's ever was the church for While he could stammer peace; He settled Hoti's business-let it be!— And so, about this tomb of mine. I Properly based Oun fought 15 Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, With tooth and nail to save my niche, Dead' from the waist down. ye know: Well, here's the platform, here's the proper Old Gandolf cozenedo me, despite my place: Hail to your purlieus, Shrewd was that snatch from out the All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 corner South Swallows and curlews! He graced his carrion with, God curse the Here's the top-peak; the multitude below same! Live, for they can, there: Yet still my niche is not so cramped but This man decided not to Live but Know- thence 20 Bury this man there? 140 | One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, Here here's his place, where meteors And somewhat of the choir, those silent shoot, clouds form, seats, Lightnings are loosened, And up into the aëry dome where live Stars come and go! Let joy break with The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: the storm, And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, 25 Peace let the dew send! And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest, paralyzed. 125 130 care; 2 haunts. « cheated. |