---

Скачать книгу

---

Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,

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

      XXXI.

      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.

      XXXII.

      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,

      XXXIII.

      Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes

       She ask’d 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 groan’d aloud,

       To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

      XXXIV.

      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 feather’d 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.

      XXXV.

      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 marr’d his glossy hair which once could shoot

       Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom

       Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute

       From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears

       Had made a miry channel for his tears.

      XXXVI.

      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 moan’d a ghostly undersong,

       Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

      XXXVII.

      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 darken’d time, — the murderous spite

       Of pride and avarice, — the dark pine roof

       In the forest, — and the sodden turfed dell,

       Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

      XXXVIII.

      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.

      XXXIX.

      “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 fieldward 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.

      XL.

      “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.”

      XLI.

      The Spirit mourn’d “Adieu!” — dissolv’d, 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;

      XLII.

      “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

       Portion’d us — happy days, or else to die;

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

       Sweet Spirit, thou hast school’d my infancy:

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

       And greet thee morn and even in the skies.”

      XLIII.

      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.

       Resolv’d, she took with her an aged nurse,

       And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

      XLIV.

      See, as they creep along the river side,

       How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,

       And, after looking round the champaign wide,

      

---

Скачать книгу