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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.

      IX.

      “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 poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:

      Great bliss was with them, and great happiness

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

      X.

      Parting they seem’d 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 honey’d dart;

      He with light steps went up a western hill,

      And bade the sun farewell, and joy’d his fill.

      XI.

      All close they met again, before the dusk

      Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,

      All close they met, all eyes, 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.

      XII.

      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.

      XIII.

      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 embalm’d, this truth is not the less –

      Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,

      Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

      XIV.

      With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,

      Enriched from ancestral merchandize,

      And for them many a weary hand did swelt

      In torched mines and noisy factories,

      And many once proud-quiver’d 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.

      XV.

      For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,

      And went all naked to the hungry shark;

      For them his ears gush’d 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 turn’d an easy wheel,

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

      XVI.

      Why were they proud? Because their marble founts

      Gush’d 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-lin’d 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?

      XVII.

      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 pannier’d mules for ducats and old lies –

      Quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away, –

      Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

      XVIII.

      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.

      XIX.

      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 ghittern’s tune,

      For venturing syllables that ill beseem

      The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

      XX.

      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 honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;

      To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,

      An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

      XXI.

      These brethren having found by many signs

      What love Lorenzo for their sister had,

      And how she lov’d him too, each

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