Antonio stood and would have spoken, when Back to the palace, and her maidens soon 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, Reflected from a thousand hearts and eyes Kindling a momentary Paradise. This crowd is safer than the silent wood, From every living heart which it possesses, Treasured i' the instant; so Gherardi's hall Till some one asked, "Where is the Bride?" A bridesmaid went, and ere she came again 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; 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, And giving all it shrouded to the earth, And leaving as swift lightning in its flight 129 winds || lands, Forman conj., waves, or sands, or strands, Rossetti conj. no more Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night way 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 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 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, 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. Some melted into tears without a sob, And some with hearts that might be heard to throb Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls 167 On | In, Rossetti. From out the chamber where the women kept; - THE DIRGE Old winter was gone In his weakness back to the mountains hoar, From the planet that hovers upon the shore On the limits of wintry night; - She is still, she is cold On the bridal couch. One step to the white death-bed, And one to the bier, And one to the charnel The dark arrow fled In the noon. and one, oh where ? Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, The rats in her heart Will have made their nest, And the worms be alive in her golden hair; THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. The stars burned out in the pale blue air, Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapors in their multitudes, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aëry gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. Day had awakened all things that be, The Boat on the Serchio. Published, 1-61, 88-118, by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated, July, 1821. Revised and enlarged by Rossetti, 1870. |