XLVIII. That old nurse stood beside her wondering, At sight of such a dismal labouring, And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, XLIX. Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance? The simple plaining of a minstrel's song! L. With duller steel than the Perséan sword But one, whose gentleness did well accord With death, as life. The ancient harps have said, Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord: If Love impersonate was ever dead, Pale Isabella kiss'd it, and low moan'd. "T was love; cold,-dead indeed, but not dethroned. LI. In anxious secrecy they took it home, LII. Then in a silken scarf,-sweet with the dews LIII. And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun, LIV. And so she ever fed it with thin tears, Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew, So that it smelt more balmy than its peers Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew Nurture besides, and life, from human fears, From the fast mouldering head there shut from view : So that the jewel, safely casketed, Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread. LV. O Melancholy, linger here awhile! O Music, Music, breathe despondingly! O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle, ; Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh! Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily, And make a pale light in your cypress glooms, Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs. LVI. Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe, Among the dead: She withers, like a palm LVII. O leave the palm to wither by itself; Her brethren, noted the continual shower LVIII. And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd much Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean : They could not surely give belief, that such A very nothing would have power to wean Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay, LIX. Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain ; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, And seldom felt she any hunger-pain; And when she left, she hurried back, as swift LX. Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot, And so left Florence in a moment's space, LXI. O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away ! O Echo, Echo, on some other day, From isles Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh! Will die a death too lone and incomplete, LXII. Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things, Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry To ask him where her Basil was; and why 'T was hid from her: "For cruel 't is," said she, "To steal my Basil-pot away from me." LXIII. And so she pined, and so she died forlorn, No heart was there in Florence but did mourn In pity of her love, so overcast. And a sad ditty of this story born From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd: Still is the burthen sung-" O cruelty, To steal my Basil-pot away from me!" |