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!”—dissolved, and left 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, XLIII. When the full morning came, she had devised How her short absence might be unsurmised, XLIV. See, as they creep along the river side, How she doth whisper to that aged dame, And, after looking round the champaign wide, Shows her a knife." What feverous hectic flame Burns in thee, child?-what good can thee betide That thou shouldst smile again?"-The evening came, And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed; The flint was there, the berries at his head. XLV. Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard, XLVI. She gazed into the fresh-thrown mould, as though Then with her knife, all sudden she began XLVII. Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon Those dainties made to still an infant's cries: XLVIII. That old nurse stood beside her wondering, And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, XLIX. Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance? The simple plaining of a minstrel's song! For here, in truth, it doth not well belong To speak:-O turn thee to the very tale, And taste the music of that vision pale. L. With duller steel than the Perséan sword They cut away no formless monster's head, 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. 'Twas 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 leaflets 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. H LVI. Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe, From the deep throat of sad Melpomene ! Among the dead: She withers, like a palm LVII. O leave the palm to wither by itself; Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!- 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, And even remembrance of her love's delay. 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 |