How Lisa Loved the King | Page 4

me for thine own?Taking this little isle to thy great sway,?See now, it is the honor of thy throne?That what thou gavest perish not away,?Nor leave some sweet remembrance to atone?By life that will be for the brief life gone:?Hear, ere the shroud o'er these frail limbs be thrown-- Since every king is vassal unto thee,?My heart's lord needs must listen loyally--?O tell him I am waiting for my Death!
Tell him, for that he hath such royal power?'Twere hard for him to think how small a thing,?How slight a sign, would make a wealthy dower?For one like me, the bride of that pale king?Whose bed is mine at some swift-nearing hour.?Go to my lord, and to his memory bring?That happy birthday of my sorrowing,?When his large glance made meaner gazers glad,?Entering the bannered lists: 'twas then I had?The wound that laid me in the arms of Death.?Tell him, O Love, I am a lowly maid,?No more than any little knot of thyme?That he with careless foot may often tread;?Yet lowest fragrance oft will mount sublime?And cleave to things most high and hallowed,?As doth the fragrance of my life's springtime,?My lowly love, that, soaring, seeks to climb?Within his thought, and make a gentle bliss,?More blissful than if mine, in being his:?So shall I live in him, and rest in Death.
The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry,?And yet a rounded, perfect melody,?Making grief beauteous as the tear-filled eyes?Of little child at little miseries.?Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose,?Like rising light that broad and broader grows,?It filled the hall, and so possessed the air,?That not one living, breathing soul was there,?Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering?In Music's grasp, and forced to hear her sing.?But most such sweet compulsion took the mood?Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would).?Whether the words which that strange meaning bore?Were but the poet's feigning, or aught more,?Was bounden question, since their aim must be?At some imagined or true royalty.?He called Minuccio, and bade him tell?What poet of the day had writ so well;?For, though they came behind all former rhymes,?The verses were not bad for these poor times.?"Monsignor, they are only three days old,"?Minuccio said; "but it must not be told?How this song grew, save to your royal ear."?Eager, the king withdrew where none was near,?And gave close audience to Minuccio,?Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know.?The king had features pliant to confess?The presence of a manly tenderness,--?Son, father, brother, lover, blent in one,?In fine harmonic exaltation;?The spirit of religious chivalry.?He listened, and Minuccio could see?The tender, generous admiration spread?O'er all his face, and glorify his head?With royalty that would have kept its rank,?Though his brocaded robes to tatters shrank.?He answered without pause, "So sweet a maid,?In Nature's own insignia arrayed,?Though she were come of unmixed trading blood?That sold and bartered ever since the flood,?Would have the self-contained and single worth?Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth.?Raona were a shame to Sicily,?Letting such love and tears unhonored be:?Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king?To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring."
Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word,?And told at full, while none but Lisa heard,?How each thing had befallen, sang the song,?And, like a patient nurse who would prolong?All means of soothing, dwelt upon each tone,?Each look, with which the mighty Aragon?Marked the high worth his royal heart assigned?To that dear place he held in Lisa's mind.?She listened till the draughts of pure content?Through all her limbs like some new being went--?Life, not recovered, but untried before,?From out the growing world's unmeasured store?Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed.?'Twas glad reverse: she had so firmly fixed?To die, already seemed to fall a veil?Shrouding the inner glow from light of senses pale.
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Her parents, wondering, see her half arise;?Wondering, rejoicing, see her long dark eyes?Brimful with clearness, not of 'scaping tears,?But of some light ethereal that enspheres?Their orbs with calm, some vision newly learnt?Where strangest fires erewhile had blindly burnt.?She asked to have her soft white robe and band?And coral ornaments; and with her hand?She gave her long dark locks a backward fall,?Then looked intently in a mirror small,?And feared her face might, perhaps, displease the king:?"In truth," she said, "I am a tiny thing:?I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring."
Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought?That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought?To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell,?With careless mien which hid his purpose well,?Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance?Passing Bernardo's house, he paused to glance?At the fine garden of this wealthy man,?This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan;?But, presently dismounting, chose to walk?Amid the trellises, in gracious talk?With this same trader, deigning even to ask?If he had yet fulfilled the father's task?Of marrying that daughter, whose young charms?Himself, betwixt the passages of arms,?Noted admiringly. "Monsignor, no,?She is not