Ride to the Lady | Page 4

have served of yore;
But to his will shall set their whole desire,
For
love, love, love alone, forevermore!"
And "love, love, love," rang round her as she passed
From sight, with
mystic murmurs o'er and o'er
Reverbed from hollow heaven, as from
some vast,
Deep-colored, vaulted, ocean-answering shell.
I, Ivo, had no power to ban or bless,
But was as one withholden by a
spell.
Forward she fared in lofty loneliness,
Urged on by an

imperious inward stress,
To waste fair Eden, and to drown fierce
Hell.
MADONNA PIA
Ricordati di me, che son la Pia.
Siena mi fe; disfecomi Maremma;

Salsi colui, che, inanellata pria,
Disposato m'avea colla sua gemma.
Purgatorio, Canto V.
To westward lies the unseen sea,
Blue sea the live winds wander o'er.

The many-colored sails can flee,
And leave the dead, low-lying
shore.
Her longing does not seek the main,
Her face turns
northward first at morn;
There, crowning all the wide champaign,

Siena stood, where she was born.
Siena stands, and still shall stand;
She ne'er shall see or town or tower.

Warm life and beauty, hand in hand,
Steal farther from her hour by
hour.
Yet forth she leans, with trembling knees,
And northward will
she stare and stare
Through that thick wall of cypress-trees,
And
sigh adown the stirless air:
"Shall no remembrance in Siena linger
Of me, once fair, whom slow
Maremma slays?
As well he knows, whose ring upon my finger

Hath sealed for his alone mine earthly days!"
From wilds where shudders through the weeds
The dull,
mean-headed, silent snake,
Like voiceless doubt that creeps and
breeds;
From swamps where sluggish waters take,
As lives unblest
a passing love,
The flag-flower's image in the spring,
Or seem,
when flits the bird above,
To stir within with shadowed wing,
A Presence mounts in pallid mist
To fold her close: she breathes its
breath;
She waxes wan, by Fever kissed,
Who weds her for his
master, Death,
Aside are set her dimmed hopes all,
She counts no

more the uncurrent hoard;
On gray Death's neck she fain would fall,

To own him for her proper lord.
She minds the journey here by night:
When some red sudden torch
would blaze,
She saw by fits, with childish fright,
The cork-trees
twist beside the ways.
Like dancing demon shapes they showed,

With malice drunk; the bat beat by,
The owlet sobbed; on, on they
rode,
She knew not where, she knows not why.
For Nello--when in piteous wise
She lifted up her look to ask,

Except the ever-burning eyes
His face was like a marble mask.
And
so it always meets her now;
The tomb wherein at last he lies
Shall
bear such carven lips and brow,
All save the ever-burning eyes.
Perchance it is his form alone
Doth stroke his hound, at meat doth sit,

And, for the soul that was his own,
A fiend awhile inhabits it;

While he sinks through the fiery throng,
Down, to fill an evil bond,

Since false conceit of others' wrong
Hath wrought him to a sin
beyond.
But she--if when her years were glad
Vain fluttering thoughts were
hers, that hid
Behind that gracious fame she had;
If e'er observance
hard she did
That sinful men might call her saint,--
White-handed
Pia, dovelike-eyed,--
The sick blank hours shall yet acquaint
Her
heart with all her blameful pride.
And Death shall find her kneeling low,
And lift her to the porphyry
stair,
And she from ledge to ledge shall go,
Stayed by the staff of
that last prayer,
Until the high, sweet-singing wood
Whence folk
are rapt to heaven, she win;
Therein the unpardoned never stood,

Nor may one Sorrow nest therein.
But through the Tuscan land shall beat
Her Sorrow, like a wounded
bird;
And if her suit at Mary's feet
Avail, its moan shall yet be

heard
By some just poet, who shall shed,
Whate'er the theme that
leads his rhyme
Bright words like tears above her, dead,
Entreating
of the after time:
"Among you let her mournful memory linger!
Siena bare her, whom
Maremma slew;
And this dark lord, who gave her maiden finger

His ancient gem, the secret only knew."
TWO MOODS OF FAILURE
I
THE LAST CUP OF CANARY
Sir Harry Lovelock, 1645
So, the powder's low, and the larder's clean,
And surrender drapes,
with its black impending,
All the stage for a sorry and sullen scene:

Yet indulge me my whim of a madcap ending!
Let us once more fill, ere the final chill,
Every vein with the glow of
the rich canary!
Since the sweet hot liquor of life's to spill,
Of the
last of the cellar what boots be chary?
Then hear the conclusion: I'll yield my breath,
But my leal old house
and my good blade never!
Better one bitter kiss on the lips of Death

Than despoiled Defeat as a wife forever!
Let the faithful fire hold the walls in ward
Till the roof-tree crash! Be
the smoke once riven
While we flash from the gate like a single
sword,
True steel to the hilt, though in dull earth driven!
Do you frown, Sir Richard, above your ruff,
In the Holbein yonder?
My deed ensures you!
For the flame like a fencer shall give rebuff

To your blades that blunder, you Roundhead boors, you!

And my ladies, a-row on the gallery wall,
Not a sing-song sergeant or
corporal sainted
Shall pierce their breasts with