Studies in Song | Page 7

with May-dews, in her voice the bird?Whose voice hath night and morning in it; fair?As the ambient gold of wall-flowers that engird?The walls engirdling with a circling stair?My sweet San Gimignano: nor a word
Fell from her flowerlike mouth?Not sweet with all the south;?As though the dust shrined in Certaldo stirred
And spake, as o'er it shone?That bright Pentameron,?And his own vines again and chestnuts heard?Boccaccio: nor swift Elsa's chime?Mixed not her golden babble with Petrarca's rhyme.
39.
No lovelier laughed the garden which receives?Yet, and yet hides not from our following eyes?With soft rose-laurels and low strawberry-leaves,?Ternissa, sweet as April-coloured skies,?Bowed like a flowering reed when May's wind heaves?The reed-bed that the stream kisses and sighs,?In love that shrinks and murmurs and believes?What yet the wisest of the starriest wise
Whom Greece might ever hear?Speaks in the gentlest ear?That ever heard love's lips philosophize
With such deep-reasoning words?As blossoms use and birds,?Nor heeds Leontion lingering till they rise?Far off, in no wise over far,?Beneath a heaven all amorous of its first-born star.
40.
What sound, what storm and splendour of what fire,?Darkening the light of heaven, lightening the night,?Rings, rages, flashes round what ravening pyre?That makes time's face pale with its reflex light?And leaves on earth, who seeing might scarce respire,?A shadow of red remembrance? Right nor might?Alternating wore ever shapes more dire?Nor manifest in all men's awful sight
In form and face that wore?Heaven's light and likeness more?Than these, or held suspense men's hearts at height
More fearful, since man first?Slaked with man's blood his thirst,?Than when Rome clashed with Hannibal in fight,?Till tower on ruining tower was hurled?Where Scipio stood, and Carthage was not in the world.
41.
Nor lacked there power of purpose in his hand?Who carved their several praise in words of gold?To bare the brows of conquerors and to brand,?Made shelterless of laurels bought and sold?For price of blood or incense, dust or sand,?Triumph or terror. He that sought of old?His father Ammon in a stranger's land,?And shrank before the serpentining fold,
Stood in our seer's wide eye?No higher than man most high,?And lowest in heart when highest in hope to hold
Fast as a scripture furled?The scroll of all the world?Sealed with his signet: nor the blind and bold?First thief of empire, round whose head?Swarmed carrion flies for bees, on flesh for violets fed.[1]
42.
As fire that kisses, killing with a kiss,?He saw the light of death, riotous and red,?Flame round the bent brows of Semiramis?Re-risen, and mightier, from the Assyrian dead,?Kindling, as dawn a frost-bound precipice,?The steely snows of Russia, for the tread?Of feet that felt before them crawl and hiss?The snaky lines of blood violently shed.
Like living creeping things?That writhe but have no stings?To scare adulterers from the imperial bed
Bowed with its load of lust,?Or chill the ravenous gusts?That made her body a fire from heel to head;?Or change her high bright spirit and clear,?For all its mortal stains, from taint of fraud or fear.
43.
As light that blesses, hallowing with a look;?He saw the godhead in Vittoria's face?Shine soft on Buonarroti's, till he took,?Albeit himself God, a more godlike grace,?A strength more heavenly to confront and brook?All ill things coiled about his worldly race,?From the bright scripture of that present book?Wherein his tired grand eyes got power to trace
Comfort more sweet than youth,?And hope whose child was truth,?And love that brought forth sorrow for a space,
Only that she might bear?Joy: these things, written there,?Made even his soul's high heaven a heavenlier place,?Perused with eyes whose glory and glow?Had in their fires the spirit of Michael Angelo.
44.
With balms and dews of blessing he consoled?The fair fame wounded by the black priest's fang,?Giovanna's, and washed off her blithe and bold?Boy-bridegroom's blood, that seemed so long to hang?On her fair hand, even till the stain of old?Was cleansed with healing song, that after sang?Sharp truth by sweetest singers' lips untold?Of pale Beatrice, though her death-note rang
From other strings divine?Ere his rekindling line?With yet more piteous and intolerant pang
Pierced all men's hearts anew?That heard her passion through?Till fierce from throes of fiery pity sprang?Wrath, armed for chase of monstrous beasts,?Strong to lay waste the kingdom of the seed of priests.
45.
He knew the high-souled humbleness, the mirth?And majesty of meanest men born free,?That made with Luther's or with Hofer's birth?The whole world worthier of the sun to see:?The wealth of spirit among the snows, the dearth?Wherein souls festered by the servile sea?That saw the lowest of even crowned heads on earth?Thronged round with worship in Parthenope.
His hand bade Justice guide?Her child Tyrannicide,?Light winged by fire that brings the dawn to be;
And pierced with Tyrrel's dart?Again the riotous heart?That mocked at mercy's tongue and manhood's knee:?And oped the cell where kinglike death?Hung o'er her brows discrowned who bare Elizabeth.
46.
Toward Spenser or toward Bacon proud or kind?He bared the heart of Essex, twain and one,?For the base heart that soiled the starry mind?Stern,