ΤΟ

I.

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

II.

It were enough to feel, to see,

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest

and burn and be

The secret food of fires unseen,

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

III.

After the slumber of the year

The woodland violets re-appear,

All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move,
And form all others, life and love.

GINEVRA.

WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever
Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train

Of objects and of persons past like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil, Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale, And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth, And of the gold and jewels glittering there She scarce felt conscious, but the weary glare

Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,

Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight.

A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud

Was less heavenly fair — her face was bowed,
And as she past, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair
Which led from the cathedral to the street;
And ever as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.

The bride-maidens who round her thronging came, Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,

Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been another's

Their own by gentle sympathy; and some
Sighing to think of an unhappy home:
Some few admiring what can ever lure

Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure
Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing
Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed and, lo! she stands
Looking in idle grief on her white hands,

Alone within the garden now her own;
And through the sunny air, with jangling tone,
The music of the merry marriage bells,

--

Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells ; —
Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams
That he is dreaming, until slumber seems

A mockery of itself—when suddenly
Antonio stood before her, pale as she.
With agony, with sorrow, and with pride,
He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,

And said- "Is this thy faith?" and then as one
Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun

With light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise
And look upon his day of life with eyes

Which weep in vain that they can dream no more,
Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore

To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood
Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued
Said" Friend, if earthly violence or ill,
Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will

Of parents, chance, or custom, time or change,
Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge,

Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech,

With all their stings and venom can impeach
Our love,

we love not: if the grave which hides

The victim from the tyrant, and divides

The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart
Imperious inquisition to the heart

That is another's, could dissever ours,

We love not." "What! do not the silent hours

-

Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed?

Is not that ring"

a pledge, he would have said,