Till some one asked-" Where is the Bride ?"

And then

A bride's-maid went,—and ere she came again A silence fell upon the guests-a pause

Of expectation, as when beauty awes

All hearts with its approach, though unbeheld; Then wonder, and then fear that wonder quelled ;

For whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew

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The colour from the hearer's cheeks, and flew
Louder and swifter round the company;
And then Gherardi entered with an eye
Of ostentatious trouble, and a crowd
Surrounded him, and some were weeping loud.

They found Ginevra dead! if it be death, To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath, With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,

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And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light
Mocked at the speculation they had owned ;-
If it be death, when there is felt around
A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,
And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair
From the scalp to the ancles, as it were
Corruption from the spirit passing forth,
And giving all it shrouded to the earth,
And leaving as swift lightning in its flight
Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night
Of thought we know thus much of death,-no

more

Than the unborn dream of our life before

Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable

shore.

The marriage feast and its solemnity

Was turned to funeral pomp-the company,

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With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they

Who loved the dead went weeping on their way Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes,

On which that form, whose fate they weep in vain,

Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again. The lamps, which half extinguished in their

haste

Gleamed few and faint o'er the abandoned

feast,

Showed as it were within the vaulted room
A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom
Had passed out of men's minds into the air.
Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,
Friends and relations of the dead,
A loveless man, accepted torpidly

The consolation that he wanted not;

and he,

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Awe in the place of grief within him wrought. Their whispers made the solemn silence seem More still some wept, . . .

...

Some melted into tears without a sob,

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And some with hearts that might be heard to

throb

Leant on the table, and at intervals

Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls
And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came
Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame
Of every torch and taper as it swept

From out the chamber where the women kept;—
Their tears fell on the dear companion cold 189
Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled
The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,
And, finding death their penitent had shrived,
Returned like ravens from a corpse whereon
A vulture had just feasted to the bone.

And then the mourning women came.—

THE DIRGE.

Old winter was gone

In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,
And the spring came down

From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches

On the limits of wintry night.

If the land, and the air, and the sea,
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!

She is still, she is cold

On the bridal couch;

One step to the white death-bed,

And one to the bier,

And one to the charnel-and one, O where?

The dark arrow fled

In the noon.

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Ere the sun through heaven once more has

rolled,

The rats in her heart

Will have made their nest,

And the worms be alive in her golden hair;
While the spirit that guides the sun

Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep.

EVENING: PONTE A MARE, PISA.

I.

THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the grey air;

The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there

Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

II.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.

III.

Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and for ever

It trembles, but it never fades away;1
Go to the...

You, being changed, will find it then as now.

IV.

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, Like mountain over mountain huddled-but Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.

THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO.

OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,

1Compare with the first quatrain of stanza vi, Ode to Liberty.-ED.

The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boat-man, has brought the mast,

And the oars and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast,

Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,

And the thin white moon lay withering there;

To tower, and cavern, and rift and tree,

The owl and the bat fled drowsily.

Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes,

And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aëry gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
And the milkmaid's song and the mower's

scythe,

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And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: Fire-flies were quenched in the dewy corn, Glow-worms went out on the river's brim, Like lamps which a student forgets to trim : The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

The crickets were still in the meadow and
hill:

Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun;
Night's dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey
From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,

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Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and one to teach

What none yet ever knew or can be known.