How many saw the beauty, power, and wit, Treasured i' the instant; so Gherardi's hall Laughed in the mirth of its lord's festival;— Till some one asked "Where is the Bride?" And then A bridesmaid 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 :— Surrounded him, and some were weeping loud. They found Ginevra dead: if it be death With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white, -no more The marriage-feast and its solemnity Was turned to funeral pomp. The company, With heavy hearts and looks, broke up. Nor they In which that form whose fate they weep in vain Awe in the place of grief within him wrought. Some melted into tears without a sob; And some, with hearts that might be heard to throb, Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls From out the chamber where the women kept. THE DIRGE. OLD Winter was gone In his weakness back to the mountains hoar; From the planet that hovers upon the shore Where the sea of sunlight encroaches If the land and the air and the sea 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-oh where? In the noon. Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, Will have made their nest, And the worms be alive in her golden hair. She shall sleep. 1821. LXXXIII EVENING. PONTE AL MARE, PISA. I. THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; Over the quivering surface of the stream, II. There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, And in the inconstant motion of the breeze III. Within the surface of the fleeting river It trembles, but it never fades away. You, being changed, will find it then as now. IV. The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut Which the keen evening star is shining through. 1821. LXXXIV. THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, Dominic the boatman has brought the mast 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 Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow, Day had awakened all things that be;— The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, The beetle forgot to wind his horn; The crickets were still in the meadow and hill. All rose to do the task He set to each Who shaped us to his ends and not our own. The million rose to learn, and one to teach What none yet ever knew, nor can be known; . . and many rose Whose woe was such that fear became desire. Melchior and Lionel were not among those; They from the throng of men had stepped aside, And made their home under the green hill side. It was that hill whose intervening brow Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye; Which the circumfluous plain waving below, Like a wide lake of green fertility, With streams and fields and marshes bare, Divides from the far Apennines, which lie Islanded in the immeasurable air. "What think you, as she lies in her green cove, Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?" "If morning dreams are true, why I should guess That she was dreaming of our idleness, And of the miles of watery way We should have led her by this time of day." "Never mind!" said Lionel. "Give care to the winds; they can bear it well About yon poplar tops. And see! The white clouds are driving merrily, And the stars we miss this morn will light How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair! Hear how it sings into the air." "Of us and of our lazy motions," "If I can guess a boat's emotions; |