Lie back; could thought of mine improve you? From this shoulder let there spring
A wing; from this, another wing; Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! Snow-white must they spring, to blend With your flesh, but I intend They shall deepen to the end, Broader, into burning gold,
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold Your perfect self, from 'neath your To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet As if a million sword-blades hurled Defiance from you to the world!
Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal That came, nor motions to depart! Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!
What if the Three should catch at last Thy serenader? While there's cast Paul's cloak about my head, and fast Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet through my back; I reel; And... is it thou I feel?
They trail me, these three godless knaves, Past church that saints and saves, every Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves By Lido's wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink, And
on thy breast I sink!
She replies, musing.
Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep, As I do thus: were death so unlike sleep, Caught this way y? Death's to fear from flame or steel, Or poison doubtless; but from water
Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There! Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair, "T is proper to be choice in what I wear.
Row home? must we row home? Too surely Know I where its front 's demurely
Over the Giudecca piled;
Window just with window mating, Door on door exactly waiting, All's the set face of a child: But behind it, where 's a trace Of the staidness and reserve, And formal lines without a curve, In the same child's playing-face? No two windows look one way O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead! First, out a cloud of curtain blew, Then a sweet cry, and last came you To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach So far back o'er the balcony
To catch him ere he climbed too high Above you in the Smyrna peach,
That quick the round smooth cord of gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled, Fell down you like a gorgeous snake The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. Dear lory, may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!
Stay longer yet, for others' sake
Than mine! What should your chamber do? With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you
Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell As the dry limpet for the lymph Come with a tune he knows so well. And how your statues' hearts must swell! And how your pictures must descend To see each other, friend with friend! Oh, could you take them by surprise, You'd find Schidone's eager Duke Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! And, deeper into her rock den, Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen You'd find retreated from the ken Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser As if the Tizian thinks of her, And is not, rather, gravely bent On seeing for himself what toys Are these, his progeny invent, What litter now the board employs Whereon he signed a document That got him murdered! Each enjoys Its night so well, you cannot break The sport up, so, indeed must make More stay with me, for others' sake.
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say, Is used to tie the jasmine back That overfloods my room with sweets, Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon's black, The Three are watching: keep away!
Your gondola let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about Its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! That I may throw a paper out As you and he go underneath.
There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we. Only one minute more to-night with me? Resume your past self of a month ago!
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be The lady with the colder breast than snow. Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand More than I touch yours when I step to land, And say, "All thanks, Siora!"
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art! He is surprised, and stabbed.
It was ordained to be so, sweet! and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so
What's become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town?
Who'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward? - little caring For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through the merry weather, The snowiest in all December.
I left his arm that night myself
For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there, on the shelf- How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day? Never looked he half so gay !
He was prouder than the devil:
How he must have cursed our revel!
Ay and many other meetings,
Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,
As up and down he paced this London, With no work done, but great works undone, Where scarce twenty knew his name. Why not, then, have earlier spoken, Written, bustled? Who's to blame If your silence kept unbroken? "True, but there were sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved
Already which" (is that your meaning?) "Had well borne out whoe'er believed
In more to come!" But who goes gleaning Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o'erweening Pride alone, puts forth such claims O'er the day's distinguished names.
Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I've lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him, Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company,
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