XXVI.

"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.

Goodbye! I'll soon be back."--"Goodbye!" said she:-- And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.

So the two brothers and their murder'd man Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream 210 Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan The brothers' faces in the ford did seem, Lorenzo's flush with love.--They pa.s.s'd the water Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.

There was Lorenzo slain and buried in, There in that forest did his great love cease; Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win, It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace 220 As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin: They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur, Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.

They told their sister how, with sudden speed, Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands, Because of some great urgency and need In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.

Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed, And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands; 230 To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow, And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

x.x.x.

She weeps alone for pleasures not to be; Sorely she wept until the night came on, And then, instead of love, O misery!

She brooded o'er the luxury alone: His image in the dusk she seem'd to see, And to the silence made a gentle moan, Spreading her perfect arms upon the air, And on her couch low murmuring "Where? O where?" 240

x.x.xI.

But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long Its fiery vigil in her single breast; She fretted for the golden hour, and hung Upon the time with feverish unrest-- Not long--for soon into her heart a throng Of higher occupants, a richer zest, Came tragic; pa.s.sion not to be subdued, And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

x.x.xII.

In the mid days of autumn, on their eves The breath of Winter comes from far away, 250 And the sick west continually bereaves Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay Of death among the bushes and the leaves, To make all bare before he dares to stray From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel By gradual decay from beauty fell,

x.x.xIII.

Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale, Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale 260 Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale; And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud, To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

x.x.xIV.

And she had died in drowsy ignorance, But for a thing more deadly dark than all; It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance, Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall For some few gasping moments; like a lance, Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall 270 With cruel pierce, and bringing him again Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

x.x.xV.

It was a vision.--In the drowsy gloom, The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot l.u.s.tre into the sun, and put cold doom Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears Had made a miry channel for his tears. 280

x.x.xVI.

Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake; For there was striving, in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song, Like hoa.r.s.e night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

x.x.xVII.

Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof 290 From the poor girl by magic of their light, The while it did unthread the horrid woof Of the late darken'd time,--the murderous spite Of pride and avarice,--the dark pine roof In the forest,--and the sodden turfed dell, Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

x.x.xVIII.

Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!

Red whortle-berries droop above my head, And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet; Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed 300 Their leaves and p.r.i.c.kly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat Comes from beyond the river to my bed: Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom, And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

x.x.xIX.

"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!

Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling Alone: I chant alone the holy ma.s.s, While little sounds of life are round me knelling, And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pa.s.s, And many a chapel bell the hour is telling, 310 Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me, And thou art distant in Humanity.

XL.

"I know what was, I feel full well what is, And I should rage, if spirits could go mad; Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss, That paleness warms my grave, as though I had A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad; Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel A greater love through all my essence steal." 320

XLI.

The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"--dissolv'd, and left The atom darkness in a slow turmoil; As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft, Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil, We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft, And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil: It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache, And in the dawn she started up awake;

XLII.

"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life, I thought the worst was simple misery; 330 I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife Portion'd us--happy days, or else to die; But there is crime--a brother's b.l.o.o.d.y knife!

Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy: I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes, And greet thee morn and even in the skies."

XLIII.

When the full morning came, she had devised How she might secret to the forest hie; How she might find the clay, so dearly prized, And sing to it one latest lullaby; 340 How her short absence might be unsurmised, While she the inmost of the dream would try.

Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse, And went into that dismal forest-hea.r.s.e.

XLIV.

See, as they creep along the river side, How she doth whisper to that aged Dame, And, after looking round the champaign wide, Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide, That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came, 350 And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed; The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV.

Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard, And let his spirit, like a demon-mole, Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard, To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole; Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd, And filling it once more with human soul?

Ah! this is holiday to what was felt When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt. 360

XLVI.

She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though One glance did fully all its secrets tell; Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well; Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow, Like to a native lily of the dell: Then with her knife, all sudden, she began To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII.

Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies, 370 She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone, And put it in her bosom, where it dries And freezes utterly unto the bone Those dainties made to still an infant's cries: Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care, But to throw back at times her veiling hair.

XLVIII.

That old nurse stood beside her wondering, Until her heart felt pity to the core At sight of such a dismal labouring, And so she kneeled, with her locks all h.o.a.r, 380 And put her lean hands to the horrid thing: Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore; At last they felt the kernel of the grave, And Isabella did not stamp and rave.