Volume IV Part 23 (1/2)

The luminous city, tall with fire, Trod deep down in that river of ours, While many a boat with lamp and choir Skimmed birdlike over glittering towers.

I will not hear these nightingales.

IX.

I seem to float, _we_ seem to float Down Arno's stream in festive guise; A boat strikes flame into our boat, And up that lady seems to rise As then she rose. The shock had flashed A vision on us! What a head, What leaping eyeb.a.l.l.s!--beauty dashed To splendour by a sudden dread.

And still they sing, the nightingales.

X.

Too bold to sin, too weak to die; Such women are so. As for me, I would we had drowned there, he and I, That moment, loving perfectly.

He had not caught her with her loosed Gold ringlets ... rarer in the south ...

Nor heard the ”Grazie tanto” bruised To sweetness by her English mouth.

And still they sing, the nightingales.

XI.

She had not reached him at my heart With her fine tongue, as snakes indeed Kill flies; nor had I, for my part, Yearned after, in my desperate need, And followed him as he did her To coasts left bitter by the tide, Whose very nightingales, elsewhere Delighting, torture and deride!

For still they sing, the nightingales.

XII.

A worthless woman; mere cold clay As all false things are: but so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware.

I would not play her larcenous tricks To have her looks! She lied and stole, And spat into my love's pure pyx The rank saliva of her soul.

And still they sing, the nightingales.

XIII.

I would not for her white and pink, Though such he likes--her grace of limb, Though such he has praised--nor yet, I think.

For life itself, though spent with him, Commit such sacrilege, affront G.o.d's nature which is love, intrude 'Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt Like spiders, in the altar's wood.

I cannot bear these nightingales.

XIV.

If she chose sin, some gentler guise She might have sinned in, so it seems: She might have p.r.i.c.ked out both my eyes, And I still seen him in my dreams!

--Or drugged me in my soup or wine, Nor left me angry afterward: To die here with his hand in mine, His breath upon me, were not hard.

(Our Lady hush these nightingales!)

XV.

But set a springe for _him_, ”mio ben,”

My only good, my first last love!-- Though Christ knows well what sin is, when He sees some things done they must move Himself to wonder. Let her pa.s.s.

I think of her by night and day.