The Marriage Before Death, And Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

—Enrico alone in his chamber. A lamp burning dimly. A volume of poems open on the table, and a large red rose in a jar near it.
[Enrico]
He speaks.

I have not reached her yet—the task is harder,
Her lover false has more force to retard her
Sweet trembling lingering growth, than I had thought.

[He pauses between the stanzas, and wrestles inwardly in spirit.

But I shall reach her: though the end be other
Than that of earthly triumph; if I smother
My very life, the battle shall be fought.

Yea—I will keep my promise made this morning,
Though truth there may be in my fair friend's warning,
A deep truth in the prophecy she brought.
The fire of God upon me burns me throughly,
And, as it burns, Bianca's soul leaps newly
Into glad life, in flaming network caught.

I feel the force go out from me, and reach her:

183

Wind round her form, fast-trembling, and beseech her:
I feel that some new marvel now is wrought.

I feel the fiery spirit of God that trembles
Along my soul—Bianca's soul dissembles
No more before it; she can cover nought.

Yet as the strength is on me, I grow weaker:
And she—she grows more tender fast and meeker,
As if by some true lover's heart besought.

I see her spirit—I see its former sorrow—
Yet as a girl laughs, she shall laugh to-morrow;
Of black years she shall not remember aught.

Oh, sacred spirit of woman—this I give thee—
I win thy soul—if I may not outlive thee—
I bring thee silver streams for desert drought.

Ha! the rose does it wither,
The rose I brought hither
This morning?
Are its petals now paler,
And drooping, and frailer,
For a warning?

184

The red rose is mine,
And my spirit I twine
In its leaves—
Its swift loss of bloom
Means that somewhere in gloom,
Death weaves
A dark shroud for my tomb.

[He pauses for a time, and appears to enter into a sort of trance state. While he is in this condition the colour rapidly and perceptibly ebbs from The petals of the red rose on the table. It grows paler and paler. A sweet strain of music, played not far off, enters the room. This appears to wake him.

Ah! now I can speak; she is won:
The fierce hot battle is done.
She is crowned with the light of the sun
On her brows: her life is begun.

Bianca now she is not
But Flora—a flower without spot.
A blossom superb and clean—
Tender in maidenly sheen.

A spirit superb and pure—
Whose love and life shall endure.
A sweet soul, spotless and fair,
Garbed in a maidenhood rare.

185

This I have won by my fight
With the spirits of sorrow and night—
To be followed, ever hereafter,
By a girl's glad sinless laughter.

Through my dream I heard
Her maidenly new-born word—
Her virginal fresh-wrought speech.
It had power my heart to reach.

And I shall never forget
That her eyes were tender and wet
When she woke this morning—though
The reason she may not know.

And now I am well content
That the veil of life be rent.
For though I pass to the grave
This wonderful soul I save.

Though I, dead, pass to the night,
This blossom henceforth is white.
Though I am forgotten, I give
To her leave to laugh and to live.

[The rose now perfectly white, shakes, and falls from the jar to the ground.
Now the eternal music poureth through me,
Its great ecstatic yearning fills my brain—
It streameth round me like some wondrous rain.

186

Ah, lady, didst not thou quite misconstrue me
Yesterday? was I “proud,” “defiant,” “wrong?”
In one thing thou wast right—I was not strong
To bear that terrible fire of God for long—
It crowned me and saved Bianca—then it slew me.