The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

Female Beauty at Venice.—No longer what it was in the Time of Titian.—His Mistress.—Various Forms in which he has painted her.—Venus.—Divine and profane Love.—La Fragilità d' Amore.—Paul Veronese.—His Women.—Marriage of Cana.—Character of Italian Beauty.—Raphael Fornarina. Modesty.

Thy brave, thy learn'd, have past away:
Thy beautiful!—ah, where are they?
The forms, the faces, that once shone,
Models of grace, in Titian's eye,
Where are they now? while flowers live on
In ruin'd places, why, oh why
Must Beauty thus with Glory die?
That maid, whose lips would still have mov'd,
Could art have breath'd a spirit through them;
Whose varying charms her artist lov'd
More fondly every time he drew them,
(So oft beneath his touch they pass'd,
Each semblance fairer than the last);

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Wearing each shape that Fancy's range
Offers to Love—yet still the one
Fair idol, seen through every change,
Like facets of some orient stone,—
In each the same bright image shown.
Sometimes a Venus, unarray'd
But in her beauty —sometimes deck'd
In costly raiment, as a maid
That kings might for a throne select.
Now high and proud, like one who thought
The world should at her feet be brought;
Now, with a look reproachful, sad ,—
Unwonted look from brow so glad;—
And telling of a pain too deep
For tongue to speak or eyes to weep.
Sometimes, through allegory's veil,
In double semblance seen to shine,
Telling a strange and mystic tale
Of Love Profane and Love Divine —

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Akin in features, but in heart
As far as earth and heav'n apart.
Or else (by quaint device to prove
The frailty of all worldly love)
Holding a globe of glass, as thin
As air-blown bubbles, in her hand,
With a young Love confin'd therein,
Whose wings seem waiting to expand—
And telling, by her anxious eyes,
That, if that frail orb breaks, he flies!

Thou, too, with touch magnificent,
Paul of Verona!—where are they,
The oriental forms , that lent
Thy canvass such a bright array?
Noble and gorgeous dames, whose dress
Seems part of their own loveliness;

308

Like the sun's drapery, which, at eve,
The floating clouds around him weave
Of light they from himself receive!
Where is there now the living face
Like those that, in thy nuptial throng ,
By their superb, voluptuous grace,
Make us forget the time, the place,
The holy guests they smile among,—
Till, in that feast of heaven-sent wine,
We see no miracles but thine.

If e'er, except in Painting's dream,
There bloom'd such beauty here, 'tis gone,—
Gone, like the face that in the stream
Of Ocean for an instant shone,
When Venus at that mirror gave
A last look, ere she left the wave.
And though, among the crowded ways,
We oft are startled by the blaze
Of eyes that pass, with fitful light,
Like fire-flies on the wing at night ,

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'Tis not that nobler beauty, given
To show how angels look in heaven.
Ev'n in its shape most pure and fair,
'Tis Beauty, with but half her zone,—
All that can warm the Sense is there,
But the Soul's deeper charm is flown:—
'Tis Raphael's Fornarina,—warm,
Luxuriant, arch, but unrefin'd;
A flower, round which the noontide swarm
Of young Desires may buzz and wind,
But where true Love no treasure meets,
Worth hoarding in his hive of sweets.

Ah no,—for this, and for the hue
Upon the rounded cheek, which tells
How fresh, within the heart, this dew
Of Love's unrifled sweetness dwells,
We must go back to our own Isles,
Where Modesty, which here but gives
A rare and transient grace to smiles,
In the heart's holy centre lives;
And thence, as from her throne diffuses
O'er thoughts and looks so bland a reign,
That not a thought or feeling loses
Its freshness in that gentle chain.

In the Tribune at Florence.

In the Palazzo Pitti.

Alludes particularly to the portrait of her in the Sciarra collection at Rome, where the look of mournful reproach in those full, shadowy eyes, as if she had been unjustly accused of something wrong, is exquisite.

The fine picture in the Palazzo Borghese, called (it is not easy to say why) “Sacred and Profane Love,” in which the two figures, sitting on the edge of the fountain, are evidently portraits of the same person.

This fanciful allegory is the subject of a picture by Titian in the possession of the Marquis Cambian at Turin, whose collection, though small, contains some beautiful specimens of all the great masters.

As Paul Veronese gave but little into the beau ideal, his women may be regarded as pretty close imitations of the living models which Venice afforded in his time.

The Marriage of Cana.

“Certain it is (as Arthur Young truly and feelingly says) one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy.”