EXTRACT XI.
Florence.
No—'tis not the region where Love's to be found—
They have bosoms that sigh, they have glances that rove,
They have language a Sappho's own lip might resound,
When she warbled her best—but they've nothing like Love.
Nor is't that pure sentiment only they want,
Which Heav'n for the mild and the tranquil hath made—
Calm, wedded affection, that home-rooted plant,
Which sweetens seclusion, and smiles in the shade;
That feeling, which, after long years have gone by,
Remains, like a portrait we've sat for in youth,
Where, ev'n though the flush of the colours may fly,
The features still live, in their first smiling truth;
That union, where all that in Woman is kind,
With all that in Man most ennoblingly towers,
Grow wreath'd into one—like the column, combin'd
Of the strength of the shaft and the capital's flowers.
Of this—bear ye witness, ye wives, every where,
By the Arno, the Po, by all Italy's streams—
Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,
Not a husband hath even one glimpse in his dreams.
But it is not this, only;—born full of the light
Of a sun, from whose fount the luxuriant festoons
Of these beautiful valleys drink lustre so bright,
That, beside him, our suns of the north are but moons,—
We might fancy, at least, like their climate they burn'd;
And that Love, though unus'd, in this region of spring,
To be thus to a tame Household Deity turn'd,
Would yet be all soul, when abroad on the wing.
And there may be, there are those explosions of heart,
Which burst, when the senses have first caught the flame;
Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,
Where Love is a sun-stroke, that maddens the frame.
But that Passion, which springs in the depth of the soul;
Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the source
Of some small mountain rivulet, destin'd to roll
As a torrent, ere long, losing peace in its course—
A course, to which Modesty's struggle but lends
A more headlong descent, without chance of recall;
But which Modesty ev'n to the last edge attends,
And, then, throws a halo of tears round its fall!
This exquisite Passion—ay, exquisite, even
Mid the ruin its madness too often hath made,
As it keeps, even then, a bright trace of the heaven,
That heaven of Virtue from which it has stray'd—
This entireness of love, which can only be found,
Where Woman, like something that's holy, watch'd over,
And fenc'd, from her childhood, with purity round,
Comes, body and soul, fresh as Spring, to a lover!
Where not an eye answers, where not a hand presses,
Till spirit with spirit in sympathy move;
And the Senses, asleep in their sacred recesses,
Can only be reach'd through the temple of Love!—
This perfection of Passion—how can it be found,
Where the mystery nature hath hung round the tie
By which souls are together attracted and bound,
Is laid open, for ever, to heart, ear, and eye;—
Where nought of that innocent doubt can exist,
That ignorance, even than knowledge more bright,
Which circles the young, like the morn's sunny mist,
And curtains them round in their own native light;—
Where Experience leaves nothing for Love to reveal,
Or for Fancy, in visions, to gleam o'er the thought;
But the truths which, alone, we would die to conceal
From the maiden's young heart, are the only ones taught.
No, no, 'tis not here, howsoever we sigh,
Whether purely to Hymen's one planet we pray,
Or adore, like Sabæans, each light of Love's sky,
Here is not the region, to fix or to stray.
For faithless in wedlock, in gallantry gross,
Without honour to guard, or reserve to restrain,
What have they, a husband can mourn as a loss?
What have they, a lover can prize as a gain?
