University of Virginia Library

O, who hath lived the ills to know
Which make the sum of life below,
That hath not felt, if, 'mid the brood
Of half-wrought beings, hither sent
As if in promised punishment
Of vicious ancestry, there stood
A Form of purest symmetry,—
Where Nature seemed as she would try,
In spite of Vice, to keep on earth
Some vestige of primeval birth;—
Ah, who on such a form hath dwelt,
And hath not in his gazing felt
A sudden stream of horror rush
Back on his heart, to think how soon,
Ere yet perchance she reach her noon,
The Giant Sin may grinning crush
This living flower of Paradise,—
May send its fragrance, born to rise,
Downward, a hellish sacrifice!

There is a deep, foreboding flush,
That fain would seem a truant blush,
Doth in the smooth and lovely cheek
Of youthful Beauty oft bespeak
The victim of a swift decay;
And, when the light of love doth rise
Effulgent in her lucid eyes,
Full many a heart, that joyous fell
A captive to their radiant spell,
May now in bitter sadness tell
How, like the last protracted ray
Of the last Greenland summer day,
That flashes on the western wave,
They flashed, and sunk,—but sunk into the grave!

So seemed Monaldi to the eye
Experienced in this world of woe;
Too blest for mortal long below,—
Too blest for one who blest would die.
Of lineage proud, his ancient name
Had long in Fiorenza stood
The record of the noblest blood
Which flowed for Fiorenza's fame.
And yet on him did Nature's hand
Such rare and varied gifts bestow,
His virtues rather seemed to throw
A heritless, reflected grace
Through ages back upon his race,
The mightiest of a mighty land.
Nor were the lighter gifts denied
Of manly form or noble mien;
Such form, if ancient Greece had seen,
Like Jason's had been deified,
And virgin hands with flowers had dressed
An altar for the heavenly guest,
As if, to bless their grateful eyes,
Apollo's self had left the skies,
Greeting their pious sacrifice.
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She had an eye of such a hue,
So ever-varying, ever new,
That none on whom its lustre fell
Could e'er forget,—could ever tell
If like the mild approach of day,
The morning twilight's watery gray;
Or like the noontide's dazzling blue;
Or beamy brown, when evening dew
Prolongs the dim, departing light;
Or the jet, that seems to quench the sight,
Of a starless, still autumnal night.
For oft 't was like an armèd knight,
In steel encompassed, dark and bright,
And fiercely flashed, as if 't would lead
Onward to some immortal deed:
And then it seemed an elfin well,
Imbowered in some sequestered dell,
Where Cupids sport in ceaseless motion,
Bathing as in an amber ocean!

Ah, then he wished that life would prove
For ever thus, a dream of love!
But oft,—more oft,—with searing pain,
It seemed a wandering comet's train,
Streaming athwart his burning brain,—
Foreboding with its lurid flame
An evil yet without a name!
And well, Monaldi, mayst thou rue
This vision which thy fancy drew;
For thine was but a fearful bliss,—
A trancing, but a poisoned, kiss!
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