Marcian Colonna An Italian Tale with Three Dramatic Scenes and Other Poems: By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter] |
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 | Marcian Colonna |  |
13
VI.
They left him to his prison, and then returned;
And festal sounds were heard, and songs were sung,
And all around the walls were garlands hung
As usual, and gay censers brightly burned
In the Colonna palace. He was missed
By none, and when his mother fondly kissed
Her eldest born, and bade him on that day
Devote him to the dove-eyed Julia,
The proud Vitelli's child, Rome's paragon,
She thought no longer of her cloistered son.
And festal sounds were heard, and songs were sung,
And all around the walls were garlands hung
As usual, and gay censers brightly burned
In the Colonna palace. He was missed
By none, and when his mother fondly kissed
Her eldest born, and bade him on that day
Devote him to the dove-eyed Julia,
The proud Vitelli's child, Rome's paragon,
She thought no longer of her cloistered son.
On that same night of mirth Vitelli came
With his fair child, sole heiress of his name,—
She came amidst the lovely and the proud,
Peerless; and when she moved, the gallant crowd
Divided, as the obsequious vapours light
Divide to let the queen-moon pass by night:
Then looks of love were seen, and many a sigh
Was wasted on the air, and some aloud
Talked of the pangs they felt and swore to die:—
She, like the solitary rose that springs
In the first warmth of summer days, and flings
A perfume the more sweet because alone—
Just bursting into beauty, with a zone
Half girl's half woman's, smiled and then forgot
Those gentle things to which she answered not.
But when Colonna's heir bespoke her hand,
And led her to the dance, she question'd why
His brother joined not in that revelry:
Careless he turned aside and did command
Loudly the many instruments to sound,
And well did that young couple tread the ground:
Each step was lost in each accordant note,
Which thro' the palace seemed that night to float
As merrily, as tho' the Satyr-god
With his inspiring reed, (the mighty Pan,)
Had left his old Arcadian woods, and trod
Piping upon the shores Italian.
With his fair child, sole heiress of his name,—
She came amidst the lovely and the proud,
Peerless; and when she moved, the gallant crowd
Divided, as the obsequious vapours light
Divide to let the queen-moon pass by night:
Then looks of love were seen, and many a sigh
Was wasted on the air, and some aloud
Talked of the pangs they felt and swore to die:—
14
In the first warmth of summer days, and flings
A perfume the more sweet because alone—
Just bursting into beauty, with a zone
Half girl's half woman's, smiled and then forgot
Those gentle things to which she answered not.
But when Colonna's heir bespoke her hand,
And led her to the dance, she question'd why
His brother joined not in that revelry:
Careless he turned aside and did command
Loudly the many instruments to sound,
And well did that young couple tread the ground:
Each step was lost in each accordant note,
Which thro' the palace seemed that night to float
As merrily, as tho' the Satyr-god
With his inspiring reed, (the mighty Pan,)
Had left his old Arcadian woods, and trod
Piping upon the shores Italian.
Again she asked in vain: yet, as he turned
(The brother) from her, a fierce colour burned
Upon his cheek, and fading left it pale
As death, and half proclaimed the guilty tale.
—She dwelt upon that night till pity grew
Into a wilder passion: the sweet dew
That linger'd in her eye ‘for pity's sake,’
Was—(like an exhalation in the sun)
Dried and absorbed by love. Oh! love can take
What shape he pleases, and when once begun
His fiery inroad in the soul, how vain
The after-knowledge which his presence gives!
We weep or rave, but still he lives and lives,
Master and lord, 'midst pride and tears and pain.
(The brother) from her, a fierce colour burned
Upon his cheek, and fading left it pale
As death, and half proclaimed the guilty tale.
15
Into a wilder passion: the sweet dew
That linger'd in her eye ‘for pity's sake,’
Was—(like an exhalation in the sun)
Dried and absorbed by love. Oh! love can take
What shape he pleases, and when once begun
His fiery inroad in the soul, how vain
The after-knowledge which his presence gives!
We weep or rave, but still he lives and lives,
Master and lord, 'midst pride and tears and pain.
| Marcian Colonna | |