The improvisatrice; and other poems By L. E. L. [i.e. Landon] With embellishments. A new edition |
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 | The improvisatrice; and other poems |  |
There is a lone and stately hall,
Its master dwells apart from all.
A wanderer through Italia's land,
One night a refuge there I found.
The lightning flash rolled o'er the sky,
The torrent rain was sweeping round:
These won me entrance. He was young,
The castle's lord, but pale like age;
His brow, as sculpture beautiful,
Was wan as Grief's corroded page,
He had no words, he had no smiles,
No hopes:—his sole employ to brood
Silently over his sick heart
In sorrow and in solitude.
I saw the hall where, day by day,
He mused his weary life away;
It scarcely seemed a place for woe,
But rather like a genie's home.
Around were graceful statues ranged,
And pictures shone around the dome.
But there was one—a loveliest one!—
One picture brightest of all there!
Oh! never did the painter's dream
Shape thing so gloriously fair!
It was a face!—the summer day
Is not more radiant in its light!
Dark flashing eyes, like the deep stars
Lighting the azure brow of night;
A blush like sunrise o'er the rose;
A cloud of raven hair, whose shade
Was sweet as evening's, and whose curls
Clustered beneath a laurel braid.
She leant upon a harp:—one hand
Wandered, like snow, amid the chords;
The lips were opening with such life,
You almost heard the silvery words.
She looked a form of light and life,—
All soul, all passion, and all fire;
A priestess of Apollo's, when
The morning beams fall on her lyre;
A Sappho, or ere love had turned
The heart to stone where once it burned.
But by the picture's side was placed
A funeral urn, on which was traced
The heart's recorded wretchedness;—
And on a tablet, hung above,
Was 'graved one tribute of sad words—
‘Lorenzo to his Minstrel Love. ’
Its master dwells apart from all.
A wanderer through Italia's land,
One night a refuge there I found.
The lightning flash rolled o'er the sky,
The torrent rain was sweeping round:
These won me entrance. He was young,
The castle's lord, but pale like age;
103
Was wan as Grief's corroded page,
He had no words, he had no smiles,
No hopes:—his sole employ to brood
Silently over his sick heart
In sorrow and in solitude.
I saw the hall where, day by day,
He mused his weary life away;
It scarcely seemed a place for woe,
But rather like a genie's home.
Around were graceful statues ranged,
And pictures shone around the dome.
But there was one—a loveliest one!—
One picture brightest of all there!
Oh! never did the painter's dream
Shape thing so gloriously fair!
104
Is not more radiant in its light!
Dark flashing eyes, like the deep stars
Lighting the azure brow of night;
A blush like sunrise o'er the rose;
A cloud of raven hair, whose shade
Was sweet as evening's, and whose curls
Clustered beneath a laurel braid.
She leant upon a harp:—one hand
Wandered, like snow, amid the chords;
The lips were opening with such life,
You almost heard the silvery words.
She looked a form of light and life,—
All soul, all passion, and all fire;
A priestess of Apollo's, when
The morning beams fall on her lyre;
105
The heart to stone where once it burned.
But by the picture's side was placed
A funeral urn, on which was traced
The heart's recorded wretchedness;—
And on a tablet, hung above,
Was 'graved one tribute of sad words—
‘Lorenzo to his Minstrel Love. ’
| The improvisatrice; and other poems | |