EIGHTH BOOK.
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NE eve it happened, when I sate alone,Alone, upon the terrace of my tower,A book upon my knees, to counterfeitThe reading that I never read at all,While Marian, in the garden down below,Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrillThe drowsy silence of the exhausted day)And peeled a new fig from that purple heapIn the grass beside her,—turning out the redTo feed her eager child, who sucked at itWith vehement lips across a gap of airAs he stood opposite, face and curls a-flameWith that last sun-ray, crying, ‘give me, give,’And stamping with imperious baby-feet,(We’re all born princes)—something startled me,—The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaksAbruptly, as if frightened at itself;’Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance aboveIn sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book,And knew, the first time, ’twas Boccaccio’s tales,The Falcon’s,—of the lover who for loveDestroyed the best that loved him. Some of usDo it still, and then we sit and laugh no more.Laugh _you_, sweet Marian! you’ve the right to laugh,Since God himself is for you, and a child!For me there’s somewhat less,—and so, I sigh. The heavens were making room to hold the night,The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gatesTo let the stars out slowly (prophesiedIn close-approaching advent, not discerned),While still the cue-owls from the cypressesOf the Poggio called and counted every pulseOf the skyey palpitation. GraduallyThe purple and transparent shadows slowHad filled up the whole valley to the brim,And flooded all the city, which you sawAs some drowned city in some enchanted sea,Cut off from nature,—drawing you who gaze,With passionate desire, to leap and plunge,And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locksYou cannot kiss but you shall bring awayTheir salt upon your lips. The duomo-bellStrikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down,So deep; and fifty churches answer itThe same, with fifty various instances.Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets;The Pitti’s palace-front is drawn in fire;And, past the quays, Maria Novella’s Place,In which the mystic obelisks stand upTriangular, pyramidal, each basedOn a single trine of brazen tortoises,To guard that fair church, Buonarroti’s Bride,That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes,Her quadrant and armillary dials, blackWith rhythms of many suns and moons, in vainEnquiry for so rich a soul as his,—Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear....And, oh my heart, ... the sea-king!
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