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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

Scene From 'tasso'

Percy Bysshe Shelley·1792–1822
Lines:62Movement:Romanticism
MADDALO, A COURTIER.MALPIGLIO, A POET.PIGNA, A MINISTER.ALBANO, AN USHER. MADDALO:No access to the Duke! You have not saidThat the Count Maddalo would speak with him? PIGNA:Did you inform his Grace that Signor PignaWaits with state papers for his signature? MALPIGLIO:The Lady Leonora cannot knowThat I have written a sonnet to her fame,In which I ... Venus and Adonis.You should not take my gold and serve me not. ALBANO:In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,'If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,Art the Adonis whom I love, and heThe Erymanthian boar that wounded him.'O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin. MALPIGLIO:The words are twisted in some double senseThat I reach not: the smiles fell not on me. PIGNA:How are the Duke and Duchess occupied? ALBANO:Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.The Princess sate within the window-seat,And so her face was hid; but on her kneeHer hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,And quivering--young Tasso, too, was there. MADDALO:Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heavenThou drawest down smiles--they did not rain on thee. MALPIGLIO:Would they were parching lightnings for his sakeOn whom they fell! SONG FOR 'TASSO'. I loved--alas! our life is love;But when we cease to breathe and moveI do suppose love ceases too.I thought, but not as now I do,Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,Of all that men had thought before.And all that Nature shows, and more. And still I love and still I think,But strangely, for my heart can drinkThe dregs of such despair, and live,And love;...And if I think, my thoughts come fast,I mix the present with the past,And each seems uglier than the last. Sometimes I see before me fleeA silver spirit's form, like thee,O Leonora, and I sit...still watching it,Till by the grated casement's ledgeIt fades, with such a sigh, as sedgeBreathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.