Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"Lamia!" he shrick'd; and nothing but the shriek With its sad echo did the silence break.

"Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again

In the bride's face, where now no azure vein

Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume

The deep-recessed vision:-all was blight;
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.
"Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man !
Turn them aside, wretch ! or the righteous ban

Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
Here represent their shadowy presences,

May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn
Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,

In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright
Of conscience, for their long offended might,
For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.

Corinthians! look upon that grey-beard wretch !
Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.

"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still

[ocr errors]

Relented not, nor moved; from every ill

Of life have I preserved thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?

Then Lamia breathed death-breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look`d again a level—No!
"A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,

As were his limbs of life, from that same night,
On the high couch he lay !—his friends came round-
Supported him-no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.*

* "Philostratus, in his fourth book de Vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him; but she, being fair and lovely, would die with him, that,was fair and lovely to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant; many thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece."-BURTON's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 3, Sect. 2, Memb. I. Subs. I.

ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL;

A STORY, FROM BOCCACCIO.

I.

FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel!

Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady; They could not sit at meals but feel how well It soothed each to be the other by;

They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep, But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.

With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter

To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III.

He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes: And from her chamber-window he would catch

Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; And constant as her vespers would he watch, Because her face was turn'd to the same skies; And with sick longing all the night outwear, To hear her morning step upon the stair.

IV.

A whole long month of May in this sad plight Made their cheeks paler by the month of June: "To-morrow will I bow to my delight,

To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon.”-"O may I never see another night,

Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune.”— So spake they to their pillows; but, alas, Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
"How ill she is!" said he, "I may not speak,
And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
And at the least 'twill startle off her cares.”

VI.

So said he one fair morning, and all day
His heart beat awfully against his side;
And to his heart he inwardly did pray

For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and pulsed resolve away—
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child :
Alas when passion is both meek and wild!

VII.

So once more he had waked and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,

If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,

And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly, "Lorenzo !"-here she ceased her timid quest, But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII.

"O Isabella! I can half perceive

`That I may speak my grief into thine ear; If thou didst ever anything believe,

Believe how I love thee, believe how near My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve

Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear

Thine eyes by gazing: but I cannot live

Another night, and not my passion shrive.

« AnteriorContinuar »