| |
| OF late, in one of those most weary hours, | |
| When life seems emptied of all genial powers, | |
| A dreary mood, which he who ne’er has known | |
| May bless his happy lot, I sate alone; | |
| And, from the numbing spell to win relief, | 5 |
| Call’d on the Past for thought of glee or grief. | |
| In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee, | |
| I sate and cow’r’d o’er my own vacancy! | |
| And as I watched the dull continuous ache, | |
| Which, all else slumbering, seem’d alone to wake; | 10 |
| O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal, | |
| And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, | |
| I but half saw that quiet hand of thine | |
| Place on my desk this exquisite design, | |
| Boccaccio’s Garden and its faery, | 15 |
| The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! | |
| An Idyll, with Boccaccio’s spirit warm, | |
| Framed in the silent poesy of form. | |
| Like flocks a-down a newly-bathed steep | |
| Emerging from a mist: or like a stream | 20 |
| Of music soft, that not dispels the sleep, | |
| But casts in happier moulds the slumberer’s dream, | |
| Gazed by an idle eye with silent might | |
| The picture stole upon my inward sight. | |
| A tremulous warmth crept gradual o’er my chest, | 25 |
| As though an infant’s finger touch’d my breast. | |
| And one by one (I know not whence) were brought | |
| All spirits of power that most had stirr’d my thought | |
| In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost | |
| Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost; | 30 |
| Or charm’d my youth, that, kindled from above, | |
| Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; | |
| Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan | |
| Of manhood, musing what and whence is man! | |
| Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves | 35 |
| Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves; | |
| Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, | |
| That call’d on Hertha in deep forest glades; | |
| Or minstrel lay, that cheer’d the baron’s feast; | |
| Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, | 40 |
| Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, | |
| To high-church pacing on the great saint’s day. | |
| And many a verse which to myself I sang, | |
| That woke the tear yet stole away the pang, | |
| Of hopes which in lamenting I renew’d. | 45 |
| And last, a matron now, of sober mien, | |
| Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, | |
| Whom as a faery child my childhood woo’d | |
| Even in my dawn of thought—Philosophy; | |
| Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, | 50 |
| She bore no other name than Poesy; | |
| And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, | |
| That had but newly left a mother’s knee, | |
| Prattled and play’d with bird and flower, and stone, | |
| As if with elfin playfellows well known, | 55 |
| And life reveal’d to innocence alone. | |
| Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry | |
| Thy fair creation with a mastering eye, | |
| And all awake! And now in fixed gaze stand, | |
| Now wander through the Eden of thy hand; | 60 |
| Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear | |
| See fragment shadows of the crossing deer; | |
| And with that serviceable nymph I stoop | |
| The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. | |
| I see no longer! I myself am there, | 65 |
| Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. | |
| ’Tis I, that sweep that lute’s love-echoing strings, | |
| And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; | |
| Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells | |
| From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. | 70 |
| With old Boccaccio’s soul I stand possest, | |
| And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. | |
| |
| The brightness of the world, O thou once free, | |
| And always fair, rare land of courtesy! | |
| O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills | 75 |
| And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; | |
| Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy! | |
| Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, | |
| The golden corn, the olive, and the vine, | |
| Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, | 80 |
| And forests, where beside his leafy hold | |
| The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn; | |
| Palladian palace with its storied halls; | |
| Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; | |
| Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, | 85 |
| And Nature makes her happy home with man: | |
| Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed | |
| With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, | |
| And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, | |
| A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn | 90 |
| Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;— | |
| Thine all delights, and every muse is thine; | |
| And more than all, the embrace and intertwine | |
| Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance! | |
| ’Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance, | 95 |
| See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees | |
| The new found roll of old Mæonides; | |
| But from his mantle’s fold, and near the heart, | |
| Peers Ovid’s Holy Book of Love’s sweet smart! | |
| |
| O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, | 100 |
| Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, | |
| Where, half conceal’d, the eye of fancy views | |
| Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse! | |
| Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, | |
| And see in Dian’s vest between the ranks | 105 |
| Of the twin vines, some maid that half believes | |
| The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves, | |
| With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves! | |
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