XXVII.

So the two brothers and their murder'd man

Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan The brothers' faces in the ford did seem, Lorenzo's flush with love.-They pass'd the water Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.

There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,

There in that forest did his great love cease; Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win, It aches in loneliness-is ill at peace As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin : They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur, Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.

They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need

In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed,

And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands; To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow, And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

XXX.

She weeps alone for pleasures not to be; Sorely she wept until the night came on, And then, instead of love, O misery!

She brooded o'er the luxury alone: His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,

And to the silence made a gentle moan, Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,

XXXIV.

And she had died in drowsy ignorance,

But for a thing more deadly dark than all; It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance, Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall For some few gasping moments; like a lance, Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall With cruel pierce, and bringing him again Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

XXXV.

It was a vision.-In the drowsy gloom,

The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb

Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom

Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears.

XXXVI.

Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,

As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers among.

XXXVII.

Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof From the poor girl by magic of their light,

The while it did unthread the horrid woof

Of the late darken'd time,-the murderous spite
Of pride and avarice,-the dark pine roof
In the forest,-and the sodden turfed dell,

LV.

O Melancholy, linger here awhile!

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly! O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,

Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh! Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile; Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily, And make a pale light in your cypress glooms, finting with silver wan your marble tombs.

LVI.

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,

From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,
And touch the strings into a mystery;
Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;
For simple Isabel is soon to be
Among the dead: she withers, like a palm
Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.
LVII.

O leave the palm to wither by itself;

Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!It may not be those Baâlites of pelf,

Her brethren, noted the continual shower From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf, Among her kindred, wonder'd that such dower Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside By one mark'd out to be a Noble's bride.

LVIII.

And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd much
Why she sat drooping by the Basil green,
And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch;
Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean:
They could not surely give belief, that such

A very nothing would have power to wean
Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,
And even remembrance of her love's delay.
LIX.

Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift
This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain
For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,

And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;

;

And when she left, she hurried back, as swift As bird on wing to breast its eggs again; And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.

LX.

Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot,
And to examine it in secret place:
The thing was vile with green and livid spot,
And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face
The guerdon of their murder they had got,

And so left Florence in a moment's space, Never to turn again.-Away they went, With blood upon their heads, to banishment. LXI.

O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly! O Echo, Echo, on some other day,

From isles Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh! Spirits of grief, sing not your " Well-a-way!" For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die; Will die a death too lone and incomplete, Now they have ta'en away her Basil sweet.

LXII.

Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things, Asking for her lost Basil amorously;

And with melodious chuckle in the strings

Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,

To ask him where her Basil was; and why "T was hid from her: "For cruel 'tis," said she, "To steal my Basil-pot away from me."

LXIII.

And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
Imploring for her Basil to the last.

No heart was there in Florence but did mourn
In pity of her love, so overcast.

And a sad ditty of this story bern

From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd Still is the burthen sung-" O cruelty. To steal my Basil-pot away from me!"

X.

He ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel.
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes
Hyena foemen, ard hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howi
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.

XI.

Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond

The sound of merriment and chorus bland: He startled her: but soon she knew his face, And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand, Saying," Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place; They are all here to-night, the whole bloodthirsty race!

XII.

"Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;

He had a fever late, and in the fit

He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:
Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
More tame for his gray hairs-Alas me! flit!
Flit like a ghost away."—"Ah, gossip dear,
We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
And tell me how"-"Good Saints! not here, not
here;

Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.'