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To his couch the purchased bride:
Past we glide!

Past we glide, and past, and past!
Why's the Pucci Palace flaring
Like a beacon to the blast?

Guests by hundreds, not one caring
If the dear host's neck were wried:
Past we glide!

She Sings

The moth's kiss, first!

Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,

How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

The bee's kiss, now!

Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.

He sings

What are we two?

I am a Jew,

And carry thee, farther than friends can

pursue,

To a feast of our tribe;

Where they need thee to bribe

The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe Thy... Scatter the vision for ever! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

Say again, what we are?

The sprite of a star,

I lure thee above where the destinies bar My plumes their full play

Till a ruddier ray

Than my pale one announce there is withering

away

Some... Scatter the vision for ever! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

He muses

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land's lap or the water's breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,

An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?
From this shoulder let there spring

A wing; from this, another wing;
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend

They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,

Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet
To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses

What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there's cast
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, Himself has past
His stylet thro' my back; I reel;
And... is it thou I feel?

They trail me, these three godless knaves
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido's wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And... on thy breast I sink!

She replies, musing

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep, As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep, Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,

Or poison doubtless; but from water-feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me?
There!

Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair,
'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks

Row home? must we row home? Too surely Know I where its front's demurely

Over the Giudecca piled;

Window just with window mating,

Door on door exactly waiting,

All's the set face of a child:

But behind it, where's a trace

Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child's playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O'er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then a sweet cry, and last came you-
To catch your lory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.

I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony

To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach

That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,

Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,

When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear lory, may his beak retain

Ever its delicate rose stain

As if the wounded lotus-blossoms

Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others' sake

Than mine! What should your chamber do?
-With all its rarities that ache

In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you

Who brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether

That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings

VOL. II

145

L

Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on

And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies

To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back

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