Scene From 'tasso'

MADDALO, A COURTIER. MALPIGLIO, A POET. PIGNA, A MINISTER. ALBANO, AN USHER.

MADDALO: No access to the Duke! You have not said That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?

PIGNA: Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna Waits with state papers for his signature?

MALPIGLIO: The Lady Leonora cannot know That 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 he The 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 sense That 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 knee Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow, And quivering--young Tasso, too, was there.

MADDALO: Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven Thou drawest down smiles--they did not rain on thee.

MALPIGLIO: Would they were parching lightnings for his sake On whom they fell!

SONG FOR 'TASSO'.

I loved--alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I 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 drink The 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 flee A silver spirit's form, like thee, O Leonora, and I sit ...still watching it, Till by the grated casement's ledge It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.