Scene.—Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo.
Luigi and his Mother entering.
If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh,
The utmost heaviness of music's heart.
Here in the archway?
Mother Oh no, no—in farther,
Where the echo is made, on the ridge.
Luigi Here surely, then.
How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up!
Hark—"Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a
Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are those?
Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead?
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached
That lean out of their topmost
And listen, mountain men, to what we say,
Hand under chin of each grave earthy face.
Up and show faces all of you!—"All of you!"That's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old Franz,
Come down and meet your fate?
Hark—"Meet your
Let him not meet it, my Luigi—do
Go to his City!
Putting crime aside,
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned:
Your Pellicos and writers for effect,
Write for effect.
Luigi Hush!
Say A. writes, and B.
These A.s and B.s write for effect,
I say.
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while
Is silent; you hear each petty injury,
None of his virtues; he is old beside,
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid.
Do A. and B. not kill him themselves?
Luigi They
Others to kill him—me—and, if I fail,
Others to succeed; now, if A. tried and failed,
I could not teach that: mine's the lesser task.
Mother, they visit night by night . . .
Mother —You,
Luigi?
Ah, will you let me tell you what you are?
Why not?
Oh, the one thing you fear to hint,
You may assure yourself I say and
Ever to myself!
At times—nay, even as
We sit—I think my mind is touched,
All is not sound: but is not knowing that,
What constitutes one sane or otherwise?
I know I am thus—so, all is right again.
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk.
And see men merry as if no
Were suffering; then I ponder—"I am rich,"Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me,"More than it troubles these?" But it does trouble.
No, trouble's a bad word: for as I
There's springing and melody and giddiness,
And old quaint turns and passages of my youth,
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves,
Return to me—whatever may amuse me:
And earth seems in a truce with me, and
Accords with me, all things suspend their strife,
The very cicala laughs "There goes he, and there!"Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way"For the world's sake: feast him this once, our friend!"And in return for all this,
I can
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps.
I
This evening, mother!
Mother But mistrust yourself—Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him!
Oh, there I feel—am sure that I am right!
Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere
To this wild enterprise.
Say, you are right,—How should one in your state e'er bring to
What would require a cool head, a cold heart,
And a calm hand?
You never will escape.
Escape?
To even wish that, would spoil all.
The dying is best part of it.
Too
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine,
To leave myself excuse for longer life:
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy,
That I might finish with it ere my
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay?
I was put at the board-head, helped to
At first;
I rise up happy and content.
God must be glad one loves his world so much.
I can give news of earth to all the
Who ask me:—last year's sunsets, and great
Which had a right to come first and see
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away—Those crescent moons with notched and burning
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood,
Impatient of the azure—and that
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm—May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights—Gone are they, but I have them in my soul!
Mother(He will not go!)Luigi You smile at me? 'T is true,—Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness,
Environ my devotedness as
As round about some antique altar
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls.
See now: you reach the city, you must
His threshold—how?
Luigi Oh, that's if we conspired!
Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess—But guess not how the qualities most
For such an office, qualities I have,
Would little stead me, otherwise employed,
Yet prove of rarest merit only here.
Every one knows for what his
Will serve, but no one ever will
For what his worst defect might serve: and
Have you not seen me range our coppice
In search of a distorted ash?—I
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow.
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned
Arriving at the palace on my errand!
No, no!
I have a handsome dress packed up—White satin here, to set off my black hair;
In I shall march—for you may watch your life
Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you;
More than one man spoils everything.
March straight—Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for.
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter)
Thro' guards and guards—I have rehearsed it
Inside the turret here a hundred times.
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe!
But where they cluster thickliest is the
Of doors; they'll let you pass—they'll never
Each to the other, he knows not the favourite,
Whence he is bound and what's his business now.
Walk in—straight up to him; you have no knife:
Be prompt, how should he scream?
Then, out with you!
Italy,
Italy, my Italy!
You're free, you're free!
Oh mother,
I could
They got about me—Andrea from his exile,
Pier from his dungeon,
Gualtier from his grave!
Well, you shall go.
Yet seems this
The easiest virtue for a selfish
To acquire: he loves himself—and next, the world—If he must love beyond,—but nought between:
As a short-sighted man sees nought
His body and the sun above.
But
Are my adored Luigi, ever
To my least wish, and running o'er with love:
I could not call you cruel or unkind.
Once more, your ground for killing him!—then go!
Now do you try me, or make sport of me?
How first the Austrians got these provinces . . .(If that is all,
I'll satisfy you soon)—Never by conquest but by cunning,
That treaty whereby . . .
Mother Well?
Luigi (Sure, he's arrived,
The tell-tale cuckoo: spring's his confidant,
And he lets out her April purposes!)Or . . . better go at once to modern time,
He has . . . they have . . . in fact,
I
But can't restate the matter; that's my boast:
Others could reason it out to you, and
Things they have made me feel.
Mother Why go to-night?
Morn's for adventure.
Jupiter is nowA morning-star.
I cannot hear you,
Luigi!
Luigi"I am the bright and morning-star," saith God—And, "to such an one I give the morning-star.
The gift of the morning-star!
Have I God's
Of the morning-star?
Mother Chiara will love to
That Jupiter an evening-star next June.
True, mother.
Well for those who live through June!
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring
That triumph at the heels of June the
Leading his revel through our leafy world.
Yes,
Chiara will be here.
Mother In June: remember,
Yourself appointed that month for her coming.
Was that low noise the echo?
Mother The night-wind.
She must be grown—with her blue eyes
As if life were one long and sweet surprise:
In June she comes.
Luigi We were to see
The Titian at Treviso.
There, again![From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—] A king lived long ago, In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now: And the king's locks curled, Disparting o'er a forehead full As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Of some sacrificial bull— Only calm as a babe new-born: For he was got to a sleepy mood, So safe from all decrepitude, Age with its bane, so sure gone by, (The gods so loved him while he dreamed) That, having lived thus long, there seemed No need the king should ever die.
No need that sort of king should ever die! Among the rocks his city was: Before his palace, in the sun, He sat to see his people pass, And judge them every one From its threshold of smooth stone. They haled him many a valley-thief Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found On the sea-sand left aground; And sometimes clung about his feet, With bleeding lip and burning cheek, A woman, bitterest wrong to speak Of one with sullen thickset brows: And sometimes from the prison-house The angry priests a pale wretch brought, Who through some chink had pushed and pressed On knees and elbows, belly and breast, Worm-like into the temple,—caught He was by the very god, Who ever in the darkness strode Backward and forward, keeping watch O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch! These, all and every one, The king judged, sitting in the sun.
That king should still judge sitting in the sun! His councillors, on left and right, Looked anxious up,—but no surprise Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes Where the very blue had turned to white. 'T is said, a Python scared one day The breathless city, till he came, With forky tongue and eyes on flame Where the old king sat to judge alway, But when he saw the sweepy hair Girt with a crown of berries rare Which the god will hardly give to wear To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, At his wondrous forest rites,— Seeing this, he did not dare Approach that threshold in the sun, Assault the old king smiling there. Such grace had kings when the world begun![Pippa
And such grace have they, now that the world ends!
The Python at the city, on the throne,
And brave men,
God would crown for slaying him,
Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey.
Are crowns yet to be won in this late time,
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach?'T is God's voice calls: how could I stay?
Farewell!
Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the Turret to the Bishop's Brother's House, close to the Duomo S.
Maria.
Girls sitting on the steps.1st
There goes a swallow to Venice—the stout seafarer!
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings.
Let us all wish; you wish first!2nd Girl I?
This
To finish.3rd Girl That old—somebody I know,
Greyer and older than my grandfather,
To give me the same treat he gave last week—Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers,
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and
The while some folly about how well I fare,
Let sit and eat my supper quietly:
Since had he not himself been late this
Detained at—never mind where,—had he not . . ."Eh, baggage, had I not!"—2nd Girl How she can lie!3rd
Look there—by the nails!2nd Girl. What makes your fingers red?3rd
Dipping them into wine to write bad words
On the bright table: how he laughed!1st Girl My turn.
Spring's come and summer's coming.
I would wearA long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day;
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed;
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat,
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . ah,
I should say,
This is away in the fields—miles!3rd Girl Say at
You'd be at home: she'd always be at home!
Now comes the story of the farm
The cherry orchards, and how April
White blossoms on her as she ran.
Why, fool,
They've rubved the chalk-mark out, how tall you
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage,
Made a dung-hill of your garden!1st Girl They,
My garden since I left them? well—perhaps!
I would have done so: so I hope they have!
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;
They called it mine,
I have forgotten why,
It must have been there long ere I was born:
Cric—cric—I think I hear the wasps
Pricking the papers strung to flutter
And keep off birds in fruit-time—coarse long papers,
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.3rd
How her mouth twitches!
Where was
She broke in with her wishes and long
And wasps—would I be such a fool!—Oh, here!
This is my way:
I answer every
Who asks me why I make so much of him—(If you say, "you love him"—straight "he'll not be gulled!")"He that seduced me when I was a girl"Thus high—had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,"Brown, red, white,"—as the case may be: that pleases!
See how that beetle burnishes in the path!
There sparkles he along the dust: and, there—Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least!1st
When I was young, they said if you killed
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next.2nd
When you were young?
Nor are you young, that's true.
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!
Why,
I can span them.
Cecco beats you still?
No matter, so you keep your curious hair.
I wish they'd find a way to dye our
Your colour—any lighter tint, indeed,
Than black: the men say they are sick of black,
Black eyes, black hair!4th Girl Sick of yours, like enough.
Do you pretend you ever tasted
And ortolans?
Giovita, of the palace,
Engaged (but there's no trusting him) to slice
Polenta with a knife that had cut
An ortolan.2nd Girl Why, there!
Is not that
We are to talk to, under the window,—quick,—Where the lights are?1st Girl That she?
No, or she would sing.
For the Intendant said . . .3rd Girl Oh, you sing first!
Then, if she listens and comes close . .
I'll tell you,—Sing that song the young English noble made,
Who took you for the purest of the pure,
And meant to leave the world for you—what fun!2nd Girl[sings]You'll love me yet!—and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing.
I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike,
And yield—what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like.
You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet:
Your look?—that pays a thousand pains. What's death?
You'll love me yet!3rd Girl[to Pippa who approaches]Oh, you may come closer—we shall not eat you!
Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with.
I'll tell you all about it.
