V: TO SIDNEY. WHILOM I closed the portal of my heart, So heavily, it jarring, swung apart, And in thou sallied'st like a conqueror. With manner that bespoke the realm thine own, Beganst inaugural discourse on love. Thine eloquence thrilled me like a barbed dart, I caught my breath, and strove to say-"Depart!” But lip and tongue refused alike to move, And, though thy usurpation then did grieve me, 'Twould well nigh kill me now if thou shouldst leave me. SONNETS FROM THE ITALIAN. ADALINA TO ADHÉMAR. I. FIRST LOVE. I HAVE not parted with my fifteenth year- Its footsteps in the halls of memory; But drops of bliss commingled with my tears, Already have I lived a century; And should have gray hairs stealing from my wimple, Like Julia's nurse, be leaning on a staff, With squeaking voice, and melancholy laugh, But, like brimmed wine-bowl Bach'nal founts replenish, II. THE TIME WE MET. It was the time of vernal bud and blossom, When from a thousand wind-harps music burst, And from Love's quiver sped the fatal dart That held, and holds transfixed my bleeding heart. III. LOVE BORN FULL-STATURED. My love was born full-statured. With degree, A beam launched into immortality. It walks beside me like a guiding star, More vivifying than the god of day Sheds on the orbit that he treads afar. It holds my pulses-drains my purple veins- IV. THE CITY OF MY HEART IN ASHES. WHY is the ground thou treadst more hallowed to me? Why does thy voice transfix me like a dart ? Thy glances burn their way into my heart Like rockets? Why thine image e'er pursue me? Dizzy delirium with which I reel, Like shallop staggering on a stormy ocean? Whence this new fire that through my bosom flashes These Adonèan flames whose naphtha breath Is suffocating health, hope, peace to death? Alas the city of my heart's in ashes! O Cupid! O incendiary cruel! How couldst thou fling thy torch mid such inflammable fuel ? |