Ginevra

ILD, pale, and wonder-stricken,

even as one

Who staggers forth into the air
and sun

From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train
Of objects and of persons past like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil, Which made the paleness of her cheek more

pale,

And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight

doth,

And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious, - but the weary glare
Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,
Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight,

A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud
Was less heavenly fair - her face was bowed,
And as she past, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair
Which led from the cathedral to the street;
And ever as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.

The bride-maidens who round her thronging

came,

Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame, Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been an

other's

Their own by gentle sympathy; and some
Sighing to think of an unhappy home:

Some few admiring what can ever lure Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure

Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing

Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed—and, lo! she
stands

Looking in idle grief on her white hands,
Alone within the garden now her own;

And through the sunny air, with jangling

tone,

The music of the merry marriage bells,

Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells; —
Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams
That he is dreaming, until slumber seems
A mockery of itself— when suddenly
Antonio stood before her, pale as she.

With agony,

with sorrow, and with pride, He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,

And said "Is this thy faith?" and then as

one

Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun

With light like a harsh voice, which bids him

rise

And look upon his day of life with eyes

Which weep in vain that they can dream no

more,

Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore

To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood

Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued
Said" Friend, if earthly violence or ill,
Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will

Of parents, chance, or custom, time or change,
Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge,

Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech, With all their stings and venom can impeach we love not: - if the

Our love,

hides

grave which

The victim from the tyrant, and divides

The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart Imperious inquisition to the heart

That is another's, could dissever ours,

We love not."-"What! do not the silent

hours

Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed?

Is not that ring”—a pledge, he would have said,

Of broken vows, but she with patient look

The golden circle from her finger took,

And said "Accept this token of

my faith,

The pledge of vows to be absolved by death;
And I am dead or shall be soon
my knell
Will mix its music with that merry bell.
Does it not sound as if they sweetly said
'We toll a corpse out of the marriage bed?'
The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn
Will serve unfaded for my bier-so soon
That even the dying violet will not die
Before Ginevra." The strong fantasy

Had made her accents weaker and more weak,
And quenched the crimson life upon her cheek,
And glazed her eyes, and spread an atmos-

phere

Round her, which chilled the burning noon

with fear,

Making her but an image of the thought,

Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought