How Lisa Loved the King

 
Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering
In Music’s grasp, and forced to hear her sing.
But most such sweet compulsion took the mood
Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would).
Whether the words which that strange meaning bore
Were but the poet’s feigning, or aught more,
Was bounden question, since their aim must be
At some imagined or true royalty.
He called Minuccio, and bade him tell
What poet of the day had writ so well;
For, though they came behind all former rhymes,
The verses were not bad for these poor times.
“Monsignor, they are only three days old,”
Minuccio said; “but it must not be told
How this song grew, save to your royal ear.”
Eager, the king withdrew where none was near,
And gave close audience to Minuccio,
Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know.
The king had features pliant to confess
The presence of a manly tenderness,—
Son, father, brother, lover, blent in one,
In fine harmonic exaltatiön;
The spirit of religious chivalry.
He listened, and Minuccio could see
The tender, generous admiration spread
O’er all his face, and glorify his head
With royalty that would have kept its rank,
Though his brocaded robes to tatters shrank.
He answered without pause, “So sweet a maid,
In Nature’s own insignia arrayed,
Though she were come of unmixed trading blood
That sold and bartered ever since the flood,
Would have the self-contained and single worth
Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth.
Raona were a shame to Sicily,
Letting such love and tears unhonored be:
Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king
To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring.”
 
 
Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word,
And told at full, while none but Lisa heard,
How each thing had befallen, sang the song,
And, like a patient nurse who would prolong
All means of soothing, dwelt upon each tone,
Each look, with which the mighty Aragon
Marked the high worth his royal heart assigned
To that dear place he held in Lisa’s mind.
She listened till the draughts of pure content
Through all her limbs like some new being went—
Life, not recovered, but untried before,
From out the growing world’s unmeasured store
Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed.
’Twas glad reverse: she had so firmly fixed
To die, already seemed to fall a veil
Shrouding the inner glow from light of senses pale.
Her parents, wondering, see her half arise;
Wondering, rejoicing, see her long dark eyes
Brimful with clearness, not of ’scaping tears,
But of some light ethereal that enspheres
Their orbs with calm, some vision newly learnt
Where strangest fires erewhile had blindly burnt.
She asked to have her soft white robe and band
And coral ornaments; and with her hand
She gave her long dark locks a backward fall,
Then looked intently in a mirror small,
And feared her face might, perhaps, displease the king:
“In truth,” she said, “I am a tiny thing:
I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring.”
 
 
Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought
That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought
To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell,
With careless mien which hid his purpose well,
Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance
Passing Bernardo’s house, he paused to glance
At the fine garden of this wealthy man,
This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan;
But, presently dismounting, chose to walk
Amid the trellises, in gracious talk
With this same trader, deigning even to ask
If he had yet fulfilled the father’s task
Of marrying that daughter, whose young charms
Himself, betwixt the passages of arms,
Noted admiringly.  “Monsignor, no,
She is not married: that were little woe,
Since she has counted barely fifteen years;
But all such hopes of late have turned to fears;
She droops and fades, though, for a space quite brief,—
Scarce three hours past,—she finds some strange relief.”
The king avised: “’Twere dole to all of us,
The world should lose a maid so beauteous:
Let me now see her; since I am her liege lord,
Her spirits must wage war with death at my strong word.”
In such half-serious playfulness, he wends,
With Lisa’s father and two chosen friends,
Up to the chamber where she pillowed sits,
Watching the door that opening admits
A presence as much better than her dreams,
As happiness than any longing seems.
The king advanced, and, with a reverent kiss
Upon her hand, said, “Lady, what is this?
You, whose sweet youth should others’ solace be,
Pierce all our hearts, languishing piteously.
We pray you, for the love of us, be cheered,
Nor be too reckless of that life, endeared
To us who know your passing worthiness,
And count your blooming life as part of our life’s bliss.”
 
 
Those words, that touch upon her hand from him
Whom her soul worshipped, as far seraphim
Worship the distant glory, brought some shame
Quivering upon her cheek, yet thrilled her frame
With such deep joy she seemed in paradise,
In wondering gladness, and in dumb surprise,
That bliss could be so blissful.  Then she spoke:
“Signor, I was too weak to bear the yoke,
The golden yoke, of thoughts too great for me;
That was the ground of my infirmity.
But now I pray your grace to have belief
That I shall soon be well, nor any more cause grief.”
 
 
The king alone perceived the covert sense
Of all her words, which made one evidence,
With her pure voice and candid loveliness,
That he had lost much honor, honoring less
That message of her passionate distress.
He staid beside her for a little while,