What need I tell of lovely lips and eyes, A perfect waist, and bosom's balmy rise? To clasp her to his heart, and call her his. While thus with tip-toe looks the people gaze, Another shout the neighb'ring quarters raise: The train are in the town, and gathering near, With noise of cavalry, and trumpets clear; A princely music, unbedinned with drums; The mighty brass seems opening as it comes; And now it fills, and now it shakes the air, And now it bursts into the sounding square; At which the crowd with such a shout rejoice, Each thinks he's deafen'd with his neighbor's voice. Then, with a long-drawn breath, the clangors die ; The palace trumpets give a last reply, And clattering hoofs succeed, with stately stir Of snortings proud and clinking furniture. It seems as if the harnessed war were near; But in their garb of peace the train appear, Their swords alone reserved, but idly hung, And the chains freed by which their shields were slung. First come the trumpeters, clad all in white Except the breast, which wears a scutcheon bright. By four and four they ride, on horses grey; The heralds next appear, in vests attired Twelve ranks of squires come after, twelve in one, With forked pennons lifted in the sun, Which tell, as they look backward in the wind, The bearings of the knights that ride behind. Their steeds are ruddy bay; and every squire His master's color shews in his attire. These past, and at a lordly distance, come The knights themselves, and fill the quickening hum, The flower of Rimini. Apart they ride, Six in a row, and with a various pride; But all as fresh as fancy could desire, All shapes of gallantry on steeds of fire. Differing in colors is the knights' array, *The arms of the Malatesta family. The horsemen, crimson vested, purple, and white, With various earnestness the crowd admire Horseman and horse, the motion and the attire. Some watch, as they go by, the riders' faces. Looking composure, and their knightly graces; The life, the carelessness, the sudden heed, The body curving to the rearing steed, The patting hand, that best persuades the check, And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck, The travell'd hues of some, the bloom of those, And scars, the keepsakes of admiring foes. Others the horses and their pride explore, Their jauntiness behind and strength before; The flowing back, firm chest, and fetlocks clean, The branching veins ridging the glossy lean, The mane hung sleekly, the projecting eye That to the stander near looks awfully, The finished head, in its compactness free, Small, and o'erarching to the lifted knee, The start and snatch, as if they felt the comb, With mouths that fling about the creamy foam, The snorting turbulence, the nod, the champing, The shift, the tossing, and the fiery tramping. And now the Princess, pale and with fixed eye, Of stately length, and then a troop of steeds And as with easy pitch their steps they bear, The talk increases now, and now advance, Ah-yes- A pin-drop silence strikes o'er all the place; When some one's voice, as if it knew not how To check itself, exclaims, "The prince! now - now!" |