And now with thicker shades the pines appear;
The noise of hoofs grows duller on the ear;
And quitting suddenly their gravelly toil,
The wheels go spinning o'er a sandy soil.
Here first the silence of the country seems
To come about her with its listening dreams,
And full of anxious thoughts, half freed from pain,
In downward musing she relapsed again,
Leaving the others, who had passed that way
In careless spirits of the early day,
To look about, and mark the reverend scene,
For awful tales renowned, and everlasting green.
A heavy spot the forest looks at first, To one grim shade condemned, and sandy thirst, Or only chequered, here and there, with bushes Dusty and sharp, or plashy pools with rushes, About whose sides the swarming insects fry, Opening with noisome din, as they go by. But entering more and more they quit the sand At once, and strike upon a grassy land, From which the trees, as from a carpet, rise In knolls and clumps, with rich varieties. A moment's trouble find the knights to rein Their horses in, which, feeling turf again, Thrill, and curvet, and long to be at large To scour the space and give the winds a charge, Or pulling tight the bridles, as they pass,
Dip their warm mouths into the freshening grass.
But soon in easy rank, from glade to glade,
Proceed they, coasting underneath the shade,
Some baring to the cool their placid brows,
Some looking upward through the glimmering boughs,
Or peering grave through inward-opening places,
And half prepared for glimpse of shadowy faces.
Various the trees and passing foliage here,
Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper,
With briony between in trails of white,
And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light,
And moss, warm gleaming with a sudden mark,
Like growths of sunshine left upon the bark,
And still the pine, long-haired, and dark, and tall,
In lordly right, predominant o'er all.
Much they admire that old religious tree
With shaft above the rest up-shooting free,
And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind,
Its wealthy fruit with rough Mosaic rind.
At noisy intervals, the living cloud
Of cawing rooks breaks o'er them, gathering loud
Like a wild people at a stranger's coming;
Then hushing paths succeed, with insects humming,
Or ring-dove, that repeats his pensive plea,
Or startled gull up-screaming towards the sea.
But scarce their eyes encounter living thing,
Save, now and then, a goat loose wandering,
Or a few cattle, looking up aslant
With sleepy eyes and meek mouths ruminant;
Or once, a plodding woodman, old and bent,
Passing with half indifferent wonderment,
Yet turning, at the last, to look once more;
Then feels his trembling staff, and onward as before.
So ride they pleased, till now the couching sun
Levels his final look through shadows dun;
And the clear moon, with meek o'er-lifted face,
Seems come to look into the silvering place.
Then first the bride waked up, for then was heard.
Sole voice, the poet's and the lover's bird,
Preluding first, as if the sounds were cast
For the dear leaves about her, till at last
With floods of rapture, in a perfect shower,
She vents her heart on the delicious hour.
Lightly the horsemen go, as if they'd ride
A velvet path, and hear no voice beside :
A placid hope assures the breath-suspending bride.
So ride they in delight through beam and shade; Till many a rill now passed, and many a glade, They quit the piny labyrinths, and soon
Emerge into the full and day-like moon :
Chilling it seems; and pushing steed on steed,
They start them freshly with a homeward speed.
Then well-known fields they pass, and straggling cots,
Boy-storied trees, and love-remember'd spots,
And turning last a sudden corner, see
The moon-lit towers of slumbering Rimini.
The marble bridge comes heaving forth below
With a long gleam; and nearer as they go,
They see the still Marecchia, cold and bright,
Sleeping along with face against the light.
A hollow trample now, a fall of chains,-
The bride has entered, not a voice remains;
Night, and a maiden silence, wrap the plains.
Now why must I disturb a dream of bliss,
And bring cold sorrow 'twixt the wedded kiss?
How mar the face of beauty, and disclose
The weeping days that with the morning rose,
And bring the bitter disappointment in,-
The holy cheat, the virtue-binding sin,-
The shock, that told this lovely, trusting heart,
That she had given, beyond all power to part,
Her hope, belief, love, passion, to one brother,
Possession, (oh, the misery!) to another!
Some likeness was there 'twixt the two,
At times, a cheek, a color of the hair,
A tone, when speaking of indifferent things;
Nor, by the scale of common measurings,
Would you say more perhaps, than that the one
Was more robust, the other finelier spun;
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