R . Dearest, I wished for thee a moment gone,
And io, upon the wish thou art here.
F. Perhaps
It was thy wish that even now as I entered,
Gleamed through the citron-shadow, like a star-beam,
One star-beam of some high predominant star.
R . Why, little trifler, whither hast thou been
That thou return'st so fair fantastical?
F . Down by the fountain, where the dark cool alley
Yields into sudden light of cooler spray.
It is a noble evening — one to shame thee —
For the least hue of that all-colored heaven
Bears a more full and rich divinity
Than the best touch thy pencil ever gave, —
Thou smilest at me.
R . Rather should I sigh
To think that while I learn to love thee better,
And better prize all that belongs to thee,
In the fair company I live with always,
The tempting faces, and warm loving shapes
That make my little room a paradise,
Thou wandering about, from lighted fountains,
From groves at twilight full of changing magic,
Or yon great gallery picture hung with stars,
Gatherest contempt for that poor, mimic thing,
An artist.
F . Thou believest not thy words,
Else could I call a thousand witnesses
To swear me into innocence again.
R . Where are they?
F . Out alas! I had forgot —
I have them not — I know not where they dwell;
They roam in a dim field I may not come to,
Nor ever see them more; yet were they once
Familiar beings, inward to my soul
As is the lifeblood to the life.
R . The answer —
We have the riddle. Who are these unkind ones
Who knew the thing it is to be beside thee.
Looked on thy face, yet had the hearts to leave thee?
F . Oh there you are mistaken — you are too quick —
They had no eyes and could not see my face —
They had no power to stay — they must have left me —
Each in his turn stood on the downcleft edge
Of a most mighty river, stood and fell,
Borne to the silent things that are no more.
R . Are they then dead?
F . Ay, dead; entombed within
A glorious sepulchre, to whose broad space
The world of present things is but an atom.
There they lie dead, and here I'd weep for them,
But that I have a fairy mirror by me
Shows me their spirits, pale and beautiful
With a sweet mournful beauty.
R . Thou art mocking me;
These are but fancies thou art speaking of,
The incorporeal children of the brain.
F . Aha, brave oedipus! my lady Sphinx
Had stood in danger with thee. Hast thou guessed it?
These friends once harbored with me, now departed,
These witnesses to my clear faith and fondness,
They are all thoughts, all glorious thoughts of thee,
Infinite in their number, bright as rainbows,
And in pervading presence visitant
Whenever I am forced to be alone,
And losing thee to talk with stars and streams.
R . And, by our Lady, 'tis a good exchange.
The stars and streams are silent — cannot chide thee —
Will let a foolish woman talk by the hour
Her gentle nonsense, and reprove her never,
Nor with one frown dim their ambrosial smiles;
Thou find'st not me so easy.
F Still suspicious!
What, must I tell thee all this day's employment;
Tell how I read the heavens with curious glances,
And by a sort of wild astrology
Taught me by a young god, whose name is Love,
But who before all things resembles thee,
I tried to shape in those high starry eyes
The very looks of thine?
R . Nay, own Fiammetta,
If we must needs have such usurping spirits,
And turn the bright heavens from the things they are
Into poor semblances of earthly creatures,
They shall be all thine own — take them and wear them;
Be thou the moon, the sunset, what thou wilt
So I behold thee.
F . I will be the sky!
No narrower bound than its far unknown limit
Shall keep me prisoner. Thou hast called me fair —
Often and often on my lips thou hast sworn it —
What wilt thou say when thou shalt see me come
To press thee in those blue celestial folds,
To gaze upon thee with a million eyes,
Each eye like these, and each a fire of love?
R . I would not have thee other than thou art,
Even in the least complexion of a dimple,
For all the pictures Pietro Perugin,
My master, ever painted. And pardon me
I would not have the heavens anything
But what they are and were and still shall be,
Despite thy wish, Fiammetta. 'Tis not well
To make the eternal Beauty ministrant
To our frail lives and frailer human loves.
Three thousand years perhaps before we lived,
Some Eastern maiden framed thy very wish,
And loved and died, and in the passionless void
Vanished forever. Yet this glorious Nature
Took not a thought of her, but shone above
The blank she left, as on the place she filled.
So will it be with us — a dark night waits us —
Another moment, we must plunge within it —
Let us not mar the glimpses of pure Beauty,
Now streaming in like moonlight, with the fears,
The joys, the hurried thoughts, that rise and fall
To the hot pulses of a mortal heart.
F . How now? Thy voice was wont to speak of love:
I shall not know it, if its language change:
The clear, low utterance, and angelic tone
Will lose their music, if they praise not love.
R . And when I praise it not, or cease to fold thee
Thus in my arms, Fiammetta, may I die
Unwept, unhonored, barred without the gate
Of that high temple, where I minister
With daily ritual of colored lights
For candelabras, and pure saintly forms
To image forth the loveliness I serve.
I did but chide thee that thou minglest ever
Beauty with beauty, as with perfume perfume:
Thou canst not love a rosebud for itself,
But thinkest straight who gave that rose to thee;
The leaping fountain minds thee of the music
We heard together; and the very heaven,
The illimitable firmament of God,
Must steal a likeness to a Roman studio
Ere it can please thee.
F . I am a poor woman, sir:
A woman, poor in all things but her heart,
And when I cease to love I cease to live.
You will not cure me of this heresy;
Flames would not burn it out, nor sharp rocks tear it.
R . I am a merciful Inquisitor;
I shall enjoin thee but a gentle penance.
F . The culprit trusts the judge, and feels no fear
In his immediate presence; a rare thing
In Italy! Proceed.
R . There was a thing
Thou askedst me this morning.
F . I remember —
To see the picture thou hast kept from me.
I prithee, let me.
R . It shall be thy penance
To find it full of faults, and not one beauty.
F . Where stands it?
R . There, behind the canopy.
A great Venetian nobleman, esteemed
For a good judge, they say, by Lionardo,
Paid me a princely sum but yesterday
For this poor portrait.
F . Portrait? and of whom?
Is it a lady?
R . Yes — a Roman lady —
About your stature; and her hair is bound
With a pearl fillet, even as your own.
Her eyes are just Fiammetta's; they are turned
On a fair youth, who sits beside her, gazing
As he would drink up all their light in his.
Upon her arm a bracelet: and thereon
Is graven — —
F . Name it!
R . R APHAEL U RBINENSIS .
F . This kiss — and this — reward thee. Let me see it.