Your broken love!’
My Father, have I not
Yet told you the last things of that last day 490
On which I went to meet her by the sea?
O God, O God! but I must tell you all.
Midway upon my journey, when I stopped
To buy the dagger at the village fair,
I saw two cursed rats about the place 495
I knew for spies - blood-sellers both. That day
Was not yet over; for three hours to come
I prized my life: and so I looked around
For safety. A poor painted mountebank
Was playing tricks and shouting in a crowd. 500
I knew he must have heard my name, so I
Pushed past and whispered to him who I was,
And of my danger. Straight he hustled me
Into his booth, as it were in the trick,
And brought me out next minute with my face 505
All smeared in patches, and a zany’s gown;
And there I handed him his cups and balls
And swung the sand-bags round to clear the ring
For half an hour. The spies came once and looked;
And while they stopped, and made all sights and sounds 510
Sharp to my startled senses, I remember
A woman laughed above me. I looked up
And saw where a brown-shouldered harlot leaned
Half through a tavern window thick with vine.
Some man had come behind her in the room 515
And caught her by her arms, and she had turned
With that coarse empty laugh on him, as now
He munched her neck with kisses, while the vine
Crawled in her back.
And three hours afterwards,
When she that I had run all risks to meet 520
Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
Heard at the fair. She had not left me long;
But all she might have changed to, or might change to,
(I know naught since - she never speaks a word —) 525
Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,
Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
When I had offered her the little knife,
And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet? 530
‘Take it,’ I said to her the second time,
‘Take it and keep it.’ And then came a fire
That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood,
And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
The day was one red blindness; till it seemed 535
Within the whirling brain’s entanglement
That she or I or all things bled to death.
And then I found her laid against my feet
And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
Her look in falling. For she took the knife 540
Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
And fell; and her stiff bodice scooped the sand
Into her bosom.
And she keeps it, see,
Do you not see she keeps it? - there, beneath
Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart. 545
For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
The little hilt of horn and pearl, - even such
A dagger as our women of the coast
Twist in their garters.
Father, I have done:
And from her side now she unwinds the thick 550
Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
But like the sand at Iglio does not change.
Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
I have told all tell me at once what hope
Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
Soon, when she shows the crimson blade to God.
DANTE AT VERONA
Yea, thou shalt learn how salt his food who fares
Upon another’s bread, - how steep his path
Who treadeth up and down another’s stairs
(Divine Comedy Paradise xvii)
Behold, even I, even I am Beatrice.
(Divine Comedy Purgatory xxx)
Of Florence and of Beatrice
Servant and singer from of old,
O’er Dante’s heart in youth had toll’d
The knell that gave his Lady peace;
And now in manhood flew the dart 5
Wherewith his City pierced his heart.
Yet if his Lady’s home above
Was Heaven, on earth she filled his soul;
And if his City held control
To cast the body forth to rove, 10
The soul could soar from earth’s vain throng,
And Heaven and Hell fulfil the song.
Follow his feet’s appointed way; -
But little light we find that clears
The darkness of the exiled years. 15
Follow his spirit’s journey: - nay,
What fires are blent, what winds are blown
On paths his feet may tread alone?
Yet of the twofold life he led
In chainless thought and fettered will 20
Some glimpses reach us, - somewhat still
Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,-
Of the soul’s quest whose stern avow
For years had made him haggard now.
Alas! the Sacred Song whereto 25
Both heaven and earth had set their hand
Not only at Fame’s gate did stand
Knocking to claim the passage through,
But toiled to ope that heavier door
Which Florence shut for evermore. 30
Shall not his birth’s baptismal Town
One last high presage yet fulfil,
And at that font in Florence still
His forehead take the laurel-crown?
O God! or shall dead souls deny 35
The undying soul its prophecy?
Aye, ’tis their hour. Not yet forgot
The bitter words he spoke that day
When for some great charge far away
Her rulers his acceptance sought. 40
‘And if I go, who stays?’ - so rose
His scorn: - ‘and if I stay, who goes?’
‘Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay:’
(The curled lips mutter): ‘and no star
Is from thy mortal path so far 45
As streets where childhood knew the way.
To Heaven and Hell thy feet may win,
But thine own house they come not in.’
Therefore, the loftier rose the song
To touch the secret things of God, 50
The deeper pierced the hate that trod
On base men’s track who wrought the wrong;
Till the soul’s effluence came to be
Its own exceeding agony.
Arriving only to depart, 55
From court to court, from land to land,
Like flame within the naked hand
His body bore his burning heart
That still on Florence strove to bring
God’s fire for a burnt offering. 60
Even such was Dante’s mood, when now,
Mocked for long years with Fortune’s sport,
He dwelt at yet another court,
There where Verona’s knee did bow
And her voice hailed with all acclaim 65
Can Grande della Scala’s name.
As that lord’s kingly guest awhile
His life we follow; through the days
Which walked in exile’s barren ways, -
The nights which still beneath one smile 70
Heard through all spheres one song increase, -
‘Even I, ev
en I am Beatrice.’
At Can La Scala’s court, no doubt,
Due reverence did his steps attend;
The ushers on his path would bend 75
At ingoing as at going out;
The penmen waited on his call
At council-board, the grooms in hall.
And pages hushed their laughter down,
And gay squires stilled the merry stir, 80
When he passed up the dais-chamber
With set brows lordlier than a frown;
And tire-maids hidden among these
Drew close their loosened bodices.
Perhaps the priests, (exact to span 85
All God’s circumference,) if at whiles
They found him wandering in their aisles,
Grudged ghostly greeting to the man
By whom, though not of ghostly guild,
With Heaven and Hell men’s hearts were fill’d. 90
And the court-poets (he, forsooth,
A whole world’s poet strayed to court!)
Had for his scorn their hate’s retort.
He’d meet them flushed with easy youth,
Hot on their errands. Like noon-flies 95
They vexed him in the ears and eyes.
But at this court, peace still must wrench
Her chaplet from the teeth of war:
By day they held high watch afar,
At night they cried across the trench; 100
And still, in Dante’s path, the fierce
Gaunt soldiers wrangled o’er their spears.
But vain seemed all the strength to him,
As golden convoys sunk at sea
Whose wealth might root out penury: 105
Because it was not, limb with limb,
Knit like his heart-strings round the wall
Of Florence, that ill pride might fall.
Yet in the tiltyard, when the dust
Cleared from the sundered press of knights 110
Ere yet again it swoops and smites,
He almost deemed his longing must
Find force to wield that multitude
And hurl that strength the way he would.
How should he move them, - fame and gain 115
On all hands calling them at strife?
He still might find but his one life
To give, by Florence counted vain;
One heart the false hearts made her doubt;
One voice she heard once and cast out. 120
Oh! if his Florence could but come,
A lily-sceptred damsel fair,
As her own Giotto painted her
On many shields and gates at home, -
A lady crowned, at a soft pace 125
Riding the lists round to the dais:
Till where Can Grande rules the lists,
As young as Truth, as calm as Force,
She draws her rein now, while her horse
Bows at the turn of the white wrists; 130
And when each knight within his stall
Gives ear, she speaks and tells them all:
All the foul tale, - truth sworn untrue
And falsehood’s triumph. All the tale?
Great God! and must she not prevail 135
To fire them ere they heard it through, -
And hand achieve ere heart could rest
That high adventure of her quest?
How would his Florence lead them forth,
Her bridle ringing as she went; 140
And at the last within her tent,
‘Neath golden lilies worship-worth,
How queenly would she bend the while
And thank the victors with her smile!
Also her lips should turn his way 145
And murmur: ‘O thou tried and true,
With whom I wept the long years through!
What shall it profit if I say,
Thee I remember? Nay, through thee
All ages shall remember me.’ 150
Peace, Dante, peace! The task is long,
The time wears short to compass it.
Within thine heart such hopes may flit
And find a voice in deathless song:
But lo! as children of man’s earth, 155
Those hopes are dead before their birth.
Fame tells us that Verona’s court
Was a fair place. The feet might still
Wander for ever at their will
In many ways of sweet resort; 160
And still in many a heart around
The Poet’s name due honour found.
Watch we his steps. He comes upon
The women at their palm-playing.
The conduits round the gardens sing 165
And meet in scoops of milk-white stone,
Where wearied damsels rest and hold
Their hands in the wet spurt of gold.
One of whom, knowing well that he,
By some found stern, was mild with them, 170
Would run and pluck his garment’s hem,
Saying, ‘Messer Dante, pardon me,’ -
Praying that they might hear the song
Which first of all he made, when young.
‘Donne che avete’... Thereunto 175
Thus would he murmur, having first
Drawn near the fountain, while she nurs’d
His hand against her side: a few
Sweet words, and scarcely those, half said:
Then turned, and changed, and bowed his head. 180
For then the voice said in his heart,
‘Even I, even I am Beatrice;’
And his whole life would yearn to cease:
Till having reached his room, apart
Beyond vast lengths of palace-floor, 185
He drew the arras round his door.
At such times, Dante, thou hast set
Thy forehead to the painted pane
Full oft, I know; and if the rain
Smote it outside, her fingers met 190
Thy brow; and if the sun fell there,
Her breath was on thy face and hair.
Then, weeping, I think certainly
Thou hast beheld, past sight of eyne, -
Within another room of thine 195
Where now thy body may not be
But where in thought thou still remain’st,-
A window often wept against:
The window thou, a youth, hast sought,
Flushed in the limpid eventime, 200
Ending with daylight the day’s rhyme
Of her: where oftenwhiles her thought
Held thee - the lamp untrimmed to write -
In joy through the blue lapse of night.
At Can La Scala’s court, no doubt, 205
Guests seldom wept. It was brave sport,
No doubt, at Can La Scala’s court,
Within the palace and without;
Where music, set to madrigals,
Loitered all day through groves and halls. 210
Because Can Grande of his life
Had not had six-and-twenty years
As yet. And when the chroniclers
Tell you of that Vicenza strife
And of strifes elsewhere, - you must not 215
Conceive for church-sooth he had got
Just nothing in his wits but war:
Though doubtless ’twas the young man’s joy
(Grown with his growth from a mere boy,)
To mark his ‘Viva Cane!’ scare 220
The foe’s shut front, till it would reel
All blind with shaken points of steel.
But there were places - held too sweet
For eyes that had not the due veil
Of lashes and clear lids - as well 225
In favour as his saddle-seat:
Breath of low speech he scorned not there
Nor light cool fingers in his hair.
Yet if the child whom the sire’s plan
Made free of a deep treasure-che
st 230
Scoffed it with ill-conditioned jest, -
We may be sure too that the man
Was not mere thews, nor all content
With lewdness swathed in sentiment.
So you may read and marvel not 235
That such a man as Dante - one
Who, while Can Grande’s deeds were done,
Had drawn his robe round him and thought-
Now at the same guest-table far’d
Where keen Uguccio wiped his beard. 240
Through leaves and trellis-work the sun
Left the wine cool within the glass, -
They feasting where no sun could pass:
And when the women, all as one,
Rose up with brightened cheeks to go, 245
It was a comely thing, we know.
But Dante recked not of the wine;
Whether the women stayed or went,
His visage held one stern intent:
And when the music had its sign 250
To breathe upon them for more ease,
Sometimes he turned and bade it cease.
And as he spared not to rebuke
The mirth, so oft in council he
To bitter truth bore testimony: 255
And when the crafty balance shook
Well poised to make the wrong prevail
Then Dante’s hand would turn the scale.
And if some envoy from afar
Sailed to Verona’s sovereign port 260
For aid or peace, and all the court
Fawned on its lord, ‘the Mars of war,
Sole arbiter of life and death,’ -
Be sure that Dante saved his breath.
And Can La Scala marked askance 265
These things, accepting them for shame
And scorn, till Dante’s guestship came
To be a peevish sufferance:
His host sought ways to make his days
Hateful; and such have many ways. 270
There was a Jester, a foul lout
Whom the court loved for graceless arts;
Sworn scholiast of the bestial parts
Of speech; a ribald mouth to shout
In Folly’s horny tympanum 275
Such things as make the wise man dumb.
Much loved, him Dante loathed. And so,
One day when Dante felt perplex’d
If any day that could come next
Were worth the waiting for or no, 280
And mute he sat amid their din, -
Can Grande called the Jester in.
Rank words, with such, are wit’s best wealth.
Lords mouthed approval; ladies kept
Twittering with clustered heads, except 285
Some few that took their trains by stealth
And went. Can Grande shook his hair
And smote his thighs and laughed i’ the air.
Then, facing on his guest, he cried, -
‘Say, Messer Dante, how it is 290
I get out of a clown like this
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 8