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XXI.

And lo! upon her sad desponding brow,
The cruel trenches of besieging age,
With seams, but most unseemly, ‘gan to show
Her place was booking for the seventh stage;
And where her raven tresses used to flow,
Some locks that Time had left her in his rage.
And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady,
A compound (like our Psalms) of tete and braidy.

XXII.

Then for her shape–alas! how Saturn wrecks,
And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about,
Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks,
Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout,
Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex:
Witness those pensioners called In and Out,
Who all day watching first and second rater,
Quaintly unbend themselves–but grow no straighter.

XXIII.

So Time with fair Bianca dealt, and made
Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow;
His iron hand upon her spine he laid,
And twisted all awry her “winsome marrow.”
In truth it was a change!–she had obey’d
The holy Pope before her chest grew narrow,
But spectacles and palsy seem’d to make her
Something between a Glassite and a Quaker.

XXIV.

Her grief and gall meanwhile were quite extreme,
And she had ample reason for her trouble;
For what sad maiden can endure to seem
Set in for singleness, tho’ growing double.
The fancy madden’d her; but now the dream,
Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble,
Burst,–but still left some fragments of its size,
That, like the soapsuds, smarted in her eyes.

XXV.

And here–just here–as she began to heed
The real world, her clock chimed out its score;
A clock it was of the Venetian breed,
That cried the hour from one to twenty-four;
The works moreover standing in some need
Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more;
A warning voice that clench’d Bianca’s fears,
Such strokes referring doubtless to her years.

XXVI.

At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun,
By twenty she had quite renounced the veil;
She thought of Julio just at twenty-one,
And thirty made her very sad and pale,
To paint that ruin where her charms would run;
At forty all the maid began to fail,
And thought no higher, as the late dream cross’d her,
Of single blessedness, than single Gloster.

XXVII.

And so Bianca changed;–the next sweet even,
With Julio in a black Venetian bark,
Row’d slow and stealthily–the hour, eleven,
Just sounding from the tow’r of old St. Mark;
She sate with eyes turn’d quietly to heav’n,
Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark
That veil’d her blushing cheek,–for Julio brought her
Of course–to break the ice upon the water.

XXVIII.

But what a puzzle is one’s serious mind
To open;–oysters, when the ice is thick,
Are not so difficult and disinclin’d;
And Julio felt the declaration stick
About his throat in a most awful kind;
However, he contrived by bits to pick
His trouble forth,–much like a rotten cork
Grop’d from a long-necked bottle with a fork.

XXIX.

But love is still the quickest of all readers;
And Julio spent besides those signs profuse
That English telegraphs and foreign pleaders,
In help of language, are so apt to use,
Arms, shoulders, fingers, all were interceders,
Nods, shrugs, and bends,–Bianca could not choose
But soften to his suit with more facility,
He told his story with so much agility.

XXX.

“Be thou my park, and I will be thy dear,
(So he began at last to speak or quote;)
Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier,
(For passion takes this figurative note;)
Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier;
Be thou my dove, and I will be thy cote:
My lily be, and I will be thy river;
Be thou my life–and I will be thy liver.”

XXXI.

This, with more tender logic of the kind,
He pour’d into her small and shell-like ear,
That timidly against his lips inclin’d;
Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere
That even now began to steal behind
A dewy vapor, which was lingering near,
Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale,
Just like a virgin putting on the veil:–

XXXII.

Bidding adieu to all her sparks–the stars,
That erst had woo’d and worshipp’d in her train,
Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars–
Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again.
Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars,
Bianca did not watch these signs in vain,
But turn’d to Julio at the dark eclipse,
With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips.

XXXIII.

He took the hint full speedily, and, back’d
By love, and night, and the occasion’s meetness,
Bestow’d a something on her cheek that smack’d
(Tho’ quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness;
That made her think all other kisses lack’d
Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness;
Being used but sisterly salutes to feel,
Insipid things–like sandwiches of veal.

XXXIV.

He took her hand, and soon she felt him wring
The pretty fingers all instead of one;
Anon his stealthy arm began to cling
About her waist that had been clasp’d by none,
Their dear confessions I forbear to sing,
Since cold description would but be outrun;
For bliss and Irish watches have the pow’r,
In twenty minutes, to lose half an hour!