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Scenes From The Magico Prodigioso: From The Spanish Of Calderon
by
NOTE:
36 flattering Boscombe manuscript; fluttering 1824.
ALL:
Love! oh, Love!
JUSTINA:
‘Tis that enamoured Nightingale 45
Who gives me the reply;
He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion and of constancy
To his mate, who rapt and fond,
Listening sits, a bough beyond. 50
Be silent, Nightingale–no more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,
What a man would feel for me. 55
And, voluptuous Vine, O thou
Who seekest most when least pursuing,–
To the trunk thou interlacest
Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,– 60
No more, with green embraces, Vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,–
For whilst thus thy boughs entwine
I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,
How arms might be entangled too. 65
Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour!
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance, 70
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,–
Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, 75
Restless Sunflower, cease to move,–
Or tell me all, what poisonous Power
Ye use against me–
NOTES:
58 To]Who to cj. Rossetti.
63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.
ALL:
Love! Love! Love!
JUSTINA:
It cannot be!–Whom have I ever loved?
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, 80
Floro and Lelio did I not reject?
And Cyprian?–
[SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.]
Did I not requite him
With such severity, that he has fled
Where none has ever heard of him again?–
Alas! I now begin to fear that this 85
May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
‘Cyprian is absent!’–O me miserable!
I know not what I feel!
[MORE CALMLY.]
It must be pity 90
To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
And I the cause.
[SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.]
And yet if it were pity,
Floro and Lelio might have equal share,
For they are both imprisoned for my sake. 95
[CALMLY.]
Alas! what reasonings are these? it is
Enough I pity him, and that, in vain,
Without this ceremonious subtlety.
And, woe is me! I know not where to find him now,
Even should I seek him through this wide world. 100