How Lisa Loved the King

I should be tender to each little thing
With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell
Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well
With tender touch, and with a low soft moan
For company: my dumb love-pang is lone,
Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone.”

So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days.
Each night the August moon with changing phase
Looked broader, harder, on her unchanged pain;
Each noon the heat lay heavier again
On her despair, until her body frail
Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale
See narrowed on the height each summer morn;
While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn,
As if the soul within her, all on fire,
Made of her being one swift funeral-pyre.
Father and mother saw with sad dismay
The meaning of their riches melt away;
For without Lisa what would sequins buy?
What wish were left if Lisa were to die?
Through her they cared for summers still to come,
Else they would be as ghosts without a home
In any flesh that could feel glad desire.
They pay the best physicians, never tire
Of seeking what will soothe her, promising
That aught she longed for, though it were a thing
Hard to be come at as the Indian snow,
Or roses that on Alpine summits blow,
It should be hers.  She answers with low voice,
She longs for death alone—death is her choice;
Death is the king who never did think scorn,
But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born.

Yet one day, as they bent above her bed,
And watched her in brief sleep, her drooping head
Turned gently, as the thirsty flowers that feel
Some moist revival through their petals steal;
And little flutterings of her lids and lips
Told of such dreamy joy as sometimes dips
A skyey shadow in the mind’s poor pool.
She oped her eyes, and turned their dark gems full
Upon her father, as in utterance dumb
Of some new prayer that in her sleep had come.
“What is it, Lisa?”—“Father, I would see
Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me.”
For always, night and day, her unstilled thought,
Wandering all o’er its little world, had sought
How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch,
King Pedro’s soul, that she who loved so much,
Dying, might have a place within his mind,—
A little grave which he would sometimes find
And plant some flower on it,—some thought, some memory kind.

Till in her dream she saw Minuccio
Touching his viola, and chanting low
A strain, that, falling on her brokenly,
Seemed blossoms lightly blown from off a tree;
Each burthened with a word that was a scent,—
Raona, Lisa, love, death, tournament;
Then in her dream she said, “He sings of me,
Might be my messenger; ah! now I see
The king is listening”—Then she awoke,
And, missing her dear dream, that new-born longing spoke.
She longed for music: that was natural;
Physicians said it was medicinal;
The humors might be schooled by true consent
Of a fine tenor and fine instrument;
In short, good music, mixed with doctor’s stuff,
Apollo with Asklepios—enough!
Minuccio, entreated, gladly came.
(He was a singer of most gentle fame,
A noble, kindly spirit, not elate
That he was famous, but that song was great;
Would sing as finely to this suffering child
As at the court where princes on him smiled.)
Gently he entered and sat down by her,
Asking what sort of strain she would prefer,—
The voice alone, or voice with viol wed;
Then, when she chose the last, he preluded
With magic hand, that summoned from the strings
Aerial spirits, rare yet palpable wings
That fanned the pulses of his listener,
And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir.
Her cheek already showed a slow, faint blush;
But soon the voice, in pure, full, liquid rush,
Made all the passion, that till now she felt,
Seem but as cooler waters that in warmer melt.

Finished the song, she prayed to be alone
With kind Minuccio; for her faith had grown
To trust him as if missioned like a priest
With some high grace, that, when his singing ceased,
Still made him wiser, more magnanimous,
Than common men who had no genius.
So, laying her small hand within his palm,
She told him how that secret, glorious harm
Of loftiest loving had befallen her;
That death, her only hope, most bitter were,
If, when she died, her love must perish too