Landon in The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems/IV
Lorenzo!—when next morning came
For the first time I heard thy name!
Lorenzo!—how each ear-pulse drank
The more than music of that tone!
Lorenzo!—how I sighed that name,
As breathing it, made it mine own!
I sought the gallery: I was wont
To pass the noontide there, and trace
Some Statue’s shape of loveliness—
Some Saint, or Nymph, or Muse’s face.
There in my rapture I could throw
My pencil and its hues aside,
And, as the vision past me, pour
My song of passion, joy, and pride.
And he was there,—Lorenzo there!
How soon the morning past away,
With finding beauties in each thing
Neither had seen before that day!
Spirit of Love! soon thy rose-plumes wear
The weight and the sully of canker and care:
Falsehood is round thee; Hope leads thee on,
Till every hue from thy pinion is gone.
But one bright moment is all thine own,
The one ere thy visible presence is known;
When, like the wind of the South, thy power,
Sunning the heavens, sweetening the flower,
Is felt, but not seen. Thou art sweet and calm
As the sleep of a child, as the dew-fall of balm.
Fear has not darkened thee; Hope has not made
The blossoms expand, it but opens to fade.
Nothing is known of those wearing fears
Which will shadow the light of thy after-years.
Then art thou bliss:—but once throw by
The veil which shrouds thy divinity;
Stand confessed,—and thy quiet is fled!
Wild flashes of rapture may come instead,
But pain will be with them. What may restore
The gentle happiness known before?
I owned not to myself I loved,—
No word of love Lorenzo breathed;
But I lived in a magic ring,
Of every pleasant flower wreathed.
A bright blue was on the sky,
A sweeter breath in music’s sigh;
The orange shrubs all seemed to bear
Fruit more rich, and buds more fair.
There was a glory on the noon,
A beauty in the crescent moon,
A lulling stillness in the night,
A feeling in the pale starlight.
There was a charmed note on the wind,
A spell in Poetry’s deep store—
Heart-uttered words, passionate thoughts,
Which I had never marked before.
‘Twas as my heart’s full happiness
Poured over all its own excess.
One night there was a gorgeous feast
For maskers in Count Leon’s hall;
And all of gallant, fair, and young,
Were bidden to the festival.
I went, garbed as a Hindoo girl;
Upon each arm and amulet,
And by my side a little lute
Of sandal-wood with gold beset.
And shall I own that I was proud
To hear, amid the gazing crowd,
A murmur of delight, when first
My mask and veil I threw aside?
For well my conscious cheek betrayed
Whose eye was gazing on me too!
And never yet had praise been dear,
As on that evening, to mine ear,
Lorenzo! I was proud to be
Worshipped and flattered but for thee!