In loved dissatisfaction,
Which he made his element
Of choice, as much as, till then,
He had sought it in content.”
If the verses above would have baffled the sagacity of the father of Italian literature, what would he have thought of the following, in which the interview between Sir Hubert and Mabel is described, when the lady comes to negotiate with him about the hawk? She accosts him, “Sir Hubert!” and then there is presented to our imaginations such a picture of female loveliness, as (thank Heaven!) can only be done justice to in the language which is employed for the occasion.
“ ‘Sir Hubert!’—and, that instant,
Mabel saw the fresh light flush
Out of her rosy shoulders,
And perceived her sweet blood hush
About her, till, all over,
There shone forth a sumptuous blush—
“ ‘Sir Hubert, I have sought you,
Unattended, to request
A boon—the first I ever
Have entreated.’ Then she press’d
Her small hand’s weight of whiteness
To her richly-sloping breast.”
At first we thought that it should have been Hubert, and not Mabel, who saw “the fresh light flush out of her rosy shoulders”—particularly if the blush extended, as no doubt it did, to the lady’s back: but on further consideration we saw that we were wrong; for Sir Hubert could not have perceived “her sweet blood hush about her”—this hushing of the blood about one being, as all great blushers know, a fact discernible only by the person more immediately concerned in the blush. The propriety, therefore, of making Mabel perceive the blush, rather than Sir Hubert, is undeniable. The writer must either have left out the hushing altogether, which would have been a great blemish in the picture, or he must have written as he has done. How profoundly versed in the physiology of blushing he must be! We are doubtful, however, whether the costume of the picture is altogether appropriate; for we question very much whether the Italian ladies of the thirteenth, or any other century, were in the habit of paying forenoon visits in low-necked gowns; and whether Mabel could have walked all the way from her castle to Sir Hubert’s cottage, in an attire which revealed so many of her charms, without attracting the general attention of the neighbourhood. She had no time, be it observed, to divest herself of shawl or mantilla in order to show how sumptuously she could blush—for her salutation is made to Sir Hubert, and its roseate consequences ensue the very first moment she sees him. But let that pass. We should have been very sorry if such a “splendiferous” phenomenon had been obscured by envious boa or pelisse, or lost to the proprieties of costume. The Lady then
“Said that she was wearied
With her walk—would stay to dine,
And name her wishes after.”
Meanwhile the poet asks—
“How was it with Sir Hubert?
—Beggarly language! I could burst
For impotence of effort:
Those who made thee were accurst!
Dumb men were gods were all dumb.
But go on, and do thy worst!—
“His life-blood stopp’d to listen—
Her delivering lips dealt sound—
Oh! hungrily he listen’d,
But the meaning meant was drown’d;
For, to him, her voice and presence
Meaning held far more profound.
“He gave his soul to feasting,
And his sense, (which is the soul
More thoroughly incarnate,)
Backward standing, to control
His object, as a painter
Views a picture in the whole.
“She stood, her eyes cast downwards,
And, upon them, dropp’d halfway,
Lids, sweeter than the bosom
Of an unburst lily, lay,
With black abundant lashes,
To keep out the upper day.
“A breath from out her shoulders
Made the air cool, and the ground
Was greener in their shadow;
All her dark locks loll’d, unbound,
About them, heavily lifted
By the breeze that struggled round.
“As if from weight of beauty,
Gently bent—but oh, how draw
