Bianca among the Nightingales

I.
The cypress stood up like a church
&nbspThat night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
&nbspAnd wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales’
&nbspBroad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fire-flies and the nightingales
&nbspThrobbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales!

II.
Upon the angle of its shade
&nbspThe cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
&nbspAlong the ground, against the sky;
And we, too! from such soul-height went
&nbspSuch leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
&nbspMost passionate earth or intense heaven
The nightingales, the nightingales!

III.
We paled with love, we shook with love,
&nbspWe kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered “Sweet, above
&nbspGod’s Ever guaranties this Now.”
And through his words the nightingales
&nbspDrove straight and full their long clear call,
Like arrows through heroic mails,
&nbspAnd love was awful in it all.
The nightingales, the nightingales!

IV.
O cold white moonlight of the north,
&nbspRefresh these pulses, quench this hell!
O coverture of death drawn forth
&nbspAcross this garden-chamber ... well!
But what have nightingales to do
&nbspIn gloomy England, called the free ...
(Yes, free to die in!...) when we two
&nbspAre sundered, singing still to me?
And still they sing, the nightingales!

V.
I think I hear him, how he cried
&nbsp“My own soul’s life!” between their notes.
Each man has but one soul supplied,
&nbspAnd that’s immortal. Though his throat’s
On fire with passion now, to her
&nbspHe can’t say what to me he said!
And yet he moves her, they aver.
&nbspThe nightingales sing through my head,—
The nightingales, the nightingales!

VI.
He says to her what moves her most.
&nbspHe would not name his soul within
Her hearing,—rather pays her cost
&nbspWith praises to her lips and chin.
Man has but one soul, ’t is ordained,
&nbspAnd each soul but one love, I add;
Yet souls are damned and love’s profaned;
&nbspThese nightingales will sing me mad!
The nightingales, the nightingales!

VII.
I marvel how the birds can sing.
&nbspThere’s little difference, in their view,
Betwixt our Tuscan trees that spring
&nbspAs vital flames into the blue,
And dull round blots of foliage meant,
&nbspLike saturated sponges here,
To suck the fogs up. As content
&nbspIs he too in this land, ’t is clear.
And still they sing, the nightingales.

VIII.
My native Florence! dear, forgone!
&nbspI see across the Alpine ridge
How the last feast-day of Saint John
&nbspShot rockets from Carraia bridge.
The luminous city, tall with fire,
&nbspTrod deep down in that river of ours,
While many a boat with lamp and choir
&nbspSkimmed birdlike over glittering towers.
I will not hear these nightingales.

IX.
I seem to float, we seem to float
&nbspDown Arno’s stream in festive guise;
A boat strikes flame into our boat,
&nbspAnd up that lady seems to rise
As then she rose. The shock had flashed
&nbspA vision on us! What a head,
What leaping eyeballs!—beauty dashed
&nbspTo splendour by a sudden dread.
And still they sing, the nightingales.

X.
Too bold to sin, too weak to die;
&nbspSuch women are so. As for me,
I would we had drowned there, he and I,
&nbspThat moment, loving perfectly.
He had not caught her with her loosed
&nbspGold ringlets ... rarer in the south ...
Nor heard the “Grazie tanto” bruised
&nbspTo sweetness by her English mouth.
And still they sing, the nightingales.

XI.
She had not reached him at my heart
&nbspWith her fine tongue, as snakes indeed
Kill flies; nor had I, for my part,
&nbspYearned after, in my desperate need,
And followed him as he did her
&nbspTo coasts left bitter by the tide,
Whose very nightingales, elsewhere
&nbspDelighting, torture and deride!
For still they sing, the nightingales.

XII.
A worthless woman; mere cold clay
&nbspAs all false things are: but so fair,
She takes the breath of men away
&nbspWho gaze upon her unaware.
I would not play her larcenous tricks
&nbspTo have her looks! She lied and stole,
And spat into my love’s pure pyx
&nbspThe rank saliva of her soul.
And still they sing, the nightingales.

XIII.
I would not for her white and pink,
&nbspThough such he likes—her grace of limb,
Though such he has praised—nor yet, I think.
&nbspFor life itself, though spent with him,
Commit such sacrilege, affront
&nbspGod’s nature which is love, intrude
’Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt
&nbspLike spiders, in the altar’s wood.
I cannot bear these nightingales.

XIV.
If she chose sin, some gentler guise
&nbspShe might have sinned in, so it seems:
She might have pricked out both my eyes,
&nbspAnd I still seen him in my dreams!
—Or drugged me in my soup or wine,
&nbspNor left me angry afterward:
To die here with his hand in mine,
&nbspHis breath upon me, were not hard.
(Our Lady hush these nightingales!)

XV.
But set a springe for him, “mio ben,”
&nbspMy only good, my first last love!—
Though Christ knows well what sin is, when
&nbspHe sees some things done they must move
Himself to wonder. Let her pass.
&nbspI think of her by night and day.
Must I too join her ... out, alas!...
&nbspWith Giulio, in each word I say?
And evermore the nightingales!

XVI.
Giulio, my Giulio!—sing they so,
&nbspAnd you be silent? Do I speak,
And you not hear? An arm you throw
&nbspRound someone, and I feel so weak?
—Oh, owl-like birds! They sing for spite,
&nbspThey sing for hate, they sing for doom,
They’ll sing through death who sing through night,
&nbspThey’ll sing and stun me in the tomb—
The nightingales, the nightingales!