choicer sunlight in their smile, The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile. My love is such, it cannot choose but soar Up to the highest; yet forevermore, Though I were happy, throned beside the king, I should be tender to each little thing p. 19With 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.”

p. 19

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, p. 20Made 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.

p. 20

p. 21Yet 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, p. 22King 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.

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