FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  
f beguiled, Be you warned: your own is brittle. I know it by your redd'ning cheeks,-- I know it by those two black streaks Arching up your pearly brows In a momentary laughter, Stretched in long and dark repose With a sigh the moment after. "'Hid it! dropt it on the moors! Lost it, and you cannot find it,'-- My own heart I want, not yours: You have bound and must unbind it. Set it free then from your net, We will love, sweet,--but not yet! Fling it from you:--we are strong; Love is trouble, love is folly: Love, that makes an old heart young, Makes a young heart melancholy." And for this Landor claimed that it was "finer than the best in Horace":-- "Slanting both hands against her forehead, On me she levelled her bright eyes. My whole heart brightened as the sea When midnight clouds part suddenly:-- Through all my spirit went the lustre, Like starlight poured through purple skies. "And then she sang a loud, sweet music; Yet louder as aloft it clomb: Soft when her curving lips it left; Then rising till the heavens were cleft, As though each strain, on high expanding, Were echoed in a silver dome. "But hark! she sings 'she does not love me': She loves to say she ne'er can love. To me her beauty she denies,-- Bending the while on me those eyes, Whose beams might charm the mountain leopard, Or lure Jove's herald from above!" Below the following exquisite bit of melody is written, "Never was any sonnet so beautiful." "She whom this heart must ever hold most dear (This heart in happy bondage held so long) Began to sing. At first a gentle fear Rosied her countenance, for she is young, And he who loves her most of all was near: But when at last her voice grew full and strong, O, from their ambush sweet, how rich and clear Bubbled the notes abroad,--a rapturous throng! Her little hands were sometimes flung apart, And sometimes palm to palm together prest; While wave-like blushes rising from her breast Kept time with that aerial melody, As music to the sight!--I standing nigh Received the falling fountain in my heart." "What sonnet of Petrarca equals this?" he says of the following:-- "Happy are they who kiss thee, morn and even, Parting the hair upon thy forehead white; For them the sky i
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

sonnet

 

strong

 

melody

 

rising

 

forehead

 

beautiful

 

bondage

 

Bending

 
denies
 

beauty


mountain

 

leopard

 

gentle

 

exquisite

 

written

 

herald

 

breast

 
blushes
 

Parting

 

aerial


Petrarca
 

equals

 

fountain

 

standing

 

Received

 

falling

 

Rosied

 

countenance

 

ambush

 

throng


rapturous

 

abroad

 

Bubbled

 
curving
 

unbind

 
melancholy
 

Landor

 

trouble

 

cheeks

 

streaks


Arching

 
beguiled
 
warned
 
brittle
 

pearly

 

moment

 
repose
 

momentary

 

laughter

 

Stretched