Book III

Reachinc; the castle he finds the tower door
That Giudice had bidden seek with ease,
Opens it springing up a winding stair
With stones well worn and old, nor any one
He meets — not Giudice — for Giudice
Encountering unforeboded obstacles
But now the Frenchman had decoyed afar,
Perforce accompanying; him awhile ;
So Beatrice knew nothing of the past.
A room-door stood ajar — some smothered sound
As of faint weeping fell upon his ear.
He paused — it was — it must be she — yet she
Surely expects him — how he longed to rush
And fold the form he thought that nevermore
He might enfold, and suck the poison out
Of her dear life with one long look of love
And one long kiss I yet hesitated he
Remembering the caution of his guide.
What shall he do ? no sign of Giudice —
" He may be hindered : I have but to reach
My hand to take her, she may slip from it ;
Some servitor may find his master dead."
This risk the greater, so with beating heart
He shoves the massive iron-ciamped door,
And stands upon the threshold — it is she !
At the embrasure of the narrow light
She standing leans upon the cold harsh stone.
Sun streaming on her neck and head, beyond
Gleaming upon the untasted sumptuous meal
Behind her served in milk-white porcelain.
And gloating on the crimson velvet pile —
From when he burst upon her in the spring
Of her young life (ah I not so long ago,
The same sun kindling the same wealth of curls)
How changed alas ! grey cheeks in her thin hands,
Her eyes peer wistful on the sea, but dim
With unshed tears and hollows dark beneath.
Her face looks wan like latter primroses
That linger draggled with much dust and rain,
And all her listless form breathes hopelessness.
Ah ! when we hear the faint pulsations fail
Of Hope the angel's wings upon the night,
Who parting from us turns his face to heaven,
Life stricken at heart soon falters after him.
Careless the ordering of her gracious hair,
Sleek-brown, and of her modest summer dress
Of muslin blue and white, the dress he loves,
Of old though simply faultlessly disposed.

She turns not at the creaking of the door,
Deeming 'tis but the servant, caring not
That snake-like maid should deem her spirit weak.
Until he makes a step — something in that
Turns her sharp round — a sudden light leaps up
Into her eyes, suffusing all her face.
" Clement ! " she cries, a cry of ecstasy
Incredulous half with dazed fear, mistrust ;
She spreads her arms to fly to him, but pain
Shoots sharply through her ; swims the scene around
Dizzy and dark ; she tottering, he runs
To strain a lifeless body to his breast.
Then, sick at heart, he gently lays her down
Upon the bed, chafing the icy hands
And limbs, and breathes his breath between her lips.
In vain, until a step resounds below ;
Giudice rushes in, but seeing them
Stops short, and snatches from a dark recess
A phial, which applied by him revives
Her from the deadly swoon, but after long.
And then he whispers that there wait beneath
Some trusty Corsicans who bear a litter
Disposed with cushions easy for the sick.
Since he had well foreseen that Beatrice
Was now too weak to travel otherwise.
" Only delay not or we may be lost."
They carry her between them down the steps.
Tenderly laying her upon the couch
And sheltering with coverings freely lent.

Four men to bear her with a cautious tread
Among dense cork-trees, Clement close at hand
With soul divided, half in rapture glowing
To know her there, and half in anguish dipt.
Chill with foreboding which he shakes from him
In vain, for aye it settles on him again,
From seeing the fell ravage this brief time
Has wrought in her so tender, sensitive.
Her eyes are shut from feebleness, at peace
Her fevered spirit now to feel him there,
Opening anon and resting on his face,
Those large mild eyes, mazy as forest leaves.
Suffused with love-light mellower than day.
Anon she opens them to make it sure
It is no blissful fleeting dream she dreams,
But him indeed, and then the eyelids veined
Droop low again to prison the vision close
For lovesick soul to finger gloatingly.
Lest by exciting he may injure her
He speaks not ; only once when they have paused
To rest, and make some change in carrying her.
He bends above her whispering " My own,
The sea-air will revive you, and to-morrow
They say we shall be home — our little home —
And then you will grow strong, and never I
Will leave you any more, my only one."
She smiles a placid though a languid smile,
A smile like dimpling of a water still
In tiny sunlight ripples when a drop
Drips from an oar suspended on its face.
"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow I shall be
At home," she murmurs vaguely, dreamily.
Then looks to Clement, whispering earnestly,
" It is enough : we have each other now.
How have I prayed for this ; " but then the tears
From weakness and emotion well again.
The men resume their burden all too light.
And as they travel, through the blinking leaves
Gleam summer lightnings from the tiny wave
With intervals of blue unruffled rest.
Which blends in Clement's musing spirit now
With that soft gleam of her faint opening eyes
Grown vague and vaguer like a weary child's
And their soft closing as in tranquil sleep.

Waits the felucca — she is borne asleep
On board of it: "Name your reward, my friend,"
Clement in taking leave of Giudice
Has said ; but he "Reward would only come
To steal the crown King Conscience crowns my deed
Withal. I thank you, and I glad accept
Your feeling to me, but you know not, sir,
How sore for poor men of integrity
Their impotence of doing such as you,
The rich they honour, some kind turn unbought."
Warmly those gallant fishers every one
Bade them God-speed, and Paoli liberal
For Clement dealt a largess to the men.
Each brings his little offering for their voyage
And presses it upon them, coverings,
A coat of oil-skin, bread and chestnut cakes,
A wine-jar of pure grape-juice with leaf bunches
Stopping the mouth ; they set the sail lateen
The owner and his brother Paoli ;
And soon careening to a fair brisk breeze
Dances away the tight felucca-boat
Swelling her sail, with pitchy cutwater
Cuffed in its prancing of the merry waves,
Shivered their baffled sapphire into foam
That frills the blue with evanescent lace,
Simmers in flying melting in the wake ;
While Clement, whose delight is in the sea
To dwell by, sail on, swim and revel in.
The briny blow exhilarates ; he feels
He can breathe free again, that she is safe,
Triumphs in his success and fills with hope.
Near her he sits, but gazes over sea
Toward their home, their sweet home over sea :
' Now is my outraged honour full avenged,
And all her wrong : " his thought reverts to this.
No monstrous duty suflbcating now !
Monstrous, for one high friend and half himself
Named it a crime, while all his righteous wrath,
His pride of caste, his individual pride,
These stunned, confused him with their counter-cries ;
Rut deep mistrust of his own temperament
Shrinking from violence through every nerve,
Lest that should weight the scale conventional
Unduly, and he branded as a coward
Among his own hidden thoughts live evermore,
This had inclined the balance to revenge :
And yet he travelled up the castle path
With purpose indistinct, remembering
And half mistaking what his promise was
To Paoli before the cottage door —
Chance the midwife of men's imposing deeds.
Then he enacted o'er the tragedy,
And shuddered, picturing the agony
Of the man's look in digging bloodless nails
Into the rubble, till the crash of stone
Upon his fingers, and the curse in death.
Tingled all through him with the writhing tumble
And ghastly thud of what had been a man.
"You would have reached a hand to him for all
He may have done to you my gentle child !
What will you feel when you shall come to learn.
When you shall know, that sweating cold he hung
'Twixt life and death, and I with hatred blind
In a brute's soulless frenzy hurled him forth
For ever out of God's blest light of life,
Where we all dwell by sufferance of Him ! —
Goaded thereto — not solely by my love —
But by my own poor pride trailed scornfiilly
And fouled of that man's feet — feet insolent
With sickening beslavering of fools
Who take the gewgaw puppet they themselves
Have fashioned from the slime to be a god,
Adoring their own drivelling handiwork !
And should I suffer — I no doll but man,
A man with power of brain to fashion men
To their appointed end and point the way,
A noble banned of that society
Which honours such as he ; nay, voluntary
Exile from those plebeian-natured men —
Say, should I suffer this automaton
For all its human shape to grind me dead.
Or should I seize it in the nick of time,
Shatter and shiver all its cunning springs.
So save a man, so vindicate the riehl
Here where the anarch red Injustice reigns,
Bruising in him the world which does me wrong ? —
Wrong to myself ! ah ! 'tis myself, myself,
Only myself, disguise it as I will.
Forgiveness of a Christ who would have reached
A hand of mercy even to such a foe,
This might have saved a human soul for
God!
Perchance at least I might have saved mine own,
Holding this maniac hand from slaying him,
A mere weak man, a puny enemy,
But wounding slaying a far deadlier foe.
The monster parasite, my selfishness,
Waxen fat upon the vitals of my spirit ;
With one grand bound upswung myself to
Christ !
And yet — and yet — if I had lifted him
And he had slain me, what had chanced with her ?
I dared not save for Beatrice's sake.
Did duty bid me leave my tender child
In clutches of a were-wolf human-guised
Even when my barrel covered the foul beast ?
Fantastic virtue of a casuist !
In this cold-blooded analytic age
We peer on deeds with such a mental lens,
Some subtle tissue grows upon the sense.
But we can name no more what thing we see.
O for the instinct fine, the eagle gaze.
Of stalwart men who march to mighty deed
Straightforward, halting fumbling not as we
Who blindly drift to action wondering
If what we limply hold be good or ill.
We grope in fogs of a too curious thought,
We breathe oppressed for thinking how we breathe.
I only know yon corse lies heavily
Upon my heart, as on yon dragon-flowers
Whose crushed and gaping mouths are red with gore."
Then his eye fell upon the primrose face
Of her who slept : so faded sunk it was lie shivered, venturing not to look and see
What pale vague fear kuked ghostly in his heart.
But now she moved and made a muffled cry
As from some ghastly vision in her sleep.
He turning to her kissed and softly called :
She crying again and starting from his touch
Woke quivering, moaning, fixing a scared look
Upon his face, then softened as she looked
And knew him, melting underneath his eyes
To love and joy and trust inviolable,
Like some frail snow-flake melting in the sun.
Then all stole back upon her, where she was,
And how ; she whispered "For a moment, love,
I thought he held me, and behold ! 'tis you !'
She smiled so sweet a smile ; he prayed her tell
If she were able something of the past.
She told him the same story Paoli
Had learned of how the duke decoyed her thence.
So partly from her shy and broken words.
In part from notes which she had written yonder
And Clement later read in solitude,
He framed a story featured like to this.

The traitor in the cabin of the yacht
Addressed her with unbridled words of shame.
Urging his reckless flame to justify
The violence that he had dared to use.
"A spark of boldness women admire, he knew.
Kindled in men by their consuming eyes."
She wept insulted, but the fool obtuse
Extolled the brilliant life that she should lead
In his French Castle or Corsican — she would
Not hate him when she knew him something more.
But when he neared her offering to touch
She shrank aside as from a leper's brush,
Drew herself up — for dignity and strength
Were hers in dire extremity — " Hold off! "
She cried ; "you prate of boldness, a base coward ;
If Clement had been near, would you have dared " —
But then at naming Clement's name she broke
To tears again with sobbing "Clement,
Clement I
Why were you far from me, my own, my own,
Where are you ? — Do you really think," she spoke
Again to her tormentor, " that a woman
Who has loved him and been beloved by him,
Even were he dead, nay buried a hundred years.
Could stoop to love so poor a thing as you ? "
He paled, she said, with anger at the words,
Quivered with hideous disappointed rage
And answered — "Are you saintlier than the rest?
Coyness they all affect, and yet I find
All ductile to my fingers like warm wax :
But time will show — remember only this,
You're in my power and likely to remain."
Then forth he went and slammed the door behind.
She saw no more of him the voyage through ;
He surly chewed in silence his rebuff",
Bewildering to him the ill-success.
A little of her undiluted scorn
And loathing in this interview with her
Had eaten through the tough rhinoceros hide.
He never met a woman like to her.
Scorned faith in such ; this woman dazed him sore.

He came not in the castle for awhile,
Irresolute on what were best to do.
His lacerated vanity drew horns
Within the shell shrinking from some fresh wound.
If he surrounded her with all respect,
All care and luxury, and left her free
Unimpoituned awhile and undisturbed,
She in her loneliness might even crave
His presence, brooding on his passion strong.
Over his grandeur and the princely state
That he would gird his paramour withal.
And if she loved her mate (scarce credible
To him from that report the marchioness
Had made him of the man) she would forget —
They all forgot — when days elapsed and nought
Of him or from him she should hear ; himself
Had been abrupt and blundered ; she was not
Easy to win, but needed skill to play,
Glory the more in landing her ; he'd say
That he had heard since from the marchioness
How Clement had returned and seemed consoled
By a renewal of his commerce old
With her own self— and so but yesterday.
The duke had plucked up heart to go again
To Beatrice, despatching Giudice
Craving for leave to visit her anon
When it should seem most fitting to herself
She giving forced consent he came to her
With deferential courtesy and minced
" He only wished to see that all her wants
Were full supplied — she had but to command."
She answered " Only give me liberty
To seek my husband." "Madam, even in this
I will obey you," cunning he replied,
"Though I should sign my own deathwarrant so.
If you still ask it after what I tell."
And then he chuckling told the cruel lie.
With confidence he spoke and half believed
Himself the falsehood, for the marchioness
Had said that Clement hankered after her.
The bold abrupt words with a deadly chill
Struck on the poor child, for she knew of old
He and the lady had been closest friends ;
But then the glorious incredulity
Of love in face of all most damning facts,
A moment pale, emerged triumphantly ;
The gross but specious lie that frighted her
Changed to a hideous yet transparent mask
Masking the traitorous leering of a liar.
"Add not base slander, sir, and calumny
To your foul injury— you and your friend
Can compass not the deathless fealty
Of two leal hearts that love, and you blaspheme
The sacred name whene'er you utter it.
Clement and I can never cease to love
Let come what may ; if one were in the grave,
The other would love on, and there in heaven,
O there we'll love each other undisturbed,

And only love each other evermore !
Yet can a man be wicked as you seem ?
I love him, sir, and he Clement loves me :
I think you did not know it, do not know.
You've been deceived ; the lady made you think
We cared not for each other, that he cared
For her and not for me, but that was false.
He was all true, though I was often cross,
Nor clever like to him, and could not talk
Of learned things to him, and he was noble
And I was poor ; but then he knew how large
My heart was, and he ruled there all alone.
Let me go back to him, kind lord, I pray.
He breaks his heart there, mine is breaking here !
You do not seem unkind, but I am dying,
I feel I am, and O ! if I should die
With not one look from his all-precious face
To carry to the lonesome grave with me ! "
She faltered here and brake to bitter tears.
Feelings alternating had chased each other
In the man's mind — astonishment and rage,
Bewilderment, compunction, jealousy,
A maudlin admiration fuelling
His jealous lust — she looked so lovely now !
And last the sense that she was safely trapped
Within his grasp, no witness to the wrong
He had been gloating o'er the vision of

In speaking she had risen from her seat.
Advancing near him v/ringing her frail hands :
A step he made and seized her by the wrist ;
She glancing quickly caught his wicked look,
Snatched herself free — " How foil me? " he exclaimed ;
"Escape me now ! " she clutching wild a knife
That lay nigh from the scarcely-tasted meal
Waved it with flashing eyes and answered
Giudice entering, the baffled duke
Retired with baleful gaze and ne'er a word.
Then when he went she turned to Giudice,
Telling her story and imploring him
I'iteously to befriend her ; Giudice
Was only charged that morning with her care,
And scarce had spoken, but something in his look
Encouraged her to this forlorn appeal.
He soothed her like a father, settling her
Tender upon the couch and promising,
Though with a few brief words, to be her friend.
And she confided in him like a child.
He cheering her and bidding her be brave
For Clement's sake, and holding out a hope
That he might soon contrive release for her,
Concluding " I am near you ; only ring
This little bell if you have need of me."

She thanked her God for him upon her knees
That night, yet felt as if her slender strength,
Which needed kindly breath to foster it
And strong warm hands to chafe it, ebbed apace :
" I shall not see him : no, he will not come,
Or he will come too late, when I am gone.
My God ! for him to look upon this face
And I not know it ! Ah, for him to press
His mouth to mine, and I not feel him there !
One kiss more. Father, only one ; I go
Willingly, happy, holding thy dear hand,
Into the darkness ; never looking back,
Not once, to where he stands in thy warm light.
If only, Father, thou wilt grant this prayer ;
But watch thou over him when I am gone ! "
Soon from her sleepless bed the child arose,
Stole to the window in her linen white.
And looked toward the only spot she loved
Along the moonpath flecking tremulous
And thin the sea, like her own quavering hope,
Lost in the far immeasurable gloom ;
Looked athwart groves in elf-light huddling grey.
Ruffled their dream to whisper murmurous
As from strayed elf- wing skimming daintily—
But while the moonlight trickled through the leaves.
Anon their dusk heart kindling would secrete
From it a voice, so rendered it again
To-night in guise of song etherial pure
As its own self, now plaintive soft and low,
Now radiating, flashing all abroad.
Articulate moonlight, named a nightingale.
That was her post all day, she would not stir
From thence ; though books had been provided for her,
Listless she turned their leaves but could not read.
Paper was there, and pens, and she had written
Something for Clement about every day,
What happened, what she felt, at evening written.
Save for this only crept the weary time
In gazing through the loophole over sea,
Hailing each sail and watching eagerly
Its fleeting tranquil in the offing by
Hazy through silver labyrinths in the blue —
Why the child knew not, only it might come
Perchance and land him here ; at least it came,
Blest thing, from yonder, yonder where he was ;
The steamers — how she peered for a faint stain
Of smoke to dusk the delicate white down
That feathered yon horizon to the north,
Hingeing those azure valves of sky and sea I
And the first days at every step or sound
Without she fluttered : it might be the duke.
It might be Clement landed unaware.
She listless watched the coral lady-birds
Creep up the stone and splitting speckled shards
Of tiny fans unrufiling for a flight.
Ah ! how she envied yon brown melon-girl
Emerging from the cork-grove up the steps
Of rock, her apron full of luscious fruit.
Chiding the dark-eyed roguish peasant-boy.
Yet laughingly, for winding his strong arm
."Vbout her waist, endangering the melons.
Ah ! how she envied yon imperial bird,
Sublime possessor of immensity.
Breasting ilhmitable light, elate
Inhaling rich exhaustless draughts of life ;
Or tiny siskins chattering as they flit,
Picking brown pine-cones for the kernels lithe.

A little silver lamp, with branches three
Budding soft light, and chain-swung candle gear.
They brought at evening, dim developing
The low-groined roof of stone, mouldings and cusps.
Spilling a random gleam on Persian rugs.
And oaken carven chests and Gothic chairs.
Giudice pulled her flowers the eve he came,
Purple corncockle, amaryllis white.
Crimson pomegranate-blossom, cyclamen.
.She plunged her gaze in these : they grew at home ;
He loved them, she might be disposing them
In their wee room to-night, or weaving them
Into her gracious hair ; then languidly
She moving to a mirror 'gan to braid
Her tresses with them, plucking them away
Sudden and strewing them upon the floor,
Breaking to crying " He will never see them,
O ! nevermore. I only long to die."
At night she started from a shallow sleep
With but the gnawing of a wainscot mouse.
Or crackling of some dry wood with the heat ;
Then she lay sick at heart, hearing the tick
Of death-watch weevil in the panel nigh.
Watching the first faint grey of dawn suft'use
The loophole, and the earliest twittering bird
In the near carob as he stirred and spun
In a fine drizzle from his down the dew ;
Yet this but ushered in the loathsome day.
Which still might turn to lovely, bringing him !

Then he related what had chanced with him
In brief outline, but passing one thing over,
His meeting with the duke : she seemed so weak.
Nor dared he mar the present with a tale
Painful to her and damping to their bliss.

Now when in silence eyes were drinking eyes.
She feeling faint, the tactful Paoli,
Who kept aloof till now, at sign from Clement
Filled from the wine-jar some restoring wine,
Presenting it to her : she smiled upon him :
"Good Paoli," she murmured, "ah! how good
Have many been to me, how happy now
I am who late repined and doubted God ! "' —
" He does but turn a moment his full face
Away, yet holds us if we see or no ;
Still folds about us Everlasting Arms,"
The old man answered, bending low his head
With silver hair, and kissing her frail hand.
In sunset now flush tiny clouds like down
Torn from the bosom of some gentle bird,
Strewn fluttering crimson with her meek life-blood
By some fierce vulture's talons and bald beak,
Assailing her in heaven innocent,
Tranquil in airs hued like the iris-bloom.
And as the sun sank in the western water
She shivering the two threw over her
A mouflon skin one sailor lent to them.
And then she whispered Clement to bend near.
" Clement," she said, " I may not look again
On Italy with you, on our sweet home ;
You'll see it, dear, but not with me ; how well
I would have loved once more to see it with you !
It may not be — ah ! Clement, do not weep ; "
For he was sobbing, crushing the little hand,
And the hot tears fell blindly on her face,
So she wept too — "Why think of this, my own?
You feel so weak, but you will soon be well ;
I'll take you back to England ; 'tis the heat.
And all you've suffered." "Nay," she soft replied,
" It may not be, my precious, it is time
You knew it, for I feel the end is near :
You must bear up ; at first it will be hard,
But you will learn to live without me, love."
" I cannot : where you go there I must go,
I cannot live without you anywhere.
You would not leave me — O my Beatrice ! "
He sobbing kneeling by her clasped her round
With his face close to hers — and if her foe
Drew nigh in any quarter from without,
He must have rent the man to hurt the child.
Yet now alas ! it was no human foe ;
But He that gave demanding her again.

Yet soon with strenuous effort he controlled
I limself, remembering what pain to her
Shall we receive the good and not the evil
From the same hand ? 'tis the same Father, love,
Offers both cups. I do not fear to die.
All has been well, and all must yet be well.
I know that wheresoever I may go,
If my soul live, my soul must be with you ;
Ere I can leave you I must cease to be ;
Only you will not see me for awhile.
Until you join me where I go before.
I told Him I would take His hand and go
When He should call, and not look back to you.
If I could see you, kiss you once again ;
You'll help me not to break my word to Him.

Where will you put me? in the little garden? —
That would be sweet, that warm spot in the sun.
Where the wild thyme breathes fragance fitfully.
The free blithe bee hums near one, then afar.
Among the planes, hushed o'er with lullabies
Eternal from the sea — our favourite spot,
Where you will come and lie as we were wont
To lie, and think about your little child.
She will he near you, very near you still,
Under your feet, ah ! not upon your breast I
'Twas there I lay longing for you to come —
And do you know, dear, it is very strange,
But yonder in the castle while I stood
One evening gazing homeward I believed
That I was there awhile again, I saw
The spot so plain, I smelt the smell of thyme,
I even thought I saw you coming to me —
But then I started, knew it was a vision."
And Clement marvelled musing on his vision
Of her, but had no heart to speak of it.
" Next year the grass and daisies will be fresh
And fair upon the spot as they are now.
Then when He calls you, you will come and lie
Still nearer me, down under the warm grass ;
You'll come there, won't you ? you will keep the spot?"
He only pressed her closer for reply.
And but a rare sob broke the silence now.
She seemed to want to speak again, and
.signed

With a weak gesture for the cordial,
Which Clement took and tilted 'tween her lips.
"We wished," she said, " to have one little babe ;
Would for your sake it had been ordered so !
You could not have been lonely then — but if,
If you are very lonely you must try
And love again ; you need not quite forget —
Keep one warm corner for your little one.
One only in your large heart — only one.
She will not mind, I think, and yonder, there
In God's full facelight, there is room for all ! "
Her glazing eyes looked heavenward and she smiled.

" Forgive me, love," in broken accents now
She gasped, " that I could not be all I wished
To you, I was not clever enough for you.
You know — and I was peevish very often ;
But I have loved you ; you'll forgive me, sweet ? "
" 'Tis you, 'tis you," he faltered ; "nothing I
Have to forgive, but you have much, my own ;
I tried you sore — but you have borne with me
Like my own guardian angel that you were,
And that you will be, till I turn to dust.
My God ! my God ! may that be very soon."

The breeze now scarcely flapped the idle sail
Against the mast, each little ripple kissed
With sucking plash and tilted the dusk boat.
Some oar knocked, and the loose-held tiller creaked ;
And while he watched her face he heard the sound.
And knew the tender mellowing apple-green
And primrose-yellow faded in the west.
But the change came into it, nameless change
And fearful ; and he called her by her name :
The lips moved shaping "Clement," as he thought ;
One laboured inspiration, and 'twas peace,
Peace in the gentle breast for evermore.
" She's gone," a tender voice beside him said ;
It was the old man bending over them.
If Clement heard he only buried his face
In hers whence all the warmth ebbed, and his arm
Threw round that face with fingers in the hair,
And pressed his mouth to hers convulsively,
As though he deemed that if his living heat
Could not pass into her, at least her cold
Might pass to him ; and he might be for ever
Henceforth dead cold with her : for life was dear
Because she lived ; now life was nought, and death —
Death was all-dear to him — for she was death.
Vain were the kind rich words of Paoli
In his deaf ear, and vain his gentle force
To draw him from her now that she was gone.
It needed all the strength of all the men
To draw him, as was needful, from the corse ;
And, when they drew him, the wild vacant eye
And wildered gesture told the mind had given.

Freshened the breeze as night grew old ;
the moon
Sailed high and clear in heaven ; but he sat
Staring toward the silent muffled shape.
Since he was quiet grown, old Paoli
Suffered him near the stretcher sit again
On an old box of fishing-gear ; and still,
Wrapt in a cloak, he sat there all the night.
Only at intervals he lifted up
A corner of the veil upon her face ;
Looked at her, kissed her forehead, and if any
Walked loudly near in managing the boat,
He turned and placed his finger on his mouth
With, "Hush, she sleeps! as quiet as you can ! "
Almost indeed, if he had been himself.
He might have deemed that she was but asleep
Now in the moonlight, quiet and serene.
When the same moonlight shone into their room.
In the dear villa yonder, many a night,
And fell upon her face with him awake,
Did it look very otherwise ? — the long,
Long lashes of each upper eyelid closed.
Mazed with sweet sister lashes from beneath,
Laying fine shadow on the delicate cheek ;
The pale brow misted round with tender mist
Of hair that deepens o'er the placid head —
Only there is no waking any more.
So wore the night ; and the day following,
In afternoon, they made the little port —
A gemlike harbour all in miniature ;
Its shining feudal palace on the rock,
With sentinel and cannon, cypress-cone
Relieved against the light, palmetto, palm ;
The tiny steamer, with few fishing-boats.
In sapphire alternate with emerald ;
Fringed fair with houses white 'mid orange-groves,
Embastioned of mountain-crests abrupt.
He who had taken, it seemed unconsciously,
Some little food they offered followed quiet
Paoli and those who bore that burden meek
Upon the shore, and only bade them heed
To take her gently — " 'Tis a healthful sleep ;
She needs it ; she was very tired, you know."
Paoli had overheard her when she asked
Clement to bury her in that green spot
Within their garden — now arranged it so.
He did for Clement, with the maiden's help.
All Clement would have wished and done, he knew ;
Wrote to the consul of his nation nigh,
Who came, but after the sad funeral.
Once only, when the bearers shuffled round
The deep grave, and the ropes were griding round
The cofifin, Clement, who had sunk, it seemed,
Into a stupor vacant while they did
Their ghastly office for the heedless dead.
Sudden awoke and spread his arms and rushed
Toward the hole and shouted wild her name ;
But they by force restrained him, leading him
Into the house, where till the following day
When the kind consul moved him to the town,
He wandered up and down, as he had done
That evening ere he sailed to seek for her —
Peering as then about their little room,
Above, below, as seeking her, and pausing
As if he listened, fancying she called.
And he would finger all her little things—
Her shawls and dresses, bracelets, and her work
With needle left in it, the little stocking
For some poor child — wearing an air intent.
As waiting half bewildered for her step
Upon the stair, and listening for her voice.