Or, sidelong-eyed, pretending not to see A summer-house so fine in such a nest of green. All the green garden, flower-bed, shade, and plot, Francesca loved, but most of all this spot. Whenever she walked forth, wherever went In nature's face, when we look patiently. Then would she think of heaven; and you might hear Sometimes, when every thing was hushed and clear, Her gentle voice from out those shades emerging, Singing the evening anthem to the Virgin. The gardeners and the rest, who served the place, And blest whenever they beheld her face, Knelt when they heard it, bowing and uncovered, And felt as if in air some sainted beauty hovered. One day, 'twas on a summer afternoon, When airs and gurgling brooks are best in tune, And grasshoppers are loud, and day-work done, And shades have heavy outlines in the sun,The princess came to her accustomed bower To get her, if she could, a soothing hour, Trying, as she was used, to leave her cares Without, and slumberously enjoy the airs, And the low-talking leaves, and that cool light The vines let in, and all that hushing sight Of closing wood seen through the opening door, And distant plash of waters tumbling o’er, And smell of citron blooms, and fifty luxuries more. She tried, as usual, for the trial's sake, For even that diminished her heart-ache; And never yet, how ill soe'er at ease, Came she for nothing 'midst the flowers and trees. Yet how it was she knew not, but that day, ; Painfully clear those rising thoughts appeared, With something dark at bottom that she feared And turning from the fields her thoughtful look, She reached o'er-head, and took her down a book, And fell to reading with as fixed an air, As though she had been wrapt since morning there. 'Twas Launcelot of the Lake, a bright romance, And read with a full heart, half sweet, half sad, He turned to give his castle a last look, As he was looking, burst in volumes forth, So that his wearied pulse felt over-wound, F And how in journeying on in her despair, Into her arms, when lo, with closing feet And Launcelot (so the boy was called) became That what with all his charms of look and limb, Ready she sat with one hand to turn o'er The leaf, to which her thoughts ran on before, The other propping her white brow, and throwing Its ringlets out, under the skylight glowing. |