图书图片
PDF
ePub

And wild birds gossiping overhead,

And lisp of leaves, and fountain's fall, And her own voice more sweet than all, Telling the tale, which, wanting these, Perchance may lose its power to please."

THE STUDENT'S TALE.

THE FALCON OF SER FEDERIGO.

ONE summer morning, when the sun was hot,
Weary with labor in his garden-plot,

On a rude bench beneath his cottage eaves,
Ser Federigo sat among the leaves

Of a huge vine, that, with its arms outspread,
Hung its delicious clusters overhead.

Below him, through the lovely valley, flowed
The river Arno, like a winding road,

And from its banks were lifted high in air
The spires and roofs of Florence called the Fair;
To him a marble tomb, that rose above
His wasted fortunes and his buried love.
For there, in banquet and in tournament,

His wealth had lavished been, his substance spent,
To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped,
Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed,
Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme,
The ideal woman of a young man's dream.

Then he withdrew, in poverty and pain,
To this small farm, the last of his domain,
His only comfort and his only care

To prune his vines, and plant the fig and pear;
His only forester and only guest

His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest,

Whose willing hands had found so light of yore The brazen knocker of his palace door,

Had now no strength to lift the wooden latch, That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch.

Companion of his solitary ways,

Purveyor of his feasts on holidays,

On him this melancholy man bestowed

The love with which his nature overflowed.

And so the empty-handed years went round,
Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic sound,
And so, that summer morn, he sat and mused
With folded, patient hands, as he was used,
And dreamily before his half-closed sight
Floated the vision of his lost delight.
Beside him, motionless, the drowsy bird
Dreamed of the chase, and in his slumber heard
The sudden, scythe-like sweep of wings, that dare
The headlong plunge thro' eddying gulfs of air,
Then, starting broad awake upon his perch,
Tinkled his bells, like mass-bells in a church,
And, looking at his master, seemed to say,
"Ser Federigo, shall we hunt to-day ?"

Ser Federigo thought not of the chase;
The tender vision of her lovely face,
I will not say he seems to see, he sees
In the leaf-shadows of the trellises,
Herself, yet not herself; a lovely child

With flowing tresses, and eyes wide and wild,
Coming undaunted up the garden walk,

And looking not at him, but at the hawk.
"Beautiful falcon!" said he, "would that I
Might hold thee on my wrist, or see thee fly!"
The voice washers, and made strange echoes start
Through all the haunted chambers of his heart,
As an æolian harp through gusty doors
Of some old ruin its wild music pours.

"Who is thy mother, my fair boy?" he said, His hand laid softly on that shining head. "Monna Giovanna. Will let me stay you

A little while, and with your falcon play? We live there, just beyond your garden wall, In the great house behind the poplars tall."

So he spake on; and Federigo heard
As from afar each softly uttered word,

And drifted onward through the golden gleams

« 上一页继续 »