-So strict was she, the veil Should cover close her pale Pure cheeks-a bride to look at and scarce touch, Yet have to trip along the streets like me, How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss -Not envy, sure!-for if you gave me In earnest, do you think I'd choose That sort of new love to enslave me? Mine should have lapped me round from the beginning; As little fear of losing it as winning: Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives, And only parents' love can last our lives. At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair, Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) What was my mother's face-my father, too! Now wait!-even I already seem to share All service ranks the same with God: Paradise, his presence fills Our earth, each only as God wills Can work-God's puppets, best and worst, Say not "a small event!" Why “small” ? call A "great event," should come to pass, And more of it, and more of it !—oh yes— So mightily, this single holiday! But let the sun shine! Wherefore repine? Nor yet cicala dared carouse― No, dared carouse ! [She enters the street. PART I MORNING. SCENE.-Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. LUCA's wife, OTTIMA, and her paramour, the German SEBALD. Sebald [sings]. Let the watching lids wink! Day's a-blaze with eyes, think! Deep into the night, drink! Ottima. Night? Such may be your Rhine-land nights perhaps ; But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink -We call such light, the morning: let us see! Mind how you grope your way, though! How these tall Naked geraniums straggle! Push the lattice Behind that frame !-Nay, do I bid you?-Sebald, It shakes the dust down on me! Why, of course The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content, Or must I find you something else to spoil? Sebald. Ay, thus it used to be. Ever your house was, I remember, shut Till mid-day; I observed that, as I strolled Oh, I remember!—and the peasants laughed And said, "The old man sleeps with the young wife." This house was his, this chair, this window-his. Ottima. Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. Mark's; That black streak is the belfry. Stop: Vicenza Should lie . . there's Padua, plain enough, that blue! Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger! Sebald. It seems to me a night with a sun added. Morning? Where 's dew, where 's freshness? That bruised plant, I bruised In getting through the lattice yestereve, Droops as it did. See, here's my elbow's mark I' the dust o' the sill. Ottima. Oh, shut the lattice, pray! |