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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil: A Story From Boccaccio</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I.<br>Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!<br>Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!<br>They could not in the self-same mansion dwell<br>Without some stir of heart, some malady;<br>They could not sit at meals but feel how well<br>It soothed each to be the other by;<br>They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep<br>But to each other dream, and nightly weep.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II.<br>With every morn their love grew tenderer,<br>With every eve deeper and tenderer still;<br>He might not in house, field, or garden stir,<br>But her full shape would all his seeing fill;<br>And his continual voice was pleasanter<br>To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;<br>Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,<br>She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III.<br>He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,<br>Before the door had given her to his eyes;<br>And from her chamber-window he would catch<br>Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;<br>And constant as her vespers would he watch,<br>Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;<br>And with sick longing all the night outwear,<br>To hear her morning-step upon the stair.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV.<br>A whole long month of May in this sad plight<br>Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:<br>'To morrow will I bow to my delight,<br>'To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon.'-<br>'O may I never see another night,<br>'Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune.'-<br>So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,<br>Honeyless days and days did he let pass;</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V.<br>Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek<br>Fell sick within the rose's just domain,<br>Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek<br>By every lull to cool her infant's pain:<br>'How ill she is,' said he, 'I may not speak,<br>'And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:<br>'If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,<br>'And at the least 'twill startle off her cares.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI.<br>So said he one fair morning, and all day<br>His heart beat awfully against his side;<br>And to his heart he inwardly did pray<br>For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide<br>Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away-<br>Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,<br>Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:<br>Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VII.<br>So once more he had wak'd and anguished<br>A dreary night of love and misery,<br>If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed<br>To every symbol on his forehead high;<br>She saw it waxing very pale and dead,<br>And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,<br>'Lorenzo!'-here she ceas'd her timid quest,<br>But in her tone and look he read the rest.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VIII.<br>'O Isabella, I can half perceive<br>'That I may speak my grief into thine ear;<br>'If thou didst ever any thing believe,<br>'Believe how I love thee, believe how near<br>'My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve<br>'Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear<br>'Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live<br>'Another night, and not my passion shrive.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IX.<br>'Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,<br>'Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,<br>'And I must taste the blossoms that unfold<br>'In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.'<br>So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,<br>And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:<br>Great bliss was with them, and great happiness<br>Grew, like a lusty flower in June's caress.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">X.<br>Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,<br>Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart<br>Only to meet again more close, and share<br>The inward fragrance of each other's heart.<br>She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair<br>Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;<br>He with light steps went up a western hill,<br>And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XI.<br>All close they met again, before the dusk<br>Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,<br>All close they met, all eves, before the dusk<br>Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,<br>Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,<br>Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.<br>Ah! better had it been for ever so,<br>Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XII.<br>Were they unhappy then?-It cannot be-<br>Too many tears for lovers have been shed,<br>Too many sighs give we to them in fee,<br>Too much of pity after they are dead,<br>Too many doleful stories do we see,<br>Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;<br>Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse<br>Over the pathless waves towards him bows.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XIII.<br>But, for the general award of love,<br>The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;<br>Though Dido silent is in under-grove,<br>And Isabella's was a great distress,<br>Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove<br>Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less-<br>Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,<br>Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XIV.<br>With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,<br>Enriched from ancestral merchandize,<br>And for them many a weary hand did swelt<br>In torched mines and noisy factories,<br>And many once proud-quiver'd loins did melt<br>In blood from stinging whip;-with hollow eyes<br>Many all day in dazzling river stood,<br>To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XV.<br>For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,<br>And went all naked to the hungry shark;<br>For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death<br>The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark<br>Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe<br>A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:<br>Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,<br>That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XVI.<br>Why were they proud? Because their marble founts<br>Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?-<br>Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts<br>Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?-<br>Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts<br>Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?-<br>Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,<br>Why in the name of Glory were they proud?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XVII.<br>Yet were these Florentines as self-retired<br>In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,<br>As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,<br>Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,<br>The hawks of ship-mast forests-the untired<br>And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies-<br>Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,-<br>Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XVIII.<br>How was it these same ledger-men could spy<br>Fair Isabella in her downy nest?<br>How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye<br>A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest<br>Into their vision covetous and sly!<br>How could these money-bags see east and west?-<br>Yet so they did-and every dealer fair<br>Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XIX.<br>O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!<br>Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,<br>And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,<br>And of thy roses amorous of the moon,<br>And of thy lilies, that do paler grow<br>Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,<br>For venturing syllables that ill beseem<br>The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XX.<br>Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale<br>Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;<br>There is no other crime, no mad assail<br>To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:<br>But it is done-succeed the verse or fail-<br>To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;<br>To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,<br>An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXI.<br>These brethren having found by many signs<br>What love Lorenzo for their sister had,<br>And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines<br>His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad<br>That he, the servant of their trade designs,<br>Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,<br>When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees<br>To some high noble and his olive-trees.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXII.<br>And many a jealous conference had they,<br>And many times they bit their lips alone,<br>Before they fix'd upon a surest way<br>To make the youngster for his crime atone;<br>And at the last, these men of cruel clay<br>Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;<br>For they resolved in some forest dim<br>To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXIII.<br>So on a pleasant morning, as he leant<br>Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade<br>Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent<br>Their footing through the dews; and to him said,<br>'You seem there in the quiet of content,<br>'Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade<br>'Calm speculation; but if you are wise,<br>'Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXIV.<br>'To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount<br>'To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;<br>'Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count<br>'His dewy rosary on the eglantine.'<br>Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,<br>Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;<br>And went in haste, to get in readiness,<br>With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXV.<br>And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,<br>Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft<br>If he could hear his lady's matin-song,<br>Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;<br>And as he thus over his passion hung,<br>He heard a laugh full musical aloft;<br>When, looking up, he saw her features bright<br>Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXVI.<br>'Love, Isabel!' said he, 'I was in pain<br>'Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:<br>'Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain<br>'I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow<br>'Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain<br>'Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.<br>'Good bye! I'll soon be back.'-'Good bye!' said she:-<br>And as he went she chanted merrily.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXVII.<br>So the two brothers and their murder'd man<br>Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream<br>Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan<br>Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream<br>Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan<br>The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,<br>Lorenzo's flush with love.-They pass'd the water<br>Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXVIII.<br>There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,<br>There in that forest did his great love cease;<br>Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,<br>It aches in loneliness-is ill at peace<br>As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:<br>They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease<br>Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,<br>Each richer by his being a murderer.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXIX.<br>They told their sister how, with sudden speed,<br>Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,<br>Because of some great urgency and need<br>In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.<br>Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed,<br>And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;<br>To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,<br>And the next day will be a day of sorrow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXX.<br>She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;<br>Sorely she wept until the night came on,<br>And then, instead of love, O misery!<br>She brooded o'er the luxury alone:<br>His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,<br>And to the silence made a gentle moan,<br>Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,<br>And on her couch low murmuring, 'Where? O where?'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXI.<br>But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long<br>Its fiery vigil in her single breast;<br>She fretted for the golden hour, and hung<br>Upon the time with feverish unrest-<br>Not long-for soon into her heart a throng<br>Of higher occupants, a richer zest,<br>Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,<br>And sorrow for her love in travels rude.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXII.<br>In the mid days of autumn, on their eves<br>The breath of Winter comes from far away,<br>And the sick west continually bereaves<br>Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay<br>Of death among the bushes and the leaves,<br>To make all bare before he dares to stray<br>From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel<br>By gradual decay from beauty fell,</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXIII.<br>Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes<br>She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,<br>Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes<br>Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale<br>Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes<br>Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;<br>And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,<br>To see their sister in her snowy shroud.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXIV.<br>And she had died in drowsy ignorance,<br>But for a thing more deadly dark than all;<br>It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,<br>Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall<br>For some few gasping moments; like a lance,<br>Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall<br>With cruel pierce, and bringing him again<br>Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXV.<br>It was a vision.-In the drowsy gloom,<br>The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot<br>Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb<br>Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot<br>Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom<br>Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute<br>From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears<br>Had made a miry channel for his tears.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXVI.<br>Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;<br>For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,<br>To speak as when on earth it was awake,<br>And Isabella on its music hung:<br>Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,<br>As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;<br>And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,<br>Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXVII.<br>Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright<br>With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof<br>From the poor girl by magic of their light,<br>The while it did unthread the horrid woof<br>Of the late darken'd time,-the murderous spite<br>Of pride and avarice,-the dark pine roof<br>In the forest,-and the sodden turfed dell,<br>Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXVIII.<br>Saying moreover, 'Isabel, my sweet!<br>'Red whortle-berries droop above my head,<br>'And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;<br>'Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed<br>'Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat<br>'Comes from beyond the river to my bed:<br>'Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,<br>'And it shall comfort me within the tomb.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XXXIX.<br>'I am a shadow now, alas! alas!<br>'Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling<br>'Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,<br>'While little sounds of life are round me knelling,<br>'And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,<br>'And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,<br>'Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,<br>'And thou art distant in Humanity.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XL.<br>'I know what was, I feel full well what is,<br>'And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;<br>'Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,<br>'That paleness warms my grave, as though I had<br>'A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss<br>'To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;<br>'Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel<br>'A greater love through all my essence steal.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLI.<br>The Spirit mourn'd 'Adieu!'-dissolv'd, and left<br>The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;<br>As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,<br>Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,<br>We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,<br>And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:<br>It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,<br>And in the dawn she started up awake;</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLII.<br>'Ha! ha!' said she, 'I knew not this hard life,<br>'I thought the worst was simple misery;<br>'I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife<br>'Portion'd us-happy days, or else to die;<br>'But there is crime-a brother's bloody knife!<br>'Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:<br>'I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,<br>'And greet thee morn and even in the skies.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLIII.<br>When the full morning came, she had devised<br>How she might secret to the forest hie;<br>How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,<br>And sing to it one latest lullaby;<br>How her short absence might be unsurmised,<br>While she the inmost of the dream would try.<br>Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,<br>And went into that dismal forest-hearse.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLIV.<br>See, as they creep along the river side,<br>How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,<br>And, after looking round the champaign wide,<br>Shows her a knife.-'What feverous hectic flame<br>'Burns in thee, child?-What good can thee betide,<br>'That thou should'st smile again?'-The evening came,<br>And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;<br>The flint was there, the berries at his head.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLV.<br>Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,<br>And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,<br>Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,<br>To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;<br>Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,<br>And filling it once more with human soul?<br>Ah! this is holiday to what was felt<br>When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLVI.<br>She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though<br>One glance did fully all its secrets tell;<br>Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know<br>Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;<br>Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,<br>Like to a native lily of the dell:<br>Then with her knife, all sudden, she began<br>To dig more fervently than misers can.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLVII.<br>Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon<br>Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,<br>She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,<br>And put it in her bosom, where it dries<br>And freezes utterly unto the bone<br>Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:<br>Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,<br>But to throw back at times her veiling hair.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLVIII.<br>That old nurse stood beside her wondering,<br>Until her heart felt pity to the core<br>At sight of such a dismal labouring,<br>And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,<br>And put her lean hands to the horrid thing:<br>Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore;<br>At last they felt the kernel of the grave,<br>And Isabella did not stamp and rave.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">XLIX.<br>Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?<br>Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?<br>O for the gentleness of old Romance,<br>The simple plaining of a minstrel's song!<br>Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,<br>For here, in truth, it doth not well belong<br>To speak:-O turn thee to the very tale,<br>And taste the music of that vision pale.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">L.<br>With duller steel than the Persèan sword<br>They cut away no formless monster's head,<br>But one, whose gentleness did well accord<br>With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,<br>Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:<br>If Love impersonate was ever dead,<br>Pale Isabella kiss'd it, and low moan'd.<br>'Twas love; cold,-dead indeed, but not dethroned.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LI.<br>In anxious secrecy they took it home,<br>And then the prize was all for Isabel:<br>She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb,<br>And all around each eye's sepulchral cell<br>Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam<br>With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,<br>She drench'd away:-and still she comb'd, and kept<br>Sighing all day-and still she kiss'd, and wept.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LII.<br>Then in a silken scarf,-sweet with the dews<br>Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby,<br>And divine liquids come with odorous ooze<br>Through the cold serpent pipe refreshfully,-<br>She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose<br>A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,<br>And cover'd it with mould, and o'er it set<br>Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LIII.<br>And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,<br>And she forgot the blue above the trees,<br>And she forgot the dells where waters run,<br>And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;<br>She had no knowledge when the day was done,<br>And the new morn she saw not: but in peace<br>Hung over her sweet Basil evermore,<br>And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LIV.<br>And so she ever fed it with thin tears,<br>Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,<br>So that it smelt more balmy than its peers<br>Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew<br>Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,<br>From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:<br>So that the jewel, safely casketed,<br>Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LV.<br>O Melancholy, linger here awhile!<br>O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!<br>O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,<br>Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh!<br>Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;<br>Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,<br>And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,<br>Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LVI.<br>Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,<br>From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!<br>Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,<br>And touch the strings into a mystery;<br>Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;<br>For simple Isabel is soon to be<br>Among the dead: She withers, like a palm<br>Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LVII.<br>O leave the palm to wither by itself;<br>Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!-<br>It may not be-those Baalites of pelf,<br>Her brethren, noted the continual shower<br>From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,<br>Among her kindred, wonder'd that such dower<br>Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside<br>By one mark'd out to be a Noble's bride.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LVIII.<br>And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd much<br>Why she sat drooping by the Basil green,<br>And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch;<br>Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean:<br>They could not surely give belief, that such<br>A very nothing would have power to wean<br>Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,<br>And even remembrance of her love's delay.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LIX.<br>Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift<br>This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain;<br>For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,<br>And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;<br>And when she left, she hurried back, as swift<br>As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;<br>And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there<br>Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LX.<br>Yet they contriv'd to steal the Basil-pot,<br>And to examine it in secret place:<br>The thing was vile with green and livid spot,<br>And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face:<br>The guerdon of their murder they had got,<br>And so left Florence in a moment's space,<br>Never to turn again.-Away they went,<br>With blood upon their heads, to banishment.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LXI.<br>O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!<br>O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!<br>O Echo, Echo, on some other day,<br>From isles Lethean, sigh to us-O sigh!<br>Spirits of grief, sing not your 'Well-a-way!'<br>For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;<br>Will die a death too lone and incomplete,<br>Now they have ta'en away her Basil sweet.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LXII.<br>Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things,<br>Asking for her lost Basil amorously:<br>And with melodious chuckle in the strings<br>Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry<br>After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,<br>To ask him where her Basil was; and why<br>'Twas hid from her: 'For cruel 'tis,' said she,<br>'To steal my Basil-pot away from me.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=420980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LXIII.<br>And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,<br>Imploring for her Basil to the last.<br>No heart was there in Florence but did mourn<br>In pity of her love, so overcast.<br>And a sad ditty of this story born<br>From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd:<br>Still is the burthen sung-'O cruelty,<br>'To steal my Basil-pot away from me!'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=John+Keats">John Keats</a></strong></div>

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