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Isabella or, The Pot of Basil
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A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO.
1
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
2
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
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They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
4
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
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They could not sit at meals but feel how well
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It soothed each to be the other by;
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They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
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But to each other dream, and nightly weep.
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With every morn their love grew tenderer,
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With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
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He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
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But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
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And his continual voice was pleasanter
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To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
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Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
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She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.
1
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
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Before the door had given her to his eyes;
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And from her chamber-window he would catch
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Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
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And constant as her vespers would he watch,
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Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
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And with sick longing all the night outwear,
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To hear her morning-step upon the stair.
1
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
2
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
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"To-morrow will I bow to my delight,
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To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon."—
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"O may I never see another night,
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Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."—
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So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
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Honeyless days and days did he let pass;
1
Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
2
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
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Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
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By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
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"How ill she is," said he, "I may not speak,
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And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
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If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
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And at the least 'twill startle off her cares."
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So said he one fair morning, and all day
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His heart beat awfully against his side;
3
And to his heart he inwardly did pray
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For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
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Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away—
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Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
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Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
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Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!
1
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
2
A dreary night of love and misery,
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If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
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To every symbol on his forehead high;
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She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
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And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
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"Lorenzo!"—here she ceas'd her timid quest,
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But in her tone and look he read the rest.
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"O Isabella, I can half perceive
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That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
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If thou didst ever any thing believe,
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Believe how I love thee, believe how near
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My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
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Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
7
Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
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Another night, and not my passion shrive.
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"Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
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Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
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And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
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In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time."
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So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
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And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
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Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
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Grew, like a lusty flower in June's caress.
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Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
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Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
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Only to meet again more close, and share
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The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
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She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
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Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
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He with light steps went up a western hill,
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And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.
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All close they met again, before the dusk
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Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
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All close they met, all eyes, before the dusk
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Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
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Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
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Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
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Ah! better had it been for ever so,
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Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.
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Were they unhappy then?—It cannot be—
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Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
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Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
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Too much of pity after they are dead,
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Too many doleful stories do we see,
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Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
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Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
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Over the pathless waves towards him bows.
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But, for the general award of love,
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The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
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Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
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And Isabella's was a great distress,
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Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
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Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less—
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Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
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Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.
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With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
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Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
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And for them many a weary hand did swelt
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In torched mines and noisy factories,
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And many once proud-quiver'd loins did melt
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In blood from stinging whip;—with hollow eyes
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Many all day in dazzling river stood,
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To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.
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For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
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And went all naked to the hungry shark;
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For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
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The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
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Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
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A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
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Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
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That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.
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Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
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Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?—
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Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
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Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?—
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Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
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Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?—
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Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
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Why in the name of Glory were they proud?
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Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
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In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
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As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
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Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies;
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The hawks of ship-mast forests—the untired
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And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies—
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Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,—
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Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.
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How was it these same ledger-men could spy
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Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
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How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye
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A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest
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Into their vision covetous and sly!
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How could these money-bags see east and west?—
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Yet so they did—and every dealer fair
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Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.
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O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
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Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon;
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And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
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And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
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And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
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Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,
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For venturing syllables that ill beseem
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The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.
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Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
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Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
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There is no other crime, no mad assail
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To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
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But it is done—succeed the verse or fail—
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To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
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To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
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An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.
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These brethren having found by many signs
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What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
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And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
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His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
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That he, the servant of their trade designs,
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Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,
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When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
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To some high noble and his olive-trees.
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And many a jealous conference had they,
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And many times they bit their lips alone,
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Before they fix'd upon a surest way
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To make the youngster for his crime atone;
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And at the last, these men of cruel clay
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Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
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For they resolved in some forest dim
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To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him.
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So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
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Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
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Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
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Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
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"You seem there in the quiet of content,
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Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
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Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
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Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.
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"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
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To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
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Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
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His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
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Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
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Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
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And went in haste, to get in readiness,
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With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.
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And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
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Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
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If he could hear his lady's matin-song,
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Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
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And as he thus over his passion hung,
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He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
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When, looking up, he saw her features bright
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Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.
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"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
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Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow
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Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
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I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
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Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain
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Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
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Goodbye! I'll soon be back."—"Goodbye!" said she:—
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And as he went she chanted merrily.
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So the two brothers and their murder'd man
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Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
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Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
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Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
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Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
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The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
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Lorenzo's flush with love.—They pass'd the water
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Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.
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There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
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There in that forest did his great love cease;
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Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
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It aches in loneliness—is ill at peace
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As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
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They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
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Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
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Each richer by his being a murderer.
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They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
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Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
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Because of some great urgency and need
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In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
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Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's weed,
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And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
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To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
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And the next day will be a day of sorrow.
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She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
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Sorely she wept until the night came on,
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And then, instead of love, O misery!
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She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
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His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
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And to the silence made a gentle moan,
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Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
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And on her couch low murmuring "Where? O where?"
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But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
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Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
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She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
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Upon the time with feverish unrest—
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Not long—for soon into her heart a throng
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Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
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Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
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And sorrow for her love in travels rude.
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In the mid days of autumn, on their eves
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The breath of Winter comes from far away,
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And the sick west continually bereaves
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Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
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Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
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To make all bare before he dares to stray
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From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
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By gradual decay from beauty fell,
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Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
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She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
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Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
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Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
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Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
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Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;
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And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,
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To see their sister in her snowy shroud.
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And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
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But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
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It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
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Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall
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For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
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Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
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With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
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Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.
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It was a vision.—In the drowsy gloom,
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The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
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Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
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Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot
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Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
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Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
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From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
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Had made a miry channel for his tears.
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Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
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For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
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To speak as when on earth it was awake,
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And Isabella on its music hung:
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Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
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As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
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And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
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Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.
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Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
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With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
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From the poor girl by magic of their light,
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The while it did unthread the horrid woof
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Of the late darken'd time,—the murderous spite
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Of pride and avarice,—the dark pine roof
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In the forest,—and the sodden turfed dell,
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Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.
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Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!
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Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
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And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
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Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
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Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
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Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
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Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
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And it shall comfort me within the tomb.
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"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
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Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling
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Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
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While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
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And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
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And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
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Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
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And thou art distant in Humanity.
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"I know what was, I feel full well what is,
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And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
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Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
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That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
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A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
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To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
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Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
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A greater love through all my essence steal."
1
The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"—dissolv'd, and left
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The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
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As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
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Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
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We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
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And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
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It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,
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And in the dawn she started up awake;
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"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life,
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I thought the worst was simple misery;
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I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
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Portion'd us—happy days, or else to die;
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But there is crime—a brother's bloody knife!
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Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:
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I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
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And greet thee morn and even in the skies."
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When the full morning came, she had devised
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How she might secret to the forest hie;
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How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
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And sing to it one latest lullaby;
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How her short absence might be unsurmised,
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While she the inmost of the dream would try.
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Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,
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And went into that dismal forest-hearse.
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See, as they creep along the river side,
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How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
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And, after looking round the champaign wide,
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Shows her a knife.—"What feverous hectic flame
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Burns in thee, child?—What good can thee betide,
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That thou should'st smile again?"—The evening came,
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And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
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The flint was there, the berries at his head.
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Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
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And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
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Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
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To see scull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;
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Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
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And filling it once more with human soul?
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Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
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When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.
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She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
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One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
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Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
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Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
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Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
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Like to a native lily of the dell:
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Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
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To dig more fervently than misers can.
1
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
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Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
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She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
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And put it in her bosom, where it dries
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And freezes utterly unto the bone
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Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
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Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,
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But to throw back at times her veiling hair.
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That old nurse stood beside her wondering,
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Until her heart felt pity to the core
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At sight of such a dismal labouring,
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And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,
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And put her lean hands to the horrid thing:
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Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore;
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At last they felt the kernel of the grave,
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And Isabella did not stamp and rave.
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Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?
2
Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?
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O for the gentleness of old Romance,
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The simple plaining of a minstrel's song!
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Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,
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For here, in truth, it doth not well belong
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To speak:—O turn thee to the very tale,
8
And taste the music of that vision pale.
1
With duller steel than the Perséan sword
2
They cut away no formless monster's head,
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But one, whose gentleness did well accord
4
With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,
5
Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:
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If Love impersonate was ever dead,
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Pale Isabella kiss'd it, and low moan'd.
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'Twas love; cold,—dead indeed, but not dethroned.
1
In anxious secrecy they took it home,
2
And then the prize was all for Isabel:
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She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb,
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And all around each eye's sepulchral cell
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Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam
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With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,
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She drench'd away:—and still she comb'd, and kept
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Sighing all day—and still she kiss'd, and wept.
1
Then in a silken scarf,—sweet with the dews
2
Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby,
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And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
4
Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,—
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She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose
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A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
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And cover'd it with mould, and o'er it set
8
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.
1
And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
2
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
3
And she forgot the dells where waters run,
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And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
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She had no knowledge when the day was done,
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And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
7
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore,
8
And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.
1
And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
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Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
3
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
4
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
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Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
6
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
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So that the jewel, safely casketed,
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Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.
1
O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
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O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
3
O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,
4
Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!
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Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;
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Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,
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And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,
8
Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.
1
Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,
2
From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
3
Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,
4
And touch the strings into a mystery;
5
Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;
6
For simple Isabel is soon to be
7
Among the dead: She withers, like a palm
8
Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.
1
O leave the palm to wither by itself;
2
Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!—
3
It may not be—those Baälites of pelf,
4
Her brethren, noted the continual shower
5
From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,
6
Among her kindred, wonder'd that such dower
7
Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside
8
By one mark'd out to be a Noble's bride.
1
And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd much
2
Why she sat drooping by the Basil green,
3
And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch;
4
Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean:
5
They could not surely give belief, that such
6
A very nothing would have power to wean
7
Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,
8
And even remembrance of her love's delay.
1
Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift
2
This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain;
3
For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,
4
And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;
5
And when she left, she hurried back, as swift
6
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;
7
And, patient, as a hen-bird, sat her there
8
Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.
1
Yet they contriv'd to steal the Basil-pot,
2
And to examine it in secret place:
3
The thing was vile with green and livid spot,
4
And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face:
5
The guerdon of their murder they had got,
6
And so left Florence in a moment's space,
7
Never to turn again.—Away they went,
8
With blood upon their heads, to banishment.
1
O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!
2
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
3
O Echo, Echo, on some other day,
4
From isles Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!
5
Spirits of grief, sing not your "Well-a-way!"
6
For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;
7
Will die a death too lone and incomplete,
8
Now they have ta'en away her Basil sweet.
1
Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things,
2
Asking for her lost Basil amorously;
3
And with melodious chuckle in the strings
4
Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry
5
After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,
6
To ask him where her Basil was; and why
7
'Twas hid from her: "For cruel 'tis," said she,
8
"To steal my Basil-pot away from me."
1
And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
2
Imploring for her Basil to the last.
3
No heart was there in Florence but did mourn
4
In pity of her love, so overcast.
5
And a sad ditty of this story born
6
From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd:
7
Still is the burthen sung—"O cruelty,
8
To steal my Basil-pot away from me!"
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