Scene from 'Tasso'

MADDALO, A COURTIER.MALPIGLIO, A POET.PIGNA, A MINISTER.ALBANO, AN USHER.

MADDALO:5No access to the Duke! You have not saidThat the Count Maddalo would speak with him?

PIGNA:Did you inform his Grace that Signor PignaWaits with state papers for his signature?10

MALPIGLIO:The Lady Leonora cannot knowThat I have written a sonnet to her fame,In which I ... Venus and Adonis.You should not take my gold and serve me not.15

ALBANO:In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,'If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,Art the Adonis whom I love, and heThe Erymanthian boar that wounded him.'20O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.

MALPIGLIO:The words are twisted in some double senseThat I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.25

PIGNA:How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?

ALBANO:Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.30The Princess sate within the window-seat,And so her face was hid; but on her kneeHer hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,And quivering--young Tasso, too, was there.

MADDALO:35Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heavenThou drawest down smiles--they did not rain on thee.

MALPIGLIO:Would they were parching lightnings for his sakeOn whom they fell!40

SONG FOR 'TASSO'.

I loved--alas! our life is love;But when we cease to breathe and moveI do suppose love ceases too.I thought, but not as now I do,45Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,Of all that men had thought before.And all that Nature shows, and more.

And still I love and still I think,But strangely, for my heart can drink50The dregs of such despair, and live,And love;...And if I think, my thoughts come fast,I mix the present with the past,And each seems uglier than the last.55

Sometimes I see before me fleeA silver spirit's form, like thee,O Leonora, and I sit...still watching it,Till by the grated casement's ledge60It fades, with such a sigh, as sedgeBreathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.