But one who perished, left a tale of woe,
Meet for as deep a sigh as pity can bestow.
A voice of music, from Sienna's walls,
Is floating joyous on the summer air;—
And there are banquets in her stately halls,—
And graceful revels of the gay and fair,—
And brilliant wreaths the altar have arrayed,
Where meet her noblest youth, and loveliest maid.
To that young bride each grace hath Nature given,
Which glows on Art's divinest dream, her eye
Hath a pure sunbeam of her native heaven—
Her cheek a tinge of morning's richest dye;
Fair as that daughter of the south, whose form
Still breathes and charms, in Vinci's colours warm[1].
But is she blest?—for sometimes o'er her smile
A soft, sweet shade of pensiveness is cast;
And in her liquid glance there seems awhile
To dwell some thought whose soul is with the past.
Yet soon it flies—a cloud that leaves no trace
On the sky's azure, of its dwelling-place.
Perchance, at times, within her heart may rise
Remembrance of some early love or woe,
Faded, yet scarce forgotten,—in her eyes
Wakening the half-formed tear that may not flow:
Yet radiant seems her lot as aught on earth,
Where still some pining thought comes darkly o'er our mirth.
The world before her smiles, its changeful gaze
She hath not proved as yet,—her path seems gay
With flowers and sunshine, and the voice of praise
Is still the joyous herald of her way;
And beauty's light around her dwells, to throw
O'er every scene its own resplendent glow.
Such is the young Bianca, graced with all
That nature, fortune, youth at once can give.
Pure in their loveliness, her looks recal
Such dreams as ne'er life's early bloom survive;
And when she speaks, each thrilling tone is fraught
With sweetness, born of high and heavenly thought.
And he to whom are breathed her vows of faith
Is brave and noble. Child of high descent,
He hath stood fearless in the ranks of death,
Mid slaughtered heaps, the warrior's monument;
And proudly marshalled his carroccio's way[2]
Amidst the wildest wreck of war's array.
And his the chivalrous, commanding mien,
Where high-born grandeur blends with courtly grace;
Yet may a lightning glance at times be seen,
Of fiery passions, darting o'er his face,
And fierce the spirit kindling in his eye!—
But e'en while yet we gaze, its quick, wild flashes die.
- ↑ An allusion to Leonardo da Vinci's picture of his wife Mona Sisa, supposed to be the most perfect imitation of Nature ever exhibited in painting.—See Vasari in his Lives of the Painters.
- ↑ See the description of this sort of consecrated war-chariot in Sismondi's 'Histoire des Républiques Italiennes,' &c., vol. i., p. 394.
