COUNTESS LAURA.
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Roses and lilies, and the rest all love?I tell you that this tranquil dream may beFilled to repletion. Speak, and in the shadeOf my dark pinions I shall bear you hence,And land you where the mountain goat himselfStruggles for footing." He outspread his wings,And all the chapel darkened, as though hellHad swallowed up the tapers; and the airGrew thick, and, like a current sensible,Flowed round the person, with a wash and dash,As of the waters of a nether sea.Slowly and calmly through the dense obscure,Dove-like and gentle, rose the artist’s voice:"I dare not bring her spirit to that shame!Know my full meaning,—I who neither fearYour mystic person nor your dreadful power.Nor shall I now invoke God's potent name,For my deliverance from your toils. I standUpon the founded structure of his law,Established from the first, and thence defyYour arts, reposing all my trust in that!"The darkness eddied off; and Carlo sawThe figure gathering, as from outer space,Brightness on brightness; and his former shapeFell from him, like the ashes that fall off,And show a core of mellow fire within.Adown his wings there poured a lambent flood,That seemed as molten gold, which plashing fellUpon the floor, enringing him with flame;And o'er the tresses of his beaming headArose a stream of many-colored light,Like that which crowns the morning. Carlo stoodSteadfast, for all the splendor reaching up
