36
PIPPA PASSES.
In Love, then I hate most: ask
How Love smiles through Hate’s iron casque,
Hate grins through Love’s rose-braided mask,—
And how, having hated thee,
I sought long and painfully
To reach thy heart, nor prick
The skin but pierce to the quick—
Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight
By thy bride—how the painter Lutwyche can hate!
How Love smiles through Hate’s iron casque,
Hate grins through Love’s rose-braided mask,—
And how, having hated thee,
I sought long and painfully
To reach thy heart, nor prick
The skin but pierce to the quick—
Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight
By thy bride—how the painter Lutwyche can hate!
Jules interposes.
Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt,
Hated me: they at Venice—presently
Their turn, however! You I shall not meet:
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. Keep
What ’s here, the gold—we cannot meet again,
Consider! and the money was but meant
For two years’ travel, which is over now,
All chance or hope or care or need of it.
This—and what comes from selling these, my casts
And books and medals, except … let them go
Together, so the produce keeps you safe
Out of Natalia’s clutches! If by chance
(For all ’s chance here) I should survive the gang
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them,
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.
[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—
Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt,
Hated me: they at Venice—presently
Their turn, however! You I shall not meet:
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. Keep
What ’s here, the gold—we cannot meet again,
Consider! and the money was but meant
For two years’ travel, which is over now,
All chance or hope or care or need of it.
This—and what comes from selling these, my casts
And books and medals, except … let them go
Together, so the produce keeps you safe
Out of Natalia’s clutches! If by chance
(For all ’s chance here) I should survive the gang
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them,
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.
[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—
Give her but a least excuse to love me!
When—where—
How—can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,
When—where—
How—can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,
