полная версия
Джордж Элиот
How Lisa Loved the King
And good must grow as grew the blessed day.
No more: great Love his essence had endued
With Pedro’s form, and, entering, subdued
The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense,
Proud in its choice of proud obedience
To hardship glorified by perfect reverence.
Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest,
And in her chamber, through the hours of rest,
The darkness was alight for her with sheen
Of arms, and plumèd helm; and bright between
Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring
’Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird’s bright wing
’Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king
Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there
Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare:
The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh,
Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh
Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves,
Clothing her life of life. Oh! she believes
That she could be content if he but knew
(Her poor small self could claim no other due)
How Lisa’s lowly love had highest reach
Of wingèd passion, whereto wingèd speech
Would be scorched remnants left by mounting flame.
Though, had she such lame message, were it blame
To tell what greatness dwelt in her, what rank
She held in loving? Modest maidens shrank
From telling love that fed on selfish hope;
But love, as hopeless as the shattering song,
Wailed for loved beings who have joined the throng
Of mighty dead ones. . . . Nay, but she was weak,
Knew only prayers and ballads, could not speak
With eloquence, save what dumb creatures have,
That with small cries and touches small boons crave.
She watched all day that she might see him pass
With knights and ladies; but she said, “Alas!
Though he should see me, it were all as one
He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone
Of wall or balcony: some colored spot
His eye just sees, his mind regardeth not.
I have no music-touch that could bring nigh
My love to his soul’s hearing. I shall die,
And he will never know who Lisa was,—
The trader’s child, whose soaring spirit rose
As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose.
“For were I now a fair deep-breasted queen
A-horseback, with blonde hair, and tunic green,
Gold-bordered, like Costanza, I should need
No change within to make me queenly there:
For they the royal-hearted women are
Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace;
For needy suffering lives in lowliest place,
Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile,
The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile.
My love is such, it cannot choose but soar
Up to the highest; yet forevermore,
Though I were happy, throned beside the king,
I should be tender to each little thing
With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell
Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well
With tender touch, and with a low soft moan
For company: my dumb love-pang is lone,
Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone.”
So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days.
Each night the August moon with changing phase
Looked broader, harder, on her unchanged pain;
Each noon the heat lay heavier again
On her despair, until her body frail
Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale
See narrowed on the height each summer morn;
While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn,
As if the soul within her, all on fire,
Made of her being one swift funeral-pyre.
Father and mother saw with sad dismay
The meaning of their riches melt away;
For without Lisa what would sequins buy?
What wish were left if Lisa were to die?
Through her they cared for summers still to come,
Else they would be as ghosts without a home
In any flesh that could feel glad desire.
They pay the best physicians, never tire
Of seeking what will soothe her, promising
That aught she longed for, though it were a thing
Hard to be come at as the Indian snow,
Or roses that on Alpine summits blow,
It should be hers. She answers with low voice,
She longs for death alone—death is her choice;
Death is the king who never did think scorn,
But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born.
Yet one day, as they bent above her bed,
And watched her in brief sleep, her drooping head
Turned gently, as the thirsty flowers that feel
Some moist revival through their petals steal;
And little flutterings of her lids and lips
Told of such dreamy joy as sometimes dips
A skyey shadow in the mind’s poor pool.
She oped her eyes, and turned their dark gems full
Upon her father, as in utterance dumb
Of some new prayer that in her sleep had come.
“What is it, Lisa?”—“Father, I would see
Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me.”
For always, night and day, her unstilled thought,
Wandering all o’er its little world, had sought
How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch,
King Pedro’s soul, that she who loved so much,
Dying, might have a place within his mind,—
A little grave which he would sometimes find
And plant some flower on it,—some thought, some memory kind.
Till in her dream she saw Minuccio
Touching his viola, and chanting low
A strain, that, falling on her brokenly,
Seemed blossoms lightly blown from off a tree;
Each burthened with a word that was a scent,—
Raona, Lisa, love, death, tournament;
Then in her dream she said, “He sings of me,
Might be my messenger; ah! now I see
The king is listening”—Then she awoke,
And, missing her dear dream, that new-born longing spoke.
She longed for music: that was natural;
Physicians said it was medicinal;
The humors might be schooled by true consent
