2.
“Will you not be presented to her?”
The duchess whisper’d once to me.
“On no account! for I to woo her
“Methinks have too much modesty.”
How gracefully she stands before me!
I fancy, when I near her go,
A newborn life is stealing o’er me,
With newborn joy and newborn woe.
I’m from her kept as though by anguish,
While yearning drives me to draw near;
Her eyes, as they so sweetly languish,
The wild stars of my fate appear.
Her brow is clear, yet in the distance
The future lightning gathers there,
The storm which, spite of all resistance,
My spirit’s deepest seat will tear.
Her mouth is lovely, but with terror
I see beneath the roses hiss
The serpents which will prove my error,
With honied scorn and treach’rous kiss.
Impell’d by yearning, still more near I
Draw to the dear but dangerous place;
Her darling voice already hear I—
Bright flames her every sentence grace.
“Sir, what’s the name”—I hear her utter
These words—“Of her whose voice I heard?”
I only answer with a stutter:
“Madam, I did not hear one word!”