"I in my cruse bear water, wherewithal
To quench the flames of Hell; and with my fire
I Paradise would burn: that hence no small
Fear shall impel, and no mean hope shall hire,
Men to serve God as they have served of yore;
But to his will shall set their whole desire,
For love, love, love alone, forevermore!"
And "love, love, love," rang round her as she passed
From sight, with mystic murmurs o'er and o'er
Reverbed from hollow heaven, as from some vast,
Deep-colored, vaulted, ocean-answering shell.
I, Ivo, had no power to ban or bless,
But was as one withholden by a spell.
Forward she fared in lofty loneliness,
Urged on by an imperious inward stress,
To waste fair Eden, and to drown fierce Hell.
MADONNA PIA
Ricordati di me, che son la Pia.
Siena mi fe; disfecomi Maremma;
Salsi colui, che, inanellata pria,
Disposato m'avea colla sua gemma.
Purgatorio, Canto V.
To westward lies the unseen sea,
Blue sea the live winds wander o'er.
The many-colored sails can flee,
And leave the dead, low-lying shore.
Her longing does not seek the main,
Her face turns northward first at morn;
There, crowning all the wide champaign,
Siena stood, where she was born.
Siena stands, and still shall stand;
She ne'er shall see or town or tower.
Warm life and beauty, hand in hand,
Steal farther from her hour by hour.
Yet forth she leans, with trembling knees,
And northward will she stare and stare
Through that thick wall of cypress-trees,
And sigh adown the stirless air:
"Shall no remembrance in Siena linger
Of me, once fair, whom slow Maremma slays?
As well he knows, whose ring upon my finger
Hath sealed for his alone mine earthly days!"
From wilds where shudders through the weeds
The dull, mean-headed, silent snake,
Like voiceless doubt that creeps and breeds;
From swamps where sluggish waters take,
As lives unblest a passing love,
The flag-flower's image in the spring,
Or seem, when flits the bird above,
To stir within with shadowed wing,