By time or sickness hung round drooping forms,
When the possession, stilling every wish,
Draws not desire away to other wealth—
A brighter dayspring then for us may dawn,
Then may we solemnise our golden age.
A character thus meditative, affectionate, and self-secluding, would naturally be peculiarly sensitive to the secret intimations of coming sorrow. Forebodings of evil arise in her mind from the antipathy so apparent between Tasso and Antonio; and, after learning that the cold, keen irony of the latter has irritated the poet almost to frenzy, she thus, to her friend Leonora de Sanvitale, reproaches herself for not having listened to the monitory whispers of her soul:—
Alas! that we so slowly learn to heed
The secret signs and omens of the breast!
An oracle speaks low within our hearts—
Low, still, yet clear, its prophet-voice forewarns