NOTE: _36 flattering Boscombe manuscript; fluttering 1824.
ALL:
Love! oh, Love!
JUSTINA:
’Tis that enamoured Nightingale _45
Who gives me the reply;
He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion and of constancy
To his mate, who rapt and fond,
Listening sits, a bough beyond. _50
Be silent, Nightingale—no more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,
What a man would feel for me. _55
And, voluptuous Vine, O thou
Who seekest most when least pursuing,—
To the trunk thou interlacest
Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,— _60
No more, with green embraces, Vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,—
For whilst thus thy boughs entwine
I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,
How arms might be entangled too. _65
Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour!
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance, _70
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,—
Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, _75
Restless Sunflower, cease to move,—
Or tell me all, what poisonous Power
Ye use against me—
NOTES: _58 To]Who to cj. Rossetti. _63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.
ALL:
Love! Love! Love!
JUSTINA:
It cannot be!—Whom have I ever loved?
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, _80
Floro and Lelio did I not reject?
And Cyprian?—
[SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.]
Did I not requite him
With such severity, that he has fled
Where none has ever heard of him again?—
Alas! I now begin to fear that this _85
May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
‘Cyprian is absent!’—O me miserable!
I know not what I feel!
[MORE CALMLY.]
It must be pity _90
To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
And I the cause.
[SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.]
And yet if it were pity,
Floro and Lelio might have equal share,
For they are both imprisoned for my sake. _95
[CALMLY.]
Alas! what reasonings are these? it is
Enough I pity him, and that, in vain,
Without this ceremonious subtlety.
And, woe is me! I know not where to find him now,
Even should I seek him through this wide world. _100
NOTE: _89 me miserable]miserable me editions 1839.