GÉRARD DE NERVAL.
Of all that were thy prisons—ah, untamed,
Ah, light and sacred soul!—none holds thee now;
No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou
Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,
About whose gates, with weary wings and maimed,
Thou most wert wont to linger, entering there
A moment, and returning rapt, with fair
Tidings that men or heeded not or blamed;
And they would smile and wonder, seeing where
Thou stood’st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,
Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,
Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou find
Old prophecies fulfilled now, old tales true
In the new world, where all things are made new?
THE DEATH OF MIRANDOLA. 1494.
‘The Queen of Heaven appeared, comforting him and promising that he should not utterly die.’—Thomas More, Life of Piens, Earl of Mirandola.
Strange lilies came with autumn; new and old
Were mingling, and the old world passed away,
And the night gathered, and the shadows grey
Dimmed the kind eyes and dimmed the locks of gold,
And face beloved of Mirandola.
The Virgin then, to comfort him and stay,
Kissed the thin cheek, and kissed the lips acold,
The lips unkissed of women many a day.
Nor she alone, for queens of the old creed,
Like rival queens that tended Arthur, there
Were gathered, Venus in her mourning weed,
Pallas and Dian; wise, and pure, and fair
Was he they mourned, who living did not wrong
One altar of its dues of wine and song.
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FOOTNOTES
[23] Aphrodite—Avril.
[110] From the Romaic.