Gia. Ye blessed angels, hymn the word to heaven.
Come, daughter, let me hold thy hand in mine,
And gaze upon the emblem which thou bearest.
(He looks upon the crucifix awhile and presses it to his lips.)
Ros. Pray tell me, father, what is in the air?
Gia. See'st thou the crucibles, my child? Now mark,
I'll drop a simple essence into each.
Ros. My sense is flooded with perfume!
Gia. Again.
Ros. My soul, asudden, thrills with such delight
It seems as it had won a birth of wings!
Gia. Behold, now when I throw these jewels in,
The glories of our art!
Ros. A cloud of hues
As beautiful as morning fills the air;
And every breath I draw comes freighted with
Elysian sweets! An iris-tinted mist,
In perfumed wreaths, is rolling round the room.
The very walls are melting from my sight,
And surely, father, there's the sky o'erhead!
And on that gentle breeze did we not hear
The song of birds and silvery waterfalls?
And walk we not on green and flowery ground?
Ferrara, father, hath no ground like this,
The ducal gardens are not half so fair!
Oh, if this be the golden land of dreams,
Let us forever make our dwelling here.
Not lovelier in my earliest visions seemed
The paradise of our first parents, filled
With countless angels whose celestial light
Thrilled the sweet foliage like a gush of song.
Look how the long and level landscape gleams,
And with a gradual pace goes mellowing up
Into the blue. The very ground we tread
Seems flooded with the tender hue of heaven;
An azure lawn is all about our feet,
And sprinkled with a thousand gleaming flowers,
Like lovely lilies on a tranquil lake.
Gia. Nay, dear Rosalia, cast thy angel ken
Far down the shining pathway we have trod,
And see behind us those enormous gates
To which the world has given the name of Death;
And note the least among yon knot of lights,
And recognize your native orb, the earth!
For we are spirits threading fields of space,
Whose gleaming flowers are but the countless stars!
But now, dear love, adieu—a flash from heaven—
A sudden glory in the silent air—
A rustle as of wings, proclaim the approach
Of holier guides to take thee into keep.
Behold them gliding down the azure hill
Making the blue ambrosial with their light.
Our paths are here divided. I must go
Through other ways, by other forms attended.