Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st earl of Lytton 183191Aux Italiens
BulwerLyERA
And she look’d like a queen in a book, that night,
With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair,
And the brooch on her breast, so bright.
The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore;
And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
The souls in Purgatory.
And who was not thrill’d in the strangest way,
As we heard him sing, while the gas burn’d low,
“Non ti scordar di me”?
Look’d grave, as if he had just then seen
The red flag wave from the city-gate
Where his eagles in bronze had been.
You ’d have said that her fancy had gone back again,
For one moment, under the old blue sky,
To the old glad life in Spain.
Together, my bride-betroth’d and I;
My gaze was fix’d on my opera-hat,
And hers on the stage hard by.
Like a queen she lean’d on her full white arm,
With that regal, indolent air she had;
So confident of her charm!
Of her former lord, good soul that he was!
Who died the richest and roundest of men,
The Marquis of Carabas.
Through a needle’s eye he had not to pass.
I wish him well, for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.
As I had not been thinking of aught for years,
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears.
When we stood, ’neath the cypress-trees, together,
In that lost land, in that soft clime,
In the crimson evening weather;
And her warm white neck in its golden chain,
And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot,
And falling loose again;
(O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine-flower!)
And the one bird singing alone to his nest,
And the one star over the tower.
And the letter that brought me back my ring.
And it all seem’d then, in the waste of life,
Such a very little thing!
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over;
And I thought … “were she only living still,
How I could forgive her, and love her!”
And of how, after all, old things were best,
That I smelt the smell of that jasmine-flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.
It made me creep, and it made me cold!
Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet
Where a mummy is half unroll’d.
In a dim box, over the stage; and dress’d
In that muslin dress with that full soft hair,
And that jasmine in her breast!
And the glittering horseshoe curv’d between:—
From my bride-betroth’d, with her raven hair,
And her sumptuous scornful mien,
And over her primrose face the shade
(In short from the Future back to the Past),
There was but a step to be made.
One moment I look’d. Then I stole to the door,
I travers’d the passage; and down at her side
I was sitting, a moment more.
Or something which never will be exprest,
Had brought her back from the grave again,
With the jasmine in her breast.
But she loves me now, and she lov’d me then!
And the very first word that her sweet lips said,
My heart grew youthful again.
She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still,
And but for her … well, we ’ll let that pass,
She may marry whomever she will.
With her primrose face: for old things are best,
And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above
The brooch in my lady’s breast.
And Love must cling where it can, I say:
For Beauty is easy enough to win;
But one is n’t lov’d every day.
There ’s a moment when all would go smooth and even,
If only the dead could find out when
To come back, and be forgiven.
And O that music! and O the way
That voice rang out from the donjon tower,
Non ti scordar di me,
Non ti scordar di me!