CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PR6003.O915V8 1922 A vision of Giorgione; 3 1924 013 590 249 Cornell University Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013590249 A VISION OF GIORGIONE BY THE SAME AUTHOR KING LEAR'S WIFE AND OTHER PLAYS GRUACH AND BRITAIN'S DAUGHTER In Preparation : SELECTED POEMS (1894-1914) A • VISION • OF GIORGIONE THREE • VARIATIONS ON • A • VENETIAN THEME -BY -GORDON BOTTOM LEY CONSTABLE tif COMPANY LIMITED LONDON MCMXXII COPYRIGHT IN U.S.A. I9IO 4C 3^-^r^ ^ 6 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. CHISWICK PRESS \ CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GKIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. TO MY WIFE, AN OLD GIFT AND A NEW. Where all is yours, What virtue lies in giving? Though nought endures, In writing as in living I have given myself to you. And, as you take me. My poems grow more true, More true you make me. CONTENTS PAGE I. A Concert of Giorgione ... i Gemma's Song on the Water . 21 II. A Pastoral of Giorgione . . 23 Gemma's Song on the Way . . 41 III. The Lady of Giorgione ... 43 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Of the three following eclogues, A Pastoral of Giorgione first appeared, under the title of A Vision of Giorgione, in the volume of poems The Gate of Smaragdus (London, Elkin Mathews, 1904), followed by Gemma s Song on the Way and The Lady of Gior- gione. A Concert of Giorgione and Gemma's Song on the Water were added to the sequence at a later date. The whole was first published in 1910 in the United States of America, and is now issued (with altera- tions and additions) in Great Britain for the first time. G. B. I A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE I A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Giorgio Barbarelli, called Giorgione, had a clavichord in his studio, to make music at night when the light had gone from Venice. This evening he and his pupil Paris, a boy, stood at the window. Paris. THE sky's last rose falls into the water; It sinks and melts and, melting, sinks once more. The far bell tilts, and a stale star or two Left over from last night blink like the bell. A ceaseless fountain of flies is rising and falling — They are as calm as one more dimness fall- ing On the last water, where my heart feels fall- ing .. . O, falling, falling, till the world is done. 3 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE GlORGIONE. The work is finished ; paint could but imi- tate it. This is no vision to create anew The painter's way ; perfection comes but once, And we must brings the mood for it our- selves. Art is a piece of life for once transfig-ured In its own light set free ; a condition of rest. There are two whispering girls down on the bridge, Large-shawled, with a dark pulpy film of breath Between their cheeks. . . . And there 's the wonderful girl I saw one night play with a curling flower ; If I might make her lean upon a cushion And listen to four strange pitiless words I should feel the high and transitory hand Whose right brush-strokes, passing, leave a soul ; I'd enter Paradise to repeat her mouth, And leave her for a Fate on men for ever . . . Set in rich greys ; colour is sentiment 4 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Some meritorious sunset-piece may ruin, But in true tones the fadeless colour vibrates. Paris. She smiles to sweet Parise with the trailing hair, A very fingered lady who shows thumb- marks Where many men have skipped her pages. GlORGIONE. So do the high unconscious Fates — we smile. Paris. Your gamba needs a string before theycome. GlORGIONE. And stroke the enamelled surface with old silk- When I reach the high frets I must surmise My fingers mirrored in its golden darkness Ere touch will yield a breath-stirred down of sound ; For those charming repeated fingers seem The thinner unchafed strings of sympathy Stretched low in the Abate's viola d'amore. 5 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE The Abate. I'll tune it soon in harp-way flat to-night, To suit your imaged music with faint light. They find that The Abate and Fra Umilio have entered unheard and are standing behind them. GlORGIONE. Dear friends, you come as all music begins In such inexplicable difference As waking's unannounced moment reveals. Fra Umilio. What are these newest ladies on the easel ? GlORGIONE. I never know. I pose models no more, But find adorable ladies with such fair minds They may be trusted to express themselves Graciously, perfectly in perfect gowns ; I ask them to come here quite half in secret Wearing the gowns they think for quiet joy ; Sometimes I play them music of subtle dis- cords, Or tell them casual fragmentary stories About the sudden things women do Which no man understands. And I watch. 6 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE I paint and watch ; they think they are but broidering Or wondering or resting from their fate. This day I heard one humming on the stair And knew she did not know her music's words Though she felt something from the notes' new order ; Another turned sick ; the singer ran to her, A third one looked at me bewilderedly. Let women move with their minds. . . . Wait. Then was my picture. Yet I do not know. Paris. Master, shall Fra Umilio hear the song Before I set the clavichord for him, The song you brought from the green music- house ? Fra Umilio. Yes, sing, reveal to us your other thought That caused the song to stir within you now. Paris. When I forget my lute (too large for me) In its clear call that makes my touch un- bodied, 7 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE It seems to heave and quiver to my breast Until I hear blind depths past shape for knowing". He sings Lady, when the moment passes Will you smile or will you sigh ? Wine is high In the slender amber glasses. . . . If my mouth were in the masses Of your heavy hiding hair Would you know or would you care ? Would you cry For the music that has gone If my mouth were in your neck Vibrant as a music-shake ? If my mouth were under your own Would breath fly ? Taste, ah, taste this pallid amber Past its heart that lights your chamber ; When your Moor may lute again You'll return and you'll remember, You'll recapture what was pain And remember and know why. Fra Umilio. So do these ladies in the water-light A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Lean forward like regret yet glimmer away Like memories we cannot understand, The quiet hiding way of all flesh. Does painting hurt you with unavailingness? GlORGIONE. Living hurts with unavailingness, Till painting seems a mirror of black glass Where real life goes past me secretly. See, our gold boy has floated a safl'ron dream Inside the lid of the black clavichord. Open the windows, Paris, and let live dark- ness Deepen stillness with touches on our throats. Light one far lamp, for that is music-light. Fra Umilio. My strings and Paris' voice and the slim viols Slide through each other's folds, touch mutually And straightway close in lambent mild sur- prise. Some day, I think, these instruments will muse 9 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE To fuse voices no more, but flow alone ; And motets will be made for their thin sakes, Wherein opposing motions will be found Revealing slighted values of half known tones ; Till gamba and flute and clavichord to- gether Shall search strange depths of larger motet shapes. The Abate. We must have words, or else the shapeless chords Are unrelated, vague, and answer nought ; Voices' thrill turns music into worship. Nay, pipe and string must ever go beneath. GlORGIONE. (Angelico shrank from Masaccio.) Fra Umilio. I know there is a music gathering somewhere Unmindful of the house where it is made. And potent to feel more than men can say In a minuter mode of sounds allied Without another art's cold explanation. lO A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE The Abate. Ah, but the voice is still an instrument And must go with the rest to shape perfec- tion. Fra Umilio. All meaning changes with the harmony. Paris sings I saw her shadow on the curtain Assailed by a breath of rain-wet roses ; And near her hair, but half as certain, A shadow of tremulous love-in-a-mist Seemed to leave her arm's slow poses In a finger twist. . . . Listen, O, listen, listen As if you were music listening to itself: Even when I cease perfect voices remain. Women's Voices outside and far below sing Mouths together cannot speak ? Fie, a lie ; dark breath meeting Changes moulded by repeating Lip and cheek. . . . Paris. There might be water over them or us II A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE The way each long note follows itself so far. They sing- as if they feared they might not hear it. GiORGiONE, at the window. They are the deepest of the fig-tree shadow Under the wall of the unknown woman's garden. I see them by the light of their spread silks Whose shapes make me restless and hope- less As their sound would if we touched on a close stair. They near : I hear the plash of a dipped hand. O, they slip into starlight which will be Like frost that cuts the scent in the last roses. I see dim flowers melt in goldy silks, And knots of silk dropped over winy silks, And dimmer melting faces under silk hair — I'll add to them with a bowlful of loose roses Which spread and fall all over bewildered as they. . . . O, one has dropt on the water, whose top- most film 12 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Ruffles it like low breeze, spreads it unbroken And makes me poise and shiver with delight. A Woman's Voice. Who spills such kisses from cool brimming lips ? O, petals creep in my bodice like tickling moths That woke in a seam when old silk warmed to me. GlORGIONE. They are past ; they are a floating shadow again That seems to show its own depths floating under. Paris. Had they a lute; or was it quite the water? They might have taken me into their laps And loved me because I am not a man : But they are gone as though beneath full shawls, Perhaps to a hushed garden where only night And each other's half caught breath will stir Within their close neck-lawns while they listen. 13 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE GlORGIONE. When rarenesses like this open to me, By some supreme inexplicable hour, Women are the revealers and I know Life is the apex of eternity : God is the perfection of ourselves : Divinity is the only immortality : Evil is imperfection. Art is all. Because it is the science of perfection. Paris. Like sounds of falling gloves feet touch the stair, Near laughter like the sound of painted fans. The door opens • Giorgione's half sister Gemma enters with her friend Ilaria and her maid COSA. Gemma. You never learnt to greet your sister so ; What exquisite would you make me, what sweet secret Was I to carry and drop about my chamber? I am some transfigured lady all at once, Half mystery and half undreamed desire. A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Going from my bed into rich dark romance Wrapt in a Persian shawl of blue and rose Over soft tussores that will never rustle (They say she stole nuns' veils to make her night-gowns) ; So I am briefly netted with floating mazes, Seeming helpless perfection flowing past you. O, sisters have not tresses full of petals So soft and moist we wish they opened from us. Is it a newish mode of inspiration To greet the ivory lady I have brought you ? See, there's a long stem in her comb; I'll take it . . . Now I have spilt her gold down her shoulders. Anointing her neck with a golden shadow of gold. 'Tis all your lovely sin. Girl, put it up. GlORGIONE. Nay, let it stay. O, do not take that from me. Lady, you and the darkness must be one. Mingled like indistinguishable spices To permeate me with your unknown instinct 15 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE And move me with right rituals to receive you. I L ARIA. They touched us with such homage of the night That we felt immemorial and supreme — Abstracts of every legend of the night. I would have my hair bound up ; I am strange and lost, I am not mistress of myself or it When it falls down me so ... I have no poise. Gemma. I gave her torpid amber attar of roses In a globed phial with a long small neck To make her sweet for sinking music to- night ; She touched a drop upon her trembling finger, Sighed and waited, peeping down and shrinking ; She took the topaz stopper like a drop, Luted it in its place with old ripe wax, i6 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Then kissed the phial, watched the light inside And said she was richer knowing it was attar Than in confusing it with her fainter self. GlORGIONE. You let my paintings take you from us too soon ; Madam, what are my women saying to you? I L ARIA. I think that every painter, even as God, Developesmen and women in his own image; I look to find you — or your shape of soul. Paris. Let's wonder what Luini 's like, who paints Such gauzy hesitant small-toed ladies as you. He must be nearly as exquisite as you. And that 's irreverence in any man. GlORGIONE. He's got a veil of Raphael in his soul. And tries to think what he shall make his colour. . . . Lady, will you not sit to receive our music ? 17 c A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Gemma. We come to bid you leave your painted music And go with us to-morrow to Castelfranco ; We shall be quite alone to feel June die At feasts by the fountain, music under the trees. Felice waits, and you shall bring Pietro: Felice says all poems are dead within him Because he believes himself too trivial — But he remembers that the earth is cooling, And there 's an end of immortality. Our boat leaves for the Brenta before dawn, While yet the old moon seems to air the water. GlORGIONE. Yes, yes, I will come. . . . Madam, do you go too ? Ilaria. Gemma says I must come. Will other silk ones seek your music now ? I think I hear bewildering sounds grow- ing. . . . Paris. I lay my head against your rustling bodice; i8 A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE Lady, look down for whispers. . . . Your heart sounds Like something coming-. . . . Did I say it too loudly ? GlORGIONE. We must tune the violas again, again. For stretching languors take them soon at night. Lady, will you not walk in the far darkness, Moving among my ladies on the walls Who melt away from you as you from us, And let us watch you watching, while we play? Gemma. I cringe when tangled flies buzz in my hair. 19 GEMMA'S SONG ON THE WATER PALE Ilaria, Beauty's daughter, Does your face beneath the water, Glimmering darkly up between us, Hint to you another Venus Shaping there From throat to hair Swirling in the water ? Lo, my hand dissolves in foaming All the wonder that was coming. Yet I nearly caught her. Dark Ilaria, why this dreaming. Rings and fingers dipt and streaming? Does your heart hold some reflection Of a dawning dim perfection, Eyes that hide Under a tide 'Wildering and streaming? Eyes not yours, that make replying, Ever sinking, never dying? Lean down to meet that gleaming. 21 II A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE II A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE GiORGiONE, his half sister Gemma, her friend Ilaria, Giorgione's pupil Pietro, and Felice, a poet, are seated on the grass of a hillside at Castelfranco, in the shade of trees and near a well. Felice sings, to the sound of his own lute and PiETRo's andofl'LA.v.iA'sfitite. QUINCE-BLOOMS that clamber Lilacs amongf. Gathered for your chamber. Spring-bloom and song. You know, and none i' the world beside, Of a song in the leafy night. And a moon-girl slim at her lattice wide Who leaned to her delight. One burden had I, lulling lowly To wake you yester-eve — 25 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Flower and golden fruit come slowly, Swiftly the golden leaf. Wind-flower and crocus, Jasmine and bay ; Death has bespoke us, Love while 'tis May. Ilaria. 'Tis a sweet song, but sad in the end, Felice : Why do your fairest songs end mournfully? Felice. Because they sorrow that the end has come. That they must cease, that ecstasy falls from them. Who is not sad to know that song is ended ? The lute laid down murmurs regretfully Till with a little dwindling sound of tears The thrill sinks back on silence. Then, again, I too am sad in the end, am sad in the end : However rapturously I leap to joy. However hopefully I turn to song, I never reach my full imagination Nor realize its close original glow ; 26 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE And so my voice falls at a phrase's end In a discouraged yet unwilling cadence. Then say you song were sweeter lacking sadness. Gemma. Felice's songs are like the Umbrian saints That grow in groves in the Perugian work- shop ; Who, slim and sweet and pallid-raimented, Before an evening sky and languid hills, Droop gently in a modish melancholy, And sadly smile, knowing how it becomes them And stirs a tender rapture of compassion. Those womanish men and less than woman- ish women Can never stir the still deeps of devotion. That lie beyond all transient currents and winds. As do the tense-souled saints whom Giorgio painted Serving the Virgin in our church set yonder. Ah, Giorgio paints us saints no more, no more : He has abandoned Gian's reverent ways, 27 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Wherein we might have hailed him first ere now, To picture only pleasures for our eyes, Feastings and concerts, lovers when they meet With eager hands and faces whitely burning, Felicities of colour keenly felt. Things that we live through, live for every day, Merely the passion and glory and glow of life. Making our lives seem only Tuscan tales. Sweet Giorgio, awake your inmost spirit ; Paint us the visions that beatify ; From the Perugian's helpless drowsiness Save Christ and His dear Mother and Their saints. I L ARIA. Paint Judith sitting at Holofernes' feast, Withdrawn into the shade, with hooded head, Lest one should note that in her steady eyes Which should upset the inveterate carouse And thrust her forth upon their purposed road ; 28 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Thus sitting, apart, at Holofernes' feast — Like some black-marble sub-Memnonian queen Piled on a hewn charred plinth of porphyry, Immitigably based, with brooding" face. In the cold dark most utter court of Hell, Waiting her turn to march up and be damned — ■ While overhead peer from the scarce-seen walls Assyrian fighters marbled in a row, Big-bearded as their broad bull-bellied gods. Or Judith standing by Holofernes' bed While a wind shivering through the house fallen still Sets waving a thin uncertain snaky lamp- flare ; Her mouth, affronted, flawed with wine- smear kisses, Grown narrow and close-lipped, her chin stone-set ; Pausing a little— a last sharp panting pause — Before she leans across his dull-fumed breath 29 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE And grips his loose-lipped mouth in her rigorous hand And digs for his soul. GlORGIONE. Still must I paint the priests' way, Nor go beyond their outworn knot of Gods And simpering saints who blandly cheat their Godships Of incense, offerings and adoration ; And if I win a respite from such saintings, Fresh canonisings by my holy brush, Still must I paint some sacred man or woman Who died before dead saintship was the fashion, And make them some amends for that they missed. If I must limn a lady in blue robes To strike the dominantamong grey meadows And sigh a cadence from her burning hair, Why should I have no choice yet but Our Lady When I had liefer limn my lovely lady And never need to call her Mary Virgin To win the populace to look on her ? 30 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Did not the Paphian trail robes of bright water And ripple her sapphire skirts a league away In her Thalassian theophany ; And is she less a goddess than the other ? Or is she less worth splashing with costly colour ? If I would jewel a garden for the sake Of cooling some white lady's flushed carna- tions When she has slipped her vesture, faint with heat, It is not needful that the rainbow riot Which echoes from the lady's gleaming shoulder Be outraged into an annunciation, The girl austered into a pallid angel, I need no feint of saints in conversation If I would keep you feasters in the grass For ever virginal, for ever sweet : It were enough to shew beneath the trees Grave Gemma rilling kisses down the well From the cold crystal misted by her lips ; To shew her feet grey in the dim soft grass. As though they knew the asphodelian fields ; While with orpharion and angelot 31 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Pietro and Felice tremble answers To Ilaria's white light flute, as the still trees Quiver a little to the air-pale water That quivers into stillness far away. If I would shew an ecstasy of music Santa Cecilia's face has long been empty, And Fra Umilio's would serve me better When, with low tones and gliding modula- tions, As brown will soften into mingling green, He left his sober fugue to touch deep shadows Into the background of young Paris' song Whose trilling thrill was like spilt purling pearls. I mean his song of ladies maying "... When Will the sleepy roses waken And slow dew each morn be shaken From their shadowy hearts again." Ah, in the end we never come quite near Ripe music's rippling rounding into rest. Never the subtlest interfused wan colours, 32 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Where varying hues are fainting undistin- guished Like mulberries and cream upon the palate, Can meet like notes that clasp for happy chancing And die within each other's loosening arms. Though sound and sense lapse into a plang- ent poem, Flowing in rainbow-foaming syllables. Yet music adds another, ne'er worded grace, And godhead holds no mightier difference. PlETRO. Is there a limit, then, in any art? You are the master : what is mastery ? I hold that music is a rudiment, A young condition of art ; an early plan, Not the experienced height. Are not its means Determined notes in mathematic motion, That from unalterable point to point By sharp transitions fixed externally Move rigidly across the unexpressed Spaces that yield to beauty its degrees ? That is to be a skeleton, not a form : 33 D A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE The skeleton of Venus, if you choose, Yet where 's the moist and rosy ripple of flesh That by its soft inseparable deg^rees. Its undescribed and visible degrees. Are the notation of beauty made by beauty ? How can there be an art that is expressed In terms outside itself? Black blots and scratches Can never to the willingest of minds Shew the mutations of descent in tone Between high light and shade in a silken gown Made by imperfect hands of men, and less. Still less, the transmutation by a sunset Of air and flesh and verdure; blots and scratches Are impotent to record and render again The quickening heart-penetrating marvels Of pitch and quality, tone and overtone. When words in a divined poetic order Are uttered by a concordant mind and voice. Not sung to an external will and sound. Yes, let this callow music do its best : Giorgione and the poets then begin. 34 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Felice. Poets, art's women, have the last word still. Music and painting- reach the external senses; The brush intrudes 'twixt vision and fulfil- ment; The rarest voice is alien to the fall Of primal notes in the hushed musician's heart. The poem keeps the picture's first emo- tion, Nor leans on a sweet-voiced interpreter But yields in its original fecund silence Its own sufficiency of mental music ; And when the springing thought assails the poet It asks no aid of brush or strings or voice To be translated into earthly forms. But leaves his soul all naked to the word Which swift-continues the immediate rap- ture With a still-vibrant authenticity. Gemma. Poets art's women ? 35 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Felice. Ay : as poets touch The closest to art's soul, so women dwell Nearer the core of life habitually (Perchance because life springs to light in them) Than men do; and what men deem mystery To them is clear inexplicable truth. Their bodily sense is quicker than men's thought. Thus women are men's poets ; a colourless Ripened by new short months of mother- hood, Passions of pain and happiness of tears. Will utter, by some divinest divination. Unconscious hints of things too far for me; Till I turn faint with envying her sensa- tions, And pity myself I was not made a woman. Ilaria. The surging shadows blend with trees and water, And pale to wavering mists o'er doubtful meadows; 36 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Light lights come out in Queen Cornaro's tower; And night the pessimist shuts her eyes on life. Soon must we go away; before we go Let Pietro sing that rime of ladies may- I never heard its arras-like name before. Gemma. It asks a lighter voice than tall Pietro's. Come, let us rise; and as we loiter home, Clustering together closely, hand in hand, A company of shadowy presences With fluttering gowns and lifted odorous hair — Gowns hued like faded roses as though we walked Under the light of some lost long-dead moon Mid olives' faint uncertain grey and green — ril sing of ladies maying long ago In some low-lying madid luminous land. If Pietro will but lend his lutany. 37 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE PlETRO. Most willing-ly, dear lady, to delight The laughing lady of the laughing name. Sing softly as the darkness : let us go. Gemma sings to Pietro's lute-playing Ladies, dawn creeps down the valley; Listen to the laughing girls As a-maying forth they sally Hid by orchard blossom-whirls. Slowly swirls All our vesture, starred with each bloom; Come, the young breeze flings us peach- bloom And our kiss-tossed tresses curls. 'Ware ! Costanza seeks to pelt you With the dripping may-bloom sprays ; Lo, the wind of petals dealt you Hair and bosom overlays. Days on days Will the hedgerows wane and whiten Flush and fade and throb and lighten Down the white wet meadow-ways. Liperata has a lover — Leave her loitering shvly thus 38 A PASTORAL OF GIORGIONE Where the river-mists yet hover And narcissus dimly blows. Wait for us, Little lover, till, returning, Bring we jonquils jewel-burning, Shoots of golden cytisus. Reap for garlands as we wander Cerule-circling cyclamen : Almonded with oleander Soon we'll dance deep Summer in. When, ah, when Will the sleepy roses waken And slow dew each morn be shaken From their shadowy hearts again. 39 GEMMA'S SONG ON THE WAY HELEN dwelt in old Troy city- All to sow the sad brave ditty Of the wearifullest pity Men have ever wrought; Yet her years were long and painless, All her lovers left her gainless, Smiles she gave and grey eyes rainless, Right good was her lot. In her dim blue woollen cloaking Slipped she through the May-dew's soaking, Till her little hands fell knocking Nigh the well-house stair; In a hawthorn's light she pondered While dark dew her gleam-feet laundered; Paris knew not that she wandered, So he did not care. Helen was the dearest lady, Woodbined with deep tresses shady, 41 GEMMA'S SONG ON THE WAY Eyes a-calling-, arms a-ready, Ever stirred men's verse; Yet the highest king to-day Liefer with my hands would play, And his mouth to mine would lay Liefer than to hers. 42 Ill THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Ill THE LADY OF GIORGIONE GiORGiONE and Ilaria e^iter the garden of the Villa Barbarelli at Castelfi'anco, their companions having returned long before them. The night is deepening and GiORGiONE is invisible, but for a little while Ilaria's pale gown flickers doubtfully ; then this also disappears in the final darkness. GiORGiONE. THIS is the garden — I hear far water spilling Into the weedy marble's green-dark pool ; Late lilacs heavy o'er the yew-gloomed ter- race Feel near enough to drop upon our breasts ; You tread the wandering bergamot to scent. " Still ; still ; all 's still " the water sounds to sigh. 45 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE The night upcurls and shuts us in its heart As the soft petals of a night-folding flower Press closer two bewildered butterflies. I cannot see you ; touch my hand and take it ; Come, 'tis a cluster rose that wets our faces, Beaten over the path by last night's rain. Ah, now we break some new-flung dewy cobweb. . . . Ilaria. It is so late ; we have been somewhat lost ; I move unsensed amid the night's tired odours. Perchance the others think we are before them — I see no lights. The morrow may bring jests, But none to touch us. . . . GlORGIONE. No? . . . Ilaria. I do not know. . . . I share your lay of ladies maying now — 46 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Teach me yet one more song to bear to rest, To sway with in the haze 'tween sleep and waking, A bird at dawn upon a misty pine. But — nay . . . for when I hear your pain- deep voice I stand with lidded eyes and think no more Until you cease — I will not thus forget you. . . . GlORGIONE. My mother was a peasant in Vedelago, And there I went among the vines in bloom (The vines in bloom — it has a happy sound). And hid among the vines at fruiting time. There, when I watched my mother tramp- ling grapes, Holding her faded skirt about her thighs, I heard her sing a rime the priest had made While busy in his vines one pruning time. Ilaria. Nay, sing then ; sing ; sing quickly that I may go ; I hear one stirring somewhere in the night. 47 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE GiORGiONE sings Yellow leaves and blue-bloomed bunches Merge with heat on many hills ; Haste — ere one grape-treader plunges Down the press whence purple spills, We must strip the weary vines, Load our frails of shoots of pines. . . . Dark-mouthed Nonna 'tis who munches Thirst-fruit ere the dim sun shines. Ah, the golden clusters yonder In the lowliest vineyard Where slow streams go lapping under Clovered meadow-sweeted sward : 'Tis our subtle grape to clear All the grossness of the year, Many a wine to touch with wonder From its incense-fragrance rare. O, the foaming of the presses In the must-house dark and cool ; Foam our olive feet caresses Sinking down the spirting pool. Flushed youths from the sun-filled door Knee-deep pile our pulpy store — 48 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Zanze, knot your honey-tresses, Down the vat they drip and pour. On the wall brown fig^s are drying ; Choose the burst ones ; fill a frail : Nigh the soft brown bread are lying New-drawn must and hydromel. Leave the vintage sickly sweet ; Twilit earth mists forth day's heat, Hiding us in its white sighing ; Men and maidens, come and eat. Gemma's Voice, from on high. So, Giorgio, you have come. 'Tis very late : We thought you would not thank us if we tarried. We knew you would not answer if we called ; Consider then that maidens loverless Wonder no more what colour fills your thoughts ; Nay, some would rather sleep than hear your raptures. Your lady's perfume has not yet left your raiment — She cannot be abed even now — consider That love needs rest the more, reaching the heights ; 49 E THE LADY OF GIORGIONE You will be closer to her in her thoughts Than in your over-conscious serenading ; The flowerlings on an over-blossomed tree Cannot all knit for fruit — even on life's tree. GlORGIONE. How can I have a lady who knows it not ? Gemma, appearing before a litten balconied window overhead in the garden-front of the Villa. Enough, you love her . . . GlORGIONE. I never said I loved her . . . Gemma. But when you spanned her with the painter's eye Your glance lingered ; you leaned to touch her shoulder ; You answered a laughing thought I never uttered As though I spoke . , . 50 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE GlORGIONE. No more, dear disputant. I love her, and I love her, and I love her — But will this dear thing thank you for such a lover? Gemma, O, she would thank you for your wilful sister Who hints the thing she dare not speak, I vow ; For I have heard her use your cadenced phrases, And then she stopped and flushed and altered them ; And once she said she wished that we were sisters. . . . GlORGIONE. She is the truest figure of a lover That God could think of in His lover's soul ; There 's midnight's Adriatic in her eyes, I'll put its heaving passion in her heart ; As Venice blushes from its sunrise sea So shall she spire and pearl it up from me. 51 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Hush, ere we flash her name across the night And disappoint the hills with hopes of dawn. . . . During his words Ilaria gradu- ally nestles against him, and slo%vly slides one arm over his shoulders. Why, even as I speak I feel about me That which assures me how I love and brings A silent answer warm as my love's love. . . . Gemma. Men never learn their minds but by a woman ; You owe me some devotion for my teasing. GlORGIONE. Thanks, thanks, all thanks, O hidden with the stars : I thank you for the boons you think you bring me. But most of all for that you know not of. But ^o, ah, go, I think you shivered then — Go, ^o, your night-gear is too thin to shield you ; 52 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE O, g-o, your kind words keep me from my joy That crowds the waiting silence — O, good night. . . . Gemma withdraws laughingly^ letting a curtain fall behind her: Giorgione and Ilaria turn into each other s arms, and are a long time silent. Giorgione. Forgive me, sweet; I could not speak before ; As a great organ-pipe too deep to sound Shakes heavily the dim oppressive air, My heart-beats were so close, so close and thick, No word could fall between them. . . . O, my breath Thrusts on too eagerly to let me live. Sobs and catches and rushes and stops, as though A mad bird beat its wings upon my breast . . • I cannot reach the thing that I would say. For I would say . . . Ilaria, kiss; you know. 53 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Ilaria. I never thought love was so sharp and stinging, So rigid and austere and dark a thing. Ever I dreamed it was a lovely crown, The justifier of dignity and pride, Gracious to touch a woman's gracious ways With light, and magnify them to perfection : And now it comes annihilating all, Trampling on all and stripping me of all, Making all inconceivable and strange, Humiliating me and flinging me Naked and swooning down an unknown night. O, lover in the darkness, art thou nigh? Loose me and let me go . . . loose me, I tell thee ! Now draw me close again . . . fiercer than that . . . Harder, harder, until you hurt my breast ; Think you are cruel to one who tried to stab you . . . I was so numb with your continual pressure I could no longer feel you, nay, nor know you; And so I needs must be unloosed that once 54 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE That I might swell to your embrace again, Lest I should feel alone in stringent dark- ness. And now I will deliberately that love Be stern and humbling to me, for 'tis thus That I may sound my blissful heights and deeps. I will not have you chivalrous to humour The fanciful airs of a darling of artifice ; Probe till I wince — thus only may you learn Where I am tender to your mordant charm. I pray you bring no reverence and adoring, But master me — if need be, with dear pain; For I should grow so vain of your subjec- tion That I should think myself too great to love you. GlORGIONE. Wonderful love, and wonderful again. Like a thrilled night too wild to hold a moon You would deny your loveliness its right And be unjust to its fine source, your soul . . . 55 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Ilaria, I wish I had been peasant-born, to feel The must and shppery grape-skins on my feet- Nay, even to stumble and strain yoked to a plough, Galled on my sun-charred and wind-rough- ened shoulders By harness for which oxen were too dear. My delicate nurture spurs your dainty thoughts ; Catch at the woman — I will not be your lady. GlORGIONE. 'Tis past your choice; how can you make the lily Not grow a golden heart, a golden heart? We have no time to wrangle how to love, We have no time for anything but love ; No time, no time, for all men die too soon. Sweet, sweet, and sweet, life is one poignant kiss Earth gives to each man's spirit as it passes From unknown places to unaccustomed light: 56 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Sweet, sweet, and sweet, I bid you take life's counsel — Your brow or side-turned cheek you would not offer. Life says "The mouth"; abandon then your mouth. For if we kiss we kiss, whoever dies ; And if we love we love, whate'er the way . . . See, Gemma's curtain waves before a lamp — I would not she should know you heard her speak, 'Twould wreck the subtlest secret in the world ; So we must go. I think it must be mid- night : The doves are silent in the cypresses ; The fountain sounds so sleepy in the dark ; My feet are wet, standing- in dewy flowers; Long since the wind swooned when it reached your hair. It is so dark you cannot find your way — Come, I must put my arm about your neck To guide you. . . . Surely, I cannot help but kiss you 57 THE LADY OF GIORGIONE Ilaria eiiters the house swiftly, GiORGiONE lingeringly ttirns down the garden once more ; his voice is heard until he ts far down an 2Uiseen avenue. I longed to bring you flowers in May-time, But all the rose-buds were unblown ; I throbbed to see you through the day-time, But not till night-fall dared I near you Lest you should learn that one could fear you, Gift I had none — For you a rose, a rose alone. But June has wrought its old fulfilling. My heart is all a burning rose ; And yet the night-fall vague and stilling Brings me to you as hushed and often My wonder's whirling glow to soften, For no one knows What hides in its dim blue repose. CHISWICK press; CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (I'RINTERs), LTD. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.