One says, “The head of it is plain to see,”
And one, “They are the feet by which I judge,”
All say, “Those films were spun by nothing else.”
Nor think of him again, for gratitude.
Yes, my last breath shall wholly spend itself
In one attempt more to disperse the stain,
The mist from other breath fond mouths have made,
About a lustrous and pellucid soul:
So that, when I am gone but sorrow stays,
And people need assurance in their doubt
If God yet have a servant, man a friend,
The weak a saviour and the vile a foe,—
Let him be present, by the name invoked, (940)
Giuseppe-Maria Caponsacchi!
Strength comes already with the utterance!
I will remember once more for his sake
The sorrow: for he lives and is belied.
Could he be here, how he would speak for me!
In that dread palace and lay passive now,
When I first learned there could be such a man.
Thus it fell: I was at a public play, (950)
In the last days of Carnival last March,
Brought there I knew not why, but now know well.
My husband put me where I sat, in front;
Then crouched down, breathed cold through me from behind,
Stationed i’ the shadow,—none in front could see,—
I, it was, faced the stranger-throng beneath,
The crowd with upturned faces, eyes one stare,
Voices one buzz. I looked but to the stage,
Whereon two lovers sang and interchanged
“True life is only love, love only bliss: (960)
“I love thee—thee I love!” then they embraced.
I looked thence to the ceiling and the walls,—
Over the crowd, those voices and those eyes,—
My thoughts went through the roof and out, to Rome
On wings of music, waft of measured words,—
Set me down there, a happy child again,
Sure that to-morrow would be festa-day,
Hearing my parents praise past festas more,
And seeing they were old if I was young,
Yet wondering why they still would end discourse (970)
With “We must soon go, you abide your time,
“And,—might we haply see the proper friend
“Throw his arm over you and make you safe!”
A foolish twist of comfits, broke my dream
And brought me from the air and laid me low,
As ruined as the soaring bee that’s reached
(So Pietro told me at the Villa once)
By the dust-handful. There the comfits lay:
I looked to see who flung them, and I faced (980)
This Caponsacchi, looking up in turn.
Ere I could reason out why, I felt sure,
Whoever flung them, his was not the hand,—
Up rose the round face and good-natured grin
Of him who, in effect, had played the prank,
From covert close beside the earnest face,—
Fat waggish Conti, friend of all the world.
He was my husband’s cousin, privileged
To throw the thing: the other, silent, grave,
Solemn almost, saw me, as I saw him. (990)
There is a psalm Don Celestine recites,
“Had I a dove’s wings, how I fain would flee!”
The psalm runs not “I hope, I pray for wings,”—
Not “If wings fall from heaven, I fix them fast,”—
Simply “How good it were to fly and rest,
“Have hope now, and one day expect content!
“How well to do what I shall never do!”
So I said “Had there been a man like that,
“To lift me with his strength out of all strife
“Into the calm, how I could fly and rest! (1000)
“I have a keeper in the garden here
“Whose sole employment is to strike me low
“If ever I, for solace, seek the sun.
“Life means with me successful feigning death,
“Lying stone-like, eluding notice so,
“Forgoing here the turf and there the sky.
“Suppose that man had been instead of this!”
—Had tripped up to the raised place where I sat—
“Cousin, I flung them brutishly and hard! (1010)
“Because you must be hurt, to look austere
“As Caponsacchi yonder, my tall friend
“A-gazing now. Ah, Guido, you so close?
“Keep on your knees, do! Beg her to forgive!
“My cornet battered like a cannon-ball.
“Good bye, I’m gone!”—nor waited the reply.
“Why was that throwing, that buffoonery?
“Do you think I am your dupe? What man would dare
“Throw comfits in a stranger lady’s lap? (1020)
“’Twas knowledge of you bred such insolence
“In Caponsacchi; he dared shoot the bolt,
“Using that Conti for his stalking- horse.
“How could you see him this once and no more,
“When he is always haunting hereabout
“At the street-corner or the palace-side,
“Publishing my shame and your impudence?
“You are a wanton,—I a dupe, you think?
“O Christ, what hinders that I kill her quick?”
Whereat he drew his sword and feigned a thrust. (1030)
All this, now,—being not so strange to me,
Used to such misconception day by day
And
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