She bent to pluck a flower that grew below,
Hiding her face thus, all too consciously:
But Tasso's heart drank in a hope, a thought,
Which till that hour not even a dream had brought.
She spoke, they were but a few hurried words—
Of the sweet flowers around, the heat, the night—
Yet were they such as the blest heart records
For many an after-moment's long delight;
They touch'd upon his spirit's inmost chords;
Though broken was the sense, the accents light,
Yet sweeter was to him that tremulous tone
Than all that eloquence were proud to own.
They parted—and they never met again;
For envious eyes were watching that dear hour,
Each had to expiate in tears and pain—
He in the maniac's chain and gloomy tower,
Till the fire fed alike on heart and brain:
And she with lonely grief in regal bower,
Mocking the misery by silence nurst;
Subdued, unpitied, and perchance the worst.
This was their history—alas! too like
All records that of Love or Genius are—
Shafts sharpen'd into brightness but to strike
Their deadliest.IOLE.
