Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/145

And rested there the lips, so warm and loving,
That, they could speak, one might be fain to guess:
Only they had been much too bright, if moving,
To stay by their own will, all motionless.
One outstretch'd hand its marble seal 'gan press
On roses which look'd fading; while the eyes,
Uplifted in a calm, proud loveliness,
Seem'd busy with their flow'ry destinies,
Drawing, for ladye's heart, some moral quaint and wise.

She perish'd like her roses. I did look
On her, as she did look on them—to sigh!
Alas, alas! that the fair-written book
Of her sweet face, should be in death laid by,
As any blotted scroll! Its cruelty
Poison'd a heart most gentle-pulsed of all,
And turn'd it unto song, therein to die:
For grief's stern tension maketh musical,
Unless the strain'd string break or ere the music fall.