the silent hours
Beckon thee to Gherardi’s bridal bed? 70
Is not that ring’—­a pledge, he would have said,
Of broken vows, but she with patient look
The golden circle from her finger took,
And said—­’Accept this token of my faith,
The pledge of vows to be absolved by death; 75
And I am dead or shall be soon—­my knell
Will mix its music with that merry bell,
Does it not sound as if they sweetly said
“We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed”? 
The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn 80
Will serve unfaded for my bier—­so soon
That even the dying violet will not die
Before Ginevra.’  The strong fantasy
Had made her accents weaker and more weak,
And quenched the crimson life upon her cheek, 85
And glazed her eyes, and spread an atmosphere
Round her, which chilled the burning noon with fear,
Making her but an image of the thought
Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought
News of the terrors of the coming time. 90
Like an accuser branded with the crime
He would have cast on a beloved friend,
Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end
The pale betrayer—­he then with vain repentance
Would share, he cannot now avert, the sentence—­ 95
Antonio stood and would have spoken, when
The compound voice of women and of men
Was heard approaching; he retired, while she
Was led amid the admiring company
Back to the palace,—­and her maidens soon 100
Changed her attire for the afternoon,
And left her at her own request to keep
An hour of quiet rest:—­like one asleep
With open eyes and folded hands she lay,
Pale in the light of the declining day. 105

Meanwhile the day sinks fast, the sun is set,
And in the lighted hall the guests are met;
The beautiful looked lovelier in the light
Of love, and admiration, and delight
Reflected from a thousand hearts and eyes, 110
Kindling a momentary Paradise. 
This crowd is safer than the silent wood,
Where love’s own doubts disturb the solitude;
On frozen hearts the fiery rain of wine
Falls, and the dew of music more divine 115
Tempers the deep emotions of the time
To spirits cradled in a sunny clime:—­
How many meet, who never yet have met,
To part too soon, but never to forget. 
How many saw the beauty, power and wit 120
Of looks and words which ne’er enchanted yet;
But life’s familiar veil was now withdrawn,
As the world leaps before an earthquake’s dawn,
And unprophetic of the coming hours,
The matin winds from the expanded flowers 125
Scatter their hoarded incense, and awaken