Wine? No? Come, come, you must! You'll bless it with your prayers, And quaff a cup, I trust, To the health of the saint up stairs? My heart is aching so! And I feel so weary and sad, Through the blow that I have had,-- You'll sit, Fra Giacomo? My friend! (and a friend I rank you For the sake of that saint,)--nay, nay! Here's the wine,--as you love me, stay!-- 'T is Montepulciano!--Thank you.
Heigh-ho! 'T is now six summers Since I won that angel and married her: I was rich, not old, and carried her Off in the face of all comers. So fresh, yet so brimming with soul! A tenderer morsel, I swear, Never made the dull black coal Of a monk's eye glitter and glare. Your pardon!--nay, keep your chair! I wander a little, but mean No offence to the gray gaberdine; Of the church, Fra Giacomo, I'm a faithful upholder, you know, But (humor me!) she was as sweet As the saints in your convent windows, So gentle, so meek, so discreet, She knew not what lust does or sin does. I'll confess, though, before we were one, I deemed her less saintly, and thought The blood in her veins had caught Some natural warmth from the sun. I was wrong,--I was blind as a bat,-- Brute that I was, how I blundered! Though such a mistake as that Might have occurred as pat To ninety-nine men in a hundred. Yourself, for example? you've seen her? Spite her modest and pious demeanor, And the manners so nice and precise, Seemed there not color and light, Bright motion and appetite, That were scarcely consistent with _ice_? Externals implying, you see, Internals less saintly than human?-- Pray speak, for between you and me You're not a bad judge of a woman! A jest,--but a jest!--Very true: 'T is hardly becoming to jest, And that saint up stairs at rest,-- Her soul may be listening, too! I was always a brute of a fellow! Well may your visage turn yellow,-- To think how I doubted and doubted, Suspected, grumbled at, flouted That golden-haired angel,--and solely Because she was zealous and holy! Noon and night and morn She devoted herself to piety; Not that she seemed to scorn Or dislike her husband's society; But the claims of her _soul_ superseded All that I asked for or needed, And her thoughts were far away From the level of sinful clay, And she trembled if earthly matters Interfered with her _aves_ and _paters_, Poor dove, she so fluttered in flying Above the dim vapors of hell-- Bent on self-sanctifying-- That she never thought of trying To save her husband as well. And while she was duly elected For place in the heavenly roll, I (brute that I was!) suspected Her manner of saving her soul. So, half for the fun of the thing, What did I (blasphemer!) but fling On my shoulders the gown of a monk-- Whom I managed for that very day To get safely out of the way-- And seat me, half sober, half drunk, With the cowl thrown over my face, In the father confessor's place. _Eheu! benedicite!_ In her orthodox sweet simplicity, With that pensive gray expression, She sighfully knelt at confession, While I bit my lips till they bled, And dug my nails in my hand, And heard with averted head What I'd guessed and could understand. Each word was a serpent's sting, But, wrapt in my gloomy gown, I sat, like a marble thing, As she told me all!--SIT DOWN!