GUIDO [_turning round without looking at her_].
Yes, old Pia! Guido, grieve not so much, Lisetta will be well before the spring Comes round again.
Yes, Lisetta will be well perhaps. God grant!
'Tis not only of her I think, Pia, here am I Shut in this house from month to month a nurse; Here lies she sick, this child, and may not stir; And I, lacking due means to hire, must serve The house; while my best self, my soul, my art, Rust. My soul is scorched with holy thirst, My temples throb, my veins run fire; but yet, For all my dim distress and vague desire, No word, no single song, no verse, has come-- O Blessed God!--stifled with creature needs, And with necessity about my throat!
Thy corner is too hot, the glaring sun Is yet on the wall.
'Tis not that sun that maddens me, O Pia! Can you not see me shrunk? Have you not heard That other Guido of Perugia How he is grown? How lately at the feast That Ugolino, the great cardinal, Spread at Assisi Easter night, Guido Read certain of his verses and declaimed Pages of cursed sonnets to the guests.
Yea. And when he ended, came the Duke Down from the dais to kiss that Guido's hand Humbly, and said that poesy was king.
And I, O God, I might have honor too Could I but break this prison where I drudge!
Speak low, her sleep is light. Her road is hard As well as thine. For all this year, since thou Didst bring her to Rieto here to us, Hath she lain on her bed, broken with pain, This child that is thy wife and loveth thee.
Aye, yes, 'tis true, she loveth me, she loveth me, And I love her. 'Tis worse--add grief to care, And Poesy fares worse.
And she is grown most pale and still of late.
Look, Pia, how she lieth there like death, That far-off patience on her face. Now, now, Surely I needs must make a song! And yet I may not; ashes and floor-sweeping clog My soul within me!
Nay, let thy dreams pass. Look thou, how pale! Dear Lord, how blue her little veins do shine!
Thou art most kind, good neighbor, to come here Helping our house. And it is very strange That when we are so kind we cannot know The heart also. For in my soul I hear A bell summoning me always--
If I should stew in milk the peas, maybe-- Do you think the child would eat it?
For thy world is not my world, kind old friend.