One summer morning, when the sun was hot, Weary with labor in his garden-plot, On a rude bench beneath his cottage eaves, Ser Federigo sat among the leaves Of a huge vine, that, with its arms outspread, Hung its delicious clusters overhead.
Below him, through the lovely valley flowed The river Arno, like a winding road, And from its banks were lifted high in air The spires and roofs of Florence called the Fair;To him a marble tomb, that rose above His wasted fortunes and his buried love.
For there, in banquet and in tournament, His wealth had lavished been, his substance spent, To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped, Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed, Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme, The ideal woman of a young man's dream.
Then he withdrew, in poverty and pain, To this small farm, the last of his domain, His only comfort and his only care To prune his vines, and plant the fig and pear;His only forester and only guest His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest, Whose willing hands had found so light of yore The brazen knocker of his palace door, Had now no strength to lift the wooden latch, That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch.
Companion of his solitary ways, Purveyor of his feasts on holidays, On him this melancholy man bestowed The love with which his nature overflowed.
And so the empty-handed years went round, Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic sound, And so, that summer morn, he sat and mused With folded, patient hands, as he was used, And dreamily before his half-closed sight Floated the vision of his lost delight.
Beside him, motionless, the drowsy bird Dreamed of the chase, and in his slumber heard The sudden, scythe-like sweep of wings, that dare The headlong plunge thro' eddying gulfs of air, Then, starting broad awake upon his perch, Tinkled his bells, like mass-bells in a church, And, looking at his master, seemed to say, "Ser Federigo, shall we hunt to-day?"Ser Federigo thought not of the chase;
The tender vision of her lovely face, I will not say he seems to see, he sees In the leaf-shadows of the trellises, Herself, yet not herself; a lovely child With flowing tresses, and eyes wide and wild, Coming undaunted up the garden walk, And looking not at him, but at the hawk.
"Beautiful falcon!" said he, "would that IMight hold thee on my wrist, or see thee fly!"The voice was hers, and made strange echoes start Through all the haunted chambers of his heart, As an aeolian harp through gusty doors Of some old ruin its wild music pours.
"Who is thy mother, my fair boy?" he said, His hand laid softly on that shining head.
"Monna Giovanna.Will you let me stay A little while, and with your falcon play?
We live there, just beyond your garden wall, In the great house behind the poplars tall."So he spake on; and Federigo heard As from afar each softly uttered word, And drifted onward through the golden gleams And shadows of the misty sea of dreams, As mariners becalmed through vapors drift, And feel the sea beneath them sink and lift, And hear far off the mournful breakers roar, And voices calling faintly from the shore!
Then, waking from his pleasant reveries He took the little boy upon his knees, And told him stories of his gallant bird, Till in their friendship he became a third.
Monna Giovanna, widowed in her prime, Had come with friends to pass the summer time In her grand villa, half-way up the hill, O'erlooking Florence, but retired and still;With iron gates, that opened through long lines Of sacred ilex and centennial pines, And terraced gardens, and broad steps of stone, And sylvan deities, with moss o'ergrown, And fountains palpitating in the heat, And all Val d'Arno stretched beneath its feet.
Here in seclusion, as a widow may, The lovely lady whiled the hours away, Pacing in sable robes the statued hall, Herself the stateliest statue among all, And seeing more and more, with secret joy, Her husband risen and living in her boy, Till the lost sense of life returned again, Not as delight, but as relief from pain.
Meanwhile the boy, rejoicing in his strength, Stormed down the terraces from length to length;The screaming peacock chased in hot pursuit, And climbed the garden trellises for fruit.
But his chief pastime was to watch the flight Of a gerfalcon, soaring into sight, Beyond the trees that fringed the garden wall, Then downward stooping at some distant call;And as he gazed full often wondered he Who might the master of the falcon be, Until that happy morning, when he found Master and falcon in the cottage ground.
And now a shadow and a terror fell On the great house, as if a passing-bell Tolled from the tower, and filled each spacious room With secret awe, and preternatural gloom;The petted boy grew ill, and day by day Pined with mysterious malady away.
The mother's heart would not be comforted;Her darling seemed to her already dead, And often, sitting by the sufferer's side, "What can I do to comfort thee?" she cried.
At first the silent lips made no reply, But moved at length by her importunate cry, "Give me," he answered, with imploring tone, "Ser Federigo's falcon for my own!"No answer could the astonished mother make;How could she ask, e'en for her darling's sake, Such favor at a luckless lover's hand, Well knowing that to ask was to command?
Well knowing, what all falconers confessed, In all the land that falcon was the best, The master's pride and passion and delight, And the sole pursuivant of this poor knight.
But yet, for her child's sake, she could no less Than give assent to soothe his restlessness, So promised, and then promising to keep Her promise sacred, saw him fall asleep.
The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if new-born;
There was that nameless splendor everywhere, That wild exhilaration in the air, Which makes the passers in the city street Congratulate each other as they meet.
Two lovely ladies, clothed in cloak and hood, Passed through the garden gate into the wood, Under the lustrous leaves, and through the sheen Of dewy sunshine showering down between.
