An icy breath play on me, while I stoopt To take and kiss the ring. 'Io t' amo'? MIRIAM. FATHER. Then, for the surface eye, that only dotes On outward beauty, glancing from the one To the other, knew not that which pleased it most, 141 This very ring, The raven ringlet or the gold; but both Were dowerless, and myself, I used to walk Of two repentant lovers guard the ring;' Then with a ribald twinkle in his bleak eyes And if you give the ring to any maid, They still remember what it cost them here, And bind the maid to love you by the ring; And if the ring were stolen from the maid, The theft were death or madness to the thief, So sacred those ghost lovers hold the gift.' And then he told their legend: 'Long ago Two lovers parted by a scurrilous tale 180 Had quarrell'd, till the man repenting sent This ring, "Io t' amo," to his best beloved, And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath Return'd it on her birthday, and that day His death-day, when, half-frenzied by the ring, He wildly fought a rival suitor, him The causer of that scandal, fought and fell; And she that came to part them all too late, And found a corpse and silence, drew the Would call thro' this 'Io t' amo' to the heart Of Miriam; then I bade the man engrave 'From Walter' on the ring, and sent it — wrote Was all ablaze with crimson to the roof, 220 And all ablaze too plunging in the lake Head - foremost who were 191 those that And dying rose, and rear'd her arms, and cried, "I see him, Io t' amo, Io t' amo." stood between Had ask'd us to their marriage, and to share Their marriage - banquet. Muriel, paler then Than ever you were in your cradle, moan'd, I felt for what I could not find, the key, 400 About me, gone! and gone in that embrace! MIRIAM. FATHER. but dead so long, gone up so far, That now their ever-rising life has dwarf'd Or lost the moment of their past on earth, As we forget our wail at being bornAs if MIRIAM. -a dearer ghost had FATHER. MIRIAM. - wrench'd it away. |