Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A MEDAL, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MEDAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why does it pleasure me, isotta, why?
Last Line: Give me my plato. Pray, how stands the hour?
Subject(s): Chivalry; Love - Unrequited; Pride; Self-esteem; Self-respect


PANDOLPHUS MALATESTA, ISOTTA.

MALATESTA.
WHY does it pleasure me, Isotta, why?
Canst guess,—I cannot,—wherefore such as I
Should crave to see myself in bronze or gold?
Matteo hath art's courage. He is bold!
God-made or devil-fashioned, out I go
For comment of the world, or friend or foe.
What saith this face, Isotta?—what to you,
As to a gazer chance hath brought to view?
You smile,—dost dare? The soul beyond your eyes
Will bid you risk all other things save lies.

ISOTTA.
A jewel set in brass,—yet why, God knows,
If God knows anything of such as those,
Like me, who fear you not as men know fear,
Being, see you, so little and so dear.
Then lying is the luxury of the great,
The marge of perils sweet. You dare me—wait;
Give me the wax. This side face doth relate
More truth than most, my lord, may care to state.
And yet, not all; nay, with strange cunning, hides
What little good or noble haply bides
For rare occasion. Oh! you bade me try
At truth as of men dead beyond reply.
Be sure, my lord, I could not lie to you.
Why did Delilah love her great brute Jew,
Hated and loved him? Riddle that, my lord.

MALATESTA.
Rare old Genosthos Platon, whom I stored
In yon stone tomb, might guess in vain for you
Betwixt his dreams of Plato, but for me,
Too brief is life to riddle love or hate.
The face, the face,—what secrets shall it prate
When I am dead, and babbling students claim
In feebler days to know who set his name,
Ensigns, and heraldry on yonder wall,
With yours, my dame? Dost fear to tell me all?

ISOTTA.
Narrow the forehead; bushy eyebrows set
O'er lizard lids, cross-burrowed; hair as jet;
The nose rapacious, falcon-curved, morose;
Cheeks wan, high-boned, o'er hollows; lips set close,
Like each to each, large, pouting, to men's eyes
Twin slaves of passion, apt for love or lies.
They who shall read in gentler days that face
Shall call you mad, and wonder at your race.

MALATESTA.
Dost think they tell my story? Lo, how sweet!
The swallows flashing down the sunlit street;
A thrush upon the window,—he at least
Must hold me guileless as yon pale boy-priest.
What more, fair mistress? How he seeks your eye!

ISOTTA.
'Neath this stern brow forgotten murders lie;
The red lip-lines, confess lust, scorn, and hate;
Dark treacheries 'neath those sombre eye-caves wait.
Ah, where, my lord, the scholar's studious pain,
The zest for art, the Plato-puzzled brain,
The high ambition for diviner thought,
That joyed to see how well Alberti wrought?

MALATESTA.
The earthquake scars the mildly tended soil,
And leaves behind no trace of man's slow toil;
Lo, then, at last you find some alms of praise.
Who sees a man full-faced must meet his gaze;
This side face, mark you, lacks the quick eye's change.
Unwatched, men see it. Ever is it strange
To him who carries it. 'T is like, you say.

ISOTTA.
My good lord, so Matteo said to-day.

MALATESTA.
Now what a thing is custom! You can scan
This face and call me good. See how a man
May scourge through centuries with the whips of shame,
And curse you with the thing that wins him fame.

ISOTTA.
Minutes are courtiers. The inflexible years
To no man palter, know not loves nor fears.

MALATESTA.
Ah! none but you would dare in bitter speech
To front the Malatesta. Doth naught teach
Your careless tongue to fear loose talk of me?

ISOTTA.
Yet so the meanest churl shall prate of you,
When axe or spear sets free your soaring soul,
And its wild flight hath won an earthly goal.

MALATESTA.
Small care have I what man or gossip say,
When axe or spear-thrust come to close my day.
And yet, and yet, Isotta, when my face
Pales on some stricken field, and in my place
Another wooes you,—what wilt say, my maid?

ISOTTA.
Much as the rest. The dead are oft betrayed.

MALATESTA (aside).
Not by the dead. No other lips shall lay
Love's bribe upon your cheek.
(Aloud). Another day
Fades in the West, behind yon crumbling tower!
Give me my Plato. Pray, how stands the hour?





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