CONSTANCE AND MARTUCCIO (AFTER BOCCACCIO) by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON

O LOVE, that steepest all our years
In sorrow, making present bliss
Bitter with recollected tears,
Surely even death thy guerdon is!
But ah, could parting lovers die,
They would not mourn, they would not sigh,
Not death they fear, but dread the parting kiss.

O Love, that bathest all our dreams
In glory, since apart, afar,
The phantom of the loved one seems
More real than men and women are;
O Love, that when our blood runs chill
Floods all the heart with memory still;
Sweet-bitter Love, be still our guiding-star!

I praise thee, while I mourn the woe
Of Constance, beautiful and good,
Of Constance and Martuccio,
Twin lovers since their babyhood.
Alas for either breaking heart
The day is come when lovers part;
For so decrees a father cold and shrewd.

And they must part! To Barbary
With freighted ships Martuccio,
To win what treasure there may be,
To fight and spoil the paynim foe,
To half-forget his lady's eyes
In traffic of rare merchandise,
While she remains and waits -- 'Tis harder so.

"Take comfort," says Martuccio.
"Think what delight shall ours be soon
When I return, as now I go...
And is not Love so large a boon
That lovers losing happiness
Let slip a thing so vastly less,
As men in sunlight think not on the moon?"

He ceased. With grief he dared not tell.
He called her "Love," he called her "Bride,"
Gave one long kiss, one brief farewell...
She fell against the fountain-side
And lay awhile there, moaning low,
"Martuccio! Ah, Martuccio!"
With passionate eyes that weep not, strained and wide.

And all the days and half the nights
She sat upon the fountain-stair,
Till brooding on her lost delights
Made loneliness grow lonelier there.
If other maidens came her way
They ceased their song and hushed their play,
And with bowed heads went on and prayed for her.

Until a year had passed and fled.
The world again in flower with spring
Made even Constance raise her head,
Made even Constance smile and sing;
And in that May there came a man
Weary and travel-worn and wan,
As one returned from perilous wandering.

Came underneath the myrtle-trees,
Saw Constance by the fountain stand
With lilies reaching to her knees,
With roses set on either hand.
About her knees the lilies rise
Like starry flowers look her eyes --
She stands like spring and smiles upon the land.

He stayed awhile and looked at her
With such sad meaning in his face
It seemed as though he could not bear
To ruin all her tender grace.
Then in his hand he took a ring,
And sighed awhile to hear her sing:
"Come back, my Love, come home, for Spring is here!"

He sighed, and kneeling where she stood,
Said, "Lady, I have news to tell!"
"Now Mary grant thy news be good!"
Said Constance, white as lily-bell.
"I am a sailor, lady dear,
It was my captain sent me here --
Martuccio Gomito.... "Pray Heaven he's well!"

"Lady, the spring to-day is fair,
But it must know a winter's blight.
Lady, the lilies that you wear
Will wither long before the night" --
"What! Came you from so far away
To tell me it is Spring to-day?
Tell what you dare not tell! Kill me outright!"

"Constance, my lord is very ill."
"Ah, Heaven," she cried, "my love is dead!
I love him!" said she, calm and still.
"Have you no word from his deathbed?"
"At the last hour this ring he gave,
Saying something, but a whelming wave
Drowned it and him, and all but me," he said.

"But often would he speak of you"
(Still Constance stood as still as stone).
"Nay, Lady, weep. I loved him too.
Have you no grief that he is gone?
That he went down at sea one night,
Coming to claim his heart's delight?"
-- "I prithee leave me (Constance said) alone."

He went; she sat there hours on hours
And gazed on that remembered ring.
The night wind chilled to death her flowers,
She felt not it nor anything.
At last she raised her tearless eyes,
Saw the night-quiet in the skies,
And heard the nightingales begin to sing.

She wandered where the lilies stood
Like spirits that would shelter her,
But she in her white maidenhood
Made even lilies look less fair,
She wrapt round shoulders, breast and head,
A heavy cloak of faded red,
And where the streamlet went she follow'd there.

Musing -- this heart I dare not strike,
He loved it. Neither lips he found
So sweet, must poison touch. Belike
I should remember underground,
How all the land and all the sea,
Lies cold between my love and me.
Would God I were with him where he lies drown'd!

And ever where the streamlet went,
Fearless through sorrow, followed she;
Above the branches creaked and bent,
Where the wind caught them, heavily.
The owls shrieked and the ravens mourned,
But Constance never stayed or turned,
But went straight on, towards an unseen sea.

Until where thorns once caught her feet
Thin rushes bent, and at the noise
The timid lizards made retreat,
And wild duck rose, fearing decoys;
She looked, and lo! the trees were gone
And overhead the white moon shone,
And wet the earth shone, that the sea destroys.

She followed where the waters led,
(Grown wide and shallow) o'er the sands.
The north-wind whistled round her head
And clasped her close with airy hands,
Fain to forget the drowning cries
Of sailors and their widows' sighs,
And caught her hair and loosed it from its bands.

At last, behold on either side
And all before her waters were,
White waters desolate and wide,
And here the wind blew roughlier.
She leant against a tall black stake
Of driftwood -- such as fishers make,
To keep their boats safe when they are not there.

She kissed her ring and looking down,
She wept such shallow waves to see,
So shallow that they could not drown --
"How shall I die and come to thee,
My lost Martuccio!" she cried.
And then a twisted rope she spied
That held to a stake some boatlet out at sea.

She strained upon it with her hands
That left red stains where they had stayed;
Her feet go sinking through the sands,
And through the out-drifting waters wade;
She reached the boat, she slipt the rope,
And, taking leave of life and hope,
Lay down upon the planks, and dreamed, and prayed.

And as she 'gan to pray and weep
A quiet fell on sea and sky,
The rough waves cradled her to sleep,
The north-wind sang her lullaby,
And all the stars came out to see
That she was sleeping peacefully,
Who slept all night, all day, until the night grew nigh.

At morning Prince Martuccio
Looked out across the southern sea
That shipwreck'd him a year ago --
He who was once our enemy,
Who now is grown beloved and great,
Who saved the King and saved the State,
Who reigns the proudest prince in Barbary.

And he is great and young and rich,
Yet often by the sea he stands,
As though his straining eyes would reach
The secrets of imagined lands.
And thus he saw a little craft,
And watched the gentle breezes waft
It slowly on towards the Moorish sands.

As wanderers where no water is,
With blackened tongue and aching throat,
Finding a fruit-tree, full of bliss
Strip it of its desired load,
And ask not, is it good or bad
Or poison-sweet to send men mad:
So yearned Martuccio towards the little boat.

And knowing not wherefore he yearned,
He watched it while it came his way,
And felt not how the hot sun burned
Nor any drenching of the spray.
At last, when noon-day heat was o'er
The boat struck sharp against the shore,
Martuccio stept therein -- where something lay.

A mantle, first, of faded red,
And then a robe of laurel-green,
Then a beloved brown-rippled head
With sleep-flushed face the curls between,
"Constance," he cried, "Constance awake!
How came you hither? -- for my sake?
Or has our year-long parting never been?"

She opened wide her happy eyes
That shone so strangely sweet and bright;
She said -- "We are in Paradise,
I too was lost at sea last night,
What? did you think when you were drown'd,
I could stay happy on dry ground?
No, no, I came to you, my heart's delight."

Then all her passion overcame
A maid who knew no maiden's art,
And calling on Martuccio's name
She threw herself upon his heart.
But seeing how her lover smiled
She grew to earth right reconciled,
And nevermore did these true lovers part.

For in the palace of the King
They two were wed in Barbary,
And plighted with the self-same ring
That with both lovers crost the sea,
And crost at last with both together
When in the calmest summer weather
They too set sail for home and Sicily.

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