THE IMPROVISATRICE; ILLUSTRATIVE OF PICTURE BY BONE ENGRAVED BY ROMNEY by DAVID MACBETH MOIR

I.

BESIDE her cottage door she sate and sang,
That gentle creature, with her deep black eyes,
As if her heart of grief ne'er owned a pang,
And her young breast were sunny as her skies;
The ripe rich grapes hung clustering round her head,
And roses, by her side, sweet perfume shed.

II.

A poetess in spirit, by the touch—
Of Nature framed, she needed not the rules
Of pedants, sophists, dogmatists, and such;
Art's trickery, or the doctrines of the schools:
The glow was at her soul, and so she sung,
Life in her words, and heart upon her tongue.

III.

Her theme was love—of quiet summer eves,
And shepherds piping in the pastoral dale;
And how, with throbbing heart, beneath the leaves
Of the green elms, the lover breathed his tale,
And she, his idol, from his amorous arms,
Half-pain'd, half-pleas'd, withdrew her conquering charms.

IV.

Of Tasso and his passion deep she told,
His inspiration, frenzy, and despair;
And how, thro' lonesome years, amid the mould
Of dungeon cells, his Leonora fair
Rose in her beauty on his tranced sight,
Like eve's one star 'mid winter's gathering night.

V.

And then to gentle Petrarch changed the theme,
And to Vaucluse's woodland greenery bright—
Laura his daylight idol, and the dream
Of his mild spirit through each watch of night;
Time purifying still his ardours high,
Till Passion's self became Philosophy.

VI.

Anon she sang of battle, and the breath
Of Slaughter tainting heaven's salubrious gale;
Households laid prostrate by the leveller Death,
And orphans desolate, and widows pale;
Anguish imploring Rapine, deaf to hear;
Life-withering Famine, and sepulchral Fear.

VII.

The wars of fierce and fiery Tamerlane
She sang; and how it soothed his savage rage
To pluck, in daily hate, the humbling chain
Which knit proud Bajazet to his iron cage,
Until, beneath Scorn's unrelenting yoke,
His hopes forsook him, and his heart was broke.

VIII.

Then Peter's praise she hymn'd, who o'er the rude
And darken'd Russ shed civilising light,
Triumphant in the van of battle stood,
And vanquish'd Charles at red Pultowa's fight.—
Symphonious with her voice, the rich guitar
Calm'd into peace, or kindled into war.

IX.

Anon the varied charms of Nature's face
Would lend a syren witchery to her song,
As she the lovely lineaments would trace
Of amaranthine isles, to which belong
Perennial, endless summer; and man's life,
Unpoison'd by Ambition, knows not strife.

X.

Straight to the wintry waste of polar seas
Th' enchantress bore with her the soul astray,
Where scowl'd the iceberg, and the sleety breeze
Drifted from howling cubs the bear away,
And fur-clad natives, housed in caverns drear,
Slept thro' the night which darken'd half the year.

XI.

The Passions at her bidding throng'd around—
Hope, with her bright blue eyes and golden hair;
Teeth-gnashing Hate; Remorse that bit the ground;
Yellow-brow'd Jealousy, and fierce Despair;—
The Spirits met and mix'd; and from the strife
She drew that pictured chaos, human life.

XII.

Gaze on that face—'tis fair and feminine;
Yet, in the mirror of those pensive eyes,
Whose lustre rather seems to speak than shine,
A fathomless abyss of passion lies:
Earth is to her a spectral vision bright,
Flashing with sunshine, or begrimed with night.

XIII.

'Tis past!—and art thou but a brilliant dream
On which I gaze—a something, by the power
Of Genius conjured from the shapes that teem
In the mind's eye, thro' Inspiration's hour?—
Even as I gaze, the warm illusions fade
Into a silent scene, an empty shade.

XIV.

Bare canvass, and the solitary gloom
Of a dim studio—there the Painter stands,
Bidding each nice and tender touch illume
The scene, till beauty on the sight expands;
And lo! the marvel which creative Art
Gifts in its high perfection to the heart!

XV.

Yes! such was the illusion, and so bright
The Poetess of Nature, which the power
Of genius conjured to the Painter's sight,
In Contemplation's meditative hour,—
The syren shape in Memory's love enshrined,
Which Bone to beauty drew, and Romney lined.

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