ON SEEING HER PLAY "BIANCA" IN MILMAN'S TRAGEDY OF "FAZIO." I thought thee wondrous when thy soul portrayed The youth Verona bragged of; and the love Of glowing, southern blood by thee was made Entrancing as the breath of orange-grove. I felt the spirit of the great was thine: In the fond Boy's devotion and despair; I knew thou wert a pilgrim at the shrine Where God's high ministers alone repair, No rote-learned sighing filled thy doting moans; Thy grief was heavy as thy joy was light; Passion and Poesy were in thy tones, And Mind flashed forth in its electric might. I had seen many "fret and strut their hour;" But my brain never had become such slave To Fiction, as it did beneath thy power; Nor owned such homage as to thee it gave. I did not think thou couldst arouse a throb Of deeper, stronger beating in my heart; I did not deem thou couldst awake the sob Of choking fulness, and convulsive start. But thy pale madness, and thy gasping woe, That breathed the torture of Bianca's pain; Oh! never would my bosom ask to know Such sad and bitter sympathy again! When the wife's anguish sears thy hopeless cheek, Let crowds behold and laud thee as they will; But this poor breast, in shunning what they seek, May yield, perchance, a richer tribute still. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SENCE YOU WENT AWAY by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE CRICKET by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN THE SINGER IN THE PRISON by WALT WHITMAN FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |