, else others
may hear them too. Ah! you press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it!
or the verses will sink into my breast again, and lie there silent!
Good girl!

Many, well I know, there are
Ready in your joys to share,
And (I never blame it) you
Are almost as ready too.
But when comes the darker day,
And those friends have dropt away,
Which is there among them all
You should, if you could, recall?
One who wisely loves and well
Hears and shares the griefs you tell;
Him you ever call apart
When the springs o'erflow the heart;
For you know that he alone
Wishes they were _but_ his own.
Give, while these he may divide,
Smiles to all the world beside.

_Cornelia._ We are now in the full light of the chamber; cannot you
remember it, having looked so intently all around?

_Tasso._ O sister! I could have slept another hour. You thought I
wanted rest: why did you waken me so early? I could have slept another
hour or longer. What a dream! But I am calm and happy.

_Cornelia._ May you never more be otherwise! Indeed, he cannot be
whose last verses are such as those.

_Tasso._ Have you written any since that morning?

_Cornelia._ What morning?

_Tasso._ When you caught the swallow in my curtains, and trod upon my
knees in catching it, luckily with naked feet. The little girl of
thirteen laughed at the outcry of her brother Torquatino, and sang
without a blush her earliest lay.

_Cornelia._ I do not recollect it.

_Tasso._ I do.

Rondinello! rondinello!
Tu sei nero, ma sei bello.
Cosa fa se tu sei nero?
Rondinello! sei il primiero
De' volanti, palpitanti,
(E vi sono quanti quanti!)
Mai tenuto a questo petto,
E percio sei il mio diletto.[11]

_Cornelia._ Here is the cocomero; it cannot be more insipid. Try it.

_Tasso._ Where is the boy who brought it? where is the boy who sang my
_Aminta_? Serve him first; give him largely. Cut deeper; the knife is
too short: deeper; mia brava Corneliolina! quite through all the red,
and into the middle of the seeds. Well done!

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The miseries of Tasso arose not only from the imagination and the
heart. In the metropolis of the Christian world, with many admirers
and many patrons, bishops, cardinals, princes, he was left destitute,
and almost famished. These are his own words: '_Appena_ in questo
stato ho comprat