SCENE III.
Leonora.
(Alone.) The good and noble heart my pity moves;
How sad a lot attends her lofty rank!
Alas, she loses,—thinkest thou to win?
Is his departure hence so requisite?
Or dost thou urge it for thyself alone,—
To make the heart and lofty genius thine,
Which now thou sharest,—and unequally?
Is’t honest so to act? What lack’st thou yet?
Art thou not rich enough? Husband and son,
Possessions, beauty, rank—all these thou hast,
And him would’st have beside? What! Lov’st thou him?
How comes it else that thou canst not endure
To live without him? This thou dar’st confess!
How charming is it in his mind’s clear depths
One’s self to mirror. Doth not every joy
Seem doubly great and noble, when his song
Wafts us aloft as on the clouds of heaven?
Then first thy lot is worthy to be envied!
Not only hast thou what the many crave,
But each one knoweth what thou art and hast!
Thy fatherland doth proudly speak thy name;
This is the pinnacle of earthly bliss.
Is Laura’s then the only favor’d name
That aye from gentle lips shall sweetly flow?
Is it Petrarca’s privilege alone,
To deify an unknown beauty’s charms?
Who is there that with Tasso can compare?
As now the world exalts him, future time
With honor due shall magnify his name.
What rapture, in the golden prime of life,
To feel his presence, and with him to near,
With airy tread, the future’s hidden realm!
Thus should old age and time their influence lose,
And powerless be the voice of rumor bold,
Whose breath controls the billows of applause.
All that is transient in his song survives;
Still art thou young, still happy, when the round
Of changeful time shall long have borne thee on.
Him thou must have, yet takest naught from her.
For her affection to the gifted man
Doth take the hue her other passions wear;
Pale as the tranquil moon, whose feeble rays
Dimly illumine the night-wanderer’s path;
They gleam, but warm not, and diffuse around
No blissful rapture, no keen sense of joy.
If she but know him happy, though afar,
She will rejoice, as when she saw him daily.
And then, ’tis not my purpose from this court,
From her, to banish both myself and friend.
I will return, will bring him here again.
So let it be!—My rugged friend draws near;
We soon shall see if we have power to tame him.
Titles (by Subject) 
