# Landon in The Literary Gazette 1826/Tasso

Literary Gazette, 26th August, 1826, Page 541
ORIGINAL POETRY.
METRICAL FRAGMENTS.—NO. II.
Tasso’s last interview with the Princess Leonora.
A courtly scene it was, the tapers threw
 New gloss of beauty o'er the gather'd rose,
Touch'd as if with the moonlight's soften'd hue;
 And on the ear there came the dying close
Of a lute's love-song; 'twas a master drew
 From the charm'd chords such honey tones as those:
Bright tears were in the bright eyes round; but none Wept, lest one falling tear might reave a tone.
Nobles and courtly dames stood round the Bard,
 Pouring those gentle flatteries in his ear
Which ever are the Minstrel's best reward.
 Alas! and is the serpent's trail even here?
Harsh all earth's destinies,—but his most hard
 Who may not trust the praise he loves to hear—
Who may not hold his fame sure till, too late,
The seal of death and truth is set by fate.
There stood he, half in pleasure, half in scorn,
 Holding such homage at its genuine worth:
But from some young lips was a murmur borne,
 And tears in pure and starry eyes had birth,
Speaking in eloquent silence; and were worn
 Far in his heart, mid things most dear of earth,
He felt his song was felt—to poet's lays
Sympathy is more precious far than praise.
He moved away; he had been standing where
 His eye upon a pictured shape could dwell;
A brow proud, beautiful, as temples are;
 A neck curved with the white swan's haughtiest swell
Above the waters; the soft cheek was fair,
 But colourless,—as the heart had nought to tell
That might disturb so pure a sanctuary
With lights and blushes of a troubled sky.
With one long look he turn'd away his gaze
 From thy high beauty, peerless Leonore!
Too much the breast its secret thought betrays
 When it hath seemed glossed most securely o'er;
Suspicion more that hurried start would raise
 Than all his ardent look had done before:
'Twas poet gazing with a painter's eye—
But love was in that start and in that sigh.
He entered in a small alcove, where hung
 A wreathed rose-tree, a snow-starr'd jasmine:
The life-blood to the Poet's forehead sprung;
 For bending there, like Spirit at her shrine,
The Princess Leonore had backwards flung
 Her silver veil and tresses' grape-like twine,
As if she had listen'd in so wrapt a mood
That still she kept her listening attitude.
Small likeness was there to the portrait now—
 Her cheek was crimson, and the soften'd eye
Shed softness over the unsteady brow,
 And the lips parted with a half-breathed sigh:
She bent to pluck a flower that grew below,
 Hiding her face thus, all too consciously:
But Tasso's heart drank in a hope, a thought,
Which till that hour not even a dream had brought.
She spoke, they were but a few hurried words—
 Of the sweet flowers around, the heat, the night—
Yet were they such as the blest heart records
 For many an after-moment's long delight;
They touch'd upon his spirit's inmost chords;
 Though broken was the sense, the accents light,
Yet sweeter was to him that tremulous tone
Than all that eloquence were proud to own.
They parted—and they never met again;
 For envious eyes were watching that dear hour,
Each had to expiate in tears and pain—
 He in the maniac's chain and gloomy tower,
Till the fire fed alike on heart and brain:
 And she with lonely grief in regal bower,
Mocking the misery by silence nurst;
Subdued, unpitied, and perchance the worst.
This was their history—alas! too like
 All records that of Love or Genius are—
Shafts sharpen'd into brightness but to strike
 Their deadliest.IOLE.