It is said that sudden terror has a force beyond our learning—
Power to blanch, in one night's passing, raven tresses, snowy white;
But a speechless indignation changed that proud man, inly burning,
Till he seemed to those a stranger who had known him yester-night.

Thenceforward none dared mention her, and never more they sought her.
Nothing ever stirred the father from the shadow of his gloom;
But he made a will most cruel, disinheriting his daughter,
And his coat of arms was graven, that same summer on his tomb.

But the artist and the lady—they were wedded at the altar
Of Saint Peter of Livorno, by a consecrated light.
The lady's cheek grew paler, but her sweet voice did not falter
As she made the low responses of the holy marriage rite.

Thence they journeyed to Genoa, the beautiful and queenly,
Sitting on her marble mountains, with her white feet in the sea,
And arrived at fair Palanza, when the next day died serenely,
And the starry-fingered twilight veiled the lovely lake and lea.

And they sailed away, next morning, on bright Lago Maggiore,
When the first tones of the silver-sounding angelus outrung
From cloistered Isola Madre, famous for its olden glory,
And lovely as Elysian by the ancient poets sung.

Summer sunshine trailed its amber-gleaming tresses o'er the waters;
Bright wavelets danced, with dimpled feet, around the vessel's prow,
Making murmurs of low music, like the voice of Nereus' daughters
Singing love-lays in the grottos and coral groves below.

And they sailed between two heavens: That beneath the waters gleaming
Was as brightly blue and limitless as that which arched above.
Common things won grace and beauty from the magic of their dreaming,
And beauty gained a glory from the sunshine of their love.

Breath of morning, odor-freighted from fair blossoms, dewy leafage,
Waves that made a merry singing as of bridal melody,
Hills, empurpled by the distance, azure sky and golden rivage—
All were rounded by their happiness to one grand harmony.

Far above the sound and silence, one white cloud went slowly sailing
From the chambers of Aurora to the gateways of the West,
Like a fairy ship, with snowy masts, and idle sails a-trailing
In the sunshine of the tropics, when the winds are all at rest.

As luminous seemed their future as that boundless upper ocean,
And their life, like that fair cloud-ship sailing in the golden light.
Freighted with the bliss and blessing of love's tenderest devotion,
Should float adown Time's river, to the Islands of Delight.