Modern Italian Poets - Essays and Versions by William Dean Howells
page 41 of 358 (11%)
page 41 of 358 (11%)
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Her pretty lips a little; evermore
At every instant waxes violent The anxious agitation of the fans. So, in the age of Turpin, if two knights Illustrious and well cased in mail encountered Upon the way, each cavalier aspired To prove the valor of the other in arms, And, after greetings courteous and fair, They lowered their lances and their chargers dashed Ferociously together; then they flung The splintered fragments of their spears aside, And, fired with generous fury, drew their huge, Two-handed swords and rushed upon each other! But in the distance through a savage wood The clamor of a messenger is heard, Who comes full gallop to recall the one Unto King Charles, and th' other to the camp Of the young Agramante. Dare thou, too, Dare thou, invincible youth, to expose the curls And the toupet, so exquisitely dressed This very morning, to the deadly shock Of the infuriate fans; to new emprises Thy fair invite, and thus the extreme effects Of their periculous enmity suspend. Is not this most charmingly done? It seems to me that the warlike interpretation of the scene is delightful; and those embattled fans--their perfumed breath comes down a hundred years in the verse! The cavalier and his lady now betake them to the promenade, where |
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