To hear my story, hear the whole of it?

And with a shamefaced air and reddened cheek

That “others know it all, and why not thou?”

Who has been talking to thee of me, then;

Setting thee on to question and suspect?

Ah, boy, with eyes still full of childish dreams,

And yet with manhood on the firm young lip,

’Tis a hard thing to ask me, and a strange!

A woman does not easily lay bare

Her history, which is her very heart,

Even to that piece of her she calls her son!

Son he may be, but still he is a man,

And she, though mother, is a woman still;

And men and women are made different,

And vainly ’gainst the barrier of sex

They beat and beat,—all their lives long they beat,

Yet must I do this hard thing for thy sake,

Since who shall do it for thee, if not I?

Thy father, who had else more fitly told,

Is at the wars, the weary, wasting wars;—

Long years ago he sailed unto the wars,

And, dead or living, comes not back to us.

Unhappy is the son who, woman-bred,

Knows not the firm feel of a father’s hand;

And I, widow or wife, I know not which,

Wofulest widow, still more woful wife!

Must frame my faltering tongue to tell the tale,

And snatch my thoughts back from their present pain

To the old days, the hard and cruel days,

Full of sharp hatred and stern vengeances,

Which yet were beautiful to him and me

Who lived and loved each other and were young;

But unto thee, born in a softer hour,

Come as dim echoes of some warlike peal.

Thou bearest an honorable name, my son,

Two mighty houses meet and blend in thee;

For I, thy mother, of the warlike line

Of Bardi, lords of Florence in past time,

Sprang from the Buondelmonti, their sworn foes;

For we were Guelph and they were Ghibelline,

And centuries of wrong, and seas of blood,

And old traditional hatreds sundered us.

Even in my babyhood I heard the name

Of Buondelmonti uttered ’twixt set teeth

And coupled with a curse, and I would pout,

And knit my brows, and clench my tiny fist

And whimper at the very sound of it;

Whereat my father, stout AmÉrigo,

Would catch me up and toss me overhead,

And swear I was best Bardi of them all;

And if his sons but matched his only maid

They’d make quick work of the black Ghibellines

And of the Buondelmonti!

To woman’s stature, and men called me fair,

And suitors, like a flight of bees, began

To hum and cluster wheresoe’er I moved;

And then there came the day,—that fateful day,

When little Gian, my father’s latest born,

Was carried for chrism to the baptistery;

I looked across the dim and crowded church

And saw a face—a dazzling, youthful face!

A face that smote my vision like a star;

With golden locks, and eyes divinely bright

Like San Michele in the picture there—

Fixed upon mine.

It was Ippolito, our foeman’s son,

At whom I gazed, I should have turned away,

My father’s daughter sure had turned away.

But nothing warned me, nothing hindered him;

We looked upon each other, Fate so willed,

And with our eyes our hearts met!

My brother muttered, fingering at his sword,

“I’ll teach you to ogle us when this is done!”

“Who is it, then?” I whispered, and he told;

And with the name I felt my heart like lead

Turn cold and cold and suddenly sink down.

And still that tender, radiant gaze wooed mine,

And still I felt the enchantment burn and burn,

And all that night I lay and felt those eyes,

And day by day they seemed to follow me,

Like unknown planets of some strange new heaven

Whose depths I dared not question or explore;

And love and hate so strove for mastery

Within my girl’s heart, made their battle-field,

That all my forces failed and life grew faint.

He, for his part, set forth with heart afire

To learn my name,—sad knowledge, easy gained,

Leaving the learner stricken with a chill!

And after that, whenever I might go

To ball or feast, I saw him, only him!

And while the other cavaliers pressed round

To praise my face or dress, or hold my fan,

Or bid me to the dance, he stood aloof

With passionate eyes, but never might draw near.

For still my brother Piero or my sire

Were close behind, with dark set brows intent

To watch him that he did not dare to speak.

Only his eyes met mine, and in my cheeks

I felt the guilty color grow and grow;

And once, when all were masqued, amid the crowd

At last, with baffling of his heart-sick hope

And long suspense and sorrow, he fell ill;

And in a moment when life’s tide ran low

He told his mother all; she, loving him well

And loath to see him perish thus forlorn,

Became his ally, spoke him words of cheer,

And with my cousin Contessa, her sworn friend,

She counsel took; and so, betwixt the two,

It came about that on a day of spring

When almond blossoms whitened the brown boughs

And olives were in bud and all birds sang,

We met,—a meeting cunningly contrived,

In an old villa garden past the walls.

My mother had led me thither, knowing naught,

And I, naught kn