And he sang. Below, the dingles, Where the lazy vapors lolled, Where the torrent flashed its cascade, Touched with amethyst and gold, Echoed; where the wild deer glimmered By the ruin gray and old. From the Venus then, or roses, Struck a dagger; snake that stung, Laid him dead who'd tuned her heart's strings Till for him alone they sung: Stilled the heart of him who only From her heart one note had wrung. And the nightingales kept singing 'Mid the roses, while, like stone, Eleanor sank pale beside him, And unto the palace lone Stole a shadow with a dagger, Who shall sit upon a throne. THE PORTRAIT In some quaint Nürnberg _maler-atelier_ Uprummaged. When and where was never clear Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom 'Twas painted--who shall say? itself a gloom Resisting inquisition. I opine It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line, Are they deniable?--Distinguished grace And the pure oval of the noble face Tarnished in color badly. Half in light Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn; Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn Of light, disdainful eyes and ... well! no use! Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse Of patience.--Often, vaguely visible, The portrait fills each feature, making swell The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair Start out in living hues; astonished, "There! The woman lives," your soul exults, when, lo! You hold a blur; an undetermined glow Dislimns a daub.--Restore?--Ah, I have tried Our best restorers, but it has defied. Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps, a ghost Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost; A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared, Of Nuremberg, one sunny morn when she Passed paged to Court. Her cold nobility Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied A feverish brush--her face!--Despaired and died. The narrow Judengasse: gables frown Around a humpbacked usurer's, where brown And dirty in a corner long it lay, Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as--say, Retables done in tempora and old Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold Of martyrs and apostles,--names forgot,-- Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lot Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance, 'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance; A crucifix and rosary; inlaid Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayed Nïello of Byzantium; rich work, In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate dirk, There holy patens.