Meanwhile he wasted in the eyes of men, So thin, he seem'd a sort of skeleton-key Suspended at death's door--so pale--and then He turn'd as nervous as an aspen tree; The life of man is three score years and ten, But he was perishing at twenty-three, For people truly said, as grief grew stronger, "It could not shorten his poor life--much longer." IX. For why, he neither slept, nor drank, nor fed, Nor relished any kind of mirth below; Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his head, Love had become his universal foe, Salt in his sugar--nightmare in his bed, At last, no wonder wretched Julio, A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth Of hope,--made up his mind to cut her girth! X. For hapless lovers always died of old, Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud; So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told, The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood; And so poor Sappho when her boy was cold, Drown'd her salt tear drops in a salter flood, Their fame still breathing, tho' their breath be past, For those old _suitors_ lived beyond their last. XI. So Julio went to drown,--when life was dull, But took his corks, and merely had a bath; And once he pull'd a trigger at his skull, But merely broke a window in his wrath; And once, his hopeless being to annul, He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath, A line so ample, 'twas a query whether 'Twas meant to be a halter or a tether. XII. Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust His sorrows thro'--'tis horrible to die! And come down, with our little all of dust, That dun of all the duns to satisfy: To leave life's pleasant city as we must, In Death's most dreary spunging-house to lie, Where even all our personals must go To pay the debt of nature that we owe! XIII. So Julio liv'd:--'twas nothing but a pet He took at life--a momentary spite; Besides, he hoped that time would some day get The better of love's flame, howover bright; A thing that time has never compass'd yet, For love, we know, is an immortal light. Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt, Was always in,--for none have found it out. XIV. Meanwhile, Bianca dream'd--'twas once when Night Along the darken'd plain began to creep, Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright, Altho' in skin as sooty as a sweep: The flow'rs had shut their eyes--the zephyr light Was gone, for it had rock'd the leaves to sleep. And all the little birds had laid their heads Under their wings--sleeping in feather beds. XV. Lone in her chamber sate the dark-ey'd maid, By easy stages jaunting thro' her pray'rs, But list'ning side-long to a serenade, That robb'd the saints a little of their shares; For Julio underneath the lattice play'd His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs, Born only underneath Italian skies, Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs. XVI.