This is powerful enough to be in downright earnest: and unsoftened by the flowing harmony of the verse and rhyme, appears even harsh, both in sentiment and expression: but the poetry and spirit being inherent, have not, I trust, quite escaped in the _transfusion_. When Ariosto, after a long absence, revisits the scene in which he first beheld the lady of his thoughts, he addresses those "marble halls, and lofty and stately roofs, "Marmoree logge, alti e superbi tetti," in a strain which leaves the issue of his suit something less than doubtful:-- "Well do ye remember, ye scenes, when I left ye a captive sick at heart, and pierced with Love's sweet pain: but ye know not perhaps how sweetly I died, and was restored again to life: how my gentlest Lady, seeing that my soul had forsaken me, sent me hers in return to dwell with me for ever!" "Ben vi sovvien, che di qui andai captivo, Trafitto il cor! ma non sapete forse Com' io morissi, e poi tornassi in vita. E che madonna, tosto che s' accorse Esser l' anima in lei da me fuggita, La sua mi diede, e ch' or con questa vivo!" The exact date of Ariosto's marriage cannot be ascertained, but the marriage itself is proved beyond a doubt:[83] it must have taken place about 1522. The reasons which induced Ariosto to involve in doubt and mystery his union with this admirable woman, can only be conjectured,[84] their intercourse was so carefully concealed, and the discretion and modesty of Alessandra so remarkable, that no suspicion of the ties which bound them to each other, existed during the life of the poet; nor did the slightest imputation ever sully the fair fame of her he loved. It were endless to point out the various beauties of Ariosto's lyrics,--beauties which, as they spring from feeling, are _felt_. We have few sonnets in a dolorous strain, few complaints of cruelty; and even these seem inspired, not by the habitual coldness of Alessandra, but by some occasional repulses which he confesses to have deserved. Per poco consiglio, e troppo ardire. But we have, in their place, all the glow of sensibility, the sparkling of hope, the grateful rapture of returned affection, and that power of imagery, by which, with one vivid stroke, he turns his emotions into pictures: these predominate throughout. As an instance of the latter, there is the apostrophe to Hope, "now bounding and leaping along, now creeping with coward steps and slow:" O speranza! che ancor dietro si mena Quando a gran salti, e quando a passi lenti! In one of his madrigals, he says, with an elegance which is perhaps a little quaint, "my wishes soar so high, that my hopes shrink back, and dare not follow them." In the same spirit, when he is blest with the presence of his love, grief is not only banished, but "flies with the rapidity of a falcon before the wind," Vola, com' un falcone che ha seco il vento!