Scene From 'Tasso'.

MADDALO, A COURTIER.     MALPIGLIO, A POET.     PIGNA, A MINISTER.     ALBANO, AN USHER.     MADDALO:     No access to the Duke! You have not said     That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?     PIGNA:     Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna     Waits with state papers for his signature?     MALPIGLIO:     The Lady Leonora cannot know     That I have written a sonnet to her fame,     In which I ... Venus and Adonis.     You should not take my gold and serve me not.     ALBANO:     In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,     'If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,     Art the Adonis whom I love, and he     The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.'     O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,     Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.     MALPIGLIO:     The words are twisted in some double sense     That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.     PIGNA:     How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?     ALBANO:     Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,     His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.     The Princess sate within the window-seat,     And so her face was hid; but on her knee     Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,     And quivering - young Tasso, too, was there.     MADDALO:     Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven     Thou drawest down smiles - they did not rain on thee.     MALPIGLIO:     Would they were parching lightnings for his sake     On whom they fell!