16.
For him your whole existence is naught else
Than his art’s spur: for when his traitorous kiis
Calls up the flow of love upon your face
'Tis but to paint a picture in its guide.
And trust me, when this last completed is
That still imperfect wants your Lord's return
Then dies his love for you –
PAOLA
I know it! I myself am nothing more:
Am all exhaavsted: and the thing I was
Now pulses in this picture –
(She stands before the picture)
It is a rddle here for me to solve.
I look at mine own face and know it, yet
I know it not. I no'er look so and yet
I might look so. Some fate that is before me
Might cast a I hadow on me like to this,
Better or worse than all the past can show – –
Than all l ever thought or felt or was-
Some possibility with half-closed lids
Lies here for life athirst. World he but come!
Whence this fierce longing? Is it from my heart?
Or from that woman's on the easel there?
Thon art long away--too long Remigio--
A year is endless.
LIONARDO
You dream, my Paola! Hardly three months
Has he been gone.