The fair Erminia, by love and sorrow led

The fair Erminia, by love and sorrow led,

over her dear Tancredi wept, and she,

all a-tremble, o'er his noble head

bowed slowly, slowly, like a sorrowing bee;

and from that flower of beauty whence had fled,

the flames of love, she sucked the ice of grief,

then fixed her gaze upon his shuttered eye,

dear as her life, and said with many a sigh:

Tancredi? Bloodied, tear-stained, art thou here,

my love! Canst thou, Erminia bear the sight

of thy heart stilled, thy sun that shone so clear

in skies of love eclipsed by shades of night?

Ah, as thy beauty fades, thy features dear

are, like mine in my sorrow, painted white,

and as from thy fair cheek the purple-red

has faded, so I feel my life, with yours, has fled.

Love, who hath lost the sparkle of thine eyes,

now hides himself within thy lovely clay,

and there entombs thy lips, as cold as ice

in that same grave where all my joy doth stay.

So beautiful art thou in thy demise,

that bitterness is lightened as I gaze,

and though thou'rt icy now, and love is vain,

within your ice my love doth heat retain.

O wounds that let the lifeblood scape the nest

wherein his spirit and our love did dwell,

while yet you flow in crimson rivulets

over this frozen snow and ivory shell,

wound me too, ay, pierce me to the breast

that we may share one pain, one death, one knell,

and thus united with your streams of blood,

my springs of tears shall make a second flood.

Since death hath love's just comfort ta'en away,

let me thy mouth, pale, cold and bloodless meet

with languid kisses, which tho' they're the prey

of doomed love, are no phantoms of deceit.

Thus, while my kisses dwell upon thee, may

my soul between thy lips find final peace,

expiring thus while thou'rt conjoined with me,

when kisses die, so die I too, with thee.