At Old Italian Casements
By Dora Greenwell McChesney
From a Tuscan Window
high dark Florentine palace with frowning cornice and
barred windows, rich torch-holders of wrought iron set
beside the deep-arched doorway. In one of the casements stands
a young girl ; it is early morning and the fresh light shines over
her. She has been, perhaps, at a banquet, for she is in gala dress—
soft green worked with threads of silver ; about her slim long
throat is a chain with an ornament of enamel bright with shift-
ing colours. She grasps the heavy iron with a small white hand
and leans forward ; the shadow of one bar lies like a dark band
across the bright hair drawn smoothly back from her forehead.
She is watching for her lover to pass in the dusky street; her lips
are grave, but there is a smile in the brown eyes under the fine
curved brows. She looks out through the sunrise and waits.
Underneath the window, so close to the wall that he cannot be
seen from above, lies a youth wrapped in a dark mantle—dead—
he has been stabbed there in the night and fallen quite silently.
His loose dark hair brushes the ground where he lies ; his blood
has made a stain on the grey stones. His white face is turned
up ; his eyes are open, looking towards the casement—the case-
ment
By Dora Greenwell McChesney
From a Tuscan Window
high dark Florentine palace with frowning cornice and
barred windows, rich torch-holders of wrought iron set
beside the deep-arched doorway. In one of the casements stands
a young girl ; it is early morning and the fresh light shines over
her. She has been, perhaps, at a banquet, for she is in gala dress—
soft green worked with threads of silver ; about her slim long
throat is a chain with an ornament of enamel bright with shift-
ing colours. She grasps the heavy iron with a small white hand
and leans forward ; the shadow of one bar lies like a dark band
across the bright hair drawn smoothly back from her forehead.
She is watching for her lover to pass in the dusky street; her lips
are grave, but there is a smile in the brown eyes under the fine
curved brows. She looks out through the sunrise and waits.
Underneath the window, so close to the wall that he cannot be
seen from above, lies a youth wrapped in a dark mantle—dead—
he has been stabbed there in the night and fallen quite silently.
His loose dark hair brushes the ground where he lies ; his blood
has made a stain on the grey stones. His white face is turned
up ; his eyes are open, looking towards the casement—the case-
ment