CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 IN 0MNIBV5 REjgyiEM QVASIVI ET NON INVENI NISI 
 SEORSVM SEDEN5 IN ANGVLO CVM LIBELIjO T^omjaIUij 
 
 TM5ENTH) CTMR5. ANNA CORNELL BRINLEY 
 
 IN MEMORY or HEB- PARENTS 
 MR..ANP MR3. GEORGE TREDERICK. CORNELL 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 PS 1554.D5 1856 
 
 Poems / 
 
 3 1924 022 008 654 
 
T6 
 \%6L 
 

Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022008654 
 
C13«l 3filf. 
 
,^^5^^^>^^ 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH MAY. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 l^'f i WITH|jj 
 
 MANY ADDITIONS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : ,<''*C.\\ '^ ' / /-S 
 
 PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER V CO. 
 
 1856. Ji- ; 
 
^Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 18j6, by 
 
 E. H. BUTLEE & Co., 
 
 in the Clerk's oifice of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 
 
 Eastern District of PenrisyJvania. 
 
 
 61 ^l1 
 
SI I 
 
 ^xtlm. 
 
 Much and often as the threshold of fame is profaned by 
 ■wilful or mistaken intruders, there is something inexpres- 
 sibly sacred and touching in the first timid footsteps 
 toward its shining altar, taken by the young and pure aspir- 
 ant ■who is obeying a beckoning hand ■which the world can- 
 not yet see. The feeling of deference and honour with 
 which one recognises the mien and utterance of true genius, 
 is mingled irresistibly with the thought of its counterba- 
 lancing ills — the thirsts for which common life has no 
 water, and the keener sensibilities, for which human 
 allotment has neither protection nor allowance. At the 
 
 same threshold, too, stand the crowds of rejected and dis- 
 
 (5) 
 
Ti PREFACE. 
 
 appointed, 'who vindictively dispute the claim and dis- 
 courage the hesitating footsteps of the new comer ; and, 
 for these ills — tracking genius as they do to the grave — 
 neither the viewless lips which give words to what no other 
 mortal could have uttered, nor the " second sight" which 
 reveals what no other mortal could have seen, nor the con- 
 sciousness of a higher nature when alone, nor the whispers 
 of spirits and angels which are never found not to have 
 been human thoughts till envy and malice have poisoned 
 all else, seem to be a sufficient compensation. One looks 
 upon youthful genius, thus double-laden with gifts and ills, 
 as one sees the victim prepared with bright flowers for the 
 knife. 
 
 It is not one of the least of the conventional disregards 
 of genius, that the recognition and welcome at the thresh- 
 old of fame's temple are chance-given, if at all ; and that, 
 in place of a responsible and respectful warden at this 
 gate, where enters what the world should most honour, 
 there is likelier to be found only the base crowd of hinder- 
 ers and detractors, by whom the timid knock of the young 
 pilgrim is treated as a crime. It is by his chance vicinity 
 to the place where should stand a higher and better autho- 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 rized discharger of the office, that the editor of a public 
 journal may sometimes be the first to see that a fine spirit 
 stands waiting without, and for lack of better usher, he 
 may advance to claim entrance for the stranger. The 
 introducer of the present work to the public is in that 
 position. If it seem that his task might be done with 
 better grace by one having more authority, his apology 
 has been made in what he has just written. 
 
 Of the poems in this volume, and of the powers of the 
 fair poetess, the writer has expressed his opinions very 
 fully in the journal of which he is editor, and to which 
 some of them were originally contributed. Beautiful as 
 these early productions are, however, he looks upon them 
 mainly as promises. They have been written upon the 
 leaf of life first turned over after girlhood — in the lap of 
 luxury and seclusion, with no inspiration save what comes 
 from the instincts of the heart and conversance with the 
 romantic scenery around her home. They are literally 
 the fore-reachings of genius which anticipate the teachings 
 of experience. 
 
 How Edith May would sing of the realities of life, hav- 
 
Tiii PREFACE. 
 
 ing thus hymned her chant from the far shadows it throws 
 upon her imagination, those who have watched the tuning 
 of inspiration by sorrow and struggle will easily conceive. 
 The single poem of " Te Deum Laudamus," which will 
 be found on a succeeding page, shows the port and mien 
 of one whose walk in the highest fields of poetry would 
 be that of inborn stateliness and fitness. The rhythm has 
 an instinctive power and dignity, showing the key to which 
 the mind is habitually toned, and the conception and man- 
 agement of the subject are full of originality and beauty. 
 Those who read this and the other poems will have had a 
 star named to them, for whose future place and shining 
 they will look ; and, in this first announcing of a light that 
 is to be recognised and brighten hereafter, is to be found 
 the main errand which the introducer would claim for the 
 present volume. 
 
 N. P. Willis. 
 
CunteEti 
 
 PAdS 
 
 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION 37 
 
 OCTOBER TWILIGHT 67 
 
 GFIDO SAVELLA 61 
 
 A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN 79 
 
 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK 83 
 
 THK CIIAPLET OF BRONZE 93 
 
 JULIETTE .... 98 
 
 PRAYER 107 
 
 THEODORA : 113 
 
 EOLIB 117 
 
 SUMMER 120 
 
 LADY CLARE .' 124 
 
 STORM AT TWILIGHT 127 
 
 THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS 129 
 
 THE PALACE OF ECHOES 132 
 
 THE BROWN MANTLE 13S 
 
 A SONG FOR AUTUMN 139 
 
 UNREST 1*1 
 
 A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT . , Hi 
 
 COUNT JULIO IW 
 
 DAME MARGARET 160 
 
 FOREST SCENE 102 
 
 TWILIGHT 166 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SEASONS -168 
 
 THE LOVE QUARREL 170 
 
 REST 17^ 
 
 DECEMBER ITT 
 
 A POET'S LOVE 1'9 
 
 ALINE'S CHOICE 182 
 
 FROST PICTURES 185 
 
 FROM A TRUE WIFE TO ONE OVER BOUSE 189 
 
 LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE 191 
 
 INCONSTANCY 193 
 
 THE WINGED HORSEMAN ... 195 
 
 TWO CHANTS 199 
 
 A FRAGMENT 202 
 
 LINES 204 
 
 GUENDOLEN ... , . 207 
 
 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD 219 
 
 CHRISTMAS 252 
 
 "WOULDST THOU PERSUADE" 268 
 
 AMINA 269 
 
 SONG 264 
 
 KATHLEEN 206 
 
 BALLAD 263 
 
 MARGARET 270 
 
 . ROSABBLLE 280 
 
 A GRAY DAY IN APRIL ."tj, 
 
 THE DBATE OF THE LILY 287 
 
 WINDS . 289 
 
 SORROW VOICES 293 
 
 MAY, 1863 298 
 
 TO -. . . . . . 300 
 
 EARLY WALKS S02 
 
 PUSH THE BOTTLE AROUND, TOM I 304 
 
 A PORTRAIT . . 307 
 
 SCENE FROM DCMAS'S " STOCKHOLM, FONTAINEDLEAU, ET ROME," ... 308 
 
 SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE" OF MOLIERE 311 
 
 FROM THE "MISANTHROPE" 323 
 
TO 
 
 MY MOTHER, 
 
 StSis Volnmt 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
f<i)€m 
 
 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 The Bride of Christ! oh, at those words there swept 
 Bright glories through my spirit! I was deaf 
 To the deep anthem. Prelate and stoled priest, 
 The dim cathedral walls, the kneeling crowd, 
 The lattice where the black-robed nuns looked through 
 All passed away from mine enraptured eyes. 
 I saw no more thy bowed form, oh, my mother! 
 Nor his who stood far down the aisle of columns 
 Hiding his bent brow with his mantle's fold. 
 
 It seems not long since I, a little child, 
 Trod yon cathedral floors, and in deep awe. 
 First crossed my forehead with the holy water. 
 
38 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 It seems not long, Jacopo, since -vve twain 
 
 Prayed, kneeling at one shrine, together sent 
 
 Our mated voices like paired larks to heaven, 
 
 Or, hand in hand, walked where the garden fountains 
 
 Cleft the grim lion mouths. 
 
 Have patience, father ! 
 For I am worn with fasting and much prayer, 
 And tears flow readily. How many days 
 Have I lain prostrate at the altar's foot, 
 The marble striking death into my heart, 
 Speaking no word, partaking of no food 
 Save water and the crust that gave me strength 
 To move my lips in prayer ! How oft till morn, 
 My forehead pressed against His icy feet 
 Who hangs upon the cross, have I lain here 
 With but one grim companion. Even thou. 
 Symbol of death, gaunt prophet of the tomb. 
 That in thy cavernous eyes dost hold the night, 
 Glaring beside my rosary and missal! 
 
 Thou knowest well my father was a noble. 
 That he lived gayly, making his great wealth 
 
MADDALINA'S CONFESSION. 39 
 
 The slave of pleasure. I remember still 
 Revels where wine flowed free, and festal times 
 That filled our lone, vast palace by the sea 
 With guests and music. Then, at early twilight, 
 There ever came a young, bright girl who took 
 Me, the weak child, within her gentle hold. 
 Smiling so softly while my faint hands passed 
 Over the roses in her hair, the pearls 
 Clasped on her throat and round, pure, dewy arms. 
 Ginevra ! oh, I loved to speak her name ! 
 I loved my nurse to bear me to the window 
 Where, lying on her shoulder, I could mark 
 My sister's white robes floating through the trees, 
 My sister as she spake, or walked, or rode. 
 Great nobles at her side, who smiled and bent 
 Their plumed heads to catch her lightest word. 
 
 But this was for a season; many months 
 
 The palace was deserted. Then, alone. 
 
 We wandered freely through the vacant rooms, 
 
 I, and my nurse Giuseppa. She would pause 
 
 Sometimes by pictures of worn saints and martyrs, 
 
40 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 St. Lawrence in the flames, his lifted face 
 
 Full of sublime forgetfulness of pain, 
 
 Or Stephen stoned and prone ; perchance to mark 
 
 Pale hermits watching in their forest caves 
 
 With lamp and book, the inner darkness shapen 
 
 Into black fiends ; or sometimes, oh, my soul ! 
 
 An Ecce Homo with dim eyes upraised, 
 
 And red drops trickling from the crown of thorns ! 
 
 All these Giuseppa scanned with reverent face ; 
 
 I, in her arms held level with the canvas. 
 
 Looked on in childish fear. 
 
 There came a message 
 That said Ginevra, weary of the court. 
 Returned to us alone. 
 
 'Twas early noon. 
 I, over- wearied, dreamed upon my couch; 
 And when I woke my sister stood beside me. 
 Ginevra ? no ! — ah heaven ! was that Ginevra 
 Who quivered at my fear, and in the sunlight 
 Stood shivering ere she bent and faintly pressed 
 Her lips upon my brow ! 
 
 I never knew 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 41 
 
 What sorrow like a tearful angel rent 
 
 The veil between my sister's heart and God. 
 
 Her brow was as the forehead of a saint, 
 
 Bearing the marks of thorns, and on her face 
 
 None looked except to breathe a sigh that tracked 
 
 Some upwinged thought to Heaven. Oh, to my sense, 
 
 Her beauty was unreal ; whether she prayed 
 
 Kneeling beneath the altar lights, a glory 
 
 Tremulous in her hair, whether we twain 
 
 Paced the long galleries where ranged silver sconces. 
 
 Studding the walls, cast down before our feet 
 
 Black shades like chasms, whether to her voice 
 
 I listened while the stealthy-footed night 
 
 Passed by unchallenged ! As a captive stands 
 
 Vacantly gazing at the world without 
 
 Through his barred prison windows, all his heart 
 
 Busy with other scenes, so looked the soul 
 
 Through her blue holy eyes. I loved her well ! 
 
 I stopped my play to look if she passed by. 
 
 Or if she mused beside the gallery windows 
 
 As was her wont, I, stealing to her side, 
 
 Stood tiptoe that my arms might clasp her waist. 
 
42 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 And sometimes cloistered in her chamber, there 
 We read and talked till purple twilight stains 
 Sank through the marble pavement. In that room 
 There hung a copy of a rare old picture, 
 The marriage of St. Catherine. 
 
 I remember 
 That she grew farther from me, day by day, 
 I guessed not wherefore. Over her blue eyes 
 The lids drooped heavily, as lilies loll 
 Against the swell of waves. No echo tracked 
 Her footstep through the vaulty corridors. 
 And often in the night I saw her rise 
 To gaze upon St. Catherine's blessed face. 
 Or prone before the crucifix, lie there 
 Praying till dawn. 
 
 Once more Ginevra stood 
 Flower-crowned and jewelled, but beneath the light 
 Of tall cathedral tapers. From the crowd 
 Quick sobs burst atidibly ; the very priests 
 Looked with sad eyes; nuns to the lattice pressed 
 And blenched away, but she unconscious stood 
 With folded hands, and looks upcast as though 
 
MADDALENAS CONFESSION. « 
 
 The vacant space were legible to her gazing. 
 Then my fair haughty mother cowered for fear, 
 My father's gay lips whitened. 
 
 There are some 
 Still in these cloisters who remember well 
 An angel on whose lip meek mortal prayer 
 Had changed to saintly praise. For week on week, 
 The searching lamp of the confessional 
 Shining athwart the fair page of her soul 
 Showed blot nor blur. They say her Heaven-linked 
 
 voice 
 Chanting, the Gloria outsped the choir 
 So far, the calm-browed nuns, uplifting eyes 
 Dim with the haze of revery, made her notes 
 A golden ladder where their souls went up 
 Into God's presence ; and 'twas whispered low, 
 That when, all through the midnight, from the toll 
 Of the last Angelus to the hour of prime, 
 She knelt before the Sacrament, a sound 
 Of voices pierced the silence. Then, perchance, 
 The wakeful guardian stationed at her side 
 Revealed himself. 
 
4-1 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Joyful, and sorrowful, 
 And glorious mysteries meekly slie had told 
 Upon her rosary of years, when death 
 Garnered her sweet soul. Mass nor prayer was said; 
 For those there be who swear a hovering crown 
 Rained on her brow faint glory, and around 
 Crept music and rich odours, while awed priest 
 And kneeling abbess with rapt upraised looks 
 Sang the Te Deum Laudamus ! 
 
 So she passed ! 
 I bear upon my breast the cross that wore 
 Its outline upon hers. 
 
 Thou, earnest, Jacopo, 
 Playmate and friend ! 
 
 Do you remember now 
 How, while you twined the vine leaves in my hair, 
 I told you saintly legends? When we saw 
 Fair pictures in the clouds, you made them limn 
 Chariots and battling horsemen, but to me 
 Came trooping angels. 
 
 Still my sister's chamber 
 Seemed hallowed by her presence. Crumbling wreaths 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 45 
 
 Dropped from the crucifix. Her favourite books, 
 Their pages' blistered by her frequent tears, 
 Lay open as she left them, marked with flowers. 
 Or pencilled down the margin by her hand. 
 But most I loved the picture of St. Catherine.. 
 She kneeling, while the holy child whose touch 
 The Virgin guided, on her finger placed 
 The marriage ring, his face in lovely wonder 
 Raised questioning to his mother's. 
 
 To that place 
 I crept at noonday. There I treasured all 
 Linked with Ginevra's memory. 'Twas now 
 A garland we had woven, now a kerchief 
 That kept the faint rose odour she had loved. 
 I vexed my childish brain with pondering o'er 
 The books she prized; these, histories of Saints, 
 Temptations, miracles, and martyrdoms. 
 I peopled all the dark nooks of the palace 
 With phantoms of their raising.. There, concealed 
 All through the slumberous noontide, first I read 
 Of Augustine, who heard the voice of God 
 Speak to him in the garden ; and of her, 
 
43 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Holy Teresa, wlio stood face to face 
 
 With Mary's Son, and carried to the tomb 
 
 Remembrance of the vision. When I read 
 
 How, laying down love, wealth, the pride of birth, 
 
 Bowing her shoulders for the cross, this one 
 
 Frail Nun obtained a Saint's repute, becoming 
 
 Founder of monasteries, and of a host 
 
 The spiritual mother, all my soul 
 
 Thrilled with the rapturous history. ' I could dream 
 
 Only of mysteries ; or, if light shapes 
 
 Beckoned me to the world, there slid between 
 
 Visions of her who o'er, an open book 
 
 Hung pondering steadfastly; one pale, fair hand 
 
 Outspread upon the page, and one that held 
 
 Her brow within its hollow. Womanhood 
 
 Came, and my heart's betraying echoes scarce 
 
 Answered her loitering footfall. Life grew vague. 
 
 Nothing approached me nearly. 
 
 The first star 
 Was a true prophet of thy step, Jacopo ! 
 My visions fled when up the flinty paths 
 His courser's hoof struck flashes. With a smile 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 4? 
 
 My father greeted him; my mother gave 
 
 Her white hand freely, while her laughter mixed 
 
 With their gay talk; and I, a space apart, 
 
 Smiled him glad welcome, with my every pulse 
 
 Answering the cordial music of his voice. 
 
 Oh, he was changed ! I dared no longer chide 
 
 If his bold mirth trod heedlessly too close 
 
 To holy things. I stood with eyes abased ; 
 
 Rebuke awed into silence. He had sprung 
 
 Suddenly to full manhood. In his words 
 
 There was an athlete's sinew, though they played 
 
 With great things carelessly, as a fresh wind 
 
 Provokes the sea to laughter, and his pride 
 
 Ever seemed well placed, like a castle set 
 
 Upon a mountain. All my womanhood 
 
 Did homage to his strength. The life that coiled 
 
 Lazily at my heart, leapt through my veins 
 
 With crest uplift, if mid the halls I heard 
 
 Ilis footfall ring. Oh, father, when he left. 
 
 Gone was the smile from sweet St. Catherine's lip ! 
 
 And the grave saints frowned on me ; and my thoughts, 
 
 Shapen to prayer, put on unholy guise, 
 
48 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Mocking my vain devotion ! Marvel not ! 
 
 I was a child. Ginevra fled the 'world, 
 
 Like a chased dove that calms its panting heart 
 
 Under green forest boughs. Life stood unmasked, 
 
 And pleasure mocked her, like a garland twined 
 
 Round a drained wine cup. As a vine that grows 
 
 Over some marble urn, a bird that builds 
 
 Under the cornice of some shattered temple. 
 
 Making its ruin echo with delight, 
 
 So to her heart, rent, filled with bitter dust. 
 
 Came one bright hope. Alas ! my thrilling soul 
 
 Still quivered in the bended bow of life! 
 
 Youth was too mighty. I grew faint. My heart 
 
 Leapt at a quick word, and light tremors ran 
 
 Painfully through my limbs. My brain waxed dizzy 
 
 Over my books, and I would ponder hours 
 
 Ere I could wrest its meaning from the page 
 
 I strove to read. Or, if I knelt to pray. 
 
 My aimless thoughts went wandering blindly on. 
 
 The prayer I said suspended. Outward things 
 
 Unchallenged touched my senses, that dull stupor 
 
 Muffled like sleep. 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 40 
 
 I stood within St. Peter's, 
 And heard the Miserere. Through the twilight 
 Burned thirteen starry tapers. One by one, 
 Amid the chanting of the Lamentations, 
 These vanished, till the last and brightest, Christ, 
 Sank into darkness. With that Hope's extinction. 
 Like a retreating wave, the chant withdrew 
 Beneath the cave-like shadows. Rippling echoes 
 Tracked it to silence. Father, on my lips 
 The stillness pressed as a remorseless hand ! 
 Above, the gray-winged twilight, like a moth 
 Clung to the arches. I did strive to pray. 
 And through my soul the slow-paced, cloistered thoughts 
 Trod, saying " Miserere !" Deep the pause 
 That from the shores of that hushed music stretched 
 Like a black-throated chasm. I grew sick 
 Hearing the echoes sound it ! While I gasped. 
 As 'twere a bird borne over an abyss 
 On one bruised wing, athwart the chapel roof 
 Fluttered a voice so sad, my panting heart 
 Breathed in one gush of tears. I doubt not. Priest ! 
 White angels standing in God's presence then 
 
50 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Leant on their harps and wept ! The low notes failed 
 
 Exhaustedly, But as they ceased, oh Heaven! 
 
 As 'twere a scimitar quick bared, a shaft 
 
 Hurled by a giant, a prolonged, loud shriek 
 
 Leapt through the gloom, and like a dart rebounding 
 
 Fell, shivered into echoes ! Holy Mary ! 
 
 My every pulse thrilled with a separate pain ! 
 
 All through the crowd a light electric shiver 
 
 Passed like a link. All dimly from mine eyes 
 
 Fled the dark forms of priest and cardinal 
 
 And Heaven's vicegerent in his pontiff robes ! 
 
 I must have fallen, but for one steadfast arrd 
 
 Girding my waist like iron. Scarce I marked 
 
 How the whole choir, with thick, sore sobs, bewailed 
 
 Christ's death. I know not what of sudden brightness 
 
 Rushed o'er my dazzled sense. Dispute it not ! 
 
 I saw the darkness cloven by wings that took 
 
 Light like a prism, and when the rifted gloom 
 
 Closed on their upward flight, my senses, prone, 
 
 Met its returning pressure. 
 
 This was April, 
 And ere my dumb soul spoke again, the grape 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 51 
 
 Was purple on the hills. Oh, I was weak 
 As a young child! Jacopo in his arms, 
 Would bear me to the sea-shore, where I sat 
 Long, vacant hours, numbering the waves. 
 Counting the drifting clouds. They sang me songs. 
 The music pleased me, but the married words 
 My dull ear noted not. Yet every day 
 Lifted my prostrate faculties. At last 
 The old life came to me sigain, and I 
 Lived with my books and memories. 
 
 Yet, oh heaven! 
 The detise gloom of the Roman chapel seemed 
 Stifling my soul. A horror brooded o'er me. 
 To my weak brain most dark forebodings came. 
 As night-birds haunt a ruin. As one left 
 In a dense labyrinth seeks in vain the outlet 
 As a lost bird that beats its wings against 
 The black roof of a cavern, so my thought. 
 Conscious of light, pursued it. Pleasure came, 
 And Fear uplifting with unsteady hand 
 Her wan lamp, by its shifting rays transformed 
 The siren to a spectre. Did I stoop 
 
52 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 To pluck a joy that seemed to common eyes 
 
 Dewy ■with innocence, lo, underneath, 
 
 There coiled some black temptation ! The wide world 
 
 Was all a paradise where every tree 
 
 Held fruit forbidden. Whither could I fly? 
 
 Into dim solitudes, through trooping crowds, 
 
 Horror pursued me with extended arms. 
 
 Trembling I lingered in Ginevra's chamber, 
 
 There forcibly impelled, there paralyzed 
 
 By the cold, haunting presence of the dead. 
 
 Oh, God ! I heard her footsteps track the floor ! 
 
 Oh, God ! I wakened from my sleep to feel 
 
 That I had scared away some brooding thing! 
 
 And once — believe it, father ! — in the moonlight 
 
 I saw her in her death-robes stand and point 
 
 Her white, still flnger to the pictured bridal! 
 
 They said that I grew like her, like the novice 
 Some still remembered; she who smiled farewell. 
 Thrusting her white hands through the convent grating ! 
 Like the pale saint who, with the crucifix 
 Betwixt her palms, spake softly as she trod 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 53 
 
 The solitary chambers, -with her prayers 
 Coupling the moments; not like her, the bright 
 Aurora of my childhood, on whose knee 
 I have lain listless, through my fingers slipping 
 Pearl chains for rosaries ! 
 
 Still if I walked , 
 One step kept pace with mine ; or if reclining 
 Mid the cleft rocks, I heard the sea rehearse 
 Its ancient song of chaos, every wave 
 Rhyming its fellow, still my heart took note 
 Of a timed footfall on the upper shore 
 Advancing and retreating. If I read. 
 And from my book glanced suddenly, I thrilled, 
 Knowing who stood apart, and on my face 
 Looked with a strange intentness. 
 
 Oh, thou world! 
 Thy warm arms clave to me, thy painted lips 
 Cheated my senses ! To my sleep came fiends 
 That mocked me with his smile, put on his shape. 
 Spake with his voice, till, starting from my couch. 
 Thy name, Jacopo, first upon my lip, 
 I feared to speak God's after ! Then came prayers, 
 
54 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Fasts, and harsh penances. There was a chamber 
 Ginevra loved; a dim, square, lofty room, 
 Crossed and re-crossed by arches, paven with marbles 
 Stained in sea hues. One silver shining lamp 
 That burned behind a column, brake the night 
 "With its still radiance. There, when midnight came. 
 Crept I as stealthily, with naked feet 
 Treading the corridors. There my faint soul 
 Staggered beneath its cross ! The niched saints, only. 
 Might hear my heart shriek as I walled it in ! 
 The marble where my forehead lay kept not 
 Count of my tears ; — and there, when fasts prolonged 
 Vanquished my sense, while life, the jailor, slept, 
 Came angels that unlocked the prison doors 
 And bade my soul go free. Athwart my brain 
 Flash and withdraw into the cloud of sense 
 That holds them captive, memories too bright 
 For human keeping, dumb, sweet dreams that passed 
 With finger laid on lip. Oh, gracious father. 
 Great is my faith in penance, that chains down 
 The senses in their cells, scourges the passions 
 Into meek virtues, and converts the house 
 
MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 55 
 
 Where worldly guests held revel, to a cloister 
 Trod by pure visions and up-glancing prayers ! 
 
 There came release. 'Twas midnight, and I seemed 
 
 In dreams to kneel as kneels the . Bride of Christ. 
 
 Yet, not Madonna, but my sister guided 
 
 The hand that placed the marriage ring on mine. 
 
 While yet I slept, a sound of many wings 
 
 Filled all the air, and at my ear a voice 
 
 Chanted a cradle-hymn. Then I awoke 
 
 And heard the echoes keep one lingering note ! 
 
 They told me 'twas a dream, but felt I not 
 The constant pressure of the bridal ring? 
 And knew I not, though dim to human eyes. 
 How bright 'twould shine hereafter ? Up to God 
 I sped my fresh hopes, that, wing-wearied, turned 
 To earth's most blessed shelter. Priest, as pure 
 As Catherine, the first nun, I wedded Heaven! 
 The tresses they have shorn were ne'er unbound 
 By love's light hand; the beauty that I laid, 
 
56 MADDALENA'S CONFESSION. 
 
 As 'twere a blossom, on His holy shrine, 
 Kept sacred, all, from love's profaning touch! 
 
 Last fled I here. With many tears, my mother, 
 
 Wouldst thou have stayed me, and Jacopo, — nay, 
 
 I was appalled to look on his white lips ! 
 
 Once, I remember, in my brief novitiate 
 
 When by the convent wall, I paused to mark 
 
 The singing of a bird, and from above 
 
 There dropped a written scroll. Oh saints, what wild, 
 
 Idolatrous words defaced its blotted page ! 
 
 I dared not look upon the writer's name. 
 
 'Twas sin to read, I know, for all the morn 
 
 There was that ringing through my unquiet soul 
 
 That outvoiced organ, chorister, and priest ! 
 
OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 
 
 On mute among the months, October, thou, . 
 
 Like a hot reaper when the sun goes down 
 
 Reposing in the tTvilight of the year! 
 
 Is yon the silver glitter of thy scythe 
 
 Drawn thread-like on the west? September comes 
 
 Humming those waifs of song June's choral days 
 
 Left in the forest, but thy tuneless lips 
 
 Breathe only a pervading haze that seems 
 
 Visible silence, and thy Sabbath face 
 
 Scares swart November, from yon northern hills 
 
 Foreboding like a raven. Yellow ferns 
 
 Make thee a couch ; thou sittest listless there. 
 
 Plucking red leaves for idleness ; full streams 
 
58 OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 
 
 Coil to thy feet wliere fawns that come at noon 
 Drink with upglancing eyes. 
 
 Upon this knoll, 
 Studded with long-stemmed maples, ever first 
 To take the breeze, I have lain summer hours, 
 Seeing the blue sky only, and the light 
 Shifting from leaf to leaf. Tree-top and trunk 
 Now lift so steadily, the airiest spray 
 Seems painted on the azure. Evening comes 
 Up from the valley; over-lapping hills, 
 Tipped by the sunset, burn like funeral lamps 
 For the dead day ; no pomp of tinsel clouds 
 Breaks the pure hyaline the mountains gird — 
 A gem without a flaw — but sharply drawn 
 On its transparent edge, "a single tree 
 That has cast down its drapery of leaves, 
 Stands like an athlete with broad arms outstretched. 
 As if to keep November's winds at bay. 
 Below, on poised wings, a hovering mist 
 Follows the course of streams ; the air grows thick 
 Over the dells. Mark how the wind, like one 
 That gathers simples, flits from herb to herb. 
 
OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 59 
 
 Through the damp valley, muttering • the while 
 
 Low incantations ! From the wooded lanes 
 
 Loiters a bell's dull tinkle, keeping time 
 
 To the slow tread of kine ; and I can see 
 
 By the rude trough the waters overbrim 
 
 The unyoked oxen gathered ; some, athirst. 
 
 Stoop drinking steadily, and some have linked 
 
 Their horns in playful war. Roads climb the hills, 
 
 Divide the forests, and break off, abrupt, 
 
 At the horizon ; hither, from below 
 
 There comes a sound of lumbering, jarring wheels. 
 
 The sound just struggles up the steep ascent, 
 
 Then drones off in the distance. Nearer still, 
 
 A rifle's rattling charge starts up the echoes. 
 
 That flutter like scared birds, and pause awhile 
 
 As on suspended wings, ere sinking slow 
 
 To their low nests. I can distinguish now 
 
 The labourer returning from his toil 
 
 With shouldered spade, and weary, laggard foot ; 
 
 The cattle straying down the dusty road ; 
 
 The sportsman, balancing his idle gun. 
 
 Whistling a light refrain, whib closo Leside 
 
CO OCTOBER TWILIGHT. 
 
 His hound with trailing ears, and muzzle dropt, 
 Follows some winding scent. From the gray east, 
 Twilight, up-glancing with dim fearful eyes, 
 Warns me away. 
 
 The dusk sits like a bird 
 Up in the tree-tops, and swart, elvish shadows 
 Dart from the wooded pathways. Wraith of day ! 
 Through thy transparent robes the stars are plain; 
 Along those swelling mounds that look like graves. 
 Where flowers grow thick in June, thy step falls soft 
 As the dropt leaves ; amid the faded brakes 
 The wind, retreating, hides, and cowering there, 
 Whines at thy coming like a hound afraid. 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 "Oh! to his fancy 
 Heated and overwrought, its beauty grew 
 Warm, living, human ! And he loved a picture, 
 Following the wanderings of an erring brain, 
 His heart went from him, blindly and astray." 
 
 Sate that with early morn a funeral train 
 
 Wound through the gateway, there had reigned all day 
 
 Silence unbroken in Savella's house. 
 
 The close-drawn curtains hung in motionless folds, 
 
 The fountain in the court had ceased to play, 
 
 And when eve came, a single lonely taper 
 
C2 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Burning through midnight, marked the chamher where 
 Savella mourned his fair-haired English bride. 
 
 There had been marks of fetters on her wrists 
 As they lay crossed in death, and from her brow 
 Long tresses had been shaven. At her side 
 There wept a child that from its infancy 
 Had never known a mother's fostering love ; 
 And they who robed her body for the tomb. 
 Whispered together of a fatal curse 
 Entailed upon her high-born race for crimes 
 Now unrecorded. 
 
 'Twas the vintage time. 
 Winter passed on, and early March outbloomed 
 The June of colder climes. Savella's halls 
 Still curtained out the sunshine, though a shade 
 Seemed fallen from their gloom. For if a breeze 
 Swept through the vaulted chambers, it would bring 
 Soft laughter, and a sound of children's steps, 
 And sometimes through the muffing drapery peered 
 A boy's small face, and now a baby girl 
 Half balancing, half guarded by his arm. 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 63 
 
 Leaned from the deep-cut windows, and for sport, 
 Shook down the rings of her gold-coloured hair. 
 
 Change followed change ; the delicate shades of grief 
 
 Blend imperceptibly, and he who watched 
 
 His sorrow as a secret trust, felt not 
 
 How every day took something from its keenness. 
 
 He scarce remembered when he first had paused 
 
 To listen to Francesca's pleading tones, 
 
 Or smile when Guido with superior wisdom 
 
 Schooled his child sister. He would linger now 
 
 With a pleased eye before the glowing pictures 
 
 Lining his galleries, and now the boy 
 
 Rode forth at even by his father's side, 
 
 And when Savella paced the palace gardens 
 
 Francesca lay upon his breast, her arms 
 
 Clasped on his neck, and her ungathered hair 
 
 Sweeping the shoulder where her cheek lay pillowed. 
 
 She had an English face, but, oh, not hers 
 Whose memory yet upon Savella's heart 
 Lay, a receding shadow ! In her glance 
 
64 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 There was no changeful light, and her sweet mouth 
 
 Smiled even in repose. But Guido seemed 
 
 To visibly link the present with the past. 
 
 For if he had his father's Koman eye, 
 
 His lips were like his mother's, and his voice 
 
 Had tones, like hers, unnaturally sweet. 
 
 They told how he would steal, when sunset came 
 
 To the deep western windows, and there sit. 
 
 Leaning his brow upon his outspread palm, 
 
 Even as she had done. His smile, his glance. 
 
 The wandering gaze that seemed to, fathom distance, 
 
 The strange, deep reveries that made his life 
 
 Shadowy like a dream, his sudden tears 
 
 Flowing uncalled, and his unquiet gladness, — 
 
 All this resembled her. His very step. 
 
 Sounding along the galleries, and pausing 
 
 Before the pictures she had loved, became 
 
 A dread to those who listened, and Savella 
 
 Hearing its echoes, turned away to sigh. 
 
 Save for each other lone, surrounded ever 
 
 By shapes of antique beauty, cherishing 
 
 Rare birds and blossoms, with the eager care 
 
GCIDO SAVELLA. 65 
 
 Of those who have few human things to love, 
 The orphans grew together. 
 
 And their childhood 
 Passed, but yet slowly, for they lingered long 
 In its sweet Eden, and when driven forth 
 Still dwelt beneath the shadow of its trees. 
 They bore their childish hearts far into youth ; 
 They were alone; and if to Guido's spirit 
 Came sometimes wild hopes and ambitious thoughts, 
 They left no withering traces, but sped on, 
 Even as the shadow of an eagle's wing 
 Darkens a sunbright valley. Lapse of years 
 Wrought little change, save that Francesca's brow 
 Wore the bright seal of girlhood; that she stepped 
 With its half-conscious grace, and that she curbed 
 To womanly pride, the laughter that her eyes 
 Betrayed, how sweetly ! Save that from his dreams 
 The boy was half awaked, and as the breeze 
 Is tremulous in the tree, life at his heart 
 Made music. Oh, the calm of earlier days, 
 To his refining senses, seemed the rest 
 Of one who sleeps into an April morning 
 
66 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 And is awaked by melody and light ! 
 
 Yet still as the unfolding of a flower 
 
 His being's growth; and to the passing eye, 
 
 Still Guido was unchanged. For even now, 
 
 Under the shadow of the ilex trees. 
 
 He would lie dreaming through a summer morn, 
 
 Freighting the slow clouds with his indolent fancies. 
 
 Or if Francesca with her broidery frame 
 
 Stole to his side, would idly mark the grouping 
 
 Of leaves and flowers beneath her hand, or listen. 
 
 An arm flung o'er his closed lids, while she sang 
 
 Love-songs and ballads, else from some old book 
 
 Read quaint romances, scraps of passionate verse, 
 
 That brought the fire to his lip and eye. 
 
 And even now, although no hand reined in 
 
 A steed more gallantly, he better loved 
 
 Some lone, wild path, where other steps came not, 
 
 Than the gay Corso. Now his early dreams 
 
 Lay closer to his soul, and he had striven 
 
 To give their loveliness a tangible shape; 
 
 But youth still held in leash his fiery spirit, 
 
 And with the will to do came not the power. 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 The first faint efforts of awakening strength 
 
 llevealed in fragments of imperfect song, 
 
 Rude shapes, and outlined scenery, on the canvass 
 
 Left incomplete hy an irresolute hand. 
 
 All loved the boy; the contadina turned 
 
 To smile her salutation as he passed ; 
 
 The beggar lounging on the palace stair 
 
 Bade Mary bless the glorious, gifted child. 
 
 As he went by. These loved him for his beauty, 
 
 His pride; for pride becomes a noble spirit 
 
 Even as a regal port doth royalty. 
 
 Pass we their dawn of youth-. Savella's place 
 Was empty at the board. The orphans dwelt 
 Alone in the old palace. The rapt boy 
 Had made his manhood as an arch of triumph 
 Spanning a conqueror's path. There was no lip 
 But named him reverently ; for his songs 
 Had stirred all Italy, and to his canvass 
 The gods descended. He was changed by time, 
 Not less by care and toil. His step had left 
 Its early pride for the calm, conscious power 
 
 67 
 
68 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Of riper years; a,iid there remained no trace, 
 In the man's grand proportions, of the slight 
 And flexible outlines of the unformed' child. 
 Men said his brain was overcharged with thought ; 
 The blue veins branched distinctly on his temples. 
 His lips had lost their fulness, and the blood 
 Fled with hot haste unsummoned to his brow. 
 He had grown captious, difficult, unlike 
 His former self. The daylight parched him now. 
 The twilight chilled, and sleep to him was fever; 
 For he would wake half shrieking, and aroused, 
 Steal mantled forth into the quiet streets, 
 Shunning the moonbeams, starting in white fear 
 From the dim, cowering midnight at the base 
 Of pedestal and column. Early morn 
 Found him before his easel. 
 
 From without. 
 Through the looped curtains of his studio came 
 Faintly the stir of life, and far beneath, 
 The garden with its fountains, and dark groves. 
 And winding paths, stretched westward. The high walls 
 Were white and unadorned; the vaulted ceiling 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Kept step and voice -with a deep roll like thunder. 
 There were no draperies save those that hung 
 Over the windows, and before the door 
 Of a small inner room, and there, low bending, 
 A statue caught back on her lifted arm 
 The gathered folds, and finger laid on lip, 
 Gazed in upon the artist. A Madonna, 
 Over whose brow a dark blue mantle fell, 
 Hung in a deep recess. 
 
 There was a magic 
 About the face — a picture may have such — 
 For on its. down-cast lids the gazer's heart 
 Dwelt earnestly, and with a passionate wish 
 To see them rise. Hour after hour, 'twas told, 
 Guide stood rapt before it, and 'twas whispered 
 Throughout the household, that when even came. 
 And he awoke from those strange reveries 
 To steal forth to the gardens, his faint step 
 Scarce left its impress on the moistened sod 
 Girding his favourite fountain. As a cloud 
 That captures the retreating light of day, 
 His eye still kept its lustre ; but quick pulses 
 
70 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Glanced wavering o'er his temples, and the dew 
 Came readily to his brow. He would speak low, 
 Pacing alone, and sometimes in his glance 
 There crouched an indistinct terror, or awhile 
 He seemed to sleep, and but remembered, waking, 
 A light hand in his own, soft lips that touched 
 His hot veins and they cooled. But this was dreaming ; 
 ■And when ere long Francesca came, he wound 
 His arm about her waist, and with a smile 
 Talked as she loved to hear him, playfully. 
 Yet mingling wisdom with his sportive words ; 
 Sending athwart the current of deep thought 
 Fleets of grotesque, capricious fantasies. 
 As boys float mimic barks across a river. 
 Yet even then the delicate chain of fancy 
 Would seem to snap asunder, and he sought 
 Bewildered the lost links. But knowing not 
 Their mother's history, she who listened deemed 
 Only that constant toil had vexed his brain. 
 And smiled, and soothed him, and with earnest wiles 
 Chased back the gathering gloom. If now they named 
 Savella's wife, his very lips turned white. 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 71 
 
 The chamber where her portrait hung was closed, 
 The key had rusted in the lock. A vail 
 Hung, like a pall, before the pictured face. 
 
 'Twas sunset, and the mellowed sound of bells. 
 The lowing of worn cattle driven to drink, 
 Came from the vineyards and the far Campagna. 
 'Twas still in Guido's studio; not a sound 
 Rose from below, but loitered as it came. 
 The echoes caged within the dome-like ceiling 
 Slept upon folded wings. A picture stood 
 Half finished on the easel, but the artist 
 Grown weary had gone forth. 
 
 Light steps ascended 
 The marble stair, the drapery looped back 
 Upon the nymph's white arm, waved, and Francesca 
 Lifting its folds, passed through. The polished floor 
 Imaged her feet like water as she passed ; 
 She paused before the easel. On the canvass, 
 New-limned, a woman in the Roman garb 
 Sat by a fount and watched gray oxen drinking. 
 Her hands lay clasped upon the marble rim. 
 
72 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Her veiled eyes were cast down, and at her feet 
 A contadino, stretched upon the grass, 
 Pillowed his head upon his folded arms. 
 With ripe lips dropped apart, Francesca gazed 
 Smiling upon her beauty's counterpart ; 
 Then with a sudden impulse, from the peasant 
 Whose lids were darkly outlined on her cheek. 
 Turned to the pictured Virgin, and first saw 
 How like her own Madonna's features were ! 
 She started, and with finger laid on lip. 
 Pondered a space; then, pausing not to question 
 If there were aught irreverent in her thought. 
 Stepped upon tiptoe through the room, and vanished 
 
 The curtains were drawn close when Guide entered. 
 Through their large flutes the tempered light came in 
 As through a wave. Arch, wall, and glassy column 
 Stood like translucent amber. Guide paused, 
 Besting upon the threshold. He had risen, 
 That morn to a new being ; to the sound 
 Of rhythms sweeter than the mirth of brooks ; 
 To the low voice of songs that thrilled for flight, 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 73 
 
 To the light trip of dreams like trooping zephyrs. 
 And every thought sang, jubilant, as it rose, 
 And every dream its gossamer wings unfolding, 
 Warmed in his spirit's sunshine. Like a band 
 Of nymphs that dance to music, all his fancies 
 Came with a twin-born melody. For rhythm 
 Seemed his soul's natural language, and it flowed 
 Effortless as the harmonies of a bird. 
 And so the poet's day passed vision-like. 
 Filled with the bright confusion of a dream. 
 Now worn and fever-flushed, he would have called 
 His wild thoughts to their nests, and bade sweet peace 
 Descend like dew at evening. But in vain. 
 Wearily crept the sunshine to his eye ; 
 The fall of footsteps down the narrow street, 
 Each varied tone in the great city's voice, 
 Fell like a pang on nerves the lightest touch 
 Now thrilled to painfulness. The windless air 
 Pressed on his forehead like a steadfast hand. 
 And still resolving rest, he still thought on. 
 Wearied to pain. 
 
 The cool, half-mystical light 
 
74 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Was .pleasant to his senses. With bent head 
 He paced the room. He looked not towards Madonna, 
 With eyes cast downward steadfastly, he seemed 
 To wrestle with wild thoughts. Thus for a space. 
 He paused, turned suddenly, and looked up. A cry 
 At his heart's threshold died. He stood transfixed. 
 With lips blanched white with terror. 
 
 What stood there. 
 Within the columned niche? Madonna's picture 
 Was gone, an empty frame hung in its place ! 
 What stood with folded hands ? A mantle fell 
 Squarely across the brow, and dark blue folds 
 Trailed to the pavement ! 
 
 Softly ! so ! the echoes 
 Are listening from above ! His step scarce roused them. 
 Nearer, with hushed heart ! In the uncertain light 
 He thought to see it vanish, but, unchanged. 
 The veiled shape stood like marble. O'er his eyes 
 He passed his burning hand. Another step ! 
 One more. Ah, heaven, the robe stirred on her bosom ! 
 Now could he mark the rosy line dividing 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 75 
 
 The palms together laid. His breath, came fast. 
 Thus stood .she in his dreams ! 
 
 Lo, the fringed lids 
 Rose slowly, and eyes filled with love and laughter 
 Turned to his own ! He bent, with outstretched arms. 
 A smile mocked from the lip, then rapid blushes 
 Burned, and grew pale, as if in terror sprang 
 The veiled shape to his side, and flinging back 
 The mantle, clinging to his breast, cried " Guido ! 
 Dear Guido!'" and in hollow echoes died 
 Over the vaulted ceiling, "Guido! Guido!" 
 He bent her light form backward o'er his arm, 
 And looked into her face. Like a crushed serpent. 
 Under his firm teeth writhed the nether lip. 
 His grasp was iron. With her pleading eyes 
 She watched him silently. He flung her off, 
 And, tossing a wild hand to heaven, rushed forth. 
 She heard his fleet step echo through the halls. 
 And shrieking followed. 
 
 Still Savella's house 
 Stands in. the seven-hilled city. There, together. 
 
76 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 Dwell twain alone, a brother and a sister. 
 
 These hold no revels and receive no guest. 
 
 One is a man with vacant, wandering eyes, 
 
 Whose face is like a boy's; his hair's linked rings 
 
 Fall to his bosom; one, calm-browed and pale, 
 
 A woman on whose laughter-moulded lip 
 
 Joy lies asleep. Her life seems blent with his. 
 
 She hath no thought but for her mute companion. 
 
 And if he walks, her shoulder is his prop; 
 
 If he would sleep, she charms his weary lids 
 
 With singing, or, reclining at his side. 
 
 Under the ilex boughs, reads scraps of song 
 
 Whose musical rhymes are pleasant to his ear. 
 
 Their sense, alas, unheeded ! And, the while. 
 
 He will beat slow time with his hand, or echo 
 
 Her low words softly, as a child repeats 
 
 Its teacher's accents. His is not the gloom 
 
 That blinds a common mind. His soul shines forth 
 
 Like starlight o'er the ruins of a Rome; 
 
 Like a pale moon through tempests, sending gleams 
 
 Over the waste of madness, and still feebly 
 
 Ruling its tides. Still, nature hath a charm 
 
GUIDO SAVELLA. 77 
 
 For his dim sense, and still unconsciously 
 He freights the bird's song and the blossom's fragrance 
 With his heart's rich thanksgiving. Flower and herb 
 He cherishes with strange love. He will not crush 
 The meanest weed that flings its pendulous spray 
 Over his path — and all things gentle love him, 
 From the grave hound that guards him, to the birds 
 That, from low boughs, the while he flings them bounty, 
 Eye him askance. His pencil still beguiles 
 Long hours, grotesquely on the canvass blending 
 Weird, goblin fancies with half-grasped conceptions. 
 Gloriously fair. The very words he speaks 
 Are chosen for their beauty, and the rhythms 
 He loved, seem ever lingering on his lips. 
 Thought gleams in faint Auroras, and hope calls 
 Their light day's luminous herald. Oh ! the flame 
 Burns low upon the altar, Memory clasps 
 Her blazoned missal, and the priest-like voice 
 Of Reason dies in silence ! There are heard 
 No more amid her aisles fast-crowding thoughts. 
 No more the noble anthems of her worship ; 
 And Guide's soul is like some dim cathedral 
 
78 GUIDO SAVELLA. 
 
 That keeps with faint, sweet light the hush of prayer 
 After the prayer hath ceased; the breath of incense 
 Burned upon shrines, the solemn, deep vibrations 
 Of music that falls trembling into stillness ! 
 
A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 
 
 Down from a mountain's craggy brow 
 
 His homeward way a hunter took, 
 By a path that wound to the vales below 
 
 At the side of a leaping brook. 
 Long and sore had his journey been, 
 By the dust that clung to his forest green. 
 By the stains on his broidered moccasin; 
 And over his shoulder his rifle hung, 
 And pouch and horn at his girdle swung. 
 
 The eve crept westward; soft and pale 
 The sunset poured its rosy flood 
 
80 A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 
 
 Slanting over the wooded vale ; 
 
 And tlie weary hunter stood 
 Looking down on his cot below, 
 
 Watching his children there at play, 
 Watching the swing on the chestnut bough 
 
 Flit to and fro through the twilight gray. 
 
 Till the dove's nest rocked on its quivering spray. 
 
 Faint and far through the forest wide 
 
 Came a hunter's voice, and a hound's deep cry; 
 
 Silence, that slept in the rocky dell, 
 
 Scarcely waked as her sentinel 
 
 Challenged the sound from the mountain side. 
 
 Over the valleys the echo died. 
 And a doe sprang lightly by 
 
 And cleared the path, and panting stood 
 
 With her trembling fawn by the leaping flood. 
 
 She spanned the torrent at a bound, 
 And swiftly onward, winged by fear. 
 
 Fled as the cry of the deep-mouthed hound 
 Fell louder on her ear; 
 
A TRUE STORY OP A FAWN. 81 
 
 And pausing by the waters deep, 
 Too slight to stem their rapid flow, 
 
 Too weak to dare the perilous leap, 
 The fawn sprang wildly to and fro. 
 Watching the flight of her lithe-limbed doc. 
 
 Now she hung o'er the torrent's edge 
 
 And sobbed and wept as the waves shot by, 
 
 Now she paused on the rocky ledge 
 With head erect, and steadfast eye, 
 Listening to the stag-hound's cry.. 
 
 Close from the forest the deep bay rang. 
 Close in the forest the echoes died. 
 
 And over the pathway the brown fawn sprang 
 And crouched at the hunter's side. 
 
 Deep in the thickets the boughs unclasped 
 Leapt apart with a crashing sound. 
 
 Under the lithe vines, sure and fast. 
 Came on the exulting 'hound ; 
 
32 A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN. 
 
 Yet baffled, stopped to bay and glare 
 Far from the torrent's bound; 
 
 For the weeping fawn still crouching there 
 Shrank not nor fled, but closer pressed 
 And laid her head on the hunter's breast. 
 
THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 A PAEAPHKASE. 
 
 Perched on a rock, a river at its base, 
 Stands Castle Lahneck. 'Twas a robber's keep 
 In the old time. An outlawed baron lodged 
 His train of knights, and hostages grew gray, 
 And victims plead and died, -where limp grass waves 
 Like signals from the windows, or grows rank 
 Around a horrible pit digged deep beneath 
 The one tall tower. 
 
 One fair May afternoon. 
 
84 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 An English stranger with her German guide 
 Trod breathlessly the difficult path that winds 
 Up to the ruined walls. The two were friends, 
 And with light laughter and familiar jests 
 Made the way pleasant, till they paused at last 
 Under the castle's shadow, to look down 
 On the blue Lahn that widens to the Rhine, 
 The Rhine itself beyond, the broad, fair scene 
 Outspread below. The English girl spoke first 
 After long silence ; with clasped hands, and head 
 Thrown back, retreating slow, and with her eye 
 Measuring the lone high tower. " Oh, Margaret ! 
 Eagles by daylight, and gray owls that blink 
 Under the o'er-bright moon, on yon great height 
 Blindly possess the wealth that would enrich 
 A human soul for ever !" 
 
 Through a maze 
 Of matted shrubbery they forced a path 
 Close to the ruin. A projecting wall 
 Sheltered a low-arched door, that, cloaked by vines. 
 And half way blocked with slippery stones, framed in 
 Intensest darkness. With light, fearless tread. 
 
THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 85 
 
 Ida, the blue-eyed stranger, leading through. 
 Crossed the rude threshold. Lo 1 a massy stair, 
 Far as the eye could follow, up the wall 
 Wound to the summit ! 
 
 They were young and gay. 
 And never thought of danger. Ida first, 
 They scaled the steep flight, singing as they trod 
 Snatches of song. Their sweet notes filled the tower, 
 Making faint tinkling echoes as they dropt 
 Through its dim well of silence. Safe at last, 
 They stood upon the turret roof, and looked 
 Over the low broad parapet. 
 
 While one 
 With tears of joyous pride and outstretched hand, 
 Hamlet and river, vale and distant mount 
 Named rapidly, the other wept, oppressed 
 By the vague, restless sadness that to some 
 Comes linked with beauty. 
 
 Warning shadows grew 
 Long on the meadows while they talked of home, 
 Minding each other of the tedious path, 
 
86 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 And yet they lingered. Margaret had crept 
 Close to the edge, and Ida, on her shoulder 
 Resting a light hand, forward leant with looks 
 Piercing the distance downward. 
 
 A strange dread 
 Thrilled each alike. Both from the parapet 
 Shrank with one impulse. From the vaults heneath 
 Crept a light, silent shudder. Was it time 
 For the roused earth to jostle from her hreast 
 This sepulchre of crime? The turret rocked 
 Under their feet, and a loud thunderous roar 
 Rushed upward like the swift flame shot to heaven 
 Out of a crater ! When it died away 
 In a deep trembling, all the ruin seemed 
 Alive with swarming echoes, but these dropped 
 Into their nooks, and from below again 
 Welled the deep silence. 
 
 Then the German rose, 
 And, tottering to the stairway, shrieked to see 
 Its last rude vestige, loosened by her tread, 
 Plunge through the void, and Ida, at the cry. 
 
THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 87 
 
 Lifting her wan face, to the chasm's edge 
 Stole fearfully. A black, fixed gloom half way- 
 Filled the deep, well-like tower ; gray threads of light 
 Drawn through the ragged crevices, or caught 
 On the vine branches, seemed the gossamer skein 
 The spider wove from wall to wall, or spread 
 Over the ivy. They who from its depths 
 Withdrew their looks, each in the other's eyes 
 Searching for comfort, read the sharp dismay 
 Neither had spoken. 
 
 Hiding in her soul 
 One hope that like a precious perfume might 
 Exhale in the disclosing, Ida crept 
 Back to the turret's' verge, and steadfastly 
 Screening her eyes from the descending sun, 
 Looked o'er the parapet. The wooded hills 
 Sprinkled with sunshine, and the vales between 
 Lapped in dim lovely shade, seemed overspread 
 With a faint ghastliness. Except the crow 
 Flapping above the forest, or the wings 
 Of the fierce eagles, or the bird that flew 
 Dipping along the river, nothing stirred 
 
88 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 Over the landscape, and her straining gaze 
 Dropped listless downward. 
 
 Nay ! upon the path 
 Tracking the mountain, some one stirred beneath. 
 Slowly approaching! Both together leant 
 Over the parapet, and called aloud. 
 Alas ! the thin, light air refused to keep 
 The burden of their voices. He, below, 
 Never looked up. But could their frantic cries 
 Have fathomed the deep distance, it had then 
 Availed them not. For it was only Kranz, 
 The deaf and dumb from Lahnstein, seeking flowers, 
 To sell them at the inn. 
 
 They watched the twilight 
 As 'twere a deluge, while its flowing tides 
 Flooded the valleys, and crept up the front 
 Of the tall turret. Barge on barge had gone 
 Down the calm river ; from the mill above 
 Forth came the miller, and walked loitering home 
 Under the mountain's shadow; peasants drove 
 Their cattle from the. pasture; children played 
 In the near fields, and once a fisherman 
 
THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 Rowed througli the castle's bright reflection cast 
 Over the Lahn. And no one paused for them. 
 The steersman had been busy at his helm, 
 The miller thought of home. 
 
 They had strayed far 
 That sunny day; none in the distant town 
 They left behind, knew whither, or would think 
 To seek them here. 
 
 The stars shone thick above. 
 The gloom below was studded here and there 
 By clustered village lights ; the firefly lit 
 His lamp among the osiers. Ida still 
 Crouched by the parapet, her folded arms 
 Pillowing her head. She had awhile exchanged 
 Her sorrow for another's, and in thought 
 Mourned for her own lost self, and wearied time 
 With questions of her fate. Once Margaret spoke 
 Words of faint comfort, but she, looking up. 
 Answered with dreary smiling, "Hope thou not. 
 Unless we make, like rosy Ganymede, 
 Steeds of the eagles !" Now bright floods of light 
 Streamed from the windows of the Lahnstein inn 
 
90 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 Over the waters. There the merry guests 
 Sat quaffing Kheinwein. 
 
 Midnight from the skies 
 Swept like a solemn vision. Ere the dawn, 
 A low white mist had settled on the vales, 
 And all that day no traveller came to look 
 At the lone riiin. They were wild with thirst. 
 Faint for the lack of food, when, still as dew. 
 Another eve dropt round them. Since the noon 
 Margaret had stirred not, but with blank cold eyes 
 Turned to the misty river, and hands locked 
 Over her knee, sat patient, though aloud 
 Ida wailed out, or, leaning from the tower, 
 Stretched forth her arms towards the distant home 
 Whence they had strayed, or, frozen by despair. 
 Prostrate lay silent till dismay again 
 Struck at her cowering soul. But now she rose, 
 And close upon its brink, looked steadily 
 Down the black chasm. From the vaults stole up 
 An odour of damp earth, against the walls 
 Beat the blind bats, and startled by her tread 
 An owl rushed upward with its boding scream. 
 
THE TOWER OP LAHNECK. 91 
 
 And wheeling round the tower, fled fast and far 
 
 Toward the Black Forest. Whether she had leant 
 
 Over the gulf too hardily, and, seared 
 
 By the near flight of that unholy bird, 
 
 Swerved and stepped falsely, whether desperate fear 
 
 Then fixed the wavering purpose in her soul 
 
 God saw, but Ida, starting at a shriek 
 
 That drowned the owl's hoot, only looked to know 
 
 She was alone. 
 
 What desolate hours were hers, 
 Who knelt down in the starlight, stretching forth. 
 Her shuddering arms to Heaven, and from that time 
 Patiently suffered ! 
 
 Was she saved at last? 
 What say the bargemen floating down the Lahn, 
 The boatmen at the Ferry, to and fro 
 Hourly plying, or the rustic groups 
 That loiter as they pass ? To their belief. 
 Since from its heights the robber baron swept 
 With his hawk's eye the valleys, never foot 
 Has trod the ruined summit. Only, once, 
 Albert, the fisher, resting on his oar 
 
92 TUE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 
 
 After the day's toil, marvelled to discern 
 A wild she-eagle, 'wheeling from the clouds, 
 Sit screaming to her mate with outspread wings 
 Where the red sunset crowns the Tower of Lalmeck ! 
 
THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 
 
 " Oh, could I melt my spirit into song 
 
 And dying triumph !" The' slow silvery notes 
 
 Rose from her lips as smoke rings from a censer. 
 
 Gay dames and gallants whispered, the young nobles 
 
 Stood with averted eyes, and the rude crowd 
 
 Aped their indifference. Holding with her looks 
 
 The scorn that coiled to spring, she sang, and drave 
 
 Melody to the utmost bounds of sound, 
 
 Marcia, the Florentine. The orchestra 
 
 Pealed forth its loudest, but triumphantly 
 
 As the white sea-bird skims the waves, her voice 
 
 Outrode the storm of music. 
 
 Suddenly, 
 
94 THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 
 
 A note shot upward, and suspended hung 
 
 As if on poised wings. A single voice 
 
 Cried "Bravo !" as slow dropped from that great height 
 
 It seemed to fathom silence. Then upborne 
 
 By music, like a bird that's swung to rest 
 
 By the lulled waves, the singer's voice kept on 
 
 Swelling and falling with the sound that bare it. 
 
 Low bent the lover to his lady's ear. 
 
 And she sat trifling with her gilded fan. 
 
 All through the indifferent crowd, above, below. 
 
 Only averted faces met her eye 
 
 "Who had been wont to hold the multitude 
 
 By her sweet voice as in a silver leash. 
 
 With scarce a bend of her white neck she turned 
 
 And passed out from their sight. 
 
 The painted curtain 
 Swept to the footlamps, and the orchestra 
 Thundered again. But to and fro the crowd 
 Swayed with mute restlessness. Some one cried out 
 " Amalia !" and a thousand voices joined, 
 "Amalia!" to the gilded ceiling, .slow. 
 Crept back the screen of drapery. 
 
THE CHAPLET OF BKONZE. 95 
 
 There were fountains, 
 Green groves, and arbours, in the scene before them, 
 With what seemed moonlight shimmering over all. 
 And through one avenue that pierced the distance 
 A single note came floating. 
 
 'Twas a child 
 That, up the aisle advancing, to the footlamps 
 Drew near, and with her hands locked carelessly 
 Sang with a fearless joyfulness. Her voice 
 Was fresh as May-winds, wilder than the lark 
 That swoops and circles in its upward flight, 
 Delirious with music. Scarce the ear 
 Marked how through labyrinths of song it held 
 One clue of melody ; its notes like pearls 
 Strung on the silken thread they half concealed. 
 Her voice was but the sail her happy spirit 
 Urged to its utmost through the waves of song ; 
 When Marcia sang, each silver arrow sped 
 True to the mark, but these seemed flung at random ; 
 No bird that sings amid the summer leaves 
 E'er voiced his spirit with such deep delight; 
 And when she ceased, and the loud orchestra 
 
96 THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 
 
 Took up the strain, the multitude o'erwhelmed it 
 With a continuous thunder. 
 
 Soft, a voice ! 
 And through the distant scenery came a form 
 That paused midway, arid with white, lifted arms 
 Held up what seemed a crown of woven leaves. 
 Then " Marcia ! Marcia !" fled from lip to lip, 
 And with the tempest of her shouted name 
 The high walls tremhled. Her magnificent head 
 Bent to the crowd's applauses, as the prow 
 Of some grand vessel sinks to meet the waves; 
 And lifting high the wreath, she cried, " Come hither ! 
 Hither, Amalia !" 
 
 With meek folded arms, 
 Low bent the singer. 
 
 Yet suspended hung 
 Over her brow the fatal type of fame. 
 The laurel crown, till Marcia smiled. It fell, — 
 Not fluttering slow, but with a sudden quickness. 
 And as it dropped, loud thunders of applause 
 Blent with the crash of music. Some stood still; 
 For through the tumult a prolonged wild shriek 
 
THE CHAPLET OF BRONZE. 97 
 
 Rose, faintly audible. 'Twas but a fancy ! 
 Still Marcia smiled, and still Amalia bent. 
 The smile seemed graven upon Marcia's lip. 
 And now Amalia, sinking to her knee, 
 Bent lower, lower, lower, till her brow 
 Pressed down the border of the robes that swept 
 Prom Marcia's zone, and Marcia had no rival ! 
 
JULIETTE. 
 
 Wheke the rough crags lift, and the sea-mews call, 
 Yet frowns Earl Hubert's castle tall. 
 Close at the base of its western wall 
 
 The chafed waves stand at bay; 
 And the May-rose twined in its banquet hall 
 
 Dips to the showering spray. 
 For the May-rose springs, and the ivy clings, 
 
 And the wall-flower flaunts in the ruined bower, 
 And the sea-bird foldeth her weary wings 
 
 Up in the stone-gray tower ; 
 Scaling an arch of the postern rude 
 
 A wild vine drops to the water's flow. 
 
JULIETTE. 
 
 Deep in the niches the blind owls brood, 
 And the fringing moss hangs low, 
 
 Where stout Earl Hubert's banner stood 
 Five hundred years ago ! 
 
 Out from the castle's western wall 
 Jutteth a tower round and tall, 
 And leading up to the parapet 
 
 By a winding turret stair, 
 Over the sea there looketh yet 
 
 A chamber small and square, 
 Where the faint daylight comes in alone 
 Through a narrow slit in the solid stone; 
 
 And here, old records say. 
 Earl Hubert bore his wayward child 
 
 From courts and gallants gay; 
 That, guarded by the breakers wild. 
 
 And cloistered from her lover's arms, 
 Here might she mourn her wasted charms, 
 
 Here weep her youth away. 
 
 " One ! two !" said the sentinel, 
 Watching the night from the eastern tower. 
 
100 JULIETTE. 
 
 Up in the turret a solemn knell 
 
 Tolled for the parting hour; 
 Over the ocean its echo fell, 
 One ! two ! — like a silver bell 
 
 Chiming afar in the sea-nymph's bower. 
 
 Shrill and loud -was the sea-bird's cry, 
 
 The watch-dog bayed as the moon rose high, 
 
 The great waves swelled below ; 
 And the measured plash of a dipping oar 
 Broke softly through their constant roar, 
 
 And paused beneath the shade 
 Flung westward by that turret hoar 
 
 Where slept the prisoned maid. 
 The sentinel paced to and fro 
 
 Under the castle parapet. 
 
 But, in her chamber,, Juliette 
 Heard not the tramp of his clanging foot, 
 
 JSTor the watch-dog baying near r 
 Only the sound of a low-toned lute 
 
 Stole to- her dreaming ear. 
 
JULIETTE. 101 
 
 The moon rode up as the night wore on, 
 
 Looking down with a blinding glaie 
 Into that chamber still and lone, 
 Touching the rough-hewn cross of stone, 
 
 And the prayer beads glittering there; 
 
 The loosened waves of the sleeper's hair, 
 
 And the curve of her shoulder, white and bare. 
 
 She dreamed ! she dreamed ! that dreary keep 
 
 Melted away in the calm moonbeams ; 
 The sea-bird's call and the wave's hoarse sweep, 
 Changed for the lull of a forest deep. 
 
 And the pleasant voice of streams. 
 She seemed, at rest by a mossy stone, 
 To watch the blood-red sun go down. 
 And hang on the verge of the horizon 
 
 Like a ruby set in a golden ring; 
 
 To hear the wild birds sing 
 Up in the larch boughs, loud and sweet. 
 Over a turf where the soft waves beat 
 With a sound like a naiad's dancing feet. 
 
102 JULIETTE. 
 
 For here and there on its •winding way 
 
 Down by dingle and shady nook, 
 Under the white thorn's dropping spray 
 
 Glittered the thread of a slender brook, 
 And scarce a roebuck's leap beyond. 
 Close to the brink of its grassy bound, 
 She heard her lover's chiding hound, 
 
 His bugle's merry play. 
 Oh, it was sweet again to be 
 
 Under the free blue skies ! 
 She turned on her pillow restlessly. 
 
 And the tears to her sleeping eyes 
 Came welling up, as the full drops start 
 At spring's first smile from a fountain's heart. 
 
 Up rose the maid in her dreamy rest. 
 And flung a robe o'er her shoulders bare, 
 And gathered the threads of her floating hair. 
 Ere, with a foot on the turret stair 
 She paused, then onward pressed. 
 As the tones of a soft lute broke again 
 Through the deeper chords of the voiceful main. 
 
JULIETTE. 103 
 
 Steep and rude was the perilous way, 
 
 Through loopholes square and small 
 The night looked into the turret gray, 
 
 And over the massive wall 
 In blocks of light the moonbeams lay, 
 But the changeful ghosts of the showering spray, 
 And the measured play of the waters dim 
 Rippled and glanced on the ceiling grim. 
 
 The moon looked into her sleeping eyes. 
 
 The night wind stirred her hair; 
 And wandering blindly, Juliette, 
 Close on the verge of the parapet. 
 
 Stood without in the open air. 
 Under the blue arch of the skies', 
 
 Save for the pacing sentinel. 
 
 Save for the ocean's constant swell, 
 There seemed astir no earthly thing. 
 
 Below, the great waves rose and fell. 
 
 Scaling ever their craggy bound. 
 But scarce a zephyr's dipping wing 
 
 Broke the silver crust of the sea beyond ; 
 
101 JULIETTE. 
 
 And in her life-like dream, 
 The maiden now had wandered on 
 To the brink of a slender stream, 
 Then pausing, stayed her eager foot, 
 
 For with the brook's sweet monotone 
 Mingled the soft voice of a lute. 
 And where the level sunbeams played 
 Over the lap of a lawny glade, 
 A hound lay sleeping in the shade. 
 
 Rocked by the light waves to and fro. 
 
 Scarcely an arrow's flight from shore, 
 Her lover in his bark below 
 
 Paused, resting on the oar. 
 Watching the foam wreaths dash and fall 
 Like shattered stars from the castle wall. 
 
 As higher yet he raised his eyes, 
 Jesu ! he started with affright ; 
 
 For, painted on the midnight skies. 
 Seemed hovering in the tremulous light 
 A figure small, and angel white ! 
 
JULIETTE. 105 
 
 Against the east lay far and dim, 
 Touched by the moon's uncertain ray, 
 
 The airy form, the turret grim. 
 
 Doubtful he paused. a minute's space; 
 
 Then rowed towards the castle's base, 
 But checked his oar midway, 
 
 And gazing up at the parapet. 
 
 Shouted the one word, "Juliette!" 
 
 Lute, baying hound, and restless deep. 
 
 Each gave the clue bewildered thought 
 Had followed through the maze of sleep. 
 
 And, by her lulled ear faintly caught, 
 
 Her lover's voice its echo wrought. 
 She heard him call, she saw him stand 
 With smiling lip and beckoning hand. 
 And closer pressed, and, dreaming yet. 
 
 From the green margin of the stream, 
 From the steep verge of the parapet. 
 
 Sprang forward with a scream ! 
 Then once again the deep bell tolled 
 Up in the turret gray and old, 
 
100 JULIETTE. 
 
 And mingled -with its lingering knell, 
 
 The echoed cry, half-heard, half-lost, 
 Startled the weary sentinel 
 
 Now slumbering at his post. 
 But wakened from his dreamful rest, 
 
 He deemed the sound some wandering ghost 
 Haunting the shades of sleep ; 
 For like a bird upon its nest 
 
 The hushed air brooded o'er the deep. 
 And to his drowsy ear there crept 
 
 Only the voice of the choral waves. 
 Only the drip of the spray that wept. 
 
 And the ripples that sang through the weedy caves. 
 Nor marked he, ere again he slept, 
 The muffled dip of a hasty oar, 
 A steed's quick tramp along the shore. 
 When morning came, a shallop's keel 
 
 Grated the edge of the pebbly strand; 
 A maid's small foot, and a knight's armed heel 
 
 Were traced upon the sand. 
 
PRAYER. 
 
 I HAVE a thought of one who drawing close 
 Over her brow the sackloth, in its folds 
 Crouched, shutting out from her refusing eyes 
 God's gift of sunshine. While the all-pitying skies 
 Wooed her with light she would not look upon, 
 While earth entreated her, and passing winds 
 Plucked at her garments, and around her flung 
 Invisible arms, light, urgent, clasping arms. 
 Her heart made answer : — I have lain so long 
 On thy cold breast. Despair, did I arise 
 I should reel wildly, staggering with cramped limbs 
 
108 PRAYER. 
 
 Through the white, glaring sunshine. Hide me, night ! 
 
 Lest the full glories of the universe 
 
 Smite me with blindness, and exulting earth 
 
 Under the blue triumphal arch of heaven 
 
 Victoriously passing, blast my sense 
 
 With her insulting gladness. Once I prayed; 
 
 Once Tvhen dismay, want, death, pressed me so close, 
 
 I faced them in mere madness, and beholding, 
 
 From mine appalled soul sent up a shriek 
 
 That must have pierced the hollow ear of space, 
 
 Startling the angels, holding in suspense 
 
 Awhile the eternal harmonies. . Vain heart ! 
 
 Could the mute prayer that on its fiery track 
 
 Followed in trembling haste, prevail so far? 
 
 Amid the roll of twice ten thousand harps 
 
 Struck by white-handed seraphim, the voice 
 
 Of that unfathomed sea of human woe 
 
 Making perpetual moan about His throne, 
 
 And surging to His footstool, dost thou dream 
 
 That its weak cry rose audibly ? 
 
 Did sleep 
 On her imploring senses lightly rest 
 
PRAYER. 109 
 
 His hand in benediction? The still air 
 
 To her astonished gaze grew all instinct, 
 
 Moted with airy forms for ever drawn 
 
 Up, by some genial influence. With bent heads, 
 
 With hands clasped mutely, and looks downward dropt, 
 
 Else searching space, onward they pressed, and drew 
 
 Her rapt soul with them. Tears and sighs fell thick, 
 
 Mixed with low broken murmurs, and a sound. 
 
 Distinct, of music that flowed clearly on. 
 
 Like a glad singing stream that lifts its voice 
 
 Amid the mourning of sere autumn boughs 
 
 Bent with wet leaves and rain. The dense, dull air, 
 
 As 'twere a vail, they parted, and it lay 
 
 Above the earth like the dusk cloud that hangs 
 
 Over some populous mart. And upward still 
 
 Through that black space, of which the hue of night 
 
 Is a pale mock ! . And she who fled with them. 
 
 Whither, she questioned not, from that great height 
 
 Back glancing, saw the universe as one 
 
 Who, looking from a mountain top, beholds 
 
 Faint clustering lights, that, twinkling through the gloom, 
 
 Mark where a city stands. And upward still ! 
 
no PKAYEK. 
 
 Till through the cloaking dark a sword of light 
 
 Flashed suddenly. Then over and around, 
 
 There shined the brightness of ten thousand suns 
 
 All concentrate, and her scared spirit stood 
 
 In the full courts of heaven ! She might not look 
 
 On its great glory, but the Seraphim 
 
 That leant upon their harps, forever there 
 
 Turned Tvith bright solemn faces, kst, transfused 
 
 Into one rapturous thought. She only saw 
 
 How all the assembled prayers of all the worlds 
 
 Entreated, silent. Various their guise; 
 
 Some with pure eyes uplift, that dared to look 
 
 Straight on Divinity, and some with dust 
 
 On their pale foreheads. There were infant prayers 
 
 Crowned with faint halos ; saintly prayers, that might, 
 
 But for some traces of forgotten tears. 
 
 Have swelled the ranks of Heaven. While yet she 
 
 looked. 
 On the pale shore of light there stood a Form 
 Forlorn, close mantled, that with tottering steps 
 Drew nearer. Hers ! she knew it well ! her heart 
 Shrank with a deadly fear. Oh God! the prayer 
 
PRAYER. in 
 
 That on the steps of the mad shriek that bore 
 Woe, horror, and defiance up to Heaven, 
 Followed with faint entreaty ! That weak cry, 
 That mute despairing thing that from her heart 
 Scarce struggled to her lips, and there fell prone 
 As one across a threshold! Staggering on 
 With its pale hands uplift, closer it drew; 
 And, while she looked to see it thrust without 
 Into surrounding darkness, rapt and calm 
 Stood the ranked angels. Near, oh God, it came ! 
 Then with the mien of her who touched His robe 
 When the crowd pressed Him, springing to the throne, 
 With a low cry fell prostrate ! 
 
 In their sheaths 
 Why slept the keen swords of the cherubim? 
 Lo, every knee was bowed ! round every brow 
 There bloomed fresh amaranth, from every lip 
 Burst such transcendent melody, the stars 
 Grew musical with its echoes, and dull earth 
 Dreamed of it in her slumber. Last of all 
 Rose that pale Form, and east the mantle back. 
 
112 PRAYER. 
 
 And drank in the pure light with steadfast eyes, 
 And showed God's seal, that, stamped upon its brow, 
 Burned like a star. 
 
 There was great joy in Heaven. 
 
THEODORA. 
 
 Since we know her for an angel 
 
 Bearing meek the common load, 
 Let us call her, Theodora, 
 Gift of God! 
 
 Still so young that every summer 
 
 Is a rose upon her brow. 
 All her days are blooms detaching 
 From a bough. 
 
114 THEODORA. 
 
 She is very slight, and graceful 
 
 As the bending of a fern, 
 As the marble figure drooping 
 O'er an urn. 
 
 In her eyes are tranquil shadows 
 Lofty thoughts alone can make, 
 Like the darkness thrown by mountains 
 O'er a lake. 
 
 If you speak, the slow returning 
 
 Of her spirit from afar 
 To their depths, is like the advent 
 Of a star. 
 
 No one marvels at her beauty; 
 Blended with a perfect whole. 
 Beauty seems the just expression 
 Of her soul. 
 
THEODORA. 115 
 
 For her lightest word or fancy, 
 
 Unarrayed for human ear, 
 Might be echoed by an angel 
 Watching near. 
 
 Be a theme however homely. 
 
 It is glorious at her will, 
 Like a common air transfigured 
 By a master's skill. 
 
 And her words, severely simple 
 
 As a drapery Grecian-wrought, 
 Show the clear symmetric outline 
 Of her thought. 
 
 To disguise her limbs with grandeur 
 Would seem strange as to dispose 
 Gold and velvet round a statue's 
 Pale repose. 
 
116 THEODOKA. 
 
 But a robe of simplest texture 
 
 Should be gathered to her throat, 
 And her rippled locks part braided, 
 Part afloat. 
 
 While a pendent spray of lilies 
 
 In their folds should be arrayed. 
 Or a waxen white camelia 
 Lamp their shade. 
 
EOLIE. 
 
 Oh, you are ■welcome as tlie dew 
 
 To the worn feet of pilgrim day ; 
 And wild and fresh, as flowers that keep 
 
 The virgin bloom and breath of May. 
 Yet wilful as a hawk set free 
 
 Ere whistle lure, or huntsman tame her. 
 Capricious as the bridal smile 
 
 Spring half denies the skies that claim her, 
 You've slept since morning, unbetrayed 
 
 By waving grass or whispering tree, 
 You're loitering now through grove and glade ; 
 Wild Eolie ! 
 
119 EOLIE. 
 
 Oh, we were playmates long ago ! 
 
 And then I chased your flying feet 
 Over the brave rock-terraced hills, 
 
 Over the valleys, green and sweet. 
 Your kisses woke me if I slept 
 
 Where boughs unclasp, and shadows play. 
 And, starting from my childish dreams, 
 
 I heard your low laugh far away. 
 Most gentle in your wily mirth. 
 
 Yet elfin, half, you seemed to me, 
 T loved you more than I can tell, 
 "Wild Eolie ! 
 
 I love you still ; when even comes 
 
 I hear you tread my chamber floor ; 
 You sweep aside my curtain's fold, 
 
 And turn the page I linger o'er. 
 For sunset is our trysting time ; 
 
 Our tryst we keep till stars convene, 
 Till, Thetis-like, from deeps of blue 
 
 Upwonds the silver-footed queen. 
 
BOLIE. 119 
 
 Breaking the crystal calm of night, 
 
 As light wings break a glassy sea, 
 Your low voice hymns me to my rest, 
 Wild EoUe! 
 
 When through the heaven's serenest blue 
 
 Move car-like clouds with lingering flight, 
 I image you a nymph like those 
 
 That urge the shell of Amphitrite. 
 At morn you are a huntress fleet. 
 
 And, cloistered from the heats of noon, 
 You seem at night a sister pale, 
 
 Low chanting to the haloed moon. 
 By morn, and noon, and saintly night, 
 
 I image what I cannot see ; 
 And give your elfin tones a soul. 
 Wild Eolie ! 
 
SUMMER. 
 
 The early spring hath gone ; I see her stand 
 
 Afar off on the hills, white clouds, like doves, 
 
 Yoked by the south wind to her opal car, 
 
 And at her feet a lion and a lamb 
 
 Couched, side by side. Irresolute spring hath gone ! 
 
 And summer comes like Psyche, zephyr-borne 
 
 To her sweet land of pleasures. 
 
 She is here! 
 Amid the distant vales she tarried long, 
 But she hath come, oh joy ! — for I have heard 
 Her many-chorded harp the livelong day 
 
SUMMER. 121 
 
 Sounding from plains and meadows, where, of late, 
 
 Rattled the hail's sharp arrows, and where came 
 
 The wild north wind careering like a steed 
 
 Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth 
 
 Into the forest, and its poised leaves 
 
 Are platformed for the zephyr's dancing feet. 
 
 Under its green pavilions she hath reared 
 
 Most beautiful things ; the spring's pale orphans lie 
 
 Sheltered upon her breast; the bird's loud song 
 
 At morn outsoars his pinion, and when waves 
 
 Put on night's silver harness, the still air 
 
 Is musical with soft tones. She hath baptized 
 
 Earth with her joyful weeping. She hath blessed 
 
 All that do rest beneath the wing of Heaven, 
 
 And all that hail its smile. Her ministry 
 
 Is typical of love. She hath disdained 
 
 No gentle office, but doth bend to twine 
 
 The grape's light tendrils, and to pluck apart 
 
 The heart-leaves of the rose. She doth not pass 
 
 Unmindful the bruised vine, nor scorn to lift 
 
 The trodden weed; and when her lowlier children 
 
 Faint by the way-side like worn passengers. 
 
122 SUMMER. 
 
 She is a gentle mother, all night long 
 Bathing their pale brows with her healing dews. 
 The hours are spendthrifts of her wealth ; the days 
 Are dowered with her beauty. 
 
 Priestess ! queen ! 
 Amid the ruined temples of the wood, 
 She hath rebuilt her altars, and called back 
 The scattered choristers, and over aisles 
 Where the slant sunshine like a curious stranger 
 Glided through arches and bare choirs, hath spread 
 A roof magnificent.. She hath awaked 
 Her oracle, that, dumb and paralyzed, 
 Slept with the torpid serpents of the lightning, 
 Bidding his dread voice, nature's mightiest, 
 Speak mystically of all hidden things 
 To the attentive spirit. 
 
 There is- laid 
 No knife rapon her sacrificial altar. 
 And from her lips there comes no pealing triumph ; 
 But to those crystal halls where silence sits 
 
SUMMER. 123 
 
 Enchanted, hath arisen a mingled strain 
 Of music, delicate as the breath of buds, 
 And on her shrines the virgin hours lay 
 Odours and exquisite dyes, like gifts that kings 
 Send from the spicy gardens of the East. 
 
LADY CLARE. 
 
 I'll drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare, 
 
 Ere tbe priest dons his gown and the marriage-bells 
 call ; 
 While the bridemaidens ravel the snood from your hair. 
 
 And the bridegroom stands waiting your step in the 
 hall ! 
 I scorn you nor mourn you, nor praise nor reprove, 
 I drink to the lips that first wiled me to love ; 
 But the lute of your love-tones no dearer shall be 
 
 Than the bound of the stag down the craggy ravine. 
 The cry of my sleuth hound, my horn winded free. 
 
 Upstarting the doe from her covert of green 
 The hawk you've unhooded plumes wing for tho air: 
 I drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 
 
LADY CLAKE. 125 
 
 Gray clings the mist to the river; the cloud 
 
 That trails from the mountain is black as despair; 
 Your bird keeps its perch, and your hound whines aloud, 
 
 And the ravens croak out from the wood, Lady Clare ! 
 Faint o'er the pavement the daylight is thrown 
 'Mid columns and arches, through doorways of stone ; 
 Faint on the walls, and the hunting-knives laid 
 
 On antlers suspended, scarce shown through the gloom ; 
 On the staghounds that crouch in the caverns of shade, 
 
 And the bridegroom that plays with the fringe of his 
 plume, 
 And the guests that stand grouped at the foot of the 
 
 stair. 
 While I drink a blithe bridal to you. Lady Clare ! 
 
 Your glance may be warm, and your lips may be 
 sweet, 
 
 But I'd rather be out where the doe makes her lair. 
 With my gun on my arm, and my dog at my feet, 
 
 Than stand at the altar with you. Lady Clare ! 
 Mv heart you unleashed as your snood you unwound. 
 But I'll keep for a love-link one ringlet it bound. 
 
126 LADY CLARE. 
 
 I'll keep, for a love-link of days when I blessed 
 The breeze that your tresses had chased as it fanned, 
 
 The hawk on your glove, or the steed you caressed, 
 Or the greyhound that fawned at the touch of your 
 hand — 
 
 I'll keep for a love-link one lock of your hair, 
 
 And I'll drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 
 
 I'll mind me no more how we wandered till night 
 
 Where the rowan tree rocks in the wild mountain air ; 
 When your words fell as soft, and your foot fell as light 
 
 As a leaf that is loosed from the bough. Lady Clare! 
 And you smiled, and you wept, while we lingered alone. 
 As a flower keeps waving from shadow to sun. 
 Oh ! dear were the love-words you whispered the while, 
 
 And your weeping, if sad, and your smiling, if gay ! 
 Oh! false were your love-words, and false was your 
 smile. 
 
 And false are the vows you must utter to-day ! 
 As a dame casts her hawk, I will rid me of care. 
 While I drink a blithe bridal to you, Lady Clare ! 
 
STORM AT TWILIGHT. 
 
 The roar of a chafed lion in his lair 
 Begirt by levelled spears ! A sudden flash, 
 Intense, yet ■wavering, like a beast's fierce eye 
 Searching the darkness. The wild bay of winds 
 Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar, 
 Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen, 
 Javelin in hand. From the moth wings of twilight 
 There falls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom 
 Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed 
 With tempest, and the moon's scant rays fall through 
 Like light let dimly through the fissured rock 
 Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon, . 
 
128 STORM AT TWILIGHT. 
 
 The green sea of the forest has rolled back 
 
 Its levelled billows, and where mast-like trees 
 
 Sway to its bosom, here and there, a vine 
 
 Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings, rocked aloft 
 
 Like a bold mariner ! There is no bough 
 
 But lifteth an appealing arm to heaven. 
 
 The scudding grass is shivering as it flies. 
 
 And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth 
 
 Like frightened children. 'Tis more terrible, 
 
 When the near thunder speaks, and the fleet wind 
 
 Stops like a steed that knows his rider's voice; 
 
 For, oh, the hush that follows is the calm 
 
 Of a despairing heart, and, as a maniac 
 
 Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm, 
 
 Weeping fast tears, awakens with a sob 
 
 From its blank desolation, and shrieks on ! 
 
THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 My heart is full of prayer and praise to-day, 
 So beautiful the whole world seems to me ! 
 I know the morn has dawned as is its wont, 
 I know the breeze comes on no lighter wing, 
 I know the brook chimed yesterday that same 
 Melodious call to my un answering thought; 
 But I look forth with new created eyes. 
 And soul and sense seem linked and thrill alike. 
 And things familiar have unusual grown, 
 Taking my spirit with a fair surprise ! 
 
130 THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 But yesterday, aud life seemed tented round 
 With idle sadness. Not a bird sang out 
 But ■with a mournful meaning ; not a cloud, 
 And there were many, but in flitting past 
 Trailed somewhat of its darkness o'er my heart, 
 And loitering, half-becalmed, unfreighted all, 
 Went by the Heaven-bound hours. 
 
 But oh ! to-day 
 Lie all harmonious and lovely things 
 Close to my spirit, and awhile it seems 
 As if the blue sky were enough of Heaven ! 
 My thoughts are like tense chords that give their music 
 At a chance breath ; a thousand delicate hands 
 Are harping on my soul ! no sight, no sound 
 But stirs me to the keenest sense of pleasure — 
 Be it no more than the wind's cautious tread. 
 The swaying of a shadow, or a bough. 
 Or a dove's flight across the silent sky. » 
 
 Oh, in this sunbright sabbath of the heart, 
 
 How many a prayer puts on the guise of thought, 
 
 An angel unconfessed! Its rapid feet, 
 
THE COLOURING OF HAPPINESS. 131 
 
 That leave no print on memory's sands, tread not 
 Less surely their bright path than choral hymns 
 And litanies. I know the praise of worlds, 
 And the soul's unvoiced homage, both arise 
 Distinctly to His ear who holds all nature 
 Pavilioned by His presence ; who has fashioned 
 With an impartial care, alike the star 
 That keeps unpiloted its airy circle. 
 And the sun-quickened germ, or the poor moss 
 The building swallow plucks to line her nest. 
 
THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 
 
 So tall the cloud-hung turrets rise, 
 They seem to pierce the secret skies, 
 And they who tread their heights declare 
 That angel forms are sentries there. 
 
 And rippling to the palace door, 
 A dull, deep wave flows evermore. 
 For they who pass, and they who come, 
 Must leap or swim those waters dumb. 
 
THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 133 
 
 Within the portals dark and grand, 
 Stands silence with uplifted hand, 
 And wakeful echoes, biding there, 
 Keep watch beside the palace stair. 
 
 Strange fancies paint the ceilings dim ; 
 A lamb, a stag, a lion grim, 
 Are by a blindfold maiden led. 
 Held in a chain of poppies red. 
 
 Above, through chambers vast and high 
 Tread lightly still, for echoes shy 
 Wheel fluttering at the rash footfall. 
 Like bird and bat from roof and wall. 
 
 There where the deep-browed windows rise. 
 The masquing light of noonday skies 
 Through many a stained and clouded pane 
 Drops in a faint prismatic rain. 
 
134 THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 
 
 Mantled and dumb, a ghostly rout 
 Wheels through the chambers, in and out; 
 Now in the cumbrous robes of sadness, 
 Now crowned, and flushed with festal madness. 
 
 Tread light above the sounding floors. 
 Along the dark, still corridors. 
 For they whose look is death, 'tis said, 
 Lie chained below in dungeons dread. 
 
 No daybeam breaks the purple gloom 
 That shrouds and fills yon inner room. 
 Dropt from the lintel to the floor, 
 Thick draperies cloak the low-arched door. 
 
 With veiled brows, a spectral band. 
 Within, a few pale masquers stand; 
 Echoes that haunt the palace halls 
 Beat with faint wings the outer walls. 
 
THE PALACE OF ECHOES. 135 
 
 Paler than stars that front the day, 
 One silver cresset wastes away ; 
 A marble naiad, fair and dim. 
 Keeps watch beside a fountain's brim. 
 
THE BROWN MANTLE. 
 
 Write thee her history ? why, dear friend, I weave 
 Always a new one. That of yesterday 
 To-day seems trite. Some varying of my mood, 
 Some chance-thrown light upon the picture caught, 
 Still makes me question if I read aright 
 The limner's meaning. I can only guess 
 That not in grief or guilt her soul is drawn 
 Through her raised eyes towards Heaven. Too ripe 
 
 a hue 
 Crimsons the passionate fulness of her lip ; 
 The black profusion of her rippled hair 
 Caught backward from a cheek too rosy clear. 
 
THE BROWN MANTLE. 137 
 
 She hath been leaning o'er the saintly book 
 Her clasped hands rest upon, for one rich lock 
 Hath parted from the mass, across her brow 
 Pencilling its shadow. You would never guess 
 Her state from her arraying, at her throat 
 The sad-hued mantle with its falling hood 
 Close gathered. Best of all I love her eyes; 
 I'd have no change in them. I would not see 
 Even the angel presence of a smile 
 Troubling their darkness. 
 
 Was she good as fair? 
 How thinkest thou? are not her very looks 
 Teachers of purity ? was she high-born ? 
 Young, lovely, noble, did she give to God 
 The blossom of her nature ? She hath dwelt 
 Where the Seine wanders. Canst thou image her 
 A peasant, loitering through the vintage fields, 
 Binding her brows with grape leaves; else, apart 
 Weaving fresh chaplets. For she hath been wont 
 To kneel at Romish altars, and I know 
 Under the brown folds of her cloak you'd find 
 Beads and a crucifix. Peasant or queen, 
 
138 THE BROWN MANTLE. 
 
 I'll think of her as one whose lightest word 
 Angels heard unrebuking; whose pure heart 
 Turned from impurity like a flower that shuts 
 At the approach of night. 
 
 Ah, be content ! 
 I would not know her history if I could. 
 
A SONG FOR AUTUMN. 
 
 Frighten the bird from the tasselled pine, 
 
 Where he sings like a hope in a gloomy breast ; 
 
 Tread down the blossoms that cling to the vine, 
 Winnow the blooms from the mountain's crest ! 
 
 Let the balm-flower sleep where the small brooks twine. 
 
 And the golden-rod treasure the yellow sunshine. 
 
 Muffle the bells of the faint-lipped waves. 
 Let the red leaves fall. Let the brown fawn leap 
 
 Through the golden fern. In the weedy caves 
 Let the snake coil up for his winter sleep ; 
 
 Let the ringed-snake coil where the earth is drear, 
 
 Like a grief that grows cold as the heart grows sere ! 
 
110 ASONGFORAUTUMN. 
 
 Pluck down the rainbow; make steadfast the throne 
 Of the star that was faint in the summer night ! 
 
 Let the white daughters of wave and sun 
 Weep as they cloister the pale, pale light. 
 
 Let the mist-wreaths brood o'er the valley-bound rills, 
 
 And the sky trail its mantle far over the hills. 
 
 Plunder the wrecks of the forest, and blind 
 The waters that picture its ruinous dome ! 
 
 Wildly, oh, wildly, most sorrowful wind. 
 Chant, like a prophet, of terror to come ! 
 
 Like a Niobe stricken with infinite dread. 
 
 Leave the spirit of beauty alone with her dead. 
 
 Throne the pale Naiad that filleth her urn 
 
 At the fount of the sun ; on the curtain of night, 
 
 Paint wild Auroras like visions that burn. 
 Rosy Auroras like dreams of delight ! 
 
 Mantle the earth, fold the robe o'er her breast. 
 
 While the sky, like a seraph, bends over her rest! 
 
UNREST. 
 
 Rest for awhile ! I'm tempest-tost to-day. 
 Bar out the sunshine. Let importunate life 
 Beating for ever with impatient hand 
 My soul's closed portals, only rouse within 
 Dull, dreamy echoes ! In a forest calm 
 Builds sleep, the white dove. As a bird she rides 
 The lulled waves of the soul. To-day, my thoughts 
 Hunt me like hounds ; the very prayer for peace 
 Scares peace away; my senses, wide awake. 
 Watch for the touch that thrills them: every sound 
 Falls through the listening air unscabbarded ; 
 And if sleep comes, 'tis but a transient dream 
 
142 UNKEST. 
 
 That flits betwixt me and the light of life, 
 Alighting never. 
 
 Oh, sweet chrism of God ! 
 Oh, balm and oil by Heaven's white ministers 
 Laid with a blessing on the gates of sense ! 
 Baptismal font from whence our bodies rise 
 Regenerate! cool, way-side shadow flung 
 Over the paths of toil ! I am athirst. 
 Fevered and weary of my own worn self; 
 Strengthen me with thy strength ! 
 
 Lo, where she stands. 
 Sleep, the beloved, and mocks me with her beauty ! 
 Her hands lie clasped around a lamp alight 
 Burning faint incense ; from her zone unbound 
 Dark folds trail silently ; the poppies wreathed 
 Above her temples, bursting, over-ripe, 
 Drop with her motion. She is fair and calm, 
 And dreams, like cherubs, with bright restless wings 
 Cling to her sweeping robes. Let her draw near, 
 Laying her dewy lips upon my brow, 
 Twining me with soft movement in her arms. 
 And there shall pass a fluttering through my sense, 
 
UNREST. 143 
 
 Leaf-like vibration, and my soul, as one 
 
 Who drifts out seaward, seeing the dim shore 
 
 Receding slow, hearing the voice of waves 
 
 Call to him fainter, shall float guideless on. 
 
 Rocked into slumber ; dream effacing dream. 
 
 Thought widening around thought, till all grows vague. 
 
A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 
 
 Hark to the -wind ! The snow falls fast to-night. 
 By morn, all down the road-sides 'twill lie blown 
 In beautiful shapes and curves. Against the panes 
 It has lodged heavily. 
 
 How many suns 
 Since last, at dawn, I heard the gay south-west 
 Come piping up the vales, one little cloud 
 Borne on its bosom as a shepherd bears 
 The youngling of the flock ? 
 
 From out this mad 
 Contending of blent voices, Fancy calls 
 Shapes of a ruder mould. To-night, believe. 
 
A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 145 
 
 Some wild-eyed maniac, 'with uncertain steps, 
 
 Paces these barren hill-sides. Now, her cry 
 
 Comes stifled from the hollows. Now, she shrieks 
 
 On the bare rising ground, while high-pitched tones 
 
 Make answer, far and shrill, as if the fiends, 
 
 Mocking her sense, grew audible to us ; 
 
 And now — Heaven guard us ! — her approaching steps 
 
 Sound close beneath the walls, while, each in turn, 
 
 The barred doors shake as if some skeleton hand 
 
 Rattled against the locks, the windows thrill; 
 
 So human grows the moaning voice without, 
 
 That, glancing sidelong where the curtains part, 
 
 One looks to see some blood-forsaken face 
 
 Pressed to the pane. Anon blank silence falls. 
 
 And you believe this wandering thing stands still. 
 
 Held by a thread of reason ; till, far ofi^. 
 
 Along the dells there runs an undertone 
 
 Of low, melodious laughter, like soft keys 
 
 Linked by a flying hand, and forest pines. 
 
 Crossed by the harsh chords of the bare, brown boughs, 
 
 Prelude their stormy music with a thrill 
 
 Like that deep trembling when the organ first 
 
146 A WINTER NIGHT'S THOUGHT. 
 
 Stirs in a vast cathedral. Oh then, roused, 
 Struck by some ambushed thought, she shrieks again 
 Sudden and sharp, this tenant of the night ! 
 And hurries through the storm with broken cries, 
 Or, crouching to the walls, finds shelter there, 
 Or, in a sore dismay, upon the earth 
 Dashed headlong, sobs complaining, or in vain 
 Seeks refuge for her madness and her woe 
 In the white crumbling sepulchres she treads ! 
 
COUNT JULIO. 
 
 Mid halls beneath -whose fretted cornices 
 Echo still babbles of a glorious past, 
 Dwelt Julio the miser. 
 
 Nobly born, 
 Reared among palaces, and trained from youth 
 To the gay vices of a liberal age, 
 How came it now that year by year sped on 
 To leave the proud count in his silent halls 
 Hoarding the gold once lavished ? 
 
 Young and fair. 
 The haughtiest noble of the Roman court. 
 The stateliest of the high-born throng that graced 
 
148 COUNT JULIO. 
 
 Its princely revels, he had left the feast. 
 Bidding the bright wine that he quaffed in parting 
 Be to him thence accursed. Never more 
 Cliecked he his courser by the Tiber's banks. 
 Nor struck the sweet chords of his lute, nor trod 
 Glad measures with the bright-lipped Roman dames. 
 And from the lintels of his banquet hall 
 The spider balanced on her gossamer thread; 
 Dust heaped the silken couches ; and where swept 
 Golden fringed curtains to the chequered floor, 
 The rat gnawed silently, and gray moths fed 
 On the rich produce of the Indian loom. 
 Men shunned his threshold, and his palace doors 
 Creaked on their rusty hinges. Prince and peasant 
 Alike turned coldly at his coming step. 
 The very beggar that at noontide lay 
 Basking 'neath sunlight in the quiet street. 
 Stretched not his hand forth as the miser passed. 
 
 He cared not for their scorn ; man's breath to him 
 Was as the wind that sweeps a blasted oak 
 And finds no leaf to flutter. Fate had left 
 
COUNT JULIO. 149 
 
 Only two things on earth for him to love — 
 
 The gold he heaped, and the fair motherless child 
 
 Who, by his side, grew up to womanhood — 
 
 And these he worshipped, loathing all things else. 
 
 His couch was meager as a cloistered monk's ; 
 
 Bianca's head was pillowed upon down; 
 
 His fare was scanty, and his garments coarse. 
 
 But she was clad like princes, and her board 
 
 Heaped with the costliest viands. From the world 
 
 He shrank abhorrent, but Bianca shone 
 
 Proudest and fairest in a brilliant court. 
 
 Her youth had been most lonely. At his side 
 
 To watch the piling of the golden heaps 
 
 He told so greedily; to play alone 
 
 In gardens where no hand had^put aside 
 
 The flowers and weeds that in one tangled woof 
 
 Hung o'er the fountain's dusty bed, and crept 
 
 Round the tall porticoes : perchance to sit 
 
 Hour after hour all silent at his feet. 
 
 Twining her small arms and her baby throat 
 
 With the rare treasures that his caskets held ; 
 
 Rubies, and pearls, and flashing carcanets. 
 
150 COUNT JULIO. 
 
 Her costly playthings; all companionless, 
 
 i These were her childish pastimes. Years ■wore on, 
 
 f Till the close dawn of perfect womanhood 
 
 • Flushed in her cheek and brightened in her eye. 
 I 
 
 < And the girl learned to know how fair the face 
 
 < Those dingy walls had cloistered from the sun ; 
 To bear her head more proudly, and to step, 
 If not so lightly, with a queenlier tread. 
 Love-songs were framed for her, her midnight sleep 
 Was broken by the sound of silver lutes. 
 
 And the young gallants caracoled their steeds 
 J Grayly, at eve, beneath her balcony. 
 
 She went forth to the world, and careless lips 
 Told her the shame that was her heritage. 
 And scornful fingers pointed, as she passed, 
 » To the rare jewels, and the broidered robes. 
 
 That decked the miser's daughter. Envious tongues 
 Gilded anew the half-forgotten tale. 
 And it became the marvel (jf all Rome. 
 Thus till the diadem of gems and gold 
 Burned on her white brow like a circling flame, 
 
COUNT JULIO. 151 
 
 And she went lyritliing home, to weep, to loathe 
 
 The sordid parent who had brought this blight 
 
 Upon the joyous promise of her youth. 
 
 It was the still noon of a summer night. 
 
 When the young countess from her father's roof 
 
 Fled, with a noble of the Roman court ! 
 
 Morn came, and through the empty corridors, 
 
 The balconies, the gardens, the wide halls. 
 
 In Tain they sought her. Noon passed by, and then 
 
 The truth was guessed, not spoken. Silently 
 
 Count Julio trod the marble staircases. 
 
 And pausing by the door that once was hers. 
 
 Stood a brief moment, and then, pressing on. 
 
 Stepped through the quiet chamber. All was still. 
 
 Bearing no traces of her recent flight. 
 
 Here lay a slipper, here a silken robe. 
 
 And here a lute thrown down, with a white glove 
 
 Flung carelessly beside it. Still the air 
 
 Breathed of the delicate perfumes she had loved! 
 
 He glanced but once around the silent room. 
 Then from the mirrored and silk-draperied walls 
 
152 COUNT JTJLIO. 
 
 Oast his eye down-ward o'er his shrunken form, 
 His meager garments. Few the words he spake, 
 And muttered low; hut in them came a curse 
 So blasphemous, so hideous in its depth 
 Of impotent rage, that they who at his side 
 Yet stood in lingering pity, with blanched lips 
 Turned to the threshold, and crept shuddering forth. 
 
 He breathed his sorrow to no human ear, 
 
 But left it charnelled in his heart, to breed 
 
 Corruption there. None knew how wearily 
 
 The hours passed on beneath those lonely walls ; 
 
 None saw him when, by midnight still a watcher, 
 
 Starting and trembling as, inconstantly. 
 
 The night winds swayed the curtains to and fro; 
 
 Fancying the rustle of her silken robe. 
 
 Her footfall on the staircase ! Time sped on. 
 
 To strike the dulled bloom from his cheek, and scare 
 
 The soul that once had queened it on his brow : 
 
 A bent and worn old man, upon Avhose breast 
 
 Hung the neglected masses of his beard. 
 
 With meager hands habitually clenched, 
 
COUNT JULIO. 153 
 
 Till the sharp nails wore furrows in the palms. 
 Thus stole he forth at even, and, with eyes 
 Lost in the golden future of his dreams, 
 Sped through the busy crowd, unmarked, unheeding. 
 
 Once had he looked upon Bianca's face — 
 Once had she knelt before him, with her child 
 Gasping upon her breast, and prayed for succour. 
 The unwept victim of a drunken brawl 
 Her lord had fallen, and the palace halls 
 That owned her mistress, were deserted now. 
 She had braved fear and hunger, till her child 
 Wailed dying on her bosom ; and so urged, 
 Pride, shame, forgotten in a mother's love. 
 Clung to his knees for pardon. But in vain. 
 He cursed her as she knelt, bade her go forth. 
 And 'mid the loathsome suppliants that unveil 
 Disease and suffering to the eye of wealth. 
 Bare, too, her anguish to the glance of pity. 
 Then as she lingered, spurned her from his feet 
 With words that chilled her agony to dread, 
 And drove her thence in horror. 
 
 From that day 
 
154 COUNT JULIO. 
 
 From that day 
 His very blood seemed , charged with bitterness. 
 Miser and usurer both, upon the 'wrecks 
 Of others' happiness he built his own. 
 His name became accursed in the land, 
 And with his withering soul his body grew 
 Scarce human in its ghastly hideousness. 
 
 The bulb enshrouds the lily, and within 
 The most unsightly form may folded lie 
 The white wings of an angel. But in him 
 Seemed all the sweet humanities of life 
 Coldly encharnelled, and no hand divine 
 Rolled from his breast the weary weight of sin. 
 To bid them go forth unto suffering man 
 Like gracious ministers. 
 
 And she, alas ! 
 Whom he had madly driven forth to ruin ? 
 Earth hath no words to tell how dark the change 
 That clothed her fallen spirit. O'er the waste 
 Of want and ruin that engulfed her fortunes, 
 She had sent forth the white dove, purity, 
 
COUNT JULIO. 155 
 
 And it returned no more. The Roman dames 
 Took not her name upon their scornful lips. 
 Her form became a model for the artist, 
 And her rare face went down to future ages 
 Limned on his canvass. Ye may mark it yet 
 In the long galleries of tjie Vatican, 
 Varied, yet still the same. Now robed in pride, 
 As monarchs in their garb of Tyrian purple; 
 Now with a Magdalen's blue mantle drawn 
 Orer the bending forehead. As the marble 
 Sleeps in unsullied whiteness on the tomb. 
 Taking no taint from the foul thing it covers. 
 Her beauty bore no blight from guilt, but lived 
 A monument that made her name immortal. 
 
 Night had uprisen, clothed with storms and gloom. 
 
 No taper lit the solitary hall, 
 
 But to and fro with feeble steps its lord 
 
 Paced through the darkness. Midnight came, and then 
 
 Pausing beside the groaning door that weighed 
 
 Its rusty hinge. Count Julio, crouching, peered 
 
 Into the gloom without ; for stealthy feet 
 
156 COUNT JULIO. 
 
 Whose echo struck upon his wary ear, 
 Had crossed the lower hall, and slowly now 
 Trod the great staircase. 
 
 'Twas no robber's step. 
 Faint, slow, and halting ever and anon 
 As though in weariness. His sharpened sense 
 Caught, 'mid the fitful pauses of the wind, 
 The headlong dashing of the driven rain, 
 A sound of painful breathing, nay, of sobs, 
 Bursting, and then as suddenly suppressed. 
 
 Shuddering he stood, and, as the storm's red bolt 
 Leapt through the windows, lighting, as it passed, 
 A dusky shape that cowered at the flash, 
 He shrank within the chamber, and again 
 Listened in silence. 
 
 Nearer came the sound,^ — 
 A tall form crossed the threshold, and threw back 
 What seemed a heavy mantle. Then again 
 Glanced the pale lightning, and Count Julio knew. 
 By the long hair that swept her garments' hem, 
 Bianca ! 
 
COUNT. JULIO. 157 
 
 They who through that night of fear 
 Kept watch -with storm and terror till the morn, 
 Bore its dark memories even to the tomb. 
 For shrieks and cries seemed mingled with the wind, 
 And voices, as of warring fiends, prevailed • 
 O'er its low mutterings ! 
 
 Morn awoke at last. 
 And with its earliest gleam Count Julio crept 
 Forth through his palace gardens. Swollen drops 
 Hung on the curved roofs of the porticoes ; 
 His footsteps dashed them from the earth-bowed leaves, 
 And the long tangles of the matted grass. 
 But, over head, the day broke gloriously. 
 
 Where once a fountain to the sunlight leapt, ^ 
 A marble Naiad by its weedy bed 
 Stood on her pedestal. With hand outstretched 
 She grasped a hollowed shell, now brimming o'er, 
 While a green vine that round her arm had crept, 
 Rose, serpent-like, and in the chalice dipt 
 Its curling tendrils. Thither turned his eye. 
 Just as the red uprising of the sun 
 
158 COUNT JULIO. 
 
 Smote the pale statue, and crept brightening down 
 Even to its mossy base. Mantled and prone, 
 A heap that scarcely seemed a human form 
 Crouched in the shadow, and with tottering feet 
 The old mail hurried onward. Motionless, 
 It stirred not at his coming. Nearer still 
 He marked a white face upward turned, clenched hands 
 Locked in the hair that swept its ghastly brow. 
 Shading his weak eyes from the blinding sun. 
 Cowering in trembling horror to the earth. 
 Still on he crept, then, bending softly down. 
 Spake in a smothered voice, " Hist, hist, Bianca !" 
 
 Oh, mockery ! the ear that he had filled 
 
 With curses, woke not to the tones of love ! 
 
 The breast that he had spurned from him, heaved not 
 
 At his wild anguish. Death had done its work. 
 
 The tempest had been merciless as the parent 
 
 Who drove her forth to meet it, and the flash 
 
 Of its red eye more withering than his scorn. 
 
 •Shunned both in penitence and guilt, forsaken 
 
 By those who only prized her for the beauty 
 
COUNT JULIO. 159 
 
 Time, and perchance remorse, had touched ■with blight, 
 Drenched by the rain, all breathless with the storm, 
 Homeless and hopeless, she had crept to him 
 Once more a suppliant, and, spurned rudely forth, 
 Here had lain down despairing, and so perished. 
 
DAME MAEGARET. 
 
 With mettled steed, and hawk on hand, 
 Gay ride ye forth at morn's arise, 
 
 While light with shade, as dreams with sleep, 
 Strives battling o'er the skies. 
 
 Fair floats your plume athwart the breeze, 
 And, loosed from band and golden net, 
 
 Your ringlets chase the summer wind, 
 Dame Margaret! 
 
 Your steed stands checked within the gate. 
 With upreared hoofs, and crest of pride ; 
 
 Your coupled hounds hay down in ire 
 The echoes as they chide ; 
 
DAME MARGAEET. 161 
 
 The page holds slack the silken leash, 
 
 The steed that checks his light curvette 
 Bears hotly on the golden bit, 
 Dame Margaret ! 
 
 Ride forth, nor read the heart Tvould lose 
 Life, sense, and soul, all these save love, 
 
 To be the breeze your ringlets kiss, 
 The hawk upon your glove ; 
 
 Ride forth your bonny earl beside, 
 Nor deign to think how once ye met 
 
 At morning's blush a lowlier love, 
 Dame Margaret I 
 
FOREST SCENE. 
 
 I KNOW a forest vast and old, 
 
 A stade so deep, so darkly green. 
 That morning sends her shaft of gold 
 
 In vain to pierce its leafy screen. 
 I know a brake where sleeps the fawn, 
 
 The soft-eyed fawn, through noon's repose, 
 For noon with all the calm of dawn 
 
 Lies hushed beneath those dewy boughs. 
 
 Oh ! proudly there the forest kings 
 Their banners lift on vale and mount ; 
 
 And cool and fresh the wild grass springs 
 By lonely path, by sylvan fount ; 
 
FOREST SCENE. 163 
 
 There o'er the fair leaf-laden rill 
 
 The laurel sheds its clustered bloom, 
 And throned upon the rock-wreathed hill, 
 
 The rowan waves his scarlet plume. 
 
 No huntsman's call, no baying hound, 
 
 Scares from his rest the light-limbed stag, 
 But following faint his airy bound 
 
 Glad echo leaps from crag to crag ; 
 From morn till eve the wood-birds sing. 
 
 And, by the wild wave's glittering play, 
 The pheasant plumes her glossy wing. 
 
 The doe lies couched at close of day. 
 
 From slippery ledge, from moss-grown rock, 
 
 Dash the swift waters at a bound. 
 And from the foam that veils the shock 
 
 Floats every wavelet sparkle-crowned. 
 By brake, and dell, and lawny glade, 
 
 O'er gnarled root, o'er mossy stone, 
 Beneath the forest's emerald shade 
 
 The brook winds murmuring, chiding on. 
 
164 FOREST SCENE. 
 
 Far floating o'er its limpid breast 
 
 TLe lily sends her petals fair, 
 And couched beside her regal crest 
 
 The balm-flower scents the drowsy air. 
 From spray and vine, o'er rocky ledge 
 
 Hang blossoms wild of scarlet dye. 
 And on the curved and sanded edge 
 
 The pink-lined shells, wave-polished, lie. 
 
 There wakes no tone of idle mirth 
 
 Amid those shadows vast and dim. 
 But from the gentle lips of earth, 
 
 How soft and low her forest hymn ! 
 How soft and low where stirs the wind 
 
 Through the dark arches of the wood. 
 Where, mass on mass, the boughs entwined. 
 
 Hang whispering o'er the chiming flood ! 
 
 When twilight skies look faintly down. 
 When noon lies hushed on leaf and spray, 
 
 When midnight casts her silver crown 
 Before the throne of god-like day. 
 
FOREST SCENE. 183 
 
 There still to earth's perpetual choir 
 
 The same sweet harmony is given : 
 For angels wake her sacred lyre, 
 
 And every chord is strung by Heaven. 
 
TWILIGHT. 
 
 With one large planet, like a chalice prest 
 
 In her twin shadowy hands, comes Twilight, slow^ 
 Advancing with dropt eyes, and bending low 
 Where day reclining pillows on the- West, 
 Laves his worn feet with tears, and with her hair 
 Mantles their whiteness; while arising faint 
 As the thought-prayer of some exhausted saint, 
 Throng the fresh evening perfumes through the air 
 And when the night with trailing steps draws nigh, 
 Sealing the Orient with its cumbrous gloom, 
 Muffling her brow with darkness, sits she then, 
 
TWILIGHT. 167 
 
 Till, ■fften the dawn keeps angel Tyard on high, 
 Behold her kneeling at the vacant tomh, 
 Clad in the dark blue of a Magdalen I 
 
THE SEASONS. 
 
 Sprino is the sweet soul of the shrouded year ; 
 Psyche, the butterfly, yrith painted -wings, 
 Forth issuing from the stony lips of death. 
 Summer's a queen, that to the sun's pavilion 
 Comes with rich gifts and odours, and a train 
 Of rainbow-girdled showers, like eastern almas. 
 With tinkling feet all musical with soft bells. 
 Autumn's a stag, that, hunted through the hills 
 By the keen hound-like winds, flies, dropping blood, 
 Or stands at bay in the full pride of beauty. 
 And Winter minds me of some lone, wild bird. 
 That, wandering from the Arctic, makes its nest 
 
THE SEASONS. 169 
 
 In solitary fens, seeking for food 
 
 The red marsh berry, and the mailed buds 
 
 Of the young, tender branches ; or, athirst, 
 
 Driving its sharp bill through the polished ice 
 
 Into the wave below. It hath no song, 
 
 Only a few weird notes; and when the sun 
 
 Melts into lucid pools the snow that lies 
 
 In the rock crevices, it will go north 
 
 With the white water-fowl, that trooping fly, 
 
 In ranked battalions, through the gates of March. 
 
THE LOVE QUARREL. 
 
 Nay, I'm sure you've not forgotten, though you fain 
 
 ■would have it so; 
 I know you've not forgotten: shall I tell you why I 
 
 know? 
 For all Maud lingers at your side, and Blanche is 
 
 bending low. 
 To listen to your whispers, till her breath is on your 
 
 brow. 
 For all you smile when Lilia smiles, your smiling 
 
 mocks at glee. 
 And by that token, I believe, you're thinking now 
 
 of me. 
 
THE LOVE QUARREL. 171 
 
 As you lie there in the shadow, with the sunlight on 
 
 your hair, 
 With the misty floating curtains looped around you 
 
 drooping fair, 
 The velvet sinking to your limbs, the only murmur 
 
 near, 
 The music of a woman's voice, low-tuned to meet your 
 
 ear, 
 You're thinking how, one summer noon, when summer 
 
 suns were warm, 
 I watched beside your half-repose, and your head lay 
 
 on my arm. 
 
 Then I sang you quaint love-ballads, sang you rhymed 
 
 and measured words. 
 But your own were ever sweeter, and the singing of 
 
 the birds 
 From the garden chimed in softly, but I thought your 
 
 voice was best, 
 And wished the ballad ended, and the little birds at 
 
 rest, 
 
172 THE LOVE QUARREL. 
 
 So I might hear you speak again. You're thinking of 
 
 it still- 
 Let Blanche's golden tresses sweep your forehead at 
 
 their will ! 
 
 And how we jested softly, while your breath upon my 
 
 brow 
 Fell warmer than another's kiss; and your lightest 
 
 word sank low, 
 Low through the full tides of my soul, as a jewel that 
 
 is thrown 
 'Mid the waters, still lies hoarded when the ripple is 
 
 all gone. 
 Without, a willow trailed its wands along the mossy 
 
 eaves. 
 And your heart was full of love-words as the tree was 
 
 full of leaves. 
 
 The leaves are fallen from the tree to bud i' the April 
 
 rain, 
 And your lips are very silent now, but their music 
 
 comes again. 
 
THE LOVE QUARREL. 173 
 
 And -vve'll marvel in our summer love, why thus with 
 
 cold delay 
 We kept the sunshine from Our lips ■when our hearts 
 
 were warm as May. 
 Yet give your pride free rein the while, all wilful 
 
 though it be. 
 For I'd rather ten times bend to you than you should 
 
 bend to me. 
 
 Though Maud still kneels beside you, with her white 
 
 hands glancing where 
 The cushion's silken tassels swing beneath your floating 
 
 hair, 
 And though Blanche is bending lower, while with 
 
 smiling, upturned eyes 
 You have wooed her head still nearer by your indistinct 
 
 replies, 
 I can look the while securely, I can smile the while 
 
 to know 
 That you have not yet forgotten, though you fain 
 
 would make it so. 
 
REST. 
 
 Fresh from the tents, a soul, bright-mailed, 
 
 Stood numbered in the ranks of life, 
 But with the first rude tumult failed 
 
 And fled, a recreant, from the strife. 
 Then sad, ashamed, and desolate. 
 Put oiF her armour's heavy weight, 
 And wandering, clad in hermit guise, 
 
 Through paths waylaid by ghastly fears, 
 Implored, with wet, uplifted eyes, 
 
 A gift that's won by blood not tears. 
 Till with her own grief coldly blent, 
 Rose other words, austerely sent 
 To chide her graceless discontent. 
 " Truce to thy clamour, vain and fond. 
 Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 
 
REST. 175 
 
 Beyond? where noontide shadows stand 
 
 Under the boughs, deep down the rales? 
 Where silence lifts a calming hand 
 
 O'er leaf that stirs, and cloud that sails ? 
 With earnest eyes, but looks resigned. 
 She wanders now and thinks to find 
 Within some green, leaf-shaded glen, 
 
 God's open page beside her shining, 
 Noon, like a blue-robed Magdalen, 
 
 Close to the wooded wave reclining. 
 With hopes that took the garb of fear. 
 Her watch she kept, and noon drew near ; 
 Then said that strange voice, cold and clear, 
 " Truce to thy hoping, vain and fond, 
 Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 
 
 Ah me, poor soul ! not yet she droops. 
 
 With hands meek crossed, and mournful eyes, 
 
 Till eve lets loose her shadowy troops. 
 Till night's black turrets paint the skies, 
 
 While weary hours seem weary years. 
 
 She counts the time by falling tears. 
 
176 REST. 
 
 At even there came a cold wind, sent 
 
 To drift her poor hopes, crushed and sere. 
 And on night's cloudy battlement 
 
 There stalked, oh God, what spectral Fear ! 
 When the last shadow, dim and gray, 
 Sank hovering to the brow of day. 
 She heard that strange voice, pitying, say, 
 " Truce to thy lingering, vain and fond, 
 Rest is not here, it lies beyond." 
 
DECEMBER. 
 
 Now through the distant vales the fawn's light foot 
 Leaveth its cloven impress on the snow; 
 The wood's soft echoes mock the baying hound; 
 The hunter builds his watch-fire on the hills ; 
 The school-boy, from his morning task released, 
 Shoulders the rifle, and goes blithely forth 
 To start the dusky pheasant from her nest, 
 Down in the ferny hollows. All day long 
 There is a sound of muffled hoofs, half drowned 
 By the quick sleigh-bell that rejoicingly 
 Rings in the new-born monarch. All day long. 
 The woodsman plies his sharp and sudden axe 
 Under the crashing branches. 
 
178 DECEMBER. 
 
 Vale and mead, 
 And steadfast wave lie stretched beneath my eye, 
 Clad in one uniform livery. O'er the lake 
 The skaters flit like shadows, and afar 
 The wagoner plods beside his smoking team ; 
 The sportsman, followed by his frolic hound, 
 Springs up the breezy hill-side. Save for these. 
 All breathing life alike seems motionless. 
 
A POET'S LOVE. 
 
 The stag leaps free in the forest's heart, 
 
 But thy step is lighter, my love, my bride ! 
 Light as the quick-footed breezes that part 
 
 The plumy ferns on the mountain's side ; 
 Swift as the zephyrs that come and pass 
 O'er the waveless lake, and the billowy grass. 
 I hear thy voice where the white wave gleams, 
 In the one-toned bells of the rippled streams, 
 In the silvery boughs of the aspen tree, 
 
 In the wind that stirreth the shadowy pine. 
 In the shell that moans for the distant sea, 
 
 Never was voice so sweet as thine ! 
 
l^iy A POET'S LOVE. 
 
 Never a sound through the even dim 
 Came half so soft as thy vesper hymn, 
 
 I have followed, fast, from the lark's low nest, 
 
 Thy breezy step to the mountain crest. 
 
 The livelong day I have wandered on, 
 
 Till the stars were up, and the twilight gone, 
 
 Ever unwearied where thou hast roved. 
 
 Fairest, and purest, and best beloved ! 
 
 I have felt thy kiss in the leafy aisle. 
 
 And thy breath astir in my floating hair; 
 I have met the light of thy haunting smile 
 
 In the deep still woods, and the sunny air ; 
 For thou lookest down from the bending skies, 
 And the earth is glad with thy laughing eyes. 
 
 When my heart is sad, and my pulse beats low. 
 Whose touch so light on my aching brow? 
 Who cometh in dreams to my midnight sleep? 
 
 Who bendeth over my noonday rest ? 
 Who singeth me songs in the forest deep. 
 
 Laying my head to her gentle breast ? 
 
A POET'S LOVE. 181 
 
 When life grows dim to my weary eye, 
 When joy departeth, and sorrow is nigh, 
 Who, 'neath the track of the stars, save thee, 
 Speaketh or singeth of hope to me ? 
 
 There comes a time when the morn shall rise, 
 
 Yet charm no smile to thy filmed eyes. 
 
 There comes a time when thou liest low 
 
 With the roses dead on thy frozen brow. 
 
 With a pall hung over thy tranced rest, 
 
 And the pulse asleep in thy silent breast. 
 
 There shall come a dirge through the valleys drear, 
 
 And a white-robed priest to thine icy bier. 
 
 His lips are cold, but his dim eyes weep, 
 
 And he maketh thy grave where the snow falls deep. 
 
 Woe is me, when I watch and pray 
 
 For the lightest sound of thy coming foot, 
 For the softest note of thy summer lay. 
 
 For the faintest chord of thy vine-strung lute ! 
 Woe is me, when the storms sweep by. 
 And the mocking winds are my sole reply ! 
 
ALINE'S CHOICE. 
 
 Rudolph is a baron, 
 
 He dreams till noon on a pillow fine; 
 From the dusk of eve to the dusk of dawn, 
 
 Drinking deep of the amber wine. 
 But Ludovic, the peasant. 
 
 Lies like a deer in the dewy brake ; 
 With his broad palm for a drinking cup, 
 Stoops to a breezy lake. 
 
 Rudolph rides to the knightly chase 
 
 With hawk, and pack, and a mounted train ; 
 
 Ludovic, with a single hound. 
 
 Wanders afoot o'er the windy plain. 
 
ALINE'S CHOICE. 183 
 
 The one "will rest in a silken tent 
 
 When the quarry has dropped, and the mort is played, 
 The other lies in a cleft of rock 
 Under a hemlock's shade. 
 
 Rudolph will give me a palfrey white. 
 With silken saddle, and stirrup of gold, 
 
 Ludovic in his arms of steel 
 
 Has borne me far through the heat and cold. 
 
 The noble has promised a chain of gems, 
 Broidered kerchief, and mantle gay ; 
 
 The peasant will shear me a fleece to spin 
 A gown for my wedding day. 
 
 What should I do with jewels 
 
 On my neck that is brown with the sun and rain ? 
 How should I fasten my long, loose hair 
 
 With a comb of pearl, or a golden chain ? 
 I'll crown it fair with a myrtle wreath, 
 
 I'll gather it back with a riband gay. 
 And I'll wrap myself in my peasant's cloak 
 To keep the cold away. 
 
184 ALINE'S CHOICE. 
 
 I hold my breath in yon lone old halls ; 
 
 Echoes that lurk in the niches there 
 Say over my words with a hollow laugh, 
 
 Stealthily follow from stair to stair; 
 Knights and dames on the pictured wall, 
 
 Look, as I pass, with a steadfast frown. 
 And the mastiiF that's chained in the castle court 
 Barks at my peasant gown. 
 
 I know a roof where the wild grass hangs 
 From the moss and mould to the cabin door; 
 
 I know a hound that will crouch and fawn 
 
 At the sound of my step on the rush-strewn floor! 
 
 Keep your gifts, oh Rudolph, 
 
 The chain of pearls, and the golden band. 
 
 To match the pride of a fairer neck. 
 To shine on a whiter hand. 
 
FROST PICTURES. 
 
 When, like a sullen exile driven forth, 
 
 Southward, December drags his icy chain, 
 He graves fair pictures of his native North 
 On the crisp window pane. 
 
 So some pale captive blurs, with lips unshorn, 
 
 The latticed glass, and shapes rude outlines there, 
 With listless finger, and a look forlorn, 
 Cheating his dull despair. 
 
186 FROST PICTURES. 
 
 The fairy fragments of some Arctic scene, 
 
 I see to-night; blank wastes of Polar snow, 
 Ice-laden boughs, and feathery pines that lean 
 Over ravines below. 
 
 Black, frozen lakes, and icy peaks blown bare, 
 Break the white surface of the crusted pane, 
 And spear-like leaves, long ferns, and blossoms fair, 
 Linked in a silvery chain. 
 
 Draw me, I pray thee, by this slender thread, 
 
 Fancy, thou sorceress, bending, vision-wrought, 
 O'er that dim well, perpetually fed 
 
 By the clear springs of thought ! 
 
 Northward I turn, and tread those dreary strands, 
 
 Lakes where the wild-fowl breed, the swan abides; 
 Shores where the white fox, burrowing in the sands, 
 Harks to the droning tides. 
 
FROST PICTURES. ly7 
 
 And seas where, drifting on a raft of ice, 
 
 The she-bear rears her young ; and cliffs so high, 
 The dark-winged birds that emulate their rise 
 Melt through the pale blue sky. 
 
 There, all night long, with far-diverging rays 
 
 And stalking shades, the red Auroras glow ; 
 From the keen heaven, mock suns with pallid blaze 
 Light up the Arctic snow. 
 
 Guide me, I pray, along those waves remote, 
 That deep unstartled from its primal rest; 
 Some errant sail, the fisher's lone, light boat, 
 Borne waif-like o'er its breast ! 
 
 Lead me, I pray, where never shallop's keel 
 
 Brake the dull ripples throbbing to their caves ; 
 Where the mailed glacier with his armed heel 
 Spurs the resisting waves ! 
 
188 FKOST PICTURES. 
 
 Paint me, I pray, the phantom hosts that hold 
 
 Celestial tourneys when the midnight calls, 
 On airy steeds, ■with lances bright and bold, 
 Storming her ancient halls ! 
 
 Yet, while I look, the magic picture fades. 
 
 Melts the bright tracery from the frosted pane ; 
 Trees, vales, and cliffs, in sparkling snows arrayed. 
 Dissolve in silvery rain. 
 
 Without, the day's pale glories sink and swell 
 Over the black rise of yon wooded height ; 
 The moon's thin crescent, like a stranded shell 
 Left on the shores of night. 
 
 Hark how the north wind, with a hasty hand 
 
 Rattling my casement, frames his mystic rhyme ; 
 House thee, rude minstrel, chanting through the land 
 Runes of the olden time ! 
 
FROM A TRUE WIFE TO ONE OVER BOLDE. 
 
 Be not amazed that scornfulle I reprove 
 
 The boldenesse did my modestie misprize, 
 Nor thinke it strange that gentle seemirge lippea 
 
 Should arm their softnesse with a sterne disguise. 
 Roses may harbour bees, and serpents wilde 
 
 Under sweet summer's flowerie zone abide. 
 And shame-faced Love wears, hooded at her will, 
 
 On her fayre wriste the brighte-eyed merlin, pride. 
 
 As reedes bende lowe before a cominge storme. 
 
 Well mote your boldnesse shrinke before my frowne ; 
 
 Well my disdaynful glance mote quelle your owne, 
 As hawkes do strike the coward quarrie downe. 
 
I'JO A TRUE WIFE TO ONE OVEK BOLDE. 
 
 Yet holde me not of temper cold and strange, 
 That so I keepe my matron armour brighte ; 
 
 If my deare Lorde had claymed his lawfuUe due, 
 How readie were these lippes to yielde his righto ! 
 
LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE. 
 
 Sing me to-niglit some gay refrain, 
 
 Sweet rhymes that ring out peals of gladness, 
 Nor let thy jesting lips profane 
 
 Even the name of sadness. 
 
 Put from thine eye its vague unrest, 
 And chide the darkness from thy brow, 
 
 That we, who met with smile and jest, 
 May part as lightly now. 
 
 We've scoffed at love, we've laughed at faith, 
 
 - (Ah, woe the while for you and me !) 
 No pledge that's breathed by human breath 
 Were pledge to such as we. 
 
192 LINES WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE. 
 
 Ot, we've trifled away the sweetest dreams 
 Ever let loose from the courts above, 
 
 And linked our jests to the noblest themes 
 God and the angels love ! 
 
 Shame me no more with mimic sighs — 
 Poor cheat of love ! poor mock of woe I 
 
 But show me in thy lifted eyes 
 The scorn I look thee now. 
 
INCONSTANCY. 
 
 They told me he'd forsake me; that the words 
 
 With which he charmed my very soul away, 
 
 Were like the hollow music of a shell 
 
 That learns to mock the ocean's deeper voice. 
 
 For he had listened to love's tones until 
 
 His ear and lip, though not his heart, had grown 
 
 Familiar with their melody. Nay, more. 
 
 They said his very boyhood had been marked 
 
 By worse than a boy's follies, that in youth, 
 
 The season of high hopes, when lesser men 
 
 Put on their manhood as a monarch's heir 
 
 Rich robes and royalty, his poor ambition 
 
 Asked but new charms and pleasures, newer loves, 
 
194 INCONSTANCY. 
 
 New lips to smile until their sweetness palled, 
 
 And softer hands to clasp his own, until 
 
 He wearied even of so light a fetter. 
 
 Thus did they pluck me from him, but in vain ; 
 
 For when did warning stay a woman's heart? 
 
 I Tcnew all this, and yet I trusted him. 
 
 Yea, with a child's blind faith I gave my fate 
 
 Into his hands, content that he should know 
 
 How absolute his power and my weakness. 
 
 Speak not of pride, I never felt its lash ; 
 
 There is no place for fallen Lucifer 
 
 In the pure heaven of a sinless love ; 
 
 And when he left me, as they said he would. 
 
 My spirit had no room for aught save grief: 
 
 Giving the lie to my own conscious heart, 
 
 I taxed stern truth with falsehood to the last. 
 
 But when to doubt was madness, when, perforce, 
 
 Even from my credulous eyes the scales had fallen, 
 
 What was the cold scorn of a thousand worlds 
 
 To the one thought that for a counterfeit 
 
 I'd staked my woman's all of love — and lost ! 
 
THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 
 
 Down tlie green distance of cathedral woods, 
 Methought a youth sat mounted for a journey, 
 Reining a steed within whose cloudy eyes 
 Slumber and flame contended. I could see 
 How sullenly he hung upon the bit, 
 And trod all greenness from the place beneath 
 With ponderous, restless hoofs. Light sat the rider, 
 As one who feels his strength. 
 
 The early dawn 
 Lit the pale semblance of an angel's glory 
 Over his brow. Nor sword nor shield bare he. 
 Many I saw on fretting, fiery steeds. 
 
196 THE WINGED HOKSEMAN. 
 
 Some armoured, and some masked, but few, like him. 
 Winged -with soft plumes. His right hand grasped a 
 
 wand, 
 That, like a prism, showed the plain white light 
 A mine of jewels. Pendent from his neck. 
 Hung to his breast a mirror clear, wherein 
 All life made pictures. Else those mystical shapes 
 That walk as ghosts the troubled house of sleep, 
 Or the unhallowed breath of that dark steed. 
 Dimmed it awhile. His eyes were full of thought, 
 Deep and dream-haunted, but their upward glance 
 Was like the free sweep of an eagle's wing. 
 
 He rode forth on his journey, the black steed 
 Moving with cumbrous pace, save when, incensed 
 By the firm curb, he tried his master's strength, 
 And with wide fiery eyes and trembling nostrils 
 Reared and leapt forward. As the noon drew near, 
 The rider's arm grew weary of restraining. 
 And many passed by with reins flying loose, 
 Urging him on. Some laughed aloud for scorn, 
 To see him play the laggard. But ofttimes 
 
THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 197 
 
 Bright forms came shaping through the dim blue air, 
 And voices spake to him they mst not of, 
 And while he looked and listened, the black steed 
 Lay down and slumbered. 
 
 Farther on, I saw 
 A river with alternate light and shade, 
 Kinged like a serpent. Some of those who passed. 
 Waked only by the cold lap of its waves. 
 Slept on their flying coursers. 
 
 Woven leaves 
 Replaced the halo. Those afar, beheld 
 The air all rainbowed o'er the youth. A veil 
 Betwixt his vision and the outer world 
 Lay like a vapour that, dissolving, spreads 
 Into wild phantoms, as the mists of sleep 
 Wreathe into those strange shapes that men call dreams. 
 
 Methought they paused upon the river bank. 
 
 Rider and horse. The steed, with planted hoofs, 
 
 Stood resolute, and once the rider reeled 
 
 As giddy with the flowing of the waves. 
 
 And once he turned, with lingering, loving looks 
 
108 THE WINGED HORSEMAN. 
 
 Sped to the land ivliose lengthened shadows fell 
 Deep on the waters. All his laurels dropped 
 Upon the shore he left. His bright wand lay 
 , Adrift upon the river. The black steed 
 Swam in its wake, and with his rein left loose 
 Played the swift ripples ; and they drew a veil 
 Over his sight, and sang into his ears 
 Where the contending strains of heaven and earth 
 Met and made discord. When I looked again, 
 Lo, the pale rider, who with outstretched arms. 
 Trod the fast-sliding currents, till ashore 
 Plucked by extended hands ! Thenceforth I saw 
 Only the glorified outlines of a form 
 Cast on the waters brokenly. Beyond, 
 In my faint soul excessive light made darkness. 
 
TWO CHANTS. 
 
 "Te Deum Laudamus !" through green river meadows, 
 
 Where noon, pacing slow, holds in leash the fleet shadows, 
 
 Blown like a cloud from St. Agatha's altar, 
 
 Drifts down the south wind the loud chanted psalter; 
 
 Under the light of the tapers lies sleeping 
 
 One whose fair soul was not whitened by weeping. 
 
 Sorrow stood far from her — ^love, in mute reverence. 
 Knelt to the shrine of her starry intelligence — 
 Charmed by her music of being, dull cavil 
 Lay coiled in her presence ; and lion-like evil, 
 Lying in wait for her soul frail and tender, 
 Crouched at the blaze of its virginal splendour. 
 
200 TWO CHANTS. 
 
 Over her calm face a radiance immortal 
 
 Flows from tlie smile at her mouth's silent portal — 
 
 They who kneel round her from matins till even, 
 
 As they kneel at the tombs of the blessed in Heaven, 
 
 Think not to question that presence resplendent 
 
 Where fled the soul that is shining ascendant. 
 
 Down from the gray clouds the March winds are swooping, 
 
 Out of the low soil pale phantoms are trooping; 
 
 Lift on the wings of St. Agatha's choir 
 
 The great " De Profundis" rolls solemnly higher — 
 
 Under the light of the tapers is lying 
 
 One whom keen anguish made ready for dying. 
 
 Sorrow, that writes with the pen of an angel 
 God's burning thoughts through her mystic evangel; 
 Passion, that, laden with memories tender, 
 Crowns himself king with their tropical splendour; 
 Weeping repentance with hands lifted palely — 
 These were the spirits that walked with her daily. 
 
 Death, creeping near while she knelt in devotion, 
 Froze on her features their mournful emotion. 
 
TWO CHANTS. 201 
 
 They, vrho reluctant draw nearer to falter 
 "Ave" or vow at the steps of the altar, 
 Marking it thence, ask, in fear, if the sorrow 
 Lying slain on her lips will not quicken to-uiorrow? 
 
A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Faith is seraph born, 
 And mindful of her origin, most wise, 
 For she has listened at the feet of Christ ; 
 Calm-hearted as an angel, for she keeps 
 The trustfulness of childhood, as a sabbath 
 Keeps the dawn's stillness. 
 
 At her shining feet, 
 Ah, then, be mute and listen, while she tells 
 The chastened spirit what its pride of strength 
 In vain petitions. All her words are pleasant 
 As shadows by the way-side, and we bear 
 Their memory with us as we pluck a branch 
 
A FRAGMENT. 203 
 
 From some green sheltering tree. And, through them 
 
 fall, 
 Like light through leaves, faint glimpses of a glory 
 Yet unrevealed ; some rays of that far sun 
 That sends its shining to our distant hearts ; 
 Gleams of the time when man, that grand conception 
 Unworthily embodied, shall stand forth 
 As God pronounced him first, ere, like an echo, 
 Through each reverberating age, he grew 
 With repetition feebler and unlike 
 The great original. 
 
LINES. 
 
 Up, up, thou sluggard, ere tlie noon reposing ! 
 
 Don thy bright armour — ^breast-plate, casque, and spear ; 
 Thou that went forth so glad to meet the morning, 
 Tarriest thou here? 
 
 Oh, go thy way ! steep winds the path before me ; 
 
 There mourns the cypress, there pale willows nod. 
 Standing for waymarks o'er their graves, who, toiling, 
 Fell as they trod. 
 
 Too early didst thou call me from my slumber. 
 From my sweet morning rest, and I am fain. 
 Unduly tasked, to dream away unheeded 
 Fever and pain. 
 
LINES. 205 
 
 Hear'st thou their songs viho rock and rift surmounting 
 
 Shout to their brethren in the vales beneath? 
 Seest thou the foremost on his spear point lifting 
 Trophy and wreath? 
 
 I hear sharp cries, a sound, of stifled moaning 
 Blent with brave music, and a din of strife, 
 Discordant tones to dove-eyed peace, proclaiming 
 War to the knife. 
 
 I see coiled adders, by the roadside lurking. 
 Watch for the failing step, the foot astray. 
 While overhead the keen-eyed eagles circling 
 Wait for their prey. 
 
 Look right nor left; stand firm, and dauntless meeting 
 
 Death by the open stroke, the secret spring. 
 Gathering thy proud fame as a robe around thee, 
 Fall like a king ! 
 
 Oh hence, I pray! my soul, athirst for slumber, 
 
 Close to her fount lies fainting on the brim ; 
 Hears the sweet trilling of her waves, grass-muffled, 
 Low-toned and dim. 
 
206 LINES. 
 
 Let the old yews beside my pillow standing 
 
 Spread wide their arms, surround me with their gloom ; 
 And let the few pale blooms that I have gathered 
 Fade on my tomb. 
 
 Not so, not so ! unsheath a trenchant purpose, 
 
 Press on with firm lip and uplifted eye, 
 And hew out even from the rocks that daunt thee 
 A fair white eflBgy.' 
 
GUENDOLEN. 
 
 OlD Ralph, the gray-haired serving man, 
 
 Is nodding asleep by his pipe and can ; 
 
 And Ursula, where the firelight falls, 
 
 Tossing the shadows about the walls. 
 
 Hears a death-watch tick in the beams above her. 
 
 Keeping time to a tune she is thinking over. 
 
 A bird within a silver ring 
 
 Sits swinging softly to and fro. 
 
 Shading his eyes with a crimson wing; 
 Across the rafters all a-glow 
 His shadow flits with a motion slow. 
 
208 G U E N D L E N. 
 
 Carven goblets from the wall 
 
 Cast red flecks about the floor; 
 
 From over window and bolted door 
 Antlers vast fling round the hall 
 Shadowy arms that rise and fall 
 Whenever the flames spring up to make 
 The fresh-heaped fagots curl and break. 
 The hound sleeps fast on the warm hearth stone, 
 And, with dropt ears and muzzle thrown 
 Over his slender outstretched limbs. 
 Dreams deeper as the firelight dims: 
 
 But Guendolen is wide awake ; 
 Vassal and lord to the chase have gone; 
 Ralph and the dame and the drowsy crone 
 Watch in Sir Ethel's hall alone. 
 
 Wide awake was Guendolen ; 
 
 Sometimes she paced the oaken floor, 
 Or, pausing at the barred door, 
 Hearkened a space, and turning then 
 
 Hung musing o'er the flames again. 
 
 Sometimes she teased the bird, that still, 
 Hiding under its painted wing. 
 
G U E N D L E N. 209 
 
 Answered her call and whet its bill 
 
 Against the rim of its silver swing. 
 And once from turrets twain, enshrined 
 
 Deep in the heart of a wooded dell, 
 A sound came coupled with the wind 
 
 Like a slow counted knell. 
 "How goes the night by the abbey bell?" 
 
 Cried Ursula, awaking then ; 
 " 'Tis twelve o' the clock," said Guendolen ; 
 "Get thee to rest," said Guendolen; 
 
 " For me, good mother, I may not sleep, 
 So wild a wind comes up the glen. 
 
 So wild a moan the forests keep." 
 Now to her rest the crone hath gone ; 
 Ralph asleep in the warder's chair. 
 Is sitting without by the postern stair; 
 And Guendolen watches alone. 
 
 Swart shadows seemed to peer and float 
 
 Deep in the corners and niches dim ; 
 Over and under the rafters grim 
 
 Flitted the ba,t; and an owl without, 
 
210 GUENUOLEN. 
 
 In the fitful pauses of -wind and rain, 
 Tapped his beak at the window pane. 
 
 The wind is high and the clouds fly fast, 
 But the stars shine out and the rain is past. 
 "Oh, for the first gray glance of morn! 
 Oh, for a blast of Sir Ethel's horn! 
 Chill is my heart, I know not why. 
 Haunting the night with its boding eye, 
 With crest erect, and ruffled wing. 
 My bird sits watchful on its swing ; 
 In his sleep the hound whines soft. 
 The bat drops down from his flight aloft ;" 
 She pauses with a fearful start. 
 With eyes upraised, and lips apart. 
 And locked hands clasped across her heart. 
 Shrill through the wind, far up the glen, 
 What voice had shrieked " Help, Guendolen !" 
 Glancing up at the casement high, 
 She catches a glimpse of the western sky, 
 But nothing sees save the stars that stand 
 At anchor in its dark lagoon. 
 
GUENDOLEN. 211 
 
 And the night, with a cloud like a snotT-white hand, 
 Shading the moon, 
 
 Unmantled, alone. 
 Beneath portals of stone 
 Fringed around with wet mosses, 
 
 Low-arched, damp, and green, 
 The threshold she crosses 
 
 Unseen ! 
 
 There were paths to the left, and paths to the right, 
 And one that struck through a frowning wood ; 
 This was gloomy, and narrow, and rude; 
 
 Boughs above shut in the night ; 
 
 On either side an aspen stood 
 
 Turning its leaves to the silver light ; 
 
 And Guendolen here paused and paled. 
 
 For on that tree our Lord was nailed ; 
 
 Thence, from that day to this, 'tis said. 
 
 Stirs every leaf with separate dread. 
 
 Runlets that hide in the meadow grass. 
 Moan in the distance and sobbing pass; 
 
212 GUENDOLEN. 
 
 The clouds drift whiter, the flagging wind 
 Lies down in the brake like a wearied hind. 
 She hears the rain-drops gliding soft 
 To the leaf below from the leaf aloft ; 
 She hears the breeze in its distant flight 
 
 Skimming over the marshy river, 
 And from the wood to the open night 
 
 Starts with a keen electric shiver. 
 Over the postern a loophole bright 
 
 Searches the dark with a lurid glare, 
 Ursula there with lamp alight 
 
 Sayeth her matin prayer. 
 What tempted her hither ? What o'erstrained chord, 
 Struck in her heart by an elvish fear, 
 Knelled the voice of her absent lord 
 
 Into her wakeful ear? 
 
 It is the wind that round her lingers, 
 Plucking her back with its chilly fingers; 
 'Tis only a brook that yonder passes, 
 Stifling its sobs in the limp marsh grasses ; 
 Those are pines in their funeral vesture, 
 Waving her on with a solemn gesture ! 
 
GUENDOLEN. 213 
 
 Out of the heart of the wooded dell 
 Three times tolls the abbey bell ; 
 And, in the wake of its echoed knell 
 
 Follows a softer, weirder tone; 
 Her heart upleaping at the sound. 
 
 Under the clasp of her broidered zone 
 Grows eager as a leashed hound. 
 Not breathed into her straining ear, 
 But in her spirit, silver clear, 
 Spoken far, yet sounding near, 
 She hears Sir Ethel's roice again. 
 And the words " Help, Guendolen !" 
 
 She does not waken the hound asleep 
 
 Dreaming within, by the glimmering light. 
 
 But treads alone through the forest deep, 
 
 Trusting herself to the lawless night. 
 
 From drenched boughs the rain is shed 
 
 At every step on her shrinking head; 
 
 Deep in the hollows, the stealthy vine 
 
 Catches her feet in its secret twine. 
 
 There are dancing lights in the marshes damp 
 
 Where the firefly kindles his fitful lamp, 
 
214 GUENDOLEN. 
 
 All a-flame, like a burning gem 
 
 Dropped from a fiend's red diadem ; 
 
 Through the tufted moss, where the fern lies dead, 
 
 The glow-worm shimmers, and, over head, 
 
 A star betwixt the branches high 
 
 Looks down through the leaves like a panther's eye. 
 
 The path is lost, and Guendolen, 
 
 Grown doubtful of her midnight fear. 
 Stands on the skirt of a hollow glen 
 
 And sees the dawn appear. 
 But, ere the leaves wax green with day. 
 She knows the chase has passed that way. 
 The turf is broken and trampled sore. 
 
 The low boughs hung with branches torn ; 
 Here lies the plume Sir Ethel wore. 
 
 And here his silver hunting horn. 
 A steed that feeds at a fountain's edge, 
 Scared by her step, through the matted sedge 
 Drags his bruised limbs with pain. 
 Catching his hoof in the trailing rein. 
 
GUJiNDOLEN. 215 
 
 The hills crowd close, and the vale between 
 Narrows to a deep ravine. 
 Here the sombre woods divide ; 
 Clutching the rocks with roots outspread, 
 Trees that lean from either side 
 Make midnight overhead ; 
 And only small bright blossoms grow 
 On the lawny turf that lies below. 
 
 But Guendolen, grown sudden pale. 
 
 Sinks fainting nigh the shadowy pass, 
 Seeing through a leafy veil 
 
 One pillowed on the grass. 
 With still arms tossed apart he lies, 
 Dark twilight waxing in his eyes. 
 Under the shade of a leaning crag 
 
 Hung with a scarlet parasite, 
 Two hounds that guard a wounded stag 
 
 Crouch at its left and right; 
 Old Victor, chiefest of the pack. 
 
 Gladdest at the bugle note, 
 Keenest on the mazy track 
 
 Ripped lengthwise from the throat, 
 
216 GUENDOLEN. 
 
 Holds back his moans in savage pride; 
 And Elf is panting on his side. 
 But Sylvia, wont to take her stand, 
 
 Daily, by the castle board. 
 Feeding from her master's hand; 
 
 Sylvia, that only loves her lord ; 
 
 That, heedless of another's word 
 Doeth gladly his behest, 
 Hath dragged herself across his breast, 
 And lies with limbs stretched out at rest. 
 
 Turning slowly his weary head, 
 
 " Sweet Guendolen !" the hunter said ; 
 
 "What, Sylvia, ho!" the panting hound 
 Only whimpered at the sound. 
 
 Answering with dim upturned glance ; 
 But she who slept a space beyond, 
 
 Starting from her trance, 
 With light feet muffled by the sward 
 Drew nearer to her fainting lord. 
 Over his wounds and his weary brows 
 She laid wet leaves from the weeping boughs; 
 
GUENDOLEN. 217 
 
 Silent, till a glad surprise 
 
 Dawned through the darkness in his eyes ; 
 
 Then from the bugle's ringing throat 
 
 Sped so long and wild a note, 
 
 Over the dells and the vales remote 
 
 A flight of arrowy echoes sprang, 
 
 From hill to hill the signal rang, 
 
 And echoing horns and hounds that cried 
 
 Out of the hollow glens replied. 
 
 They who beside the watch-fire's flame 
 
 Sought rest and food when even came, 
 
 And, heedless of the midnight storm. 
 
 Slept pillowed on the reeking earth, 
 Believed their lord found shelter warm 
 Beside some cottage hearth; 
 'Nor guessed how, parted from his train. 
 He crossed the broken scent again. 
 And cheering with a hunter's zeal 
 
 His flagging hounds upon the way, 
 With planted foot and brandished steel 
 
 Held the brown stag at bay. 
 
218 GUENDOLEN. 
 
 Now, startled by his bugle blast, 
 
 Quitting tbeir lairs in the scented grass, 
 Blythe hunters up the valley, fast. 
 
 Came riding towards the lonely pass. 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 Down sunny till-sides sloping to the west, 
 
 From Rookwood's towers the morning shadows fall 
 
 In long-drawn lines. A wooded eminence 
 
 Lifts o'er the walls and from its shoulders drops 
 
 A mantle of close tree-tops, right and left 
 
 Far trailing through the valleys. To the brink 
 
 Of a broad willowy stream the lawn descends, 
 
 Halved by an avenue of elms that winds 
 
 Up to gray Rookwood's portals. Here the roofs 
 
 Are thatched with moss, the massive stones worn smooth. 
 
 The windows blind with parasites. Whole miles — 
 
 Hill, vale, and river — are fenced in around. 
 
220 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 We call it Rookwood, for tte rooks all day 
 Caw from its dim old forests. 
 
 Bluff Sir Hugh, 
 The people named my father. Carven from life, 
 In Rookwood's chapel lies an efiBgy 
 That seems a giant's, with a couchant hound 
 Laid at its feet, and on the monument. 
 Writ in strange letters, framed to imitate 
 Some uncouth ancient character, a name, 
 Hugh Perceval. As one who kept old things 
 With such a reverent love, that in his house 
 Not even the fashion of a cup was changed; 
 As a bold hunter and a loyal knight, 
 The county knew him. So they shaped his tomb 
 After the custom of his ancestors, 
 And placed thereon a likeness of the hound 
 That whined beside his death-bed. I had scarce 
 Told eighteen summers when my father died. 
 
 My mother was unlike him, marble calm 
 As he was boisterous, and her daughters all 
 Grew to be youthful copies of herself. 
 
THE HEIR OF EOOKWOOD. '^1 
 
 Save that Maud sat within the oriel window 
 Broidering in gold ; that Marian with her mother 
 On the old oaken settle, wrought for ever 
 The self-same tapestries — or so it seemed — 
 That Ernestine liked best the little footstool, 
 And sat there winding many-coloured wools. 
 Or weaving them through canvas : to my eye 
 They ever looked alike. They were all fair, 
 Grave, gentle, unimpassioned. I did weary 
 To see them at their broideries day on day. 
 
 For me — I had no pulse that, fast or slow, 
 Kept time with theirs. My sadness and my joy 
 Alike outstrode them. At my wilder moods 
 My father stared and swore ; my mother's eyes 
 Filled with calm wonder, and my sisters three 
 Copied her, life-like. Was it strange I grew 
 Petulant, rude, morose — my urgent need 
 Of love, caresses and sustaining words 
 Left unsupplied ? For I, fair Rookwood's heir. 
 Could scarcely drag my shapeless limbs the length 
 Of her broad halls. 
 
 2b 
 
■iSa, THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 I filled the weary days 
 Creeping from room to room, like some wild thing 
 Crippled and caged. My nature was athirst. 
 I had Sir Hugh's deep love of space and freedom, 
 His passion for brute beauty. Him I feared 
 And worshipped. From the oriels, sometimes, 
 I watched him with his dogs. One stood upright. 
 Steadying his paws upon his master's breast ; 
 One crouched against his feet, and one had thrust 
 His muzzle through the hollowed hand. Ere long. 
 My cousin Arthur with his gun and pointers 
 Came up the lawn. Away together went 
 The uncle and boy nephew, leaving me 
 All passionate sorrow. Then I stole to watch 
 Ernestine at her broidery ; else I heard 
 My sister Marian reading from those bards 
 Who flung the glittering lance of prophecy 
 Down the long future. When Sir Hugh returned, 
 Perhaps he bore me through the lawns awhile 
 On his broad breast ; perhaps, when twilight came, 
 I nestled to his feet and heard him tell 
 His field exploits — and Arthur's — then break off 
 
THE HEIR OF BOOKWOOD. 223 
 
 With a short sigh. His eye was like a hound's, 
 Earnest and steady, and for ever seemed 
 Hunting my maimed form. 
 
 But with childhood went 
 Part of my sickness. I might wander free 
 Through the green valleys, lawns and woods that graced 
 My fair inheritance. The garden chair 
 That had been wont to draw me, day by day, 
 Through dull familiar paths, reserved its aid 
 For weary moments, till my halting step 
 On the firm sod grew firmer, till my lips 
 Drank the bright air like wine. 
 
 The love that found 
 No peers to share its wealth, looked' lower now. 
 A full heart asks not if the cup it crowns 
 Be gold or clay. I turned to brutes, to birds, 
 Even to flowers. The high-bred hound that paced 
 Grave at my side, the merlin that I tamed. 
 The dove I carried in my breast, the rose 
 With white wax buds, that from mj window sill 
 Swung outward to the light — all these I kept 
 With a girl's care. 
 
224 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 Through Rookwood's fair domain 
 Wanders a stream whose silent course is led 
 By mead and grove until its thread, ahrupt, 
 Breaks on the sharp edge of a precipice. 
 Betwixt two hill-sides, o'er a deep ravine. 
 There with white shuddering feet, the waters seem 
 Fearfully pausing. But with one bold leap 
 They clear the rent rocks, shouting as they fall 
 Into a round clear pool, whose crystal sheen 
 Only the lilies break. Hither I came, 
 The timed waves harping to my sullerr moods. 
 The banks my couch, my hound stretched near, a book 
 Of rhymes or romance in mj listless hand. 
 No curious eyes, no cold looks following here 
 Jarred on my secret thoughts. The blossoms grew 
 No paler for my loving, the fresh turf 
 Pillowed most gently my uncourtly form. 
 
 I had gone forth one mellow autumn morn 
 
 Earlier than my wont. The night had passed 
 
 Rent by fierce storms. Torn boughs and drifted leaves 
 
 Cumbered the path I trod. The sun shone warm. 
 
THE IIEIK OF ROOKWOOD. 225 
 
 I lingered by the way until my hound, 
 
 That had gone first and reached the lilied pool, 
 
 Set up a sharp cry. Through the opening wood, 
 
 I saw him crouch, as if in pain or fear, 
 
 And with quick step pressed on. My first keen glance 
 
 Took in the mantling lilies, with a web 
 
 Of white wet film meshed in them, and the next, 
 
 Brown shreds of curled hair and a face the waves 
 
 Flowed over. 
 
 Grasping at the floating robes 
 That drifted shoreward, steadying my feet 
 Upon the smooth sloped rocks, I drew her forth, 
 A woman fair and young. Her long loose hair 
 Curled round the lily stems, and held them fast 
 In its wet tangles. Jutting from the shore, 
 A rock whose sharp points caught her fluttering dress, 
 Upheld her as she lay. From this, 'tis like. 
 She sprang, and staid perforce, all night had borne 
 Tempest and beating rain. A scarlet wreath 
 Crowned her cold temples, and around her throat 
 Hung rows of coral buds. Strangest of all. 
 Bound to her bosom by a silken scarf, 
 
2£6 THE HEIR OF ROOICWOOD. 
 
 And sheltered in its folds, an infant lay, 
 Faint but yet breathing. 
 
 When some days had passed 
 And no one claimed her, nigh the chapel grounds 
 We laid the mother, guessing at the wrongs 
 That had bewildered her. To me, the child. 
 As 'twere a toy, was given when I asked. 
 
 'Twas a strange whim, but on my birth-day morn, 
 
 And to my favourite shores, some fate had brought 
 
 What seemed a gift, and I, accepting it^ 
 
 Thought to please Heaven. A nature to be trained 
 
 Which way I would, or twined round any prop — 
 
 Even my own rude self — a page whereon 
 
 To write the latent poem of my life. 
 
 These thoughts were merely audible, as the notes 
 
 Of birds that stir betimes upon the nest. 
 
 Wild stories were afloat — 'twas said that she 
 Who slept in the green vale had cast a spell 
 Over the heir of Rookwood ; that her babe 
 AYas elf or water-sprite ; and whispering gossips 
 
THE HEIR OP ROOKWOOD. 227 
 
 Told how the infant at her baptism 
 
 Made the old chapel ring with saucy laughter, 
 
 While that which answered from the niches dim, 
 
 Was wilder than an echo. Be it so. 
 
 She was Christ's child, signed with His holy cross. 
 
 On brow and breast. 
 
 It was my fanciful thought 
 To call her Lilia ; she whom we had plucked 
 Out of the lily leaves. 
 
 Oh pleasant times ! 
 Only a patron's golden alms, at first, 
 I gave my pensioner, in boyish pride 
 Masking my heart ; but as the child grew strong. 
 The little seed of tenderness that lay 
 Hid in my bosom, thrust into the light 
 The embryo of a tree with buds and blooms 
 Shut in its folded being. 
 
 Infancy 
 Lay like a wreath of spring flowers on her brow ; 
 But the rude breast whereon I grafted her, 
 Shot through the pale veins of my elfin charge 
 Its own abounding life. 'Twas I who trained 
 
228 THE HEIR OF EOOKWOOD. 
 
 Her feet upon the level lawns, and taught 
 
 Her lips their blossom language. Then, betimes, 
 
 Lest the coarse peasant earth should clog its roots, 
 
 For gentler nurture my fair foreign plant 
 
 To Rookwood I conveyed. 
 
 To those dim halls, 
 Where the blithe common sunshine of the fields 
 Put on grave splendour ; to those druid shades. 
 Came the fresh nature of the untrained child 
 Like an opposing element. Her voice 
 Broke the long silence of the morning hours. 
 Either she went forth through the lawns with me, 
 Or at my mother's footstool strewed her playthings. 
 Prattling aloud, and at the rare rebuke, 
 Reading her face with unabashed grave eyes. 
 Till Maud glanced sidelong with a stately smile. 
 And fair calm Marian, with a woman's impulse. 
 Bent down and took the lone child to her heart. 
 Even Ernestine, who o'er her broidery needle 
 Secretly dreamed of tournaments and masques, 
 And cavaliers be-plumed, whose very dolls 
 Had been court ladies in brocade and velvet, 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOI). 229 
 
 Put , by her rainbow paroquets and roses 
 To fashion garments for the elf child Lilia ; 
 And even my lady mother deigned to smile, 
 Hearing her tiny step along the halls, 
 Watching the slow toil of her baby feet 
 Labouring from stair to stair. Her restless life 
 Was never still. She laughed out in her sleep. 
 Living the glad day over, and sometimes, 
 Blindfold with slumber, to the halls below 
 Crept from her turret chamber. 
 
 'Twas in vain 
 That when bright girlhood came, I tried to yoke 
 Her errant thoughts to mine. My elf charge paled 
 Over her books. She sighed for the pure air 
 Of crags and glens, her greyhound and- her pony, 
 And for the free use of her glorious limbs. 
 She was lithe like a vine, and she could scale 
 The rocks as lightly. The long summer day 
 Was short to her if she might wander on 
 From hill-side to ravine, or ford the streams, 
 Or, resting on some island rock, her feet 
 Bare glancing through the waves, twine pallid wreaths 
 
 2o 
 
230 THE HEIR OF KOOKWOOD. 
 
 Of lilies, ferns, and dripping water weeds 
 
 For her brown hair. Yet to my side she stole, 
 
 If seated near the lilied pool I read 
 
 Romance or poem, and when winter nights 
 
 Drew us around the hearth, she came to plead 
 
 For wilder fables, listening at my feet. 
 
 With ear attentive and chained lips, until 
 
 Her blue eyes with excess of terror grew 
 
 Darker, like fair lakes frozen. If she played. 
 
 The crags were royal palaces, her doll 
 
 A captive princess, and herself a knight 
 
 Who, armed with spear and shield, came to the rescue. 
 
 She was a child still when my sister Maud 
 Passed from our" halls, a willing bride, with love 
 Ruffling her inborn calmness just so much 
 As a dove, drinking at a marble fount. 
 Troubles the water. Marian followed soon. 
 And Ernestine, left lonely, to my side. 
 Stole for companionship. 
 
 We three together 
 Would wander through the woodlands, till the path 
 
THE HEIR OF KOOKWOOD. 231 
 
 We loitering followed broke against a hedge 
 That parted Rookwood from the broad domain 
 Nursed for my cousin Arthur, -who, abroad, 
 Studied the graces of a foreign court. 
 
 The idle tales linked to my Lilia's birth 
 
 Were not forgotten. Peasants, round their hearths, 
 
 Told how they'd seen her upon giddy boughs 
 
 Rocked like a bird to slumber; how she sat 
 
 On the wet rocks and crowned her hair with flowers, 
 
 Singing witch melodies. Some even swore 
 
 They'd met her spirit in the fields at night. 
 
 White-robed and talking softly. 
 
 I had made - 
 No secret of the past, but led my charge, 
 When her small feet could tread the unequal path, 
 Down to the lilied pool, and told her there 
 Of the pale lady crowned with scarlet blooms. 
 Whose hair curled round the lily stems, whose arms 
 Sheltered an infant ; and I think this gave 
 A colour to her nature. 
 
 Did I note 
 
232 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 As the montlis passed, her beauty's quick perfecting ? 
 I only knew that she had stood between 
 Me and my boyhood's peril; that the love. 
 She lighted in my soul, was like a flame 
 That, kindled in some close unwholesome cave, 
 Burns out mephitic vapours. I was happy — • 
 Armed with strong thoughts, aspiring every day 
 To nobler wisdom ; and as fountains, falling, 
 Do pluck down rainbows, even by baffled effort 
 Made hopeful ; health to my misshapen limbs 
 With manhood come ; and strength, if discontent 
 Held up her mirror, or ambition flashed 
 His blazing sword athwart its path, to curb 
 My startled spirit — tranquil with my books. 
 Save when sweet Lilia lured me from their sway. 
 Breaking the calm of thought with her light jests, 
 As one flings down on some unsparkling lake 
 Handfuls of blossoms. Jlumours of the world, 
 Flying o'er Rookwood, dropped to Ernestine 
 Seeds that put forth. She hungered for the life 
 Of courts and cities. She was born for these, 
 And Lilia's wild ways only served to warn 
 
THE HEIR OP ROOKWOOD. 233 
 
 And chide her into stateliness. A flower 
 
 That grows beside a cataract imbibes 
 
 Not less the nature of its restless neighbour. 
 
 Fronting the sunset, Rookwood's library 
 
 Looks down the lawn ; and up that gradual slope, 
 
 The west wind, loitering, hums a song it learned 
 
 Down by the tuneful river. River-scents 
 
 Blow through the oriels ; shade and quiet fill 
 
 The book- lined room. 'Twixt rows of oaken shelves 
 
 Are hung two dusky pictures — St. Jerome, 
 
 Framed in the dark mouth of his desert cave ; 
 
 A brindled lion couchant at his feet ; 
 
 Pondering the gospels — and, a space beyond, 
 
 White companies of angels flock to thee, 
 
 Lily of heaven, Cecilia ! One recess 
 
 O'ervaults an organ's gilded pipes, and here 
 
 Many an evening, Ernestine and Lilia 
 
 Sang to my stormy playing. Lilia's voice 
 
 Was like the gay dance of a bayadere. 
 
 Aerially light, but Ernestine's 
 
 Stately as gondolas that glide between 
 
234 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 Ranked palaces, and with slow keels plough up 
 
 Their glassy pictures. On my sister's lip 
 
 The round notes dwelt, till each in full completeness 
 
 Seemed fallen for mellowness, like dropping fruit; 
 
 But Lilia's bright-winged song capricious flew 
 
 From flower to flower of sound. Here came my mother, 
 
 Aged and bent, the windows of her mind 
 
 Opaque with wintry frost. With folded hands 
 
 And drooping head she sat, while on its wings 
 
 The music bore her through a twilight past — 
 
 Over the stagnant waters of a lake 
 
 Up whose dead waves a phantom city gleamed, 
 
 Gleamed up in swaying downward. 
 
 Lilia's chamber 
 Was over mine. I could not see its windows — 
 But on the turret facing hers, sometimes, 
 A shadow gliding gently to and fro, 
 And once when it fell darkly, I could mark 
 How she had shaken her long tresses down 
 To braid them for the night coif. 
 
 Through my sleep 
 Even, her light laugh and her elfin tread 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 235 
 
 Constantly wandered. Nay, once fully roused 
 By the near sound of steps, I could have sworn 
 That where the winding stair abruptly turned 
 Close by my door, the hem of a white robe 
 Ruffled the darkness. 
 
 On my mother's lips 
 Lay the recording marble. I had set 
 • Betwixt the world's reproach and Lilia's name 
 The bulwark of my love. Wooed ever yet 
 Lover so coldly ? With my blighted manhood 
 I weighed her fairest youth, counted the years 
 Dividing us, and warned her if one thought 
 Recoiled from me 'twere wisdom to invoke 
 Death, sickness, beggary, torment in all shapes, 
 Rather than chain to her offended soul 
 The deep disgust of an unwelcome love. 
 Lilia, the child, shy pressing to my heart, 
 Lilia, the girl, just taught the trick of blushes, 
 Answered me without words. 
 
 And from that hour 
 Lilia was mine, however wooed or won ; 
 My plighted wife, though Ernestine might wear 
 
226 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 A triple scorn upon her brow ; my bride, 
 Though all my haughty peers cried fie upon me ; 
 Who should lay down the law to Rookwood's heir ? 
 I'd rain bright gold o'er Lilia's shameful birth, 
 Express the stigma on her name in diamonds. 
 The groaning coffers that my pride had slighted. 
 Opened their mouths in praise of her betrothal. 
 
 My life was little changed ; 'twas nothing new 
 If when I walked, hung Lilia on my path 
 Talking her wayward fancies ; nothing new 
 If when I read, stole Lilia to my side, 
 And o'er the page I pondered open laid 
 A volume of the idle rhymes she loved; 
 That I must quit my garland of rare thoughts 
 To twine her wreath of bluets ; nothing new 
 That her light steps kept ever count of mine, 
 That she beset me with her wilful ways. 
 That she was ever near me. I was all 
 Her world. She had no other. From the day 
 Her baby feet first tottered o'er the lawns, 
 Lilia had been my shadow. In my heart 
 
THE HEIR OF EOOKW0OD. 237 
 
 Love lay too deep. 'Twas buried from my sight. 
 
 The spoils of sixteen summers rose above it. 
 
 Life's reddest flower unfolded like a lily 
 
 For want of light. I needed sterner teaching — 
 
 Unapt to read the riddle of past days, 
 
 To twist in one their many-coloured threads, 
 
 To see the scattered brightness of my life 
 
 Concentred to a star. 
 
 'Twas early May. 
 Across the lawns, to woods and waves beyond 
 "We had been loitering. Ernestine and I 
 Looked from its high banks to the stream below, 
 Part veiled with drooping boughs — and, ankle deep 
 In grass and yielding moss — from rock to rock 
 Dropped our sure-footed Lilia, till at last. 
 Safe on the pebbly shore, she turning, threw 
 Her long locks back, and lifting eyes brimful 
 Of elvish laughter, called, " Hark, Ernestine ! 
 My father is a water sprite, and see, 
 The vine, my mother, leans to his embrace 
 From the rough rocks he scales. Therefore I twine 
 Wet water weeds and scarlet pendent blooms 
 
 2 D 
 
238 THE HEIR OF BOOKWOOt). 
 
 In my curled hair !" The echoes shook her laugh 
 To silvery fragments, as the rocks below 
 Brake the melodious Waters. Ere she paused, 
 A white hound and a^ youth that chid him back 
 Came up the hollow. When his lifted face 
 Questioned my own, I knew my cousin Arthur. 
 
 Tne boy my father loved was now a man 
 Cast in his mould, but round whose manhood hung 
 A studied courtliness, unlike Sir Hugh's 
 Rough royalty. Disdain on Arthur's lip. 
 Tamed by disgust, sat like a wearied falcon. 
 There burned no fire within his listless eye, 
 No eager impulse leaping from his heart 
 Waved the red colours on his cheek, his voice 
 Was sweet and even as a stream that has 
 Never a rock to break against. 
 
 To lie 
 Out on the green sward, pillowing his head 
 Upon the sleek neck of some favourite hound, 
 Follow the watercourses, rod and line 
 Swung idly o'er his shoulder, walk his horse 
 
THE HEIR, OF KOOKWOOD. 239 
 
 Along the bridle-paths — reins dropped and arms 
 
 Folded in thought — or in a voice whose cadence 
 
 Silvered the roughest" measures, read aloud 
 
 Ballad or romance ■writ in" sweet old French ; 
 
 That quaint old French- once married to our English, 
 
 Rude spelt, and garnished with "Ma f6ys"-and "Pardys;" 
 
 Perchance to", dream,— an arm: flung o'er his eyelids 
 
 While Lilia touched the organ, and without 
 
 Twilight grew dark and. rose the evening star. 
 
 Adding her silver splendours to the night— 
 
 "Was life enough for Arthur. 
 
 June was over. 
 "When did I first miss Lilia from my side ? 
 Thoughts she was wont to scatter wandered now 
 As wildly in her absence. Everywhere, 
 Within doors and without, a vague discomfort 
 Haunted my steps. And where was idle Lilia ? 
 Why, loitering down the walks at Arthur's side. 
 Why, riding his black hunter,- on the lawn, 
 Feeding his hound with biscuit,- reading rhymes 
 At Arthur's side in the deep library window. 
 So answered -Ernes tine, and drooped her head 
 
240 THE HEIR OP ROOKWOOD. 
 
 Sideways to hide a smile. 
 
 I could not stoop 
 To doubt my plighted -wife. 'Twas natural — 
 Strangers were rare at Rookwood. Arthur told 
 Gay tales of foreign courts — ^had wandered far. 
 His traveller's magic held her in its spell. 
 Well might she weary of my side, and long, 
 Poor child, for wider ranging — thus I reasoned. 
 But as the weeks wore on, my pride spoke louder, 
 And every morn flung back the coiled suspicion 
 I nightly tore, indignant, from my breast. 
 Ernestine's cold smile and attentive glance, 
 Lilia's dropt eyes, flushed cheek, and faltering tongue, 
 Arthur's calm gaze for ever following Lilia, 
 Angered me all alike. 
 
 'Twas after midnight. 
 Too bright the moon across my pillow shone — 
 I rose to drop the curtain and looked forth. 
 'Twas after midnight. Lilia's lamp still burning ? 
 Her shadow flitted o'er the turret wall. 
 Returned and paused. She stood before her mirror. 
 There she was gathering up her hair and buckling 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 241 
 
 A riband round her waist, and at her throat 
 Fastening the open folds of her thin robe. 
 Then all was dark. All silent too, I heard not 
 A step upon the stairs. Suddenly issued 
 From the low tower door a .figure clad 
 In filmy white. Across the lawns it fled. 
 Whither?. 
 
 The stars were paling in the east 
 When my affianced wife came hurrying back. 
 I heard her pause beside my chamber door 
 That stood ajar, then, ' up the winding stair 
 Pass to her own.- 
 
 I questioned her that morn 
 With keen,' cold eyes. Her flashing glance braved mine, 
 Wavered and fell — a glittering blade struck down 
 By. heavier steel. Thenceforth she fled me. Came 
 Our bridal day and passed. ' I would not note it, 
 And Lilia — had forgot. 
 
 I'd fallen asleep 
 One day at noon — my slumber so transparent. 
 That through its painted curtain of swift dreams. 
 Shone, visible, the steadfast things beyond. 
 
242 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 Vision extinguished vision, yet I knew — 
 Held by the light imperious touch of sleep — 
 I did but dream in the deep library chair. 
 Dreamed I that faltering step across the threshold ? 
 The sob, the kiss quick dropped upon my hand? 
 I grappled with my sleep and flung it from me. 
 No one ! — yet Arthur's spaniel, lying near. 
 Beat on the carpet with his feathery tail. 
 
 I had been trained in sorrow's hardy school, 
 
 No raw recruit in sufiering. Fate might pluck 
 
 At my life's core. I smiled as one who sees 
 
 War's mailed hand snatch off the silken favour 
 
 Bound to his helm, but has no mind for that 
 
 To drop his sword's point. While my bleeding heart 
 
 Craved leave to count its wounds, while every thought 
 
 Concealed a knife, while to all earth and heaven 
 
 Seemed half divulged the story of my grief, 
 
 So curiously did all things hint at it — 
 
 I walked beneath the vigilant eye of sorrow. 
 
 As walk her darlings. Not enough to hide 
 
 My hurt from prying looks — this pride will do, 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 243 
 
 And take her pay in heart throes — from myself 
 I hid my grief that was my inmost self! 
 The poisonous fruit that life let fall for me 
 I held in cautious hands, and wary thought 
 Did only graze the outer rind of sorrow, 
 Knowing there was a bitter core within 
 She must not feed upon. 
 
 The sob, the tear, 
 Albeit but visions, did their angel errand. 
 And my roused heart made answer. 
 
 All that night 
 I watched beside my casement. So the next. 
 And so the next. No Lilia ! Through the day 
 I hung upon her footsteps. Arthur, too, 
 He ever at her side, and I, apart, 
 A careless loiterer whom chance had thrown 
 Into their company. 'Twas then I marked 
 Lilia's white cheek, faint step, and hollow laugh 
 That made mirth pitiful. Alas, poor child — 
 An infant to this worldling ! Had my pride 
 Suffered her erring feet unchid to wander 
 
244 THE HEIR OF EOOKWOOD. 
 
 Into his net ? 'Twas thus my heart arraigned me 
 Unfaithful to my trust. 
 
 A crescent moon 
 Waxed into golden fulness. Came a night 
 Of blended light and storm. High craggy clouds, 
 Along whose clefts the constant lightning played, 
 Rose toppling o'er the hiUs, and, half-way hung, 
 Betwixt the zenith and pale horizon. 
 The moon was struggling upward.. Midnight ilear, 
 I, seated at my window, heard again 
 Footsteps above, and marked her lamp's pale ray 
 Paint Lilia's semblance on the turret wall. 
 I heard her pass my door and saw her stand ' 
 Upon the lawn, beneath, ere, shrouding close 
 My figure in a mantle's dark' disguise, 
 I followed. . 
 
 Nay, -how light across the turf . 
 She trod — across the turf where! bad guided 
 Her infant steps ! Not down the lane . that led 
 To Arthur's boundaries. Soon the swollen, wave 
 Was audible. She stood and listened then . 
 With lifted hand. Did Arthur meet her there ? 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 245 
 
 The blood leaped through my heart, a pale mist swej <^^ 
 Over my eyes, the very earth was thrilling, 
 Reeling beneath my feet. Lilia fled on. 
 She trod the brink of the ravine. Broad oaks 
 Embraced her with their shadows. While I scarce 
 Discerned her flowing draperies, the moon 
 Withdrew its light. 
 
 I followed through the darkness — 
 A perilous path ! I tracked her by the sound 
 Of crashing brush and slippery stones displaced 
 Tumbling into the hollow. Outstretched boughs 
 Forbade me with their firm extended arms. 
 Vines caught my feet, far-reaching brambles held 
 My garments. In the river's lifted voice 
 There was a fearful cadence, and the wind 
 Rose shrill and sudden. Then the cataract 
 Grew hoarser, louder, till all sounds were trampled 
 Under its eager feet. The boughs o'erhead 
 Were instantly divided. Breathless, faint, 
 I stood above the waterfall and felt 
 Its white waves leap beneath me. 
 
 Where was Lilia ? 
 
 2e 
 
246 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 I pried into the gloom. I shouted " Lilia !" 
 My tongue was palsied by the rushing -waters. 
 They tore the sweet name from my lips and fled. 
 Down the rough brake, along this dizzy path, 
 How had she kept herway? Frantic, I cast 
 My mantle back, and springing to the edge 
 Of the sheer rock, made ready for a leap 
 Wild as the cataract's. Just then, the moon. 
 As one who bears a lamp from stair to stair 
 Clambering a ruin,, through' the crevices 
 Of the black cloud obscurely shone, and stood 
 On its torn battlements. 
 
 The deep ravine 
 Was flooded with its light. . Beneath my feet 
 Lay the round pool to which the waters leapt. 
 The air was heavy with a languid perfume, 
 For white unfolding to the moonlight gleamed 
 The web of lilies, whence I'd plucked my Lilia. 
 But where the child? Up from the leafy pool 
 I raised my eyes and glanced along the rocks 
 That overhung it. From my heart, a cry 
 Sprang to my lips and paused. 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 247 
 
 High o'er a ledge, 
 That, level with the stream, had once upheld 
 Her hapless mother, on the rock's sharp edge, 
 Steadying the hollow of her daring foot. 
 Stood Lilia. Who hut Lilia so could venture? 
 What did she there ? and what a trysting-place ! 
 And where was Arthur ? 
 
 In my eagerness, 
 Forward I pressed. The overhanging rock 
 She leaned from, nearly faced me. Clad in white. 
 In filmy white fair-robed from head to foot, 
 She stood, how like a form I well remembered ! 
 My heart was sudden cold. Old stories thronged 
 My memory. Of a maniac mother born — 
 So strange in all her ways^alone, at night, 
 To wander hither ? Lilia ! oh the child ! 
 The girl ! the woman worth all life to me ! 
 And I had wronged her by the cruelest thought ! 
 Live, Lilia, live — be his — be anything — 
 Be aught but that! My sick heart paused, for Lilia 
 Lifting her eyes, thereon, as on full urns 
 Held the moon's glitter. 
 
Mb the heir op rookwood. 
 
 To my form they turned, 
 Yet spake no wonder. Vacant, cold, they wandered 
 Over the wild bright firmament. Sweet angels ! 
 Where had I seen that look in Lilia's eyes ? 
 Betwixt the dreamer and my soul there glided 
 A picture strange yet fair — Rookwood's old hall 
 Half gloom, half firelight; by the chimney corner 
 A crowd of wondering varlets; at the door 
 My mother with a smile upon her lip ; 
 And on the oaken stair, her chamber taper 
 Lit in her hand, and her unconscious eyes 
 Fast held by sleep, a child in flowing night-robes ! 
 The vision faded from me — then — 'twas done 
 Ere I could breathe — her white arms tossed aloft, 
 Lilia sprang forward. Through the moonlight flitted 
 That lightest form. The parted waves laughed out 
 Embracing her — the lilies closed above. 
 
 'Twas then I woke — from rock to rock mad leaping, 
 
 A lion's strength was raging in my limbs. 
 
 The smiling waves received me. In their arms, 
 
 Oh what a fight with death ! Down those cool depths 
 
THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 249 
 
 What frantic wrestling! Did the -n-eeds below 
 Entangle her? I rose and dived again, 
 It seemed a thousand times. Then, spent and blind, 
 Sprang to the surface. From beneath the lilies 
 Gleamed out a face. I caught her from their net, 
 And flung my burden on the shore. 
 
 How long 
 Ere through her eyes' blue depths my Lilia's soul 
 Bloomed up again as lilies through the wave ? 
 All wonder, shame, and joy, was in the face 
 That questioned mine. There, where my arms had twice 
 Plucked her from death's cold bosom, in that spot 
 Thick sown with lovely memories, as its banks 
 In spring with violets, she could not hide 
 Her heart from mine. 'Twas Ernestine had struck 
 The jarring chord. 'Twas Ernestine, whose pride 
 Let fall the hint that turned my Lilia's love 
 For one who had but gold to offer her. 
 Into deep shame; who whispered that she sold 
 Her loveliness to one who paid its price 
 Only for pity. 'Twas so slight a net 
 Had meshed our Cupid's feet. If Arthur, heir 
 
250 THE HEIR OF ROOKWOOD. 
 
 To Rookwood, next to me, with Ernestine, 
 Had plotted for himself, or did hut wing 
 Some idle hours, unthoughtful of the future 
 My marriage was to mar, at Lilia's side, 
 I never knew. 
 
 'Tis many years since then; 
 And while I write in Rookwood's library, 
 The velvet shadows of an August evening 
 Slant down the lawn, and on a grassy bank 
 Beneath the window where I sit, is Lilia. 
 Her braided hair lies smooth upon her brow. 
 Her blue eyes have grown thoughtful, though her lips 
 Have the same passionate life. The babe she rocks 
 Upon her bosom has a brow no calmer. 
 All her wild ways have fallen from my Lilia, 
 As its superfluous blossoms from the tree. 
 My boy, who lies beside her on the lawn. 
 Plays with his brace of pointers. 
 
 Ernestine 
 Is Arthur's wife, and mistress of his home 
 And heart. Her beauty has been praised by kings. 
 Her face is welcome at our English court. 
 
THE HEIR OP ROOKWOOD. 251 
 
 The dream of all her childhood is fulfilled. 
 
 Her boys and girls are lovely as their mother; 
 
 Arthur has heirs enow to bear his name 
 
 Adown through coming years ; but Arthur's children 
 
 Will scarcely play the lord in bonny Rook-wood. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Why do the bells keep ringing ? — • 
 
 It is Christmas. 
 Without, in the snowy street, 
 Thou mayest hear a sound of feet; 
 The noise of people who pass 
 On their way to hear midnight mass 
 At the church around the corner. 
 Holy Christmas! 
 
 Why dost thou call it holy. 
 Holy Christmas ? — 
 Child, upon a Christmas night. 
 Rose the wondrous star whose light 
 
CHRISTMAS. 253 
 
 Led three magi to the manger 
 Where reposed a royal stranger 
 
 Once discrowned for thy salvation. 
 Blessed Christmas ! 
 
 How discrowned for my salvation 
 
 On a Christmas ? — 
 God loved the world so well — 
 The mystic Gospels tell — 
 That He sent His Son divine, 
 For the world's sake — thine and mine — 
 To be born of a pure virgin 
 
 On a Christmas. 
 
 Born of the Virgin Mary 
 
 On a Christmas- 
 Ay, the mother undefiled,- • 
 But he loves us both, my child, 
 Quite as dearly as his mother, 
 If we serve- him and none other, 
 If we take his cross upon us. 
 
 Precious Christmas ! 
 
254 CIIKISTMAS. 
 
 Do we take His cross upon us 
 Now, this Christmas ? 
 It is deadly dark and damp, 
 The palest ray of a lamp 
 Were a comfort in this place; 
 And snow and hail, apace, 
 
 Without, came down together. 
 Stormy Christmas ! 
 
 How the snow and hail come down 
 
 When 'tis Christmas ! — 
 Yes, the nights wax long and cold. 
 And the winds wax rough and bold; 
 Neither snow, nor hail, nor rain, 
 Shall provoke us to complain. 
 
 For we bear His cross, sweet Jesu; 
 On this Christmas. 
 
 We will bear His cross, sweet Jesu, 
 
 On this Christmas ! — 
 Child, how deadly cold thou art — 
 Creep closer to my heart. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 255 
 
 I will stretch myself part over thee, 
 These thin rags scarcely cover thee. 
 Oh the night, the night is fearful ! 
 Bitter Christmas ! 
 
 Yes, the nights are very fearful, 
 
 Now 'tis Christmas. — 
 I keep thinking of other days, 
 Of our Christmas hearth in a blaze, 
 Of the sweetest time in my life. 
 When I'd been one year a wife. 
 And thou wert a baby, dearest! 
 
 Happy Christmas ! 
 
 I was only a baby then. 
 
 On that Christmas — 
 Thou wert only a babe at the breast. 
 But the sweetest, dearest, best ! 
 Thy father might weary of me. 
 But how could he stray from thee ? 
 Boy, he has left us to perish! 
 
 What a Christmas ! 
 
256 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Yes, we must surely perisli 
 
 On this Christmas — 
 Oh darling, creep closer to me ; 
 Strange are the faces I see. 
 Lights flash about in the room, 
 As though up through the desolate gloom 
 Sprang the angels proclaiming Messiah- 
 Wondrous Christmas ! 
 
 If they sing to us of Messiah, 
 
 Happy Christmas ! — 
 Adrift on the stormy weather, 
 Come the organ notes fitfully hither. 
 I could sleep awhile if I tried; 
 Creep close, close to my side, 
 
 Lay thy head on my shoulder. 
 
 Icy Christmas" ! 
 
 Wake, neighbour, noon is over. 
 
 Merry Christmas ! — 
 No one answers call or knock ; 
 And they shatter the crazy lock. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 257 
 
 Then the Christmas sun, cold shining, 
 Lights the twain in sleep reclining. 
 
 Strange to sleep so late in the morning 
 On a Christmas. 
 
WouLDST thou persuade my bitter mood to gladness — ■ 
 Hush thy light laugh, withhold thy merry jest ; 
 Mirth only spurs to grief my present sadness, 
 Vexing my heart, an ill-timed busy guest. 
 
 While fast and full the sullen tides roll o'er me, 
 Seek not to charm me with thy lovely song. 
 And stay thy hand, be silent, I implore thee ; 
 Touch not the chords that deeper chords prolong. 
 
 Oh look without — arrayed in calmest splendour. 
 The hills stand rapt, the vales are swathed in gloom. 
 Speak to me now, but words austere yet tender. 
 High as the stars and humble as the tomb. 
 
 That drawing near life's low-arched narrow portal, 
 We catch faint glimpses as of heights sublime ; 
 And looking up, behold how hopes immortal 
 Shine through some fissures in the walls of time. 
 
AMINA. 
 
 She was the Sun's bride — such mock majesty 
 Her vagrant fancy took. His chosen bride ; 
 For he had won her with one burning kiss 
 Pressed on her forehead, as an August noon 
 Stooped to the reeling vineyards. 
 
 Mad Amina ! 
 But hers was lovely madness. Pity's self 
 Withheld its meed. Eyes brimful of sweet laughter, 
 Black hair bound up with flowers, limbs light as breezes- 
 Behold Amina ! Flying from her kind, 
 She haunted rocks and caves; gentlest of all 
 The gentle things she dwelt among. The fawns 
 
£60 AMINA. 
 
 That rested in the valleys, knew her step 
 And fled not. From the oaks' broad canopy 
 The birds sang ever louder as she passed. 
 
 All her glad life was poetry. She hymned 
 
 The Sun at morn and wept for him at eve. 
 
 She climbed the mountain precipice to give 
 
 The eagles messages, what time they beat 
 
 Their wings against the brazen dome of noon. 
 
 The waves her bridegroom kissed baptized her brow, 
 
 The flowers he warmed were hid within her breast. 
 
 Noon had lain down among the harvest fields, 
 The reapers were gone home. Amina there, 
 Prone amid flowers, her clasped hands on her brow, 
 Talked to the cumbrous shadows. 
 
 Cloud on cloud 
 Rolled to the west and melted at its verge, 
 And left a dome of dusky azure, where 
 Evening seemed busy spinning her thin web. 
 Though it was noon. Whence fell the shadowy sadness ? 
 Over the pools the trees hung motionless, 
 
A M I N A. 261 
 
 And watched their fading pictures. In the thicket, 
 No insect chirrupped, and no tuneful bee 
 Sang in the rose. But from the distant grange, 
 A cock crowed shrill and ghostly as the blue 
 Distilled a stealthy twilight. 
 
 Darker yet. 
 The owl was hooting, and the giddy bat 
 Wheeled on his drunken flight. The wood-birds fled 
 Unwearied to their nests. Along the hollows. 
 The cattle in their pastures seemed asleep. 
 
 Amina, crouching in the harvest blooms. 
 Upraised her questioning eyes. Oh, wonder thus 
 To see the great Sun like a flower fade 
 Out of the fields of heaven ! oh, worse than wonder ! 
 Shrieking she rose. Into the valley strayed 
 A mountain path. Up this, Amina sprang. 
 Plucking the gaudy chaplets from her hair. 
 Mid-way betwixt bleak crest and wooded base 
 She halted, wild and breathless. At her feet, 
 A jutting crag burst from the forest boughs 
 And overhung the valley. Downward gazing, 
 
 2a 
 
2G2 AMINA. 
 
 She saw the ghastly upturned face of earth, 
 Then dared to look above. A lurid ring 
 Half circled the dim chalice of the sun 
 That overflowed with darkness. 
 
 Was he dying ? — 
 The royal lover to her madness wedded — 
 Slain in his chariot as a king in battle — 
 Or only veiling in capricious anger 
 The long love-look that woke his bride at morn, 
 And dwelt on her at noon, and lingered brightly 
 Round her at eve? She knelt with outstretched arms 
 Till, shorn of every beam, she saw her monarch 
 Discrowned, a blind and beggared outcast, grope 
 His way across the blasted plains of heaven. 
 
 The wondrous shadow faded — cheerful day 
 Lit the blithe reapers to their work again. 
 When sunset came, one, leaning on his scythe, 
 And following with his eye a hawk's flight upward. 
 Marked on the moss-capped overhanging rock, 
 A white prone form, and said, "It is Amina. 
 She sleeps, and does not wake to say farewell, 
 
AM IN A. 263 
 
 Kneeling with clasped hands, to the late Sun 
 
 That flares his crimson torch across her eyelids." 
 
 But on the morrow, as a hunter hears 
 
 The quarry home — some white-limbed tender doe — 
 
 He came down from the mountain through the valleys, 
 
 Amina's light form hanging o'er his shoulder. 
 
 For she was dead for sorrow, mad Amina ! 
 
SONG. 
 
 Dawn paints thy lattice ; 
 
 The virginal hours 
 Fold in thy sweet soul 
 
 Its night-hlooming flowers; 
 Lakes in the hollows, 
 
 And clouds in the skies, 
 Drink in the light 
 
 Like thy beautiful eyes, — 
 Sunbeams betraying 
 
 Where bright waters be — 
 Morn of my heaven. 
 
 Oh smile thou for me ! 
 
SONG. 265 
 
 Lo ! from the peak 
 
 Where the red rowan clings, 
 Softly the day descends, 
 
 Trying her wings ; 
 Hares shake the copses, 
 
 And larks brush the leaves. 
 And swallows stir lightly 
 
 Beneath the broad eaves ; 
 The bird is awakening 
 
 His song on the tree ; 
 Bird of my morning. 
 
 Wake music for me ! 
 
KATHLEEN. 
 
 What moans with the east wind ? 
 
 Ah, listen, Aileen ! 
 Through the dull mist and rain 
 I hear it complain. — 
 
 'Tis only the shriek of the curlew, 
 Kathleen ! 
 
 I look to the sea-side. 
 
 The pale shore, Aileen ! 
 There is something adrift 
 That the waves toss and lift — 
 
 A boat, tempest-torn from its moorings, 
 Kathleen ! 
 
KATHLEEN. 267 
 
 Under the day-dawn 
 
 She steals forth, Aileen. 
 What lies nigh the door, 
 By the waves sent ashore ? 
 
 Oh deep be thy slumbers this morning, 
 Kathleen ! 
 
BALLAD. 
 
 Comb, Giulia, braid my hair ; smooth let it be ; 
 Some other time I'll do my best for thee. 
 Thine is so rippled ! Mine one even flow, 
 Nor wave, nor curl — 'tis -svell — Alesso likes it so. 
 
 Look how Helena shakes. Is't so much colder ? 
 Too cold for clouds. I would the moon were older ! 
 'Twill light him, though. Oh put thy work away, 
 Sister ! come ne.ir the fire. It is no longer day. 
 
 We'll have no flowers but sea-flowers, wreaths, spray-fair, 
 Alesso's self shall crown mj braided hair. 
 Sister, come help ! Forget thine old, old sorrow. 
 I cannot think of grief. A bride I'll be to-morrow ! 
 
BALLAD. 269 
 
 Is the moon up ? Methinks the wind gets loud. 
 See'st thou the boat ? Is yon dark speck a cloud, Helena, 
 look! 
 
 (Once I too, had a lover, 
 Waited his sail, his step — sweet days for ever over !) 
 
 Yes, 'tis the boat. What was Helena saying ? 
 
 The boat, the boat ! Hist, how the hound keeps baying ! 
 
 Smooth down my braids. Let's make the fire burn 
 
 faster. 
 Let Beppo loose — witnout ! — Go welcome back thy 
 
 master. 
 
MARGARET. 
 
 Hills that roll bacK to mountains, close 
 The holy Tale that shrines St. Rose : 
 The mountain tops let down their shows 
 Into a river that southward flows. 
 The hills that crowd to the water's edge, 
 Sink into the wave through the slimy sedge. 
 When the chapel bell aloft is swinging 
 Ten thousand airy peals keep ringing; 
 Echoes from forest and bluff and dell, 
 Follow the lead of the chapel bell, 
 Along the lonely river sighing. 
 
MARGARET. 271 
 
 Out of the blue air failing, dying, 
 Like birds down dropped from over flying. 
 Lost in the chiming of waves that flow 
 To a city that's built on the banks below. 
 
 When the last glory of day has paled, 
 
 Out of the valley a mist, exhaled 
 
 From river and dingle and marish moss, 
 
 Rises up to the chapel cross, 
 
 Over the lap of the vale adrift 
 
 With the chapel cross in the midst uplift. 
 
 Nigh to the altar in bride's array, 
 Is one who died on her marriage day. 
 With marble palms together prest 
 She lies in breathless stone exprest; 
 A ripe. rose, bursting on her breast. 
 Strews with its blooms her flowing vest. 
 In sculptured lilies fairly set. 
 Is writ the sweet name, Margaret ; 
 And at her feet an angel stands 
 Praying, with uplifted hands. 
 
•272 MARGARET. 
 
 When yesternoon at the altar rail, 
 A bride drew back her shining veil, 
 And through the door and up the aisle, 
 The daylight followed like a smile, 
 Methought yon marble — pallid now 
 
 Under the moon's upcreeping tide — 
 From swelling breast to cheek and brow. 
 
 Blushed crimson with indignant pride. 
 As if "the dead that lay below 
 Angered to hear the bridal vow, 
 
 Her lips grew pale repeating, 
 Aftei: the lapse of a single year 
 Breathed in her loi-d's forgetful ear. 
 
 But when I looked again. 
 Above, the August sun kept beating 
 
 Against the chancel pane. 
 And striking through a martyr's crown, 
 Showered a blood-red glory down. 
 
 She, that was heir to a lordly pride. 
 
 Leant from the arms of her high-born mother 
 
 To the low fount of a peasant's breast ; 
 I was her foster brother. 
 
M A R G A R E T. 273 
 
 And on one bosom, side by side, 
 Lulled by the same rude song to rest. 
 Our hearts grew early to each other. 
 
 No scion of a race out-worn 
 
 By gilded vice or lordly sloth. 
 By peasants nursed, of warriors born, 
 
 She drew her glowing life from both. 
 No gentle bower maiden, she, — 
 Trained at her lady-mother's knee, 
 Into the slow-wrought tapestry 
 Weaving her youth, — but wild and free. 
 The shrill cliff-building echoes knew 
 
 Her voice by height and holt remote, 
 Following fast its silver clue 
 
 Like birds that mock another's note. 
 And light the mountain paths she trode. 
 And light her blooded palfrey rode, 
 Gladdest when gay winds at sport, 
 
 Set the green branches all astir, 
 
 Bowing and bending over her; 
 The bloodhounds chained in the castle court, 
 
£74 MARGARET. 
 
 Welcomed her leaping and harmlessly playing, 
 And her steed in the stable answered by neighing, 
 
 Rode she forth — I had leave to follow 
 Close at her bridle; to loiter free 
 
 By hill-side and wave-side and lone wood hollow, 
 Their high-flown pride would not swoop to me. 
 
 The slow spring-wind might, passing, bear 
 
 My peasant's breath across her hair. 
 
 Nor bid the rose-buds swelling there 
 Put forth one dewy leaf betimes, 
 And so I wooed her but in rhymes. 
 And praised her but as minstrels praise — 
 Spending my soul in courteous lays — 
 
 I might tilt with keen despaii 
 Wooing her all my aimless days. 
 
 Thus, till drawn nigh to womanhood, 
 
 Her girlhood, like a Scottish snood, 
 
 Loose in her dark locks, Margaret stood. 
 
 'Twas then my love found voice and breath ; 
 ■Not faint with hope, not meek in prayer, 
 
MARGARET. 275 
 
 But cold as pride, and stern as death, 
 
 Defiant in its strong despair. 
 Even was darkening down the day. 
 
 And soft the vesper call came, blown, 
 Under the arched oaks, vast and gray; 
 
 We trod the chapel path alone. 
 I faced her on the narrow way. 
 
 How to my lips my spirit leaped, 
 
 Ask not — it was so long ago ! 
 If burning heart and brain have kept 
 
 True record of that time, or no, 
 I will not question. Tears of rage 
 And grief once marred the crowded page ; 
 And hourly to my weary soul. 
 
 Did my sick heart recite it over. 
 'Twould move me little now — a faded scroll 
 Writ by pale hands that paler marbles cover. 
 
 If Margaret met me now at morn 
 
 In paths where once we wandered free. 
 
 Her dark eyes, lit at sight of me. 
 
 Scarce held in leash their eager scorn. 
 
276 MARGARET. 
 
 Her cheek grew pale at my approach, 
 
 Grew sudden pale and flushed again. 
 Nor might she long6r bide my touch 
 
 Upon her flowing bridle rein. 
 Where woods are dark and waters chime, 
 Another's step with hers kept time; 
 And where along the valley glooms 
 
 My hand had checked her palfrey's pride, 
 Gay cavaliers with floating plumes 
 
 Came lightly riding at her side. 
 
 I waited in the chapel aisle, 
 
 'Twixt morning-mass, and noon : 
 The organist in the organ loft 
 
 Played a sweet piping tune. 
 The noon-lights, crimson-stoled and soft, 
 
 "Went gliding up the sacred pile, 
 
 From nave to altar solemnly. 
 And the golden cups on the chapel shrine. 
 Seemed brimmed with sacramental wine; 
 
 And I could almost see 
 
MARGARET. 277 
 
 God's silence from the blue above, 
 Descending like His holy Dove. 
 
 I knew her lightest step, before 
 
 The bride's train reached the chapel door; 
 Upon their, flowing garments wearing 
 
 Sunshine that flecked the chapel floor. 
 And she passed on with queenly bearing, 
 Yet, kneeling by the altar rail, 
 Closer drew her bridal veil ; 
 Yet, crowding to the altar's foot, 
 Part rose, like one irresolute, 
 And from her lips the marriage vow 
 Slid like a snow wreath, cold and slow. 
 
 This scarcely spoken, 
 De rOrme pi-essed smiling nfear, but she 
 Motioned him back, and full on me 
 Turned for a moment's flying space 
 The unveiled meaning of her face, 
 
 Where love had broken 
 Away from pride, with swift auroral bloom 
 Flushing my night of life ere lost in coldest gloom. 
 
278 MARGARET. 
 
 Then anger, shame, and cold disdain, 
 Warred on those paling lips again, 
 Till slowly, like a sullen rain. 
 
 The life-drops, tortured from her heart, 
 Spotted the marble altar stair 
 
 As if some red rose, burst apart, 
 Had strewed its petals there. 
 And she fell headlong, white and mute, 
 Striking her brow at the altar's foot. 
 They said she died from mere excess 
 Of life and love and happiness ! 
 
 Be yours the bridal kiss, De I'Orme, 
 
 That's proiBFered half, and half denied, 
 But leave to me yon silent form 
 
 Veiled closely in its marble pride. 
 Reverent as he who guards a shrine, 
 I may not call its beauty mine. 
 
 All passive though the slumberer be, 
 St. Mary, crowned with charms divine, 
 
 Is not more safe from love and me. 
 
MARGARET. S7'J 
 
 For passion pales to sorrow where 
 Yon sculptured angel kneels in prayer, 
 And passion's lightest breath would scare 
 The holy calm that watches there ; 
 For all love's wealth I may not dare 
 To touch lip, brow, or curled hair. 
 But when slow Even disappears 
 
 Out of the west, and over all, 
 
 Twilight is hanging like a pall 
 Thick dropped with silver tears ; 
 When from lone river and wet marsh moss, 
 The mist climbs up to the chapel cross 
 And over the vale, a spectral sea. 
 Closes its waves on mine and me, 
 In the shadowy aisles, by the marble white 
 I watch till dawn blooms out of night. 
 Not yours yon passive bride, De I'Orme, 
 
 With pallid cheek and sealed eye ; 
 You never loved her living form 
 
 As I her snow-cold eflSgy. 
 
EOSABELLE. 
 
 "The night is Hind •with a double dark, 
 And rain and hail come down together — 
 
 'Tis well to sit by the fire and hark 
 To the stormy weather. 
 
 " The beggar lies down in the misty dell, 
 And the peasant faces the eddying storm; 
 
 But you that weep, fair Rosabelle, 
 Sit housed and warm." 
 
 "Better be out on the barren hills 
 
 With the wild night blowing my sorrow blind, 
 Than listening here to my heart that thrills 
 
 Like a bell that's tolled by the passing wind." 
 
ROSABELLE. 281 
 
 " You may wander all day mth a page at your rein, 
 Greyhounds to follow, and hawks for your wrist. 
 
 East and west, through your lord's domain. 
 Whither you list. 
 
 "When you ride through the town in the even light, 
 Pacing your steed 'neath the elms tall and shady. 
 
 Each village girl all the summer night 
 Dreams she's a lady." 
 
 "Would I were hearing the evening hymn 
 My mother sings to the habe on her knee, 
 
 Or floating by dawn o'er the waters dim 
 Roland, my brother, alone with thee! 
 
 My step is faint in your bannered halls, 
 
 Where the bright armour flashes, the windows higl 
 
 Slit through the rock of the massive walls — 
 Frame in a strip of the fair blue sky. 
 
 By the long lance windows, the deep arched door 
 Shadows stand fighting the golden light. 
 
282 ROSABELLE. 
 
 And the leap of a hound on the oaken floor 
 Rings like the tread of an arm^d knight. 
 
 In the niches arched over pale figures of stone, 
 There are voices that mimic my bursting sighs; 
 
 And the jewels that tremble around mj zone 
 Mock me with scorn in their flashing eyes. 
 
 My sleek greyhound and my merlin bold 
 
 Chafe at restraining ; the steed I rein 
 Wantonly bears on the curb of gold — 
 
 Slighting my will with a high disdain. 
 
 How goes the night in the fisher's cot? 
 
 Is the boat safe moored ? Does the hearth shine clear ? 
 Are they jesting together while I, forgot, 
 
 Link every thought to a falling tear ? 
 
 If Roland is out in his fisher's bark, 
 
 My mother sings low to the child on her knee, 
 
 My father stops mending his nets to mark 
 
 How the wind with the sea-birds is skimming the sea. 
 
ROSABELLE. 283 
 
 With ray sad eyes and my rich attire, 
 
 Lifting the latch, should I enter there. 
 Old Raoul, the bloodhound, that dreams by the fire, 
 
 Would rouse him to threaten my pale despair. 
 
 Early in March, ere the spring winds blow. 
 
 Ere the hill-snows melt or the skies look bland, 
 
 On the lone white shore where the tide is low 
 They shall hollow my grave in the sloping sand. 
 
A GRAY DAY IN APRIL. 
 
 O'erplowbd by April mists, the April sun 
 
 Stands like a spot of silver on the sky, 
 
 And my pale shadow gliding at my side, 
 
 Scarce paints the ground. A doubtful radiance dwells 
 
 Over broad fields and round back-rolling hills ; 
 
 The heaven is uniform gray, and from its edge 
 
 The bold firm pencilling of blue mountain tops 
 
 Is almost blurred away. • The wind's long sigh, 
 
 Like the sea-Ariel's in his prison shell. 
 
 Stirs through the light-clad wood, and thither leads, 
 
 Edging the marsh, and loitering up the slope. 
 
 The footpath trodden through the grassy fields. 
 
A GRAY DAY IN APRIL. 285 
 
 Spring flowers are up — the numb life that hath lain 
 
 Under the brown leaves like a chrysalis, 
 
 Is suddenly free. The long wood aisles are bright 
 
 With the anemone, that sylvan star 
 
 Hung in the dawn of Spring. The fern leaves still 
 
 Curl to their stalk, but in the open fields 
 
 The violet buds are blue. Later will come 
 
 The alder, hedging with its summer snow 
 
 Roadside and runlet; by the meadow marsh 
 
 High banks of reddening laurel. Last of all 
 
 The tall field flower that at the door of Autumn 
 
 Knocks with its golden wand. 
 
 All still— how still! 
 Along the hollows float slow waifs of sound, 
 Echoes of echoes ! For the careless wind 
 Drops half his freight of melody, and brings 
 Of the bird's song a note, and leaves behind 
 The brook's full music, and imperfectly 
 Conveys the laughter and linked voices blown 
 This way across the fields, from noisy groups 
 Bound to their hill-side school. 
 
 My dog lies near, 
 
 2k 
 
2S6 A GRAY DAY IN APRIL. 
 
 Limbs crossed and, head uplift — and steady eyes 
 Searching the gleatny distance. 
 
 It is good, 
 Good for the languid frame and restless spirit, 
 A day like this. Thought fades into a dream ; 
 The jubilant music of creation's hymn. 
 Yearly renewed, sounds faint as if withdrawn 
 Into the skies, and the irregular pulses 
 Beat slow true time. Life, the wild wounded bird, 
 From circling sky-ward, earth-ward, sinks at last 
 Into the bloomy grass, so glad to rest 
 It scarcely feels the arrow in its side. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE LILY. 
 
 "I SHALL lie no more where the -winds bend low 
 
 The reeds that mock when the forests roar ; 
 Where the crowding waves with a measured flow 
 Come rippling up to the mossy shore," 
 Woe for the lily! her sisters gone, 
 She bent to her mirror of crystal alone. 
 
 " I shall sleep no more when the bright wave comes 
 
 To woo my head to its heaving breast ; 
 And smile no more when the white swan plumes 
 His ruffled wing by my tossing crest." 
 Woe for the lily ! the winds came rude, 
 And her wan lips bowed to the mantling flood. 
 
288 THE DEATH OF THE LILY. 
 
 " I shall watch no more when by midnight's ray 
 
 The wave-sprites garland their yellow hair ; 
 Nor see them leap through the frolic spray 
 To wreath my buds with the star-beam there." 
 Woe for the lily ! her head drooped low, 
 And her sweet breath mixed with the water's flow. 
 
 "I shall lift, oh never, my chalice of pearl 
 
 To the rosy lips of the morn again; 
 To the blush of the day when her pinions furl. 
 To the silent dew or the gentle rain." 
 Woe for the lily ! her reign was past. 
 And her white leaves whirled to the angry blast, 
 
WINDS. 
 
 Came on the winter twilight — ^homeward steps 
 
 Were hasty in the streets, the panes were blind 
 
 With sudden frost, and curtains closely dropt, 
 
 Shut out the bitter aspect of the storm, 
 
 But not its voice. 'Twas said, " Oh desolate wind ! 
 
 What's like the wind for sadness ?" Answered then 
 
 One who, reclining by the fireside, basked 
 
 With shaded eyelids in its ruddy light, 
 
 " 'Tis never sad to me — I love the winds. 
 
 Free Arabs of the air, that have no home. 
 
 But pitch their cloudy tents upon the brink 
 
 Of Arctic azure, or through midnight skies 
 
290 WINDS. 
 
 Fantastic with auroras, side by side, 
 
 With winged wild legions screaming sweep the poles, 
 
 Tuning their hoarse throats to the bruit of waves. 
 
 Were it my own to give or keep, at death, 
 
 I would bequeath my soul to such a wind." 
 
 Light-spoken words, dropped in the storm's full pause, 
 Forgotten ere its rise. 
 
 Commit thy soul 
 To the wild keeping of those vagrant winds ? 
 Those melancholy winds that gird the earth 
 With sadness ? 
 
 Not the summer winds that lie 
 Rocked bird-like in high branches, that fly fast 
 Down the moist morning shadows, that tread soft 
 Through the dim woods at even, that precede 
 The silver columns of the marching rain 
 Along the parched pale meadows. Summer ivinds 
 'Gainst whom no door is shut, that may come in. 
 Refresh the sleeper, or with angels bear 
 The soul from dead lips up into the blue 
 Deep calm above. Light winds that may tread close 
 
WINDS. £91 
 
 Upon light footsteps, pluck the robe that shrines 
 
 A form beloved, lift the bright floating hair. 
 
 Touch brow and lip and cheek with love's full freedom, 
 
 Fearless and unreproved. 
 
 But, oh, to fly 
 Bound to the flanks of such a desert steed, 
 Its wolf pack howling after ! Desolate nights. 
 To be the restless thing that moaning pleads 
 Under the windows, tampers with the locks, 
 Breathes hard along the door-sill, like a hound 
 That's shut out from his master, weeps, entreats. 
 Shrieks, curses. By the fireside or the board, 
 They would not know thy voice. Laughter and jests 
 And sweet songs, faintly would come out to thee 
 For answer. While the star-like tapers glanced 
 From stair to stair, then stationary, limned 
 Light flitting shapes upon the curtains drawn 
 In the familiar chambers, then went out 
 One by one, sudden, thou, lamenting still, 
 Wouldst linger near, but when the last bright point 
 Dropped into gloom, as one who crowds despair 
 Close, like a robe, to his complaining lips, 
 
292 WINDS. 
 
 Into the churchyard stealing, thou wouldst seek 
 Thy new-heaped grave, now difficult to find 
 Under the thick white universal snow, 
 And humbly pray the dead shape lying there 
 For shelter in its heart and leave to drink 
 Of that mysterious cup so freely given 
 To brutes and the brute senses, but denied 
 To the bright lordly spirit. 
 
SORROW VOICES. 
 
 I'll ■vrrap me in my sorrow's ample folds, 
 As in a winding-sheet ; and, doomed to life, 
 I'll counterfeit the grave. Nor song of bird, 
 Nor touch of sunbeam, shall call up again 
 My forehead from the dust. Prone, lying thus, 
 I hear my dreary years come moaning in 
 Like cold, slow waves — let them break over me ! 
 Here will I lie, as one in lethargy. 
 My dumb grief stretched beside me. 
 
 Peace ! art thou 
 The first to suffer ? Measure with great ills 
 Thy small adversities ! Dispose thyself 
 To learn life's common and distasteful lesson. 
 
 2l 
 
294 SORROW VOICES. 
 
 To Areigli my anguish with another's pain 
 Will make it none the lighter, and, distinct 
 'Tis shapen from the common mass of sorrow ; 
 Nor can I lose it in a crowd of griefs. 
 Be sure that it is large enough to fill 
 My aching heart. 
 
 As mothers clasp their habes, 
 Thou hold'st it there. As mothers chide their offspring, 
 Thou dost complain of it, yet snatch it back. 
 If part withdrawn ; and, when its fretful life 
 Is quite extinct, no doubt thou wilt enfold it 
 As mothers clasp dead infants to their bosoms. 
 
 How terrible must be the countenance 
 Of a dead grief! 
 
 Ay, grief untimely dead, 
 Slain in its prime, struck down by violent hands — 
 Say shame or scorn. Its desolate white shape, 
 Uncoffined, lies in some still separate chamber 
 That thought goes by, a-tiptoe, that's a bugbear 
 To the sweet infant, joy. Not so the grief 
 Led down the years and tended by the soft, 
 
SORROW voices; i:d5 
 
 Sweet, unobtrusive charities of time. 
 But these are rare. Nine-tenths of all the woes 
 Petted to death, love-stinted of their growth, 
 Die pigmies. Is it precious to thy soul? 
 Make not a tender darling of thy sorrow. 
 But school it roughly in the ways of life, 
 Till from a vexing tyrant it shall grow 
 To be thy chiefest friend and counsellor. 
 Griefs rightly nurtured die not till they flower ; 
 So keep thy trouble — we have leave to suffer. 
 
 Thy words are like the braying of the trumpets 
 
 To one who bleeds upon a battle field. 
 
 There is no heart in me for noble doing. 
 
 If the old fiery impulse prompt again, 
 
 'Tis but an impulse. Who so wise in sorrow 
 
 As they who pay lip ser.vice at her shrines ? 
 
 Who, standing safe beside her awful gulfs. 
 
 Guess at their depths, and measure with cold glances 
 
 What souls have fathomed! Wouldst thou counsel mo? 
 
 Let grief expound the meaning of those words 
 
 Thou say est so well. Earth with her baTs surrounds mp, 
 
296 SORROW VOICES. 
 
 Her weeds are wrapped about my head, and all 
 Her billows and her waves pass over me ! 
 Take not in vain the sacred name of hope, 
 Nor plague my soul with any show of comfort. 
 Oh hope ! oh joy ! sweet words how blank to me ! 
 Cold as the faces of estranged friends ! 
 Familiar words, but foreign as are sounds 
 Of common life to one who weeps apart, 
 With death for. company. Behold ! behold ! 
 A desert without cleft or cave to hide in 
 I cross alone; nor dare to look beyond. 
 Where looms the phantom of a shoreless sea ; 
 And o'er its waste, sore wounded and pursued, 
 A bird that flutters on — but never finds 
 Refuge or rest. 
 
 How shall I comfort thee. 
 Possessed with anguish ? Weep beside thee here ? 
 Stretch to the measure of thy fro ward griefs 
 My gift of pity ? Count my tears by thine ? 
 Give sigh for sigh ? Oh, magnify thy hurt ! 
 Be vain of thy affliction ! I distrust 
 The grief tliat knows so well its own proportions. 
 
SORROW VOICES. 297 
 
 Great sorrows rule like Jove upon Olympus, 
 
 And though sometimes the lightnings issue thence, 
 
 And full-toned voices intimate his presence. 
 
 Be sure the god will never quit his cloud. 
 
 They come on missions, lifted cross in hand, 
 
 To preach us from our idols. They draw near 
 
 Our tranced souls, and, weeping tears divine. 
 
 Call till they rise and stagger to the light. 
 
 Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes. Mighty trials 
 
 Are sent to mighty spirits that have sinew 
 
 To grapple with them. Oh ! we dress our puppets 
 
 In the full robes of sorrow, and adore them ; 
 
 We bring our foolish and unchastened hearts 
 
 Into Heaven's very presence; there count o'er 
 
 The baubles it has broken, and bewail them. 
 
 Mothers do pity in their weeping charges 
 
 The baby griefs they smile at. It is well 
 
 That we are children in the sight of God! 
 
MAY, 18 53. 
 
 To one ■ffhose wine of life 
 Blushed under lilies, Death victorious spake, 
 Proving the temper of his keen-edged sword 
 On that light feather, hope. 
 
 "Thou infidel! 
 Knowing my touch in every flower that falls. 
 Yet hy the tenor of thine una wed life 
 Ever denying me. 
 
 Once was it thus ? 
 As one who dwells in valleys, yet looks up < 
 
 Prom flowers and sun-harred paths to bid his thoughts 
 Light on the circling snow-peaks, thou didst lift 
 Early, thy soul to me. If now thou fearest, 
 Yet when the wasting of thy life began, 
 Strange pleasure mixed with awe. 
 
MAY, 1853. -^99 
 
 As one who sings 
 Aloud to deafen sorrow, thou mayst drown 
 Awhile my solemn warning. Yet thine eyes 
 Bead me in all things. All things offer thee 
 Only my gifts. To thee the sunshine brings 
 Fever and faintness. By fresh summer winds, 
 Grave damps are blown. 
 
 A little while, poor fool, 
 Life shall make sport of thee. There shall be times 
 When she will breathe new vigour through thy limbs, 
 Smile through thine eyes, lend to thy heavy step 
 Deceitful lightness. I, that stand so near, 
 Will seem afar. Spring hopes will bloom again 
 Like those November violets the gaunt frost 
 Takes in his shrivelled fingers. Then, some day, 
 While thou dost shudder and grow pale to cross 
 December's snowy threshold — some dull day 
 When winter, through the early April woods, 
 Gathering his tatters round him, stalks and scares 
 The blossoms back, thou'lt meet me face to face 
 Upon that narrow path, not wide enough 
 For me and thee." 
 
TO 
 
 Shadows had fluttered and nested 
 
 Under the boughs and the low-hanging eaves, 
 Soft fell the darkness around us, 
 
 The dew through the leaves. 
 
 As one who at twilight left lonely, 
 
 Lit by the stars and the slow-rising moon. 
 Touching the silver keys lightly, 
 Plays tune after tune ; 
 
 Not knowing a spirit more gifted. 
 
 Still though it listen and far though it seems, 
 Is sending adrift on the music 
 Beautiful dreams; 
 
TO . SOI 
 
 So, in my twiliglit of sadness, 
 
 Careless I struck from the swift keys of thought. 
 Fancies, like snatches of music. 
 Idle, unsought. 
 
 Nor guessed that a note of my playing, 
 
 Passing the gates where thy song, angel bright. 
 Lay asleep like a princess enchanted, 
 Would guide it to light. 
 
EARLY WALKS. 
 
 Who talks of the pleasure of treading the fields, 
 
 When morning is fresh in the skies ? 
 Be sure that he walked with poetical feet 
 And saw with poetical eyes. 
 
 Be sure that all people who rave 
 
 Of the beauty of day at its break, 
 Of the dawn that comes radiant in purple and gold 
 Are the last to arise for its sake. 
 
 'Tis charming to wake with the blush of the morn, 
 
 'Tis charming, so poets may sing, 
 To wander when day o'er the diamond-dropped earth 
 
 Just flutters her delicate wing ; 
 
EARLY WALKS. 303 
 
 I'll give you a piece of advice ; 
 
 When the dawning is mantling the star, 
 You'll find that to quietly look from your couch, 
 
 Through a window, is better by far. 
 
 The breath of the morning brings shivers and chills. 
 
 The fields are bespattered with dew. 
 And the drop that's so bright in the violet's eye, 
 Can be vastly unpleasant to you. 
 And if you're a lady, alas ! 
 
 Your drapery's much in the way, 
 And a terrible foe to the graces you'll find' 
 In the beautiful herald of day. 
 
 I'll give you the proper receipt for a walk : — 
 
 Dont stir from your pillow till nine. 
 Then quietly take, your hot cofiiee and rolls. 
 And give the sun leisure to shine. 
 
 When the dew is quite ofi' of the grass, 
 
 And the woods are just pleasantly warm. 
 With a book in your hand, or a pencil, perhaps. 
 You'll own my receipt is a charm. 
 
PUSH. THE BOTTLE AROUND, TOM! 
 
 Push the bottle around, Tom, 
 
 Fill your goblet quite up ito the brim, 
 And when Care in its nectar is drowned, Tom, 
 
 Sing a psean for Time and for him ! 
 Sing a psean o'er Time as he dies, Tom, 
 
 Let's hurry him on with a glee. 
 For the faster the old fellow flies, Tom, 
 
 The better for you and for me. 
 
 'Tis a terrible thing to grow old, Tom, 
 
 'Tis a terrible thing to perceive 
 Old Time with his visage so cold, Tom, 
 
 Encroaching without asking leave. 
 
PUSH THE BOTTLE AROUND, TOM. 805 
 
 And to see the sweet bloom on the lip, Tom, 
 
 And the pleasant light in the eye. 
 Take flight with the years as they slip, Tom, 
 
 So noiselessly, rapidly by. 
 
 There's a deepening line on your brow, Tom, 
 
 There's one at the side of your nose, 
 And a touch of the rebel snow, Tom, 
 
 Much thicker than you may suppose. 
 There's a graceless rotund in your hack, Tom, 
 
 There's a wintriness, too, on your cheek, 
 And your voice has a kind of a crack, Tom, 
 
 Whether you sing or you speak. 
 
 'Tis a terrible thing to be slighted, Tom, 
 
 'Tis a terrible thing to know 
 That though you may still be invited, Tom, 
 
 You're no longer asked as a beau. 
 To be sentenced to talk with papa, Tom, 
 
 Though longing the while to take wing, 
 And to feel that the kindest mamma, Tom, 
 
 Considers you not just — " the thing." 
 
S06 PUSH THE BOTTLE AROUND, TOM! 
 
 I wish, now and then, I had married, Tom, 
 
 For mine is a lonely life. 
 But he who for time has tarried, Tom, 
 
 May whistle, we- know, for a wife. 
 Oh ho ! for the hours of youth, Tom, 
 
 The bloom of the earlier day, 
 Could we have it all over in truth, Tom, 
 
 We'd manage it some other way. 
 
 But push the bright bottle around, Tom, 
 
 And fill up your glass to the brim. 
 And when Care in its nectar is drowned, Tom, 
 
 A psean for Time and for him ! 
 Sing a paean o'er Time as he dies, Tom, 
 
 Let's hurry him on with a glee, 
 For the faster the old fellow flies, Tom, 
 
 The better for you and for me ! 
 
A PORTEAIT. 
 
 His small arched neck looks fiery like a steed's, 
 His eyes are dark and glancing. Antelopes 
 Are limbed as lightly. Knee-deep in bright tan 
 He stands — bright tan across his sloping chest, 
 And o'er his throat, that's graceful as a lady's. 
 Save this all glossy blackness. Like most brutes 
 He proves his breeding by his fine positions; 
 Now, stretched ■without mj window, on the roof 
 That slopes into the sunshine, light limbs crossed 
 And muzzle laid athwart them ; now, distinct, 
 Painted against the sky, one slender foot 
 Lift, and bent inward ; now, upon my couch 
 He lies with crest erect, and tawny paws 
 Dropt o'er the cushion's edge. 
 
SCENE FROM THE " STOCKHOLM, FONTAINE- 
 BLEAU, ET ROME," OF ALEX. DUMAS. 
 
 Christina, Ex-Queen of Sweden. 
 Envoys. 
 
 Good-morrow, gentlemen ! 
 You seek me — I guess wherefore. Sweden's queen 
 How gladly I would be again, God knows 
 Whose hand withholds me from the throne. "Yon sceptre, 
 So fair to look upon, must grace my tomb. 
 You come too late. 
 
"STOCKHOLM, FONTAINEBLEAU, ET ROME." 309 
 
 AN ENVOY. 
 
 Madame, for the Powers Supreme 
 It never is too late. God's self, when kings, 
 Empires, and nations in the balance tremble, 
 Looks twice before he strikes ; and sometimes, when 
 The death-hour's ready, beckons up the sun 
 From the horizon, and signs back the night. 
 His power can do as much for you. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 Ah, Madame ! 
 Heaven grant ere long we see you on that throne 
 Where faithful Sweden looks for you ! 
 
 CHRISTINA. 
 
 Christina 
 Hath ever lived for Sweden's happiness. 
 But to us all there comes an hour that knows 
 No happiness save that beyond the tomb. 
 
 1st envoy. 
 
 Ay, but upon your brow suffer, at least 
 
;i.lO "STOCKHOLM, FONTAINEBLE AU, ET ROME." 
 
 This crown, that so, when Death prepares to strike 
 The woman, seeing on your front its circle, 
 lie may confounded wing him back to Heaven, 
 To question if the polished dart he grasps 
 Were sharpened for the queen. 
 
 cmiiaTiNA. 
 
 There's need of courage 
 For that. Oh, heavy is the diadem 
 To dying brows ! When drop the palsied head 
 And the relaxing hand, sceptres and crowns 
 Are weary weights to carry to the tomb ; 
 And when seven times the voice of God shall echo 
 Along the sepulchres, and the scared dead 
 Make answer, kings shall be the palest of them ! 
 And more than one, arising, shall express, 
 Forgetting crown and sceptre, leave them hid 
 In the remotest shadows of his prison. 
 
SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE' 
 OF MOLIERE. 
 
 Philintb. 
 Alceste. 
 
 What is't ? What ails you ? 
 
 Pray you, leave me. 
 
 irLINTE. 
 
 Nay, 
 
 Tell me what new extravagance — 
 
312 SCENE FUOJI "LE MISANTHROPE." 
 
 ALCESTE. 
 
 Go hence — 
 Go hide yourself! 
 
 FHILINTE. 
 
 But ■while I speak, at least, 
 Suspend your anger. 
 
 I? I will be aiigry, 
 And •will not listen. 
 
 In 30 rude a humour 
 I am at loss to read you. Though we're friends, 
 I still am first — 
 
 ALCESTE. 
 
 What, I your friend ? No longer 
 Count on't. Till now I have professed you friendship. 
 But having learned your worth, withdraw my love, 
 Wishing no place in a corrupted heart. 
 
 You hold me then so much to blame, Alceste ? 
 
SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 313 
 
 Go, you should die of shame. So vile an action 
 
 Baffles excuse. All honourable souls 
 
 Should count themselves ofifended. What ! o'erwhelm 
 
 A man with your caresses, testify 
 
 Esteem, and back with protestations, offers. 
 
 And oaths your warm embraces, and when I 
 
 Would question you, you scarce recall his name. 
 
 Let fall your full-blown love in parting from him, 
 
 And bare to me your real indifference ! 
 
 Death ! 'tis unworthy, base, and infamous 
 
 Thus to betray the honour of your soul. 
 
 And if, by ill hap, I had done as much, 
 
 I'd hang myself for grief. 
 
 I do not find 
 Myself fair cause for hanging, and I pray you. 
 Forgive nae if I soften your decision. 
 Nor for this matter hang myself at all. 
 
 A poor jest. 
 
314 SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 
 
 Nay, then, jesting put aside, 
 What would you have ? 
 
 Each spokesman of his heart. 
 
 But when a man embraces you for joy, 
 Must you not do. the like ? Make to his zeal 
 Fitting reply, and offer pay by offer, 
 And oath by oath ? 
 
 I cannot tolerate 
 The ways affected by your vain-tongued courtiers. 
 There's nothing that's so hateful to my soul 
 As the grimaces of these false protesters, 
 Bestowers of frivolous embraces, sayers 
 Of useless words, whose dull civilities 
 Tilt with the world, and know not to discern 
 The true man from the coxcomb. Where's the honour 
 
SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 315 
 
 If he that now caresses you, that STvears 
 Friendship, good faith, zeal, tenderness, esteem, 
 That lifts heaven-high your praises, turns to give 
 As much to any rogue ? There is no soul 
 Not wholly base, that does not scorn esteem 
 Thus prostitute. The richest banquet grows 
 A common feast, if all the world be there. 
 Esteem is built on preference. Who esteems 
 All esteems none. Since you approve and practise 
 These vices of the time, you shall no more 
 Walk in my fellowship, and I decline 
 The coilrtesy of him who cannot reckon 
 The shades of merit. I would be preferred. 
 And, to speak plain, the friend of all mankind 
 Is not a friend for me. 
 
 Being of the world, 
 We pay the world that tribute which is due. 
 
 I say it should be chastised without mercy, 
 
316 SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 
 
 This shameful trade of seeming friendships. Would 
 That men were men, and that at every season 
 Our -words were still the plummets of our hearts, 
 No matter who should speak, and that our thoughts 
 Had put aside their masks of painted flatteries ! 
 
 There are occasions when sincerity 
 
 Would be ridiculous, nay, barely suffered. 
 
 And, sometimes, no offence to your quick honour, 
 
 'Tis well to hide the heart. Would it be fit 
 
 Or civil, think you, to a thousand people, 
 
 To say one's thoughts of them ? To him I hate 
 
 Or who displeases me, shall I declare 
 
 The truth as it is ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 What, to Emily 
 Say it is unbecoming at her age 
 
SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." ;il7 
 
 To pky the belle, and that her false complexion 
 Is shocking to her neighbours ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 PHILINIE. 
 
 To Dorilas that he is tiresome, 
 
 And that he ivearies every ear at court 
 
 Telling of his valour and ancestral glories ? 
 
 ALCESTE. 
 
 'Tis well. 
 
 PHILINTE. 
 
 You jest ! 
 
 ALOESTE. 
 
 I do not jest. Henceforth 
 Will I spare none. Mine eyes too deep are wounded. 
 Both court and city feed my growing spleen. 
 Grief occupies my soul and deep disgust, 
 When I behold the untruthful ways of men. 
 Flattery, injustice, treachery, and deceit 
 Are universal. Out ! I'm weary of it; 
 
318 SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 
 
 Patience forsakes me, and my mettled anger 
 Would fight mankind ! 
 
 Nay, in good sooth, I pray you 
 Put hy these whims. You cannot mend the -vvoild. 
 And, since you love the truth, I'll tell you plainly 
 This folly draws great ridicule upon you ; 
 This battling 'gainst the fashions of the times 
 Makes you the common laughing-stock. 
 
 AlCESTE. 
 
 By Heaven, 
 So much the better ! Still, so much the better ! 
 'Tis all I ask ! My heart rejoices at it. 
 'Tis a good sign. So hateful is mankind. 
 That I should weep were men to count me wise. 
 
 Yours is a bitter grudge 'gainst human nature ! 
 
 I have conceived for it an utter hatred. 
 
SCENE FKOM "LE MISANTHROPE." 319 
 
 PHIUNTE. 
 
 And all poor mortals, every one, included ? 
 Not one beneath the sky — 
 
 I tell you, no — 
 'Tis universal, and I hate all men. 
 These for ill doing, those for falsely -winking 
 On evil-doers, not regarding vice 
 With the deep hate of virtuous souls. Thou seest 
 The full extent of this mean complaisance 
 Shown for the arrant knave at law with me. 
 Who does not know the traitor through his mask ? 
 Who knows him not for what he is ? His eyes 
 Devoutly rolling, and his sleekened voice, 
 Impose on strangers to his name and ways. 
 'Tis known this scoundrel by the basest means 
 Has pushed his fortunes, and their bright success 
 Makes worth complain and virtue blush. Howe'er 
 You pelt him with foul words, no man disputes. 
 Call him cheat, villain, rascal, all agree. 
 Yet all do welcome, smile on him ; no door 
 
320 SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 
 
 Shuts out his baseness. Nay, if men contend 
 
 For any dignity, he triumphs ever 
 
 Over the ■worthiest. I'm sore at heart 
 
 To see vice honoured thus, and there are times 
 
 When sudden promptings of my inmost soul 
 
 Would counsel me to put the desert's breadth 
 
 Betwixt mankind and me. 
 
 Oh, in God's name, 
 Let not the times' offences sink so deep, 
 But judge humanity and scan its errors 
 With milder zeal. The virtue of this world 
 Must be discreet, and we may err by pushing 
 Goodness too far. Wisdom avoids extremes ; 
 Bids us be virtuous with sobriety. 
 Your code of sterner days would be a yoke 
 Too heavy for the morals of the age. 
 And asks too much of human imperfection. 
 Bend to the times, and hold no folly greater 
 Than that of wishing to reform the world. 
 Like you, I see a hundred things a day 
 
SCENE FROM "LE MISANTHROPE." 321 
 
 That call for mending, but whate'er they be, 
 Like you I am not angry, rather willing 
 To take men as they are. To soft forbearance 
 I school my soul, and hold, in court and city, 
 My phlegm as philosophic as your bile. 
 
 Ay, but this phlegm, so good at argument, 
 Can nothing ruffle ? If, perchance, a friend 
 Betray you ; if a skilful net entrap 
 Your gold, or if some busy-body scatter 
 For you, the quick seed of prolific slander,— 
 Will it not move you ? 
 
 I do count these evils 
 You fret against, as vices that are part 
 Of human nature. It no more oifends me 
 To see a man unjust, deceitful, selfish. 
 Than to behold vultures that scent the battle. 
 Malicious apes, or wolves that howl for rage. 
 
324 FROM THE "MISANTHROPE." 
 
 Heaven's wonders ; pride is worthy of a crown, 
 Cunning is wit, stupidity 's pure goodness, 
 The babbler 's pleasant company, the silent 
 Mute from becoming modesty — 'tis thus 
 A lover, in his ardour's blind excess. 
 Adores the very faults of her he loves. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 E. J3. WEARS, STEREOTYPKU. C. SHERMAN, PRINTER, 
 
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