Legends and Lyrics. Part 2

This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk from the 1890 George Bell and Sons edition.
Contents:
A Legend of Provence Envy Over the Mountain Beyond A Warning Maximus Optimus A Lost Chord Too Late The Requital Returned—“Missing” In the Wood Two Worlds A New Mother Give Place My Will King and Slave A Chant Dream-Life Rest The Tyrant and the Captive The Carver’s Lesson Three Roses My Picture Gallery Sent to Heaven Never Again Listening Angels Golden Days Philip and Mildred Borrowed Thoughts Light and Shade A Changeling Discouraged If Thou couldst know The Warrior to his Dead Bride A Letter A Comforter Unseen A Remembrance of Autumn Three Evenings in a Life The Wind Expectation An Ideal Our Dead A Woman’s Answer The Story of the Faithful Soul A Contrast The Bride’s Dream The Angel’s Bidding Spring Evening Hymn The Inner Chamber Hearts Two Loves A Woman’s Last Word Past and Present For the Future
The lights extinguished, by the hearth I leant, Half weary with a listless discontent. The flickering giant-shadows, gathering near, Closed round me with a dim and silent fear. All dull, all dark; save when the leaping flame, Glancing, lit up a Picture’s ancient frame. Above the hearth it hung. Perhaps the night, My foolish tremors, or the gleaming light, Lent power to that Portrait dark and quaint— A Portrait such as Rembrandt loved to paint— The likeness of a Nun. I seemed to trace A world of sorrow in the patient face, In the thin hands folded across her breast— Its own and the room’s shadow hid the rest. I gazed and dreamed, and the dull embers stirred, Till an old legend that I once had heard Came back to me; linked to the mystic gloom Of that dark Picture in the ghostly room. In the far south, where clustering vines are hung; Where first the old chivalric lays were sung, Where earliest smiled that gracious child of France, Angel and knight and fairy, called Romance, I stood one day. The warm blue June was spread Upon the earth; blue summer overhead, Without a cloud to fleck its radiant glare, Without a breath to stir its sultry air. All still, all silent, save the sobbing rush Of rippling waves, that lapsed in silver hush Upon the beach; where, glittering towards the strand, The purple Mediterranean kissed the land.