Imogen.
She was all compact of beauty,
Like the sunlight and the flowers;
One of those radiant beings
That prove this world of ours
Not utterly forsaken
By the angel host of God,
Since now and then its valleys
By their holy feet are trod.
If her hair was black and glossy
Or golden-hued and bright,
Or if her eyes were azure,
Or dark and deep as night,
I know not—this truth only
Do I know or care to know;
Never a lovelier maiden
Blest this weary world below.
In the castle ruled her father,
And his lands stretched miles away
Mine toiled down in the hamlet
For his daily bread each day;
Too far apart were we.
Too high wert thou for me,
O Lady Imogen!
When the meadow was all golden
With the cowslips' May-day bells,
And the sweet breath of the primrose
Came up from fragrant dells;
When the blackbird and the throstle
Whistled cheerly in the morn,
And the skylark, quivering upward,
Rose singing from the corn;
Then when the blessed spring-time
Filled with beauty all the earth,
From her father's lordly castle
Would this maiden wander forth,
Where the violets were blooming
In unfrequented dells;
O'er the mead where zephyrs pilfered
Fragrance from the cowslips' bells.
Wheresoever beauty lingered,
There this radiant maiden strayed,
And beauty by her presence
More beautiful was made;
The sunshine looked more golden
As it gleamed around her head;
And the grass more green and living
Rose up beneath her tread;
And the flowers more bright and fragrant
To greet her coming grew;
And mad with love and music
The birds about her flew.
Oh! she was the loveliest maiden
That ever eye did see;
She was sunshine, she was music,
She was all the world to me.
But she never knew the passion
That set my soul aflame;
That hid me by the hedge-row
To watch whene'er she came,
To see her glorious beauty,
Like a star from heaven, go by.
Oh! to see her but one moment
God knows that I would die,
O peerless Imogen!
They bore her to the abbey
With the pomp of princely woe,
With steeds and hearse and snowy pall,
And white plumes drooping low:
And high, proud heads were bending
In her funereal train,
And princely eyes were weeping
Heavy tears like summer rain.
I far off followed slowly,
No tears were in mine eye;
'Twas not for one so lowly
To weep for one so high;
But, oh! since she hath vanished,
With her have seemed to go
All the beauty, all the music,
Of this weary world below!
Dead, dead, and buried, Imogen!
E. Young.