WALTER.
Wilt listen to the pictures of my life?
VIOLET.
Patient as evening to the nightingale!
WALTER.
'Mong the green lanes of Kent—green sunny lanes—
Where troops of children shout, and laugh, and play,
And gather daisies, stood an antique home,
Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits,
For the full year was laughing in his prime.
Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green,
And the old porch with its great oaken door
Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls
The honeysuckle clung deliriously.
Before the door there lay a plot of grass,
Snowed o'er with daisies,—flower by all beloved,
And famousest in song—and in the midst,
A carvèd fountain stood, dried up and broken,
On which a peacock perched and sunned itself;
Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white,
Squatted upon the sward.
A row of poplars darkly rose behind,
Around whose tops, and the old-fashioned vanes,
White pigeons fluttered, and o'er all was bent
The mighty sky, with sailing sunny clouds.
One casement was thrown open, and within,
A boy hung o'er a book of poesy,
Silent as planet hanging o'er the sea.
In at the casement open to the noon
Came sweetest garden-odours, and the hum—
The drowsy hum—of the rejoicing bees,
Heavened in blooms that overclad the walls;
And the cool wind waved in upon his brow,
And stirred his curls. Soft fell the summer night.
Then he arose, and with inspired lips said,—
"Stars! ye are golden-voicèd clarions
To high-aspiring and heroic dooms.
To-night, as I look up unto ye, Stars!
I feel my soul rise to its destiny,
Like a strong eagle to its eyrie soaring.
Who thinks of weakness underneath ye, Stars?
A hum shall be on earth, a name be heard,
An epitaph shall look up proud to God.
Stars! read and listen, it may not be long."
VIOLET (leaning over him).
I'll see that grand desire within your eyes—
Oh, I only see myself!
WALTER.
Violet!
Could you look through my heart as through mine eyes,
You'd find yourself there, too.