[29] Eleanor, the wife of Edward I., is said to have thus saved his life when he was stabbed at Acre with a poisoned dagger.
[30] The earliest and latest editions, i. e., 1833 and 1853, have “tho’,” and all the editions between “though”. “Though culled,” etc.
Margaret
First printed in 1833.
Another of Tennyson’s delicious fancy portraits, the twin sister to Adeline.
1
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho’[[1]] you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro’ a fleecy night.
2
You love, remaining peacefully,
To hear the murmur of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.
Your spirit is the calmed sea,
Laid by the tumult of the fight.
You are the evening star, alway
Remaining betwixt dark and bright:
Lull’d echoes of laborious day
Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.
3