What can it matter, Margaret,
What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet,[[2]]
Sang looking thro’ his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet,[[3]]
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?
4
A fairy shield your Genius made
And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow’s shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods,
Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touch’d with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aerially blue,
But ever trembling thro’ the dew[[4]]
Of dainty-woeful sympathies.
5
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
Come down, come down, and hear me speak:
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:
The sun is just about to set.
The arching lines are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.
Or only look across the lawn,
Look out below your bower-eaves,
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro’ the jasmine-leaves.[[5]]
[1] All editions except 1833 and 1853. Though.
[2] 1833. Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have been composed by Richard I. during the time of his captivity see Sismondi, Littérature du Midi de l’Europe, vol. i., p. 149, and La Tour Ténébreuse (1705), which contains a poem said to have been written by Richard and Blondel in mixed Romance and Provençal, and a love-song in Norman French, which have frequently been reprinted. See, too, Barney’s Hist. of Music, vol. ii., p. 238, and Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, sub.-tit. “Richard I.,” and the fourth volume of Reynouard’s Choix des Poésies des Troubadours. All these poems are probably spurious.
[3] Chatelet was a poet-squire in the suite of the Marshal Damville, who was executed for a supposed intrigue with Mary Queen of Scots. See Tytler, History of Scotland, vi., p. 319, and Mr. Swinburne’s tragedy.
[4] 1833.
And more aërially blue,
And ever trembling thro’ the dew.
[5] 1833. Jasmin-leaves.