Where the sea flashes on the argent sands,38
Soars from a lonely rock a snow-white dove:
No bird more beauteous to immortal lands
Bore Psyche rescued side by side with Love.
Ev'n as some thought which, pure of earthly taint,
Springs from the chaste heart of a virgin saint.
It hovers in the heaven:—and from its wings39
Shakes the clear dewdrops of unsullying seas;
Then circling gently in slow-measured rings,
Nearer and nearer to its goal it flees,
And drooping, fearless, on that noble breast,
Murmuring low joy, it coos itself to rest.
The grateful King, with many a soothing word,40
And bland caress, the guileless trust repaid;
When, gently gliding from his hand, the bird
Went fluttering where the hollow headlands made
A boat's small harbour; Arthur from the chain
Released the raft,—it shot along the main.
Now in that boat, beneath the eyes of heaven,41
Floated the three, the steed, the bird, the man;
To favouring winds the little sail was given;
The shore fail'd gradual, dwindling to a span;
The steed bent wistful o'er the watery realm;
And the white dove perch'd tranquil at the helm.
Haply by fisherman, its owner, left,42
Within the boat were rude provisions stored;
The yellow harvest from the wild bee reft,
Bread, roots, dried fish, the luxuries of a board
Health spreads for toil; while skins and flasks of reed
Yield, these the water, those the strengthening mead.
Five days, five nights, still onward, onward o'er43
Light-swelling waves, bounded the bark its way:
At last the sun set reddening on a shore;
Walls on the cliff, and war-ships in the bay;
While from bright towers, o'erlooking sea and plain,
The Leopard-banners told the Vandal's reign.
Amid those shifting royalties, the North44
Pour'd from its teeming breast, in tumult driven,
Now to, now fro, as thunder-clouds sent forth
To darken, burst,—and bursting, clear the heaven;
Ere yet the Nomad nations found repose,
And order dawn'd as Charlemain arose;
Amidst that ferment of fierce races, won45
To yonder shores a wandering Vandal horde,
Whose chief exchanged his war-tent for a throne,
And shaped a sceptre from a conqueror's sword;
His sons, expell'd by rude intestine broil,
Sought that worst wilderness—the Stranger's soil.
A distant kinsman, Ludovick his name,46
With them was exiled, and with them return'd.
A prince of popular and patriot fame;
To roast his egg your house he would have burn'd!
A patriot soul no ties of kindred knows—
His kinsman's palace was the house he chose.
A patriot gamester playing for a Crown,47
He watch'd the hazard with indifferent air,
Rebuked well-wishers with a gentle frown,
Then dropp'd the whisper—"What I win I share."
Who plays for power should make the odds so fall,
That one man's luck should seem the gain of all.