It was thus I reeled. I told you that her hand had many suitors;
But she smiles them down imperially as Venus did the waves,
And with such a gracious coldness that they cannot press their futures
On the present of her courtesy, which yieldingly enslaves.
LVII.
And this morning as I sat alone within the inner chamber
With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene,
For I had been reading Camoëns, that poem you remember,
Which his lady's eyes are praised in as the sweetest ever seen.
LVIII.
And the book lay open, and my thought flew from it, taking from it
A vibration and impulsion to an end beyond its own,
As the branch of a green osier, when a child would overcome it,
Springs up freely from his claspings and goes swinging in the sun.
LIX.
As I mused I heard a murmur; it grew deep as it grew longer,
Speakers using earnest language—"Lady Geraldine, you would!"
And I heard a voice that pleaded, ever on in accents stronger,
As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric good.
LX.
Well I knew that voice; it was an earl's, of soul that matched his station,
Soul completed into lordship, might and right read on his brow;
Very finely courteous; far too proud to doubt his domination
Of the common people, he atones for grandeur by a bow.
LXI.